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Taramarie's question "Why are Boomers moralistic" - Printable Version

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RE: Taramarie's question "Why are Boomers moralistic" - Mikebert - 05-19-2016

(05-15-2016, 05:01 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Mikebert, I think the difference is in generational archetype.  Xers can be highly moralistic too, and yet they don't start awakenings or whatever the hell the Millies are doing now.  Part of the reason I think that this is the case is Nomads tend to be highly individualistic and have a deep seated mistrust of collectivism.

Well yes, but why does this happen?  The mechanism S&H propose does not work.  The alternative I developed that does work only gives a two stroke cycle.  It says dominant generations "beget" dominant generations with as replication time of AL-22 years, where AL is the average age of societal leaders.  Dominant generations are created by history during social moments and in term create the next social moment.  Recessive generations do the same with non-social moments. 

Why do generations who are created by culturally-rich history in the 2T and 3T create (relatively) culturally barren history (4T, 1T)?  In a cultural context generations beget their opposites.  How does this happen? 

It makes sense that a political generation who comes of age in a liberal time will tend to be vote liberal later in life.  There is real data that supports this idea.  But why would a cultural generation who comes of age in a culturally liberal era not create another culturally liberal era?


RE: Taramarie's question "Why are Boomers moralistic" - Mikebert - 05-19-2016

I would point out that a case can be made that the cultural mechanism that is supposed to happen, generations beget their cultural opposites doesn't seem to be happening.  The culture war on the left continues, now its all about transgender rights. WTF?    Donald Trump is waging culture war on the right against the other (the immigrant, the Muslim, nontraditional women).  The only guy calling for a political war is Sanders, who is an Artist.  here we are I think most of the way through the 4T and its still all about moral crusades.    Go to American Conservative and check out the most read stuff.  Typically 4 out of 5 are culture war stuff written by Rod Dreher.

Vox has propaganda articles on transgender stuff as well as the Democratic party line.  Why does anyone other than the 1% affected by the transgender phenomenon care?  It was strange enough when it was about gay marriage as the big issue, you'd think the majority were gay.  And now the Trump-led  Republican party, who used to make fun of identity politics, is now the top exponent of it.  They are starting with white supremacy and sanding off some of its rough edges to get Trumps white nationalism.

In other words what looks like it is happening is Boomers who came of age in a politically and culturally liberal era (2T) are trying to recreate the same today.

This is not unprecedented.  The liberal political generation who came of age during the 1800-16 non-crisis liberal era went on to create another non-crisis liberal era over 1829-1845.  Young people fired up by Jeffersonian libertarianism went on to create a duplicate era of Jacksonian libertarianism.  Neither of these was a secular crisis.

The first period falls inside one of McLoughlin's Awakenings and so I would call it a 2T-type political era.  The second can be called the "abolitionist awakening" and corresponds to an S&H 2T.  So we had two 2Ts in a row.