How different is Western Europe's saecular timeline?

[Odin]

(12-27-2016, 04:46 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 12:17 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(12-23-2016, 11:43 AM)Mikebert Wrote: 2008 seems plausible as a 4T start for the same reasons 911 seemed plausible until 2008 displaced it as a bigger event more pregnant with possibility.  Nothing on the scale of 2008 has happened since 2008, yet.  But we haven't had a recession since 2008.  We haven't seem what the post-2008 economy does when faced with a cyclical downturn.  If we get another financial crisis or other big debacle then 2008 will no longer be seen as the special thing it appears to be now.

I have no objection to the notion of turnings as an analog process defined by these shifts in mood and generationally constellations, with the big headline events useful markers, nothing more.  That being said you're still just engaging in hand-waving.  In what way has the course of recent events departed from the 4T script as laid out by S & H?  Why are we "running out of time" for it to be valid?

S&H proclaimed that their theory could be used to make predictions--they called it the history of America's future.  They identified 4Ts before the Revolution, but they do not dwell on them.  Its for good reason because it is hard to show that these periods were specially significant crises (the Glorious Revolution was significant, but more significant than the English Revolution?).  But the American revolution, Civil War, and New Deal/WWII are the real deal, big time crises in American history noted by slews of observers. 

S&H with their notion of a 4T are setting expectations of a fourth American crisis that will also be the real deal, like the other ones.  Now there are two possibilities.  One is we get the same sort of stuff we have seen for the last 16 years.  The parties trading off every two terms.  Polarization intensifying, the economic situation unchanged etc. In other words a nothing-burger 4T like the Armada.  The other is at some point in the future we get the real deal crisis after all.  

Suppose a real deal crisis occurs over 2023-2036.  It is an obvious social moment which follows the last one (1967-1980) by 56 years.  A 56 year spacing is not out of time for the early turnings. Now for ALL the past 4Ts, the start of the social moment was only a few years after the start of the turning.  If this happens their would be no reason to draw the 4T start as early as 2008, when the action doesn't get underway until 2023.  It would make more sense to date it from 2020, with the crisis of 2020 serving as the trigger.  But this would imply a constellation around now, which can only be accommodated by redrawing the generations.

I already had been here before with 911 as a trigger.  911 began to be questioned as the years passed and nothing happened.  Then came the events of 2008 and it was reset to 2008. Had Clinton won, it would he a continuation of an "Obama era" beginning in 2008.  But Donald Trump is likely to open a new era, which he will begin by undoing as much of the Obama era as he can.  Eras that get undone as soon as their creators exit are not the stuff of 4Ts.  This election looks very much like an attempt to turn the page of History, which, if successful would be consistent with a 4T beginning in 2016.

The only way for the 2008 era to be preserved would be if events happen soon along lines that show continuity with the post 2008 period.

Mike, I think one issue here is that you are interpreting the election results, here, in a too superficial way. If you look closely, a lot of the things that resulted on Trump's victory have their origin in the 2008 Crash. The conservative populism of Trump has the same roots as the Tea Party, the backlash against TARP. On the Left, the anger against the Democratic Party establishment, the Sanders campaign, the deep dislike of Clinton, and the depressed voter turnout this November on the Democratic side from people's dislike of Clinton, also has it's roots in the backlash against TARP.

So it all goes back to 2008.