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

[Isoko]

Honestly, I just cannot see it.

From my own perspective, 2020 is shaping up to be the 1929 event of our time. The world in my eyes is going to start to change radically after this. We could be facing another great depression. This could be the event that ultimately leads to the downfall of the West. It could lead to many events but honestly in my eyes this is a trigger.

The problem with 2008 is that if felt like one big continued unraveling. Life still went on, as I have explained to others on here. Nothing actually radically changed. Others say this was our version of 1929 and this is the climax but let us be honest here - was it? Was it really?

The year 1929 proved to be the ultimate trigger and events became even more radical after that, leading to the climax that is World War 2. When that event happened, it just spiraled everything into place very quickly and suddenly. It radically changed people's lives.

2020 has all the hallmarks for this. 2008 simply does not. If I am to be honest, if 2020 is indeed the start and not the climax, then that means 2020 - 2040 is the period of the 4T. Obviously this is not a popular opinion on here but I think it in my eyes it is pretty clear.

As for the BRICs however, I expect that this crisis will lead to a huge 2T event in these societies. You can start to see what is happening in Belarus as a precursor to what is likely going to take shape in the others.

So what am I predicting? 2020 leads to the downfall of the West and a new sort of Putinist era in these countries. Strong leadership will be required to restablish order in these societies.

East is going liberal this time around. I expect more nascent democracies to be established in Russia, China, Turkey, Belarus, even Iran. The trends seem to be pretty evident this time around. Now how long these Democracies will last until the next big crisis is a question on anyone's lips.

[Ghost]

I think the 2008 event led to a lot of what took place later, like Occupy Wall Street, Gamergate, and the Charlottesville riots.

[Isoko]

Ghost,

These feel more like 3T events. They occurred, they offered minimal change in terms of people's lives and disappeared as quickly as they came. I'm talking about big changes here that lead to a big climax and quite frankly 2008 onwards feels like one big 3T.

Let's also be honest here. How many people in 100 years are going to talk about gamer gate, occupy wall Street or Charlottesville? I think in the long run these events will be forgotten and not really registered.

[Ghost]

(06-06-2020, 12:14 PM)Isoko Wrote: Ghost,

These feel more like 3T events. They occurred, they offered minimal change in terms of people's lives and disappeared as quickly as they came. I'm talking about big changes here that lead to a big climax and quite frankly 2008 onwards feels like one big 3T.

But wouldn't that be a huge 3T (1980-2020)?

That would create a 91-year saeculum instead of the usual 80-88 year saeculua proposed by Strauss and Howe.

[Isoko]

Ghost,

Personally I don't think the 3T started in 1980. I think the 3T started in 2001. The reason for this is that by Western standards, life from 1950 - 2001 was one of the greatest periods to be alive in. Up until 2001 I would argue that in essence people's lives were actually improving. It feels entirely more like one big 2T if I'm honest.

After 2001 things just kept on slowly getting worse for the West. I remember quite well how each year, the West started to become even more worse off. Yet the "Crisis" never came. Not until 2020. 

It goes against Strauss and Howe but must we all be dogmatic about this and accept it as the literal truth? Can deviations not at all be possible?

[User3451]

The 2008 recession was not business as usual!

The average person fully expected the government to step in, chastise the banks and criminals, and bail out taxpayers.

Clinton lost, essentially, because Obama caved to the established powers, and she wanted to do the same thing. So 2016 was very clearly 4T already.

Furthermore, this 4T doesn't need to line up like the last. Great Recession as catalyst, populist regeneracy, Sars 2 crisis, riots, and whatever else is coming down the pipe.

Everything has changed this week

It didn't happen, which radicalized an entire cadre of millennials. Things like socialism went from third rail words to super mainstream.

[Ghost]

(06-06-2020, 12:21 PM)Isoko Wrote: Ghost,

Personally I don't think the 3T started in 1980. I think the 3T started in 2001. The reason for this is that by Western standards, life from 1950 - 2001 was one of the greatest periods to be alive in. Up until 2001 I would argue that in essence people's lives were actually improving. It feels entirely more like one big 2T if I'm honest.

After 2001 things just kept on slowly getting worse for the West. I remember quite well how each year, the West started to become even more worse off. Yet the "Crisis" never came. Not until 2020. 

It goes against Strauss and Howe but must we all be dogmatic about this and accept it as the literal truth? Can deviations not at all be possible?

3T even had influences earlier than 1980. Probably even as early as 1977.

Many of today's big name franchises started in the mid-late 70's, like Hello Kitty (started in 1974 but came to the US in 1976), Star Wars (started in 1977), and Garfield (started in 1978).

VHS tapes, a major 3T thing, came to the US in 1977.

The Atari 2600, likely the first major successful video game console, also came out in 1977.

[Isoko]

Sorry User but what you are describing is once again 3T events. That is part of a great unraveling. All these events ended up going nowhere and instead contributed to a continued unraveling. It always felt like a slow decline, like an unraveling, but never a crisis.

It's only with the 2020 covid crisis that I really am starting to see a true 4T start to unfold. This itself is leading to events like the massive riots in America and I expect to see more crisis like events that truly test society to start to unfold.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-06-2020, 01:57 PM)Isoko Wrote: Sorry User but what you are describing is once again 3T events. That is part of a great unraveling. All these events ended up going nowhere and instead contributed to a continued unraveling. It always felt like a slow decline, like an unraveling, but never a crisis.

It's only with the 2020 covid crisis that I really am starting to see a true 4T start to unfold. This itself is leading to events like the massive riots in America and I expect to see more crisis like events that truly test society to start to unfold.

I can sympathize. It seem that the prophet, nomad, civic alignment can occur long before the trigger and regeneracy. The crisis before the trigger is almost an extension of the unraveling, with perhaps more intense catalysts.

[beechnut79]

(06-06-2020, 12:21 PM)Isoko Wrote: Ghost,

Personally I don't think the 3T started in 1980. I think the 3T started in 2001. The reason for this is that by Western standards, life from 1950 - 2001 was one of the greatest periods to be alive in. Up until 2001 I would argue that in essence people's lives were actually improving. It feels entirely more like one big 2T if I'm honest.

After 2001 things just kept on slowly getting worse for the West. I remember quite well how each year, the West started to become even more worse off. Yet the "Crisis" never came. Not until 2020. 

It goes against Strauss and Howe but must we all be dogmatic about this and accept it as the literal truth? Can deviations not atNi, I believe that the first half of the 1980s were cusp years as a heb2R eased it's fri all be possible?

No, I believe that the first half of the 1980s was a cusp period as the 2T slowly began to lose its luster. The following year saw Reagan's busting of the labor unions but socially the 2Ts grip held on until mid-decade when the AIDS scare rather abruptly killed off the sexual revolution which had been firmly bin place for the previous two decades. I got laid off from a long standing employer on May 1, 1986 and it was then that I knew there was no turning back.

[Tim Randal Walker]

I am a white American male born in 1956. So I feel that I can comment on turnings in the United States.

First, I wouldn't start the 3T in 1980 or 2001. The early '80s were a cusp/transition period between 2T and 3T. In early '80s there was only a diluted sense of the Awakening. In hind sight, 3T characteristics growing in influence. People turning inward, concentrating on their own lives. Fading of (outwardly) expressed idealism.

The Indian summer of the cycle, after shift to 3T completed. The jittery tail end of the 3T, which in Seattle began in late '99 with the protests against the World Trade Organization.

I refer now to one of the archived threads, The Phony Fourth. A Phony Fourth is an intense, 4T like reaction to a perceived threat during 3T. For example, in 1919 the Palmer raids against suspected Communists. However, the anticipated Communist revolution of 1920 failed to materialize. And America returned to the Unraveling mood of the roaring twenties.

It has been suggested that the intense reaction to 9/11:

1. Occurred before a mature 4T generational constellation.

2. Resulted in a Phony Fourth.

However, America did not return to the mood of the Indian summer. Maybe it is too late after entering the jittery tail end of a 3T. Instead, we had this long limbo period. Which included several events that could be part of the cascade phase of early 4T....9/11...anthrax...Hurricane Katrina.... But, however, Iraq/Afghanistan were waged as 3T wars.

This limbo period has been strange enough to include a weirdness that has been called an Indian Autumn. (I believe that Eric the Green came up with that name). If one expects the harvest of the cycle during 3T, I likened the Indian Autumn to the brief period between harvest and the first snow. The Indian Autumn occurred when we should have already been in Winter.

And being past harvest, the only thing left was to scavenge off the past. Consider Pawn Stars, which debuted in 2009, and American Pickers, which debuted in 2010.

[Remy Renault]

Do 4Ts need to begin with a proverbial bang though? Sometimes it can marked by a sudden mood shift, which ushers in a series of events leading to an accumulation of resentments and disillusionments until we reach a crescendo of sorts. That seems to be the case now. It was also the case during the Civil War era. I noticed a mood shift as far back as Obama's second term. A mood shift rather than a cataclysmic event I think is the real key.

[User3451]

2015 leading into 2016 was clearly 4T

It may be that the 3T went longer, and also that the 4T is shorter.

Even if one argues that the reaction to 2008 was 3T, the 4T is well underway by the time Trump rolled into the Republican primaries.

The rise of Bernie and the fall of Hillary are both very clearly 4T as well

[Warren Dew]

(06-06-2020, 12:14 PM)Isoko Wrote: Let's also be honest here. How many people in 100 years are going to talk about gamer gate, occupy wall Street or Charlottesville? I think in the long run these events will be forgotten and not really registered.

How many people today talk about the Ford Hunger March Massacre of 1932?  These things are forgettable in a 4T because there are so many of them.  Covid-19 might get a footnote, but the current BLM demonstrations will be forgotten just like the 2016 ones will be.

(06-07-2020, 07:00 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: Do 4Ts need to begin with a proverbial bang though? Sometimes it can marked by a sudden mood shift, which ushers in a series of events leading to an accumulation of resentments and disillusionments until we reach a crescendo of sorts. That seems to be the case now. It was also the case during the Civil War era. I noticed a mood shift as far back as Obama's second term. A mood shift rather than a cataclysmic event I think is the real key.

Obviously not, given the 3T/4T demarcation before the Civil War is so unclear.

[David Horn]

(06-07-2020, 09:26 AM)User3451 Wrote: 2015 leading into 2016 was clearly 4T

It may be that the 3T went longer, and also that the 4T is shorter.

Even if one argues that the reaction to 2008 was 3T, the 4T is well underway by the time Trump rolled into the Republican primaries.

The rise of Bernie and the fall of Hillary are both very clearly 4T as well

It's a near certainty that society transitions in stages, based on one's POV and position in the current turning.  That would be especially true of any 3T, where inequality is part and parcel of the turning.  I would argue that the capitalists still think they are in a 3T, with a stock market tied to nothing rational as far as I can see. The rest of us have already moved on.  If the next election has mixed results, that could continue until the market crashes on its own.  

It's easier to accept change if it's not to your personal determent.

[David Horn]

(06-07-2020, 09:31 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 12:14 PM)Isoko Wrote: Let's also be honest here. How many people in 100 years are going to talk about gamer gate, occupy wall Street or Charlottesville? I think in the long run these events will be forgotten and not really registered.

How many people today talk about the Ford Hunger March Massacre of 1932?  These things are forgettable in a 4T because there are so many of them. Covid-19 might get a footnote, but the current BLM demonstrations will be forgotten just like the 2016 ones will be.

This I doubt. Do we remember the Bonus March of 1932? Yes, and why? Because it showed how out of touch Hoover (and MacArthur) were to what was happening all around them.

Warren Dew Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 07:00 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: Do 4Ts need to begin with a proverbial bang though? Sometimes it can marked by a sudden mood shift, which ushers in a series of events leading to an accumulation of resentments and disillusionments until we reach a crescendo of sorts. That seems to be the case now. It was also the case during the Civil War era. I noticed a mood shift as far back as Obama's second term. A mood shift rather than a cataclysmic event I think is the real key.

Obviously not, given the 3T/4T demarcation before the Civil War is so unclear.

Agreed. This time is a little too similar for comfort.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Book, copyright 2020. Disunited Nations The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World by Peter Zeihan

Zeihan said that the coalitions that make up American political parties change after long periods. Zeihan said that the last time this happened was during the Great Depression. He indicated that this time around it began with the rise of Trump in the Republican Party.

Generational/turning theory suggests that such change is most likely during 4T, and conceivable during a 2T. But not going to happen during 1T or 3T.

[Tim Randal Walker]

We should consider that there may be cusps/transition periods between turnings. A handful of years in which the mood of previous turning is gradually fading, while there are subtle hints of a new turning.

In USA, such was the case with the last 2T/3T transition.

[Isoko]

I was born in 1988. Supposedly this was the time of a 3T. When I was a kid, the 1990s was like a golden age for Britain. The new millennium was coming. The future was going to be bright. I remember the music of those times, the culture, even the adverts on the TV, portrayed the golden age we were living in and the times to come.

In the UK, it was known as the period of 'cool Britannia' and the future was only going to get better. It is thought that the 1990s in the West was like a second 1960s. Considering that your main bases of liberal opposition really started to get going in this period, I'd argue that this was like a weird 1T/2T hybrid.

After 2001 however, things just started to slowly get worse. The optimism died out and nothing became the same again. It was like an unraveling set in. The optimism of the 1990s vanished in an instant and ever since, it has been one bleak event after another. I'd argue in essence this was the start of a true 3T. 

I can agree with the concepts of cusps but I really do feel the 4T has begun and what we had all been living in was an unraveling period. Life will never be the same after covid and it is going to change the world.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Isoko, I have been wondering about UK and 4T. The Brexit referendum, and the Scottish referendum, seem 4T. And now Covid 19.

Generally, I get the impression that, when comparing the UK and the USA, that the last few turnings have played out somewhat differently.