Propaganda and the 4T

[Kinser79]

(05-22-2016, 09:45 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-21-2016, 03:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote: You can't be 5-10 years away from the end of the crisis in 2010, and six years later still be 5-10 years away.  The very nature of generations of the S&H type puts fairly tight strictures on when a turning can begin and end.

On the other hand, reactionary causes such as the Tea Party can retard 4T responses. America was undeniably in a 3T mood until at least the summer of 2008

I would argue that might be true for some regions of the country. I generally place the start of the 4T in those states bordering the Gulf Coast around 2005. The shear incompetence of the Bush Administration in dealing with the Hurricanes in Louisiana was a slap in the face. After then attitudes in the South hardened and hardened fast.

As such Occupy and the Tea Party would fit within the time frame one would expect for the start of the micro-awakening of the 4T.

Quote:, as shown by the (then) close race for the Presidency between John McCain and Barack Obama. John McCain was clearly a 3T politician whose economic solutions were to maintain the lax regulatory environment and consumerist ethos of a late 3T. Around September 2008 the economy went from shaky to meltdown mode.

I'd agree that McCain was post seasonal but most people just didn't realize it yet.

1929	2008
Gilded © 85+	GI © 84+
Progressive (A) 70-85	Silent (A) 66-83
Missonary (I) 46-69	Boom (I) 48-65
Lost ® 28-45	13th ® 27-47
GI © ~4-27	Millennial © ~6-26

Quote:(in this table I treat the Gilded as a Civic generation because they had been acting much like a Civic generation after the American Civil War, at least in the North).

Some of us have argued that the Gilded generation really should be split into two camps. Those of us that do call the latter half of the generation the "Bloody Shirts" because they would wave around their bloody shirt from participating in that war. They also acted in a civic manner in the South too--just in a different way.

Quote:Although the corresponding generations of the successive saecula are of essentially the same age, the GI generation still had significant presence and influence in 2008; the Gilded were by then basically the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes and a few people then deemed extremely old. In 1929 the Progressive Generation was already largely off the scene as the Degeneracy of the 1920s approached its close; in 2008 the Silent Generation was still influential, even winning the nomination for President of the United States in the Republican Party. Until the economy melted down, most people expected a very close race for President. After the economy melted down, the Presidential election began to resemble a landslide.

The Silents were having a last gasp of influence. One should remember that the Senate is at least a quarter of a turning behind the rest of the country at all times though. They only completely turn over once every 6 years.

Quote:The difference is not so much in the ages of the generations; it is instead that people were living longer. To be sure, the Gilded had some very bad habits (obesity, smoking, heavy drinking, and physical inactivity) that the GI generation did not share to quite the same extent. People simply wore out earlier in the 1920s.

Well that, and they also didn't have modern medicine in the 1920s either. Germ theory was considered pretty radical back then.

Quote:To be sure, the Civic component of American life was weak in both 1929 and 2008... but it was stronger in 2008 (when it was going from the GI Generation to the Millennial Generation, from very old adults to people just entering adulthood) than it was in 1929. In 1929 the Civic component of American life had disappeared almost completely before GIs could begin taking adult roles, and the Adaptive component had practically vanished. America would go into the Crisis of 1940 (Great Depression, fascist peril) with the Progressive Generation largely irrelevant. In the early-to-middle 2010s the Silent would remain relevant. Remember that Charles and David Koch, members of the Silent Generation, heavily bankrolled the Tea Party movement.

I think that the Koch connection is over played in relation to their generation. They would likely hold the same views if they were Boomers or if they were GIs. They just happen to be Silents. Their view of the world is shaped by their class. Again, remember that the Senate lags a quarter turning or so at all times.

That being said their financial power would normally be blunted by other factors.

Quote:So we are not in a replay of the 1930s this time, and not only because Germany, Italy, and Japan are now places in which nobody is at risk of being tortured or killed for their political beliefs or ethnic origin.

History doesn't repeat, it rhymes.

Quote:This is all technically correct, although life-spans lengthened between 1929 and 2007

No, actually they didn't. The maximum lifespan of a human was about 120 years in 1929 and in 2007. What lengthened was the average lifespan as fewer infants died as infants and more people were healthier longer. But this has to do with averages. People still lived to their 90s in the 1920s and people die at 40 from heart attacks today.

Quote:But not only are people lasting and participating longer; they are also getting defined earlier. Mass culture shapes generations earlier. Thus a GI writer like Herb Caen could recognize a difference between Boomers and X in the 1970s... and he did not like cultural trends within X (who were going for mindless drivel that had no pretension of making a better world or expanding one's intellectual universe).

This makes me wonder if he stopped to consider that what the boomers created was mostly pretentious drivel of no real substance.

Quote:Which the table shows. But the table does not show which generations are around in numbers are present in significant numbers. It is also worth remembering that those people who remain active late in life typically have characteristics of the elites of their generations. People active and influential in their 70s were typically active and influential in their 30s. In recent years, far more people have been attaining their 70s and 80s; those people who active participants in political, cultural, and economic life have the key to keeping themselves and their generations influential.

Not necessarily. The 72 year life expectancy is an average. That means that merely taking care of oneself will likely get one to be around 80. After that age though...diminishing returns, I don't care who you are.

Quote:Identity of generations may be established well before age 20. Getting to participate fully in public life may begin earlier for sports stars and popular musicians, but today such probably depends for all else upon completing graduate school or a professional program. Getting a bachelors' degree at age 22 or so no longer gives an early edge in the workforce (many people with college degrees are doing the sorts of work that high-school dropouts used to do, which may reflect the escalation of the requirement of credentials).

Actually it is a reflection of automation and a surplus of labor power. Which is an argument for limiting immigration.

Quote:The fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attack is this year, and practically nothing not resolved then is now resolved. The fifteenth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack was in 1956, a year deep into a 1T. The market meltdowns that began in 1929 and 2007 (both years had the peaks for stock-market valuations) are 78 years apart -- but one led to a protracted destruction of the American economy and the other got resolved quickly. The protracted meltdown of 1929-1932 created a climate for pervasive reform of the economy; the quick recovery created a climate for elites seeking a return to 3T ways. People whose ethos in the 1920s sounded like "no human suffering is excessive so long as it turns a profit and indulges those who make the profits" got shoved aside in public life for a very long time. Those with such an ethos in the Double-Zero Decade came back into influence in the 2010s.

In short we're not having a repeat of the 1930s, which why anyone would expect one is beyond me. Rather as I've pointed out on the old forum this 4T has much more in common with the Civil War 4T which lasted from around 1855 to 1876. The beginning for that one was protracted too and the climax came very close to the end. Only the issues are different.

Quote:Determinism, even with time and geography, has its limits of validity. The generational 'mechanism' of history shapes people, but people in power can thwart historical trends that they dislike.

The magical dictator theory is bullshit. I strongly suggest you scrap it. No one leader or even group of leaders has such power as to completely retard the natural development of a generation from childhood, to young adulthood, to mid-life to elderhood.