I'm a sceptic that the 4th Turning started in 2008

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-25-2020, 11:46 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see that there can't be multiple triggers in a 4T, just as there were in the 1850s until one finally set off the civil war, or even in the early 1770s before the Tea Party. This being the cold civil war, we can't expect the necessary unity to bring about the major changes we see in a 4T until the conservative faction is defeated. But the fight is still part of the 4T. Trump's presidency is constant chaos, and thus constant 4T. That seems very clear.

This is why I think the distinction between a catalyst and a trigger is important. There are generally a lot of events which seem important, but they do not make a switch to the new values inevitable. If you do not look for that key signature, the theory seems to fall apart. The transformation begins in earnest with the regeneracy, which will not happen without a genuine trigger as S&H defined it.

I would agree that Trump caused considerable chaos before COVID 19 and Black Lives Matter going wild. However, the old values remained quite viable. They remained viable after September 11 or the housing bubble collapse. That means none of the above was a trigger. You have the Republicans sitting pretty and thumbing their nose at the Democrats. Then COVID and BLM showed up, two events which were not dependent on Trump. He just failed to recognize the importance of either, and as a result he did much to discredit the old values. It was then that the old values started falling apart.

[Marc Lamb]

A solid case for the most dominate issue of the 1932 political campaign was not the 1929 market crash, but rather repeal of the 18th Amendment. Kinda destroys the notion of a sudden catalyst, resulting in a world-changing epiphany...

... but the victors tell the history, so Schlesinger et al were "right" and 1929 remains the cause of it all. 

[pbrower2a]

(07-26-2020, 09:47 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: A solid case for the most dominate issue of the 1932 political campaign was not the 1929 market crash, but rather repeal of the 18th Amendment. Kinda destroys the notion of a sudden catalyst, resulting in a world-changing epiphany...

... but the victors tell the history, so Schlesinger et al were "right" and 1929 remains the cause of it all. 

Repealing Prohibition was a pragmatic idea based upon several realities:

1. Gangsters were making the money from the trade in alcoholic beverages instead of Big Business. Alcoholic beverages could be produced or imported less expensively without the high costs (including public corruption) by entities that did not have to pay bribes or fear raids destroying their products. 

2. Alcoholic beverages are easy to tax, which made them attractive to tax-thirsty state and local governments -- but only if the product is lawful.

3. Prohibition had certifiably failed. Alcohol consumption initially went down precipitously at the start of Prohibition but was rising steadily in the 1920's. States were not collecting sales taxes on customer purchases and income taxes from liquor traffickers. 

4. As is normal in any illicit product the worst elements come to dominate the business. Standards often fail as people seeking more profit cut corners. Bad techniques caused much of the brew to become a witches' brew containing methyl alcohol (wood alcohol) far more toxic than ethyl alcohol. The "bad booze" contaminated with methyl alcohol could blind people by causing permanent damage to the optic nerve... which explains why some "speakeasies" were known as "blind tigers". 

5. As a consumer good available in large quantities from huge production lines it was much less expensive -- and created large numbers of jobs.

The harm? Vehicle deaths per capita, which had been falling through the 1920's, increased sharply in 1934, possibly as the result of more inebriated drivers on the road.

[David Horn]

(07-26-2020, 09:47 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: A solid case for the most dominate issue of the 1932 political campaign was not the 1929 market crash, but rather repeal of the 18th Amendment. Kinda destroys the notion of a sudden catalyst, resulting in a world-changing epiphany...

... but the victors tell the history, so Schlesinger et al were "right" and 1929 remains the cause of it all. 

My parents graduated from high school in 1932.  If they were still around, I doubt they would agree with your assessment.

[pbrower2a]

(07-27-2020, 08:54 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-26-2020, 09:47 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: A solid case for the most dominate issue of the 1932 political campaign was not the 1929 market crash, but rather repeal of the 18th Amendment. Kinda destroys the notion of a sudden catalyst, resulting in a world-changing epiphany...

... but the victors tell the history, so Schlesinger et al were "right" and 1929 remains the cause of it all. 

My parents graduated from high school in 1932.  If they were still around, I doubt they would agree with your assessment.

Hoover was a "dry" and Roosevelt was a "wet"... licit production and sale of alcoholic beverages at the least meant jobs for people from brewery workers to bartenders. The only harm from Repeal was a spike in DUI incidents with resulting deaths from traffic crashes.

[Mikebert]

(07-26-2020, 09:47 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: A solid case for the most dominate issue of the 1932 political campaign was not the 1929 market crash, but rather repeal of the 18th Amendment. Kinda destroys the notion of a sudden catalyst, resulting in a world-changing epiphany...

... but the victors tell the history, so Schlesinger et al were "right" and 1929 remains the cause of it all. 

 Yeah sure. Whatever...

[Einzige]

The fact of the matter is that we're in the Crisis of a Megaunraveling. This entire saeculum has been an enormous Third Turning; it follows logically its Crisis will feel like a continuation of the Unraveling, though it is qualitatively different in content and tempo.

In the United States the period from the Revolution to the Civil War constituted a Megahigh - the establishment of a new civic and political order. The period from the Civil War to the Depression constituted a Megaawakening - the introduction of new values like socialism, progressivism,and so on into the broader discourse. The period from the Depression until now has been a Megaunraveling - a retrenchment of older forces of reaction in an artificial imitation of the Megahigh. And this period is going to end with a fractured, decentralized, localist, shattered society which has been thoroughly atomized by contemporary capitalism.

This is not to say progressive values will not have any number of victories; probably more than conservative ones in terms of the structure of society. But they will look like CHAZ/CHOP- efforts to survive the oppression of Capital via local responses. This solution will codify on Left and Right as we approach the chilly peace of the coming Megacrisis' High. Even reactionary communities will accept the value of Going Green locally, as the price they pay for continued autonomy in other spheres. This will devolve into a weird parochialism in some areas.

The Megacrisis will be an epoch of tectonic change driven, not by politics, but as Marx has it by "no longer rideable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need". It will be the Crisis of the Megacrisis that sees the final abolition of capitalism and the inauguration of Actual Marxian Socialism. This will occur during a period of wrenching climactic change, when the feeble localist solutions thrown up in this coming High are no longer sustainable and the working-class must for the first time assert itself as an independent actor on the world stage.

The coming Megacrisis- High will be localist, deevolutionist, and vaguely libertarian/left-libertarian tinted. It will loosely mirror the climax of the Megahigh - Crisis (the Civil War), befitting the culmination of a Megaunraveling which aspired to return to the Megahigh.

Neither side attained what it wanted out of this Crisis - Trump failed to reignite the Reagan Revolution; Biden, to reinaugurate the New Deal - and the only solution that this exhausted society has is localism safeguarded by a paternalistic overseeing capitalist State.

The Awakening is going to be directed almost entirely by the working-class. And it will be a response to automation, which around 2050 has begun to result in proletarian die-offs. It will be Apollonian, not Dionysian; rationalist, not irrationalist.

The Unraveling will be short, sharp, and utterly brutal,the reverse of the past Unraveling, as the American capitalist State reasserts itself and promotes something rather resembling a Neal Stephenson novel - an authoritarian capitalism predicated on control through technology.

The Crisis will be the final Crisis of American civilization.

[pbrower2a]

It is difficult to see cycles within cycles. The generational cycle looks reasonably well established, but longer cycles just lack the data suitable for applying to the USA. I could easily apply the Toynbee pattern for our civilization, and it the vilest part is the stage of the Universal State, the stage in which one political entity establishes its hegemony and enforces norms that preclude dissent, innovation, and reform. That's about where the Roman Empire was around AD 300. The ruling elite becomes increasingly incompetent, arrogant, inflexible, and unimaginative.

Donald Trump fits the mentality well, but his position is unstable for what looks like the long term (as in the next Saeculum). When his type becomes the norm for some "Greater America"... who knows how long from now? 200 or 500 years?... then the game is nearly up for our civilization as it is about to crumble or offer easy conquest.

[Einzige]

Neither Trump nor Biden are capable of establishing anything like ideological hegemony and everyone knows it.

The only solution is the obvious one: a great, vast splintering, facilitated by the Internet and by atomistic capitalism, which is in fact the heart of the problem. All politics is tertiary to the needs of Capital, and Capital needs a weakened, divided working-class. No better way to achieve it than by embracing something from the hippie era - localism.

[Eric the Green]

(07-27-2020, 09:05 PM)Einzige Wrote: The fact of the matter is that we're in the Crisis of a Megaunraveling. This entire saeculum has been an enormous Third Turning; it follows logically its Crisis will feel like a continuation of the Unraveling, though it is qualitatively different in content and tempo.

No. A megasaeculum did not start with the founding of the United States of America. That is a minor event in the larger scheme of things.

And everything about the supposed mega-awakening that followed, the Great Power saeculum, was the opposite of an Awakening.

Gen Xers think we have been in a mega-unravelling because they have known nothing else. Those older remember The American High, greater than any "high" ever, and it indicates that this saeculum is a mega-high.

It provided a foundation that withstood 40 years of irresponsible and complacent policies and attitudes.

[Einzige]

The American High was a drab, corporate, suburban period at best, in which conspicuous consumption became mainstream. Pretty Unravel-ly.

[Eric the Green]

(07-27-2020, 08:37 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(07-26-2020, 09:47 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: A solid case for the most dominate issue of the 1932 political campaign was not the 1929 market crash, but rather repeal of the 18th Amendment. Kinda destroys the notion of a sudden catalyst, resulting in a world-changing epiphany...

... but the victors tell the history, so Schlesinger et al were "right" and 1929 remains the cause of it all. 

 Yeah sure. Whatever...

Here's to you, Marc. clink clink....

[Eric the Green]

(07-28-2020, 12:06 AM)Einzige Wrote: The American High was a drab, corporate, suburban period at best, in which conspicuous consumption became mainstream. Pretty Unravel-ly.

Well, welcome back. 

No-one said that a "high" is ever anything but those things, regardless of saeculum

[beechnut79]

(07-28-2020, 12:06 AM)Einzige Wrote: The American High was a drab, corporate, suburban period at best, in which conspicuous consumption became mainstream. Pretty Unravel-ly.

It may have been so, and yet in many ways corporate power was more in check to what came beginning with Reagan.  And though you had some large retail chains such as Sears, retail as a whole was much more independent, as you had for example your neighborhood shoe stores, music stores, etc.  The advent of television most certainly ushered in the era of advertising frenzy.  It was the beginning of an era that prized consumption which accelerated big time during the following 3T despite numerous pullback attempts during the 2T.  This no doubt contributed to making liars out of all those futurists who had predicted a society of ever increasing leisure time. Do any of you think we will ever really see that?

[Tim Randal Walker]

I recall an old thread of the paleo 4T site. It compared the intensities of different Awakendings. Yes, one would expect any Awakening to be intense, but some were more intense than others.

Comparing American 2Ts, among the more intense were the Transcendental and Boom 2Ts. That colonial era 2T (don't recall the name of it) was less intense than those two, with the Missionary Awakening being even less intense.

As for the Great Power saeculum, why would it be deemed a Mega-Awakening? Which turning other than the 2T-which wasn't that intense for a 2T-reminds one of an Awakening? Does the Gilded Age remind one of an Awakening?

I expect that a Mega-Awakening would feature a 2T as powerful as the Reformation. And before that, a 1T with something rather interesting to offer-possibly a renaissance of sorts. As for 3T, at least a strong spiritual afterglow in early Unraveling.

[David Horn]

(07-28-2020, 12:06 AM)Einzige Wrote: The American High was a drab, corporate, suburban period at best, in which conspicuous consumption became mainstream. Pretty Unravel-ly.

... but it was a test drive of greater equality than any period before or since.  It was too new to continue, and, as you noted, rather boring. So, excitement lead to oppression.  How quaint.

[Einzige]

(07-28-2020, 11:14 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: I recall an old thread of the paleo 4T site.  It compared the intensities of different Awakendings.   Yes, one would expect any Awakening to be intense, but some were more intense than others.

Comparing American 2Ts, among the more intense were the Transcendental and Boom 2Ts.  That colonial era 2T (don't recall the name of it) was less intense than those two, with the Missionary Awakening being even less intense.

As for the Great Power saeculum, why would it be deemed a Mega-Awakening?  Which turning other than the 2T-which wasn't that intense for a 2T-reminds one of an Awakening?  Does the Gilded Age remind one of an Awakening?

I expect that a Mega-Awakening would feature a 2T at least as intense as the Boom Awakening.  I would expect that either the 1T  would have rather interesting to offer.  Possibly a renaissance of sorts.  As for 3T, at least a strong spiritual afterglow in early Unraveling.

The 2T of a Mega-2T wouldn't be as emotionally intense as the Boom Awakening necessarily if it were Apollonian in character. The Missionary Awakening was not emotionally intense, but it was intellectual in character. It focused far less on personal values and more on big social ideas than the Boom.

I consider the whole Great Power saeculum a 2T because it introduced new concepts like unionism, socialism and anarchism to the American scene which the mainstream of American life continues to define itself against. And I consider the whole of the Millennial saeculum an Unraveling because we have spent virtually all of it fighting against those Great Power saeculum ideas, first in the Cold War and then in the reactionary period following it. This entire epoch has been reactionary with respect to the Great Power's new anti-capitalist viewpoints; the coming Megacrisis will probably compel their adoption in the Megahigh of the 22nd century.

[Tim Randal Walker]

It's been years since I read the book...but as I recall the cultural waste land of the Gilded Age was somewhat mitigated. The Progressive generation founded institutes. Oddly enough, in that respect the Gilded Age was more fruitful than the last 1T.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-28-2020, 12:14 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 12:06 AM)Einzige Wrote: The American High was a drab, corporate, suburban period at best, in which conspicuous consumption became mainstream. Pretty Unravel-ly.

Well, welcome back. 

No-one said that a "high" is ever anything but those things, regardless of saeculum

Well, in a high you generally hammer home the lessons learned in the prior crisis. That is an entirely an independent function.

I would also say that highs are more famous for infrastructure building, that a sense of collective action for the common good remains. Unravellings would be more selfish, would lead more to conspicuous consumption.

[Einzige]

Now, we did get a lot of physical infrastructure out of the last High - the Interstate Highway System, NASA, etc.

Did we get much in the way of social infrastructure? Was there much society building at all? In a past 1T we got... the Constitution. Nothing comparable in the 1950s and 60s.

I firmly believe that the Millennial 1T has more Unraveling characteristics than prior First Turnings. Even the widespread adoption of television, contributing to the social atomization of entertainment, is 3Tish.