How different is Western Europe's saecular timeline?

[Remy Renault]

Even though the US and Western Europe are more or less in alignment, sometimes I feel the dates of certain turnings differ slightly depending on what side of the pond you're on. For instance, even if the American 2T lasted from 1965-1980, in Western Europe I think it was more late fifties to mid-seventies rather than mid sixties to early eighties like in the US. So if anything, Europe had a really f***ing long 3T. In Western Europe the "Sixties" were basically over before they officially ended according to the calendar whereas they lasted until about 1973 in the US. Or maybe it was only France and Italy who experienced their respective 2Ts ahead of schedule, say from 1959-1975, whereas the UK and Germany experienced theirs at roughly the same time as the US. I don't know...

But I think it's safe to say the 2T officially ended in Italy the night Pier Paolo Pasolini got murdered.

[Eric the Green]

Probably not, any more than the 2T ended in America when John Lennon got murdered. It did extend to 1984 as the authors say.

I think the French Revolution of 1968 had a major effect going forward.

[Odin]

The Saeculum in Europe seems to be about 4 or 5 years behind the US because the 4T did not really end there until 1949 and the post-war social and political order fully took shape.

[Tuss]

Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

[Odin]

(12-07-2016, 05:56 AM)Tuss Wrote: Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

Reaganism was just as much an expression of the Awakening as the Counterculture, they are the right and left sides of the same beast. Underlying both was rebellion against the technocratic mindset that had developed over the course of the Great Power Saeculum and took full control during the last 4T, the mindset criticized famously by urban planning theorist Jane Jacobs.

[pbrower2a]

(12-07-2016, 05:56 AM)Tuss Wrote: Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

For Americans the Crisis of 1940 ended on V-J Day with the surrender of Japan in 1945.  For most of Europe the Crisis ended in 1948 as the divide between Communist and non-Communist states solidified with the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the failed Communist coup in Finland, the Berlin Airlift, the split between Tito and Stalin, and the end of the Greek Civil War.

[Remy Renault]

(12-07-2016, 05:56 AM)Tuss Wrote: Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

I am Franco-American. Born in raised in the US but live in France now. Anyhow, what makes people think the early eighties were still part of the Awakening? Even the music from 1980-1982 had that typical "eighties" sound to it. Same with a lot of the movies from that time. They felt more 3T than 2T.

[Eric the Green]

I agree with X_84 AD. There is much reason to suspect the early 80s are also 3T, but what I see from the early 80s culture are the originating "new wave" music impulses that became routine in the 3T. The early 80s I call a "counter-awakening" that also includes the end of the 1970s.

It was an Awakening era still, and a lot of Awakening trends continued into the early 80s, and got more codified. Such as how the new age movement coalesced around authors such as Marilyn Ferguson ("The Aquarian Conspiracy") and Fritjof Capra, and how the Green Party politically organized the ecology and peace movements. The anti-nuclear movement (both the war and energy aspects) was very strong in the early 80s, continuing the thrust of the Awakening. The Nuclear Freeze was a part of it, and so were the movements against US missiles in Europe. Democratic socialism was very much on the rise there as well. "The Day After" TV show and the crash of the Korean Airliner brought the nuclear fears to a climax in 1983. It was as if little had changed since the beginning of the Awakening when Bob Dylan was singing "it's a hard rain's a gonna fall!"

But in the late 70s, you had the counter-awakening that continued into the early 80s. The "moral majority" helped elect Reagan and defeat the equal rights amendment. The gay movement and reaction to it were both strong. The tax revolt was another aspect of right wing insurgency that started with Prop.13 in California in 1978 and helped elect Reagan.

But it's important to remember that Reagan's programs were unpopular in his first term, and did not cure the recession that elected him. It continued through 1982 and into 1983. But an upsurge in economic growth was used by Reagan to deceive the people that a "great boom" had begun. It had NOT, but the propaganda worked. People (as for example Warren Dew here) believed that it did, and so Reagan's "morning in America" nonsense thrust America into a 3T of indulgence, greed and laissez faire accepted by all generations. Something of the same happened in Europe under Thatcher and Kohl.

[Eric the Green]

(12-07-2016, 08:01 AM)Odin Wrote:

(12-07-2016, 05:56 AM)Tuss Wrote: Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

Reaganism was just as much an expression of the Awakening as the Counterculture, they are the right and left sides of the same beast. Underlying both was rebellion against the technocratic mindset that had developed over the course of the Great Power Saeculum and took full control during the last 4T, the mindset criticized famously by urban planning theorist Jane Jacobs.

Awakening and Counter-Awakening were coincident from the start, as the civil rights movement and the youth culture of The Beatles were accompanied in 1964 by the Goldwater-led right-wing movement that launched the career of Ronald Reagan. I don't see the latter as opposing the "technocratic mindset;" that was on the left and the hippie side. The right-wing was reacting to this as un-American, continuing to believe with GE host Ronald Reagan that "progress was our most important product" and that it was important to keep American growth going at whatever cost to the environmental damage which the hippies and liberals were concerned about, and which was the chief victim of the "technocratic mind set."

There is an aspect of "individualism" in both Awakening ("counter-culture") and Counter-Awakening, but the left and hippie individualism was about lifestyle choices, which also included feminism and gay rights as well as civil rights and psychedelia/new age idealism, while the Counter-awakening staunchly and loudly opposed these ("the moral majority"), thus launching the "culture wars," which became the 3T obsession. "Individualism" in this Counter-awakening was a means of depriving the Awakening of the government support it needed to help its process of liberation. 

This "individualism" was rooted firmly in the previous 3T and earlier times, based on the ideas of self-reliance and laissez faire. There was nothing new in it at all; it was purely and completely reactionary. "Get the government off my back" and "government is the solution, not the problem," they said. This "individualism," which has nothing to do with counter-cultural "do your own thing" lifestyle choices, is still firmly entrenched in political power, as it has been almost continuously since 1980, and still largely motivated by opposition to the Awakening.

[Remy Renault]

Then why is cultural life today still largely determined by perverted interpretations of Awakening ideas. The left dominates the cultural sphere today. That's a fact. Just look at education, art criticism and things of that nature. "Reactionaries" have no influence in that realm.

[Odin]

There you go again, Eric, failing to get it because of your partisan political biases.

[FLBones]

I'm glad the 3T is over. They're boring and predictable. Everyone's so self centered and constantly trying to rebel against the norm. Solutions to problems are pushed through lightly with a soft bang. During the 4T however, things move fast and unpredictably. It's exciting but exhausting at the same time.

[Mikebert]

(12-17-2016, 05:15 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: Then why is cultural life today still largely determined by perverted interpretations of Awakening ideas. The left dominates the cultural sphere today. That's a fact. Just look at education, art criticism and things of that nature. "Reactionaries" have no influence in that realm.

And the right dominates the political economy.  We remain largely in a 3T alignment even supposedly 8 years into a 4T.  That's why.

[pbrower2a]

(12-17-2016, 10:50 AM)FLBones Wrote: I'm glad the 3T is over. They're boring and predictable. Everyone's so self centered and constantly trying to rebel against the norm. Solutions to problems are pushed through lightly with a soft bang. During the 4T however, things move fast and unpredictably. It's exciting but exhausting at the same time.

..except that the powers-that-be have done everything possible to maintain the depravity of the 3T long into a Crisis Era. That makes for a nasty Crisis Era  when the elites get complete power.

[Tuss]

(12-07-2016, 08:01 AM)Odin Wrote:

(12-07-2016, 05:56 AM)Tuss Wrote: Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

Reaganism was just as much an expression of the Awakening as the Counterculture, they are the right and left sides of the same beast. Underlying both was rebellion against the technocratic mindset that had developed over the course of the Great Power Saeculum and took full control during the last 4T, the mindset criticized famously by urban planning theorist Jane Jacobs.

Think you are right in your observation, but the interpretation is wrong. The "rebellion against the technocratic mindset" is not due to a certain Turning. Rather, it's a feature of the Boom generation's collective psychology, which then gets processed through different Turnings. It's what the authors so succinctly hit at in TFT when they wrote: "Boomers sought to be "together" people - not together like the uniformed corps of the 1930s, but together as a synchronous "good vibration". Boomers perceived their generational kinship as what Jonathan Cott called "the necklace of Shiva in which every diamond reflects every other and is itself reflected."" (p. 190)

What we have here is the Boom's disgust for formal authority, order, hierarchy and framework in any shape or form. This repudiation, which deep down is to a large extent probably just a rebellion against the Boom's square Civic parents, will then express itself throughout every Turning in which the Boom has a substantial influence, being molded and processed by the Turning in question.

Hence, during the Awakening, it's about tearing down order and a functional framework in order to make way for a utopian vision of one kind or another, wherein a perfect individualism is combined with a perfect collectivism (which naturally is an impossibility). When that fails you get the privatized version during the 3T, when it's about setting free the "inherent creativity" of the individual, for instance in the workplace by introducing horizontal structures, privatizing everything, shifting responsibility from the organizational to the personal level etc. Finally, in the 4T Crisis, you get this micromanaging surveillance state, the enormous emphasis on rightful moralistic thinking on part of every single individual. In one word, the tyranny of political correctness, which itself is a reflection of trying to maintain order and status quo when the formal institutions to do so (for instance free speech or the separation of personal opinion from dutiful obedience) have already been dissolved.

Just look at a pivotal enabler to the 2008 financial breakdown: the ratings institutes, that were set up to monitor the integrity of bonds, CDO's etc. Turns out they were in private competition with each other for the fees of accepting the financial instruments as legit. Anyone would have realized that ratings institutes must be impartial, and thus could only have fulfilled their purpose as government agencies staffed by salaried officials, with no stake in the promulgation of the product as such. But no, that would have been fulfilling a framework function; it would have smacked too much of statism, order and formal hierarchies. Boomers, like Greenspan, Bernanke and their ilk, preferred an anarchic solution and naturally handed it over to the supposedly self-regulating market. That's your "rebellion against the technocratic mindset" for you in all its glory, Fourth Turning style. And it has the mindset of the Boom generation all over it.

So to sum up, what you have observed is not a mindset that fits only with a certain Turning, but a mindset inherent to a certain Idealist Generation, to some extent maybe to all Idealist generations. Thus, I agree that "Reaganism" also featured it, but in a certain 3T kind of way. I mean, it wasn't like Reaganism went away. Take Tony Blair for instance. If this was a Turning matter and not a generational one, you'd have a 2nd Turning that lasted throughout the entire 90's at least!

[Tuss]

(12-16-2016, 09:33 AM)Remy Renault Wrote:

(12-07-2016, 05:56 AM)Tuss Wrote: Where are you from, Remy?

As a European, I largely agree with you and I think it's approximately the European experience. I used to claim the 2T ended in 1977. Nowadays I settle for 1980. So from the viewpoint of the theory it would seem we were ahead of the US. Or maybe it's just that this forum is heavily dominated by lefties who refused to accept the world had changed until Reagan's second term, by which time they were forced to wake up and smell "the Morning in America". For a good part of the early 80's, they instead retreated to their dens, where they made exciting forecasts, trying to persuade each other how Reagan sure enough was soon to drop the bomb. Subconsciously, nuclear Armageddon perhaps appeared more palatable to idealistic Boomers than admitting they could have been wrong about anything.

I am Franco-American. Born in raised in the US but live in France now. Anyhow, what makes people think the early eighties were still part of the Awakening? Even the music from 1980-1982 had that typical "eighties" sound to it. Same with a lot of the movies from that time. They felt more 3T than 2T.

Absolutely. The notion that the Awakening didn't end but lasted all they way into the mid 80's is absurd on the face of it.

For instance, they actually attempt to convince themselves that the New Romantic desire to "Go back, go back!" and turn back the clock, and let's eradicate the sixties like it never happened, is somehow expressing the progressive, limitless and know no bounds to "liberation" mindset of the Awakening.
The Synth/New Romantic sound of 1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StpPgV7GAYw

It's just like you can picture the hippies dancing around the Native American campfire, right.

One way to explain this weird phenomenon of mislabeling the Turnings might perhaps be that the late 70's/early 80's actually was a very bewildering time for the generation pushing the cultural spooks. The Boom couldn't recognize themselves in this new era - characterized as it was by the tastes and sensibilities of the Jonesers/Xers more than themselves, what seemed a worrying alliance of reaction between the old and the young, if not actual counter revolution. So they were unable to orient themselves within it, couldn't understand it and they didn't like it. It took some time for them to figure out how to exploit the new Zeitgeist for their own purposes, and get back into operation, so to speak. So when we arrive in the mid 80's they finally have come up with a plan to summon the former Maoist village meeting in complete consensus: the full embrace of a lassez faire/privatization dogma as a way of rescuing some cherished aspects of their ideals into the future. In other words, their disgust with order and authority (to be replaced by "values") and the celebration of the "authentic" free wheeling individual. (Maybe someone could express this better?)

And being the prime Narcissistic generation that they are, who want to be in control and credited for coming up with everything and every cultural agenda, they simply set about to eradicate the early 80's, its mentality and aesthetics, as just too troublesome to fit into a preferred world view. Thus we suddenly have this weird idea that the early 80's belonged to some kind of "Counter-Awakening", yet part and parcel of (their) Grand Awakening, still.

And they, of course, inaugurated this new Turning as having begun in 1984. (A year which was absolutely the same as 1983 and 1985, and not distinguished by anything in particular.)

While every objective criterium points in the opposite direction...

By the way, the early 80's in the eyes of an Xer wasn't necessarily commited to Neoliberalism. If Xers had been older and mature enough to commit themselves to an elaborate system of thought, chances are it would have gone in a more "realistic", anti-utopian and actual conservative direction.

[Mikebert]

I think the situation is even worse.  In generational terms 4Ts begin shortly after the aligned generational constellation.  That is, when Artists occupy elderhood, Prophets occupy mature adulthood and Nomads rising adulthood.  With 20-year generations we have elderhood from 60-79. Applying this to Silents (1925-1942) gives 2004 and 2002.  Applying 40-59 to Boomers (1943-1960) gives 2002 and 1999.  Applying 20-39 to Xers (1961-1981) gives 2000 and 2001.  Averaging these all together gives 2001.  This would be the projected final year for the Millie generation assuming 20-year generation/turning length.  S&H hedged their bets and added two years to accommodate a 22-year Millie gen and gave the date as 2003 in Generations.  Then then added a couple of years and projected the 4T start for 2005 in T4T.  These earlier dates and the once-popular view of a 4T start in 2001 all were based on the birth dates of the generations before the Millennials and the average length of the previous four that had averaged 20 years in length.

The 2001 data fell out of favor when events did not support it.  Although 911 ushered in a new era of authoritarian government featuring mass surveillance of the population and summary executions and even torture, the perception was that nothing much had changed.  In 2008 the economy nearly collapsed due to a financial crisis.  None too healthy before the crisis, the economy feels much weaker after.  And yet nothing changed policy-wise afterward.  Either outcome of the 2016 election promises more of the same. Although Trump ran as a change agent, his economic agenda appears to be the same tax cut and grow the debt policy Republicans have offered for 35 years now.  Here's a comparison of the post-1980 Republican economic plan with what they offered before:

Year     Spend     Rev     Deficit     Year     Spend      Rev     Deficit      Year     Spend     Rev     Deficit         
1921       6.8       7.5       -0.7       1981     21.1       18.7       2.5       1992      21.1       16.7      4.4
1922       4.4       5.4       -1.0       1982     22.3       18.5       3.8       1993      20.5       16.8      3.7
1923       3.6       4.5       -0.8       1983     22.2       16.5       5.7       1994      20.0       17.2      2.8
1924       3.3       4.4       -1.1       1984     21.1       16.5       4.6       1995      19.8       17.6      2.2
1925       3.2       4.0       -0.8       1985     21.8       16.9       4.9       1996      19.3       17.9      1.4
1926       3.0       3.9       -0.9       1986     21.6       16.8       4.8       1997      18.6       18.3      0.3
1927       3.0       4.2       -1.2       1987     20.6       17.5       3.1       1998      18.2       18.9    -0.7
1928       3.0       4.0       -1.0       1988     20.3       17.3       3.0       1999      17.6       18.9    -1.3
1929       3.0       3.7       -0.7       1989     20.2       17.5       2.7       2000      17.4       19.7    -2.3
All values expressed as % of GDP


Shown is the Republican fiscal policy of the 1920's under Secretary Mellon and the 1980's policy under President Reagan. Both periods featured top bracket tax cuts, from 73% to 25% in the 1920's and from 70% to 28% in the 1980's, which resulted is falling revenue.  Mellon's tax cuts were accompanied by defense spending cuts that fully offset declining revenues and can be called a fiscally conservative and small government.  Reagan's were not, although Republicans continued to describe them as such.


Funny thing was Clinton actually did what Mellon had done.  He oversaw large cuts in defense and other spending which cut spending by 3.7% of GDP and tax increases that increased revenues by 3.0% of GDP, engineering a fiscal turnaround of 6.7% of GDP.  The 1990's outcome was similar to that of the 1920's, deflationary growth that led to a speculative bubble on the stock market.

Here you see a changing of the coats.  Republicans ceased to be the party of fiscal conservatism, and after a delay, Democrats (or perhaps I should say DLC Democrats) picked up the mantle.  Over the same time the Republicans transformed from the party of the Northeastern establishment (i.e. Blue America) to the party of the South and (non-coastal) West (Red America).  The Democrats became more and more like the Republicans/Whigs of old.  Both parties still hang on to key elements.  Democrats continue to be the party of immigrants, and Republicans still are the party of the Old Right (i.e. those folks Eisenhower disparaged).  But for a long time they continued to represent themselves as what they once were, but no longer are:  Republicans *still* often describe themselves as fiscal conservatives when this has manifestly not been the case for 35 years. Democrats *still* describe themselves as the party of working people when this as clearly not been the case for 25 years.

In other words they lie, repeatedly.  Partisanship has created a situation in which both camps live in different realities as far as perceptions of the human world go. Republicans got a decade head start on Democrats and so they have traveled further on this path, so this is more apparent on the Right than the Left, but its there in both.

And so there we are.  Rigor mortis has set in, preserving the 3T status quo. Generationally the 4T clock is running out.  Gen X will fully occupy mature adulthood in 2020-21, which is when the Adaptive generation will come to an end. A few years after should come the 1T, generationally-speaking. Yet in 2020 we will still be living in the same post-2016 world, with the same rigor mortis.  Will the 3T then continue on to the 1T?

[Tuss]

(08-22-2016, 07:13 AM)Odin Wrote: The Saeculum in Europe seems to be about 4 or 5 years behind the US because the 4T did not really end there until 1949 and the post-war social and political order fully took shape.

So? I think there is a lot of merit to saying 1948 was the first 1T year in Europe, but Turning duration is elastic. Some Turnings are shorter or longer than others. A European 1T lasting from 1948-1964 (or 1963), that is 15-16 years, is still in the ballpark of an approximate 20-year Turning length and does not conflict with the theory, as I understand it.

Likewise, the 3T might have begun earlier in Europe than the United States, even being exported across the Atlantic to some extent (like in the case of the 2T), but I don't actually think such was the case. If you have to do it, the best year for drawing the line in America was and probably remains 1980. Approximately the same as over here.

[Remy Renault]

What I find ironic and kind of funny here in France is this pervasive notion that the complacency of the French in general bred by their welfare state is just part of French life and the way the culture 'just is', and it's frankly not entirely true. France only became that way due to Mitterand who became president in, alas, 1981, following the Trente Glorieuses. So many of the social stagnation issues plaguing French society today find their origin in Mitterand's presidency I think.

[Ragnarök_62]

Tuss Wrote:It's just like you can picture the hippies dancing around the Native American campfire, right.

I know that Eric posts lots of stuff by Mahar, but wow! Here's blind squirrel finding a nut.

Quote:One way to explain this weird phenomenon of mislabeling the Turnings might perhaps be that the late 70's/early 80's actually was a very bewildering time for the generation pushing the cultural spooks. The Boom couldn't recognize themselves in this new era - characterized as it was by the tastes and sensibilities of the Jonesers/Xers more than themselves, what seemed a worrying alliance of reaction between the old and the young, if not actual counter revolution.

Yeah, there has been a thing about PC crap which is annoying , to say the least.   And yes, I've been hammering this in hopes the Democrats finally getting a clue.  That hound don't hunt no more. 

Quote:So they were unable to orient themselves within it, couldn't understand it and they didn't like it. It took some time for them to figure out how to exploit the new Zeitgeist for their own purposes, and get back into operation, so to speak. So when we arrive in the mid 80's they finally have come up with a plan to summon the former Maoist village meeting in complete consensus: the full embrace of a lassez faire/privatization dogma as a way of rescuing some cherished aspects of their ideals into the future. In other words, their disgust with order and authority (to be replaced by "values") and the celebration of the "authentic" free wheeling individual. (Maybe someone could express this better?)

And so....   It was easy to accept the fact that given the facts on the ground, say in 2016.   I was not surprised by Brexit [which I've always supported, btw] and the rise of Trump as a penultimate symbolic "Fuck You" to the establishment. That is the difference in say Eric, and myself.  Now of course, things can be interpreted as one set of "Boomers" / "Jonesers", is perhaps the target of what is in need of "creative destruction". It was the "square" GI constructs.  Jonesers/Xer's may see in turn that PC for example is in dire need of self same "creative destruction". The technique is the same, but the targets are different.  I'm not sure this is the sort of answer you seek. It's out there.  Now wrt foreign policy.  My view is such things as emotionally triggered "wars of choice" is as such.
"Wars of choice" = any war conducted for ideological reasons/feel good reasons. I think the Powell Doctrine is the valid one.  As such.

Wiki Wrote:The Doctrine
The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
   
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
   
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
   
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
   
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
   
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
   
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
   
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?[2]
   

As Powell said in an April 1, 2009 interview on The Rachel Maddow Show, the Doctrine denotes the exhausting of all "political, economic, and diplomatic means", which, only if those means prove to be futile, should a nation resort to military force. Powell has expanded upon the Doctrine, asserting that when a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy, minimizing U.S. casualties and ending the conflict quickly by forcing the weaker force to capitulate.[3]
[/url]


I'd add some more to the above.
9. Public must sign off of a income war tax to pay for the proposed war.
10.  A draft where those in the higher levels of the Federal Government go first.  That is to say the current draft age would take either those in higher positions themselves or their kinfolk first.  Next comes the rules for everyone else.
11. An understanding that wars kill. No sugar coating or using specific policies to "spare civilians" in a war zone, since such undermines assorted items above this one.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine#cite_note-3]

Quote:And being the prime Narcissistic generation that they are, who want to be in control and credited for coming up with everything and every cultural agenda, they simply set about to eradicate the early 80's, its mentality and aesthetics, as just too troublesome to fit into a preferred world view. Thus we suddenly have this weird idea that the early 80's belonged to some kind of "Counter-Awakening", yet part and parcel of (their) Grand Awakening, still.

Yes, it seems self referential doesn't it? The Counter-Awakening is basically as it acts out now. It's a binary meme.  PC/defiantly not PC.  

Quote:And they, of course, inaugurated this new Turning as having begun in 1984. (A year which was absolutely the same as 1983 and 1985, and not distinguished by anything in particular.)

While every objective criterium points in the opposite direction...

I guess it depends on when the  anti PC meme took hold as the opposition. X'ers stylistically challenging the product of the prior awakening does work , more or less.  In the US, 1984 is special because that's a Presidential election year. But yeah, it's only important in the US.

Quote:By the way, the early 80's in the eyes of an Xer wasn't necessarily commited to Neoliberalism. If Xers had been older and mature enough to commit themselves to an elaborate system of thought, chances are it would have gone in a more "realistic", anti-utopian and actual conservative direction.

I think that's happening now, IMHO of course. Sometimes it takes epic fails of misguided ideology, in say a shitpot of wars of choice leading to chaos and failure suffices. The current wars of choice are I'd say 0-5 in the win loss stats. 
1. Afghanistan :  still the graveyard for empires as it's always been.
2. Iraq:  Once a stable country, now a failed state featuring 3 faction fighting between Kurds/Sunnis/Shias.
3. Syria:  Ongoing. Has evolved into a proxy war.
4. Libya: Failed state after the ouster of Qaddafi.  Currently the focus of lots of refugees going to the EuroZone.
5. The War on Drugs. Failed states in Latin America due to well armed drug cartels. Also militarized police in certain areas in the US, and stuffed to the gills jails. 

I'm of course amazed how much emotion has uh, "trumped" common sense here....   I think 2008 woke many up to the evil of Neoliberalism as well. Neoliberalism essentially treats every noun as some sort of product or gizmo that performs some market function.  In the world scheme of things, Americans are the product, "consumers", who obtains goods and services usually through a debt bind, facilitated by financial institutions. An example is the expectation that nobody ever pays off their house, but uses it as an ATM to buy shit that's for the most part not needed, but "wanted". The "want" is facilitated by ads or course. Here is an example of how "big data" also drives the "wants".


http://www.acxiom.com/about-acxiom/priva...formation/

If you want, you can do some hard work to make yourself disappear to some extent. One can also shut down known data mining.  First you have to give up Facefuck and second, you have to do some fancy firewall rules to make Alphabet/Google go away.
00.194.58.216.in-addr.arpa    name = dfw06s48-in-f4.1e100.net.
100.194.58.216.in-addr.arpa    name = dfw06s48-in-f100.1e100.net.

Here is a firewall log entry which caught these boxen knocking on port 443 on my puter.

[13591.073681] [UFW BLOCK] IN=enp3s0 OUT= SRC=216.58.218.138 DST=192.168.1.74 LEN=40 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=56 ID=47671 PROTO=TCP SPT=443 DPT=53260 WINDOW=0 RES=0x00 RST URGP=0

So, what is this saying actually.  OK, first is my private IP address of 192.168.1.74.  Yes, that's a private IP address. How do we know that's the case. Well, here is a good bit of random web info right here:
https://www.lifewire.com/private-ip-addr...nge-818387

Next is this interesting source address of 216.58.218.138 which is attempting to connect to my puter from port number to some random port, 53260.  This is messed up because this is a private puter, not a public one, but this stupid puter from 216.58.218.138 is trying to get something, but I don't know what from my puter and is thus treating my puter as a source/server.

Now... here's the interesting thing. It's Google that's knocking on my ports!

https://support.google.com/faqs/answer/174717?hl=en

The problem for most folks is they are not using a firewall policy of "deny all" , except what is explicitly allowed.
That means that I can go to Google stuff on *THEIR* port 443, but of course Google shouldn't be able to go look at whatever my puter has on random port. So there you have it.  This need for Americans to be the product, consumers for the Neoliberal world is now out there for all to see. The PTB don't give a rat's ass of course that debt diving is a stressful stimulus to the product, consumers.