02-11-2017, 04:13 PM
(02-10-2017, 02:11 PM)Mikebert Wrote: I've read a little bit about Bannon in recent weeks. He seems to be a fan of S&H, Mencius Moldbug and "big history". He'd be interested in a site like this, I think, were he not successful and powerful.
Bannon was a smart working class kid of an intellectual bent who made good at an early age, retired, and then indulged in his intellectual pursuits. Anyways he correctly sees 4Ts as involving wars. He also sees wars as intrinsic to the 4T, something which was not stated by S&H, but can be (and was) adduced from past examples. Hence, he feels a war is necessary.
I believe he is wrong, but the reason is subtle. The simple answer is for the first three of the four American 4Ts, the war occurred at the beginning of the 4T. The Glorious 4T began with King Phillip’s war. The Revolutionary War broke out in year 3 of a 22 year 4T. The Civil War 4T began with the 4T. This pattern changed for the last 4T: WW II began in year 13 of an 18 year 4T. What this means is that the last 4T was not about WW II, whereas the Civil War and Revolutionary 4Ts were about the associated wars.
So what? Bannon (and you) might think. In Generations p 71, S&H define the 4T as a “reordering” of secular institutions. The idea that there was substantial reordering of the American nation during the previous three 4Ts is obvious. Why did this happen? The answer is because they solved a problem that had emerged as an urgent concern in the previous 3T: American elite’s desire for self-rule, slavery, and the failure of the economic system to promote the general welfare. These problems eventually came to a head triggering a crisis: revolution, civil war, depression. The 4T was then about retooling American institutions to solve the problem.
To solve the 18th century 4T required British elites to capitulate to American elite desires for home rule. They were not willing to do that and so the only solution was force—the Revolutionary war. To solve the 19th century 4T required Southern elites to capitulate to Northern elite demands for the end of slavery. They were not willing to do that and so the only solution was force—the Civil War. To solve the 20th century 4T required that the economy be restructured in such a way as to restore prosperity. Nobody opposed this and so there was no recourse to war. A world war did happen in the 4T, but a world war happened in the previous 3T too, and the subsequent 1T and 2T had their wars.
The conclusion is plausible, but the route you took needs some comment.
First of all, of course, whether you call the 1850s a 4T or a 3T, the fact is clear that the Civil War was a result of a long developing crisis that had already become violent, with a threat of civil war having already happened. It was not at the start of one.
World War II was a much larger war for the USA than any of the others, and truly existential. If the USA had lost that war, it would have eventually been conquered by the Axis. So WWII was at the heart of the Crisis, but not the start of it. But the depression and the world war were tied together historically; the latter would not have happened without the former. WWII was the last and exaggerated gasp of the old European order.
And of course, it's now painfully clear that the New Deal did NOT cure the problem of economic elites. We are back almost to square one, and now with Trump, headed toward an oligarchy more extreme than any in our history. A more extreme solution may be needed this time too.
This is the 4T of today, which has started in the same way as the last one, but without much action yet to resolve it. And it's true it will not likely be all about a foreign war, but both a smaller-scale civil war and smaller-scale foreign war are likely. They will both arise from the conflicts that have been building up over the last 40 to 50 years.
Bannon exaggerates the warlike nature of 4Ts, but he's just one actor and others will contribute to what actually unfolds, whether they know the S&H theory or not.