Homelanders: Mid 90s or Mid 00s?

[TeacherinExile]

(02-18-2017, 12:42 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-18-2017, 10:49 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: Okay, people, time out.  Go back and re-read the book.  Strauss and Howe laid out different markers for the beginning and end of the various generations, as well as different markers for the corresponding turnings that follow 2-5 years later.

In contending that Generation Z (or the Homelanders) began in 2001 with the 9-11 attacks, I for one am not saying that the Crisis turning began at the same time.  Quite the contrary.  It comes some years later after a new generation is born.

I was solidly in the not-2001 camp for a 4T start.  Now, I'm wondering whether we have some hybrid 4T start ... perhaps mimicing the ACW.  I've always beleived that the "anomoly" seen by the authors was, if fact, a bifurcated 4T start, and finish for that matter.  The warrior mood started earlier in the SOuth, and lasted later into the 1870s.  That may be a good model for internal 4Ts. 

We may get to see.  It seems that the country is split in several pieces, but the two dominant factions see the world through totally different lenses. 

• The conservatives of most stripes see us at a crossroads, where our physical safety and power need to be addressed, and nothing is too extreme in pursuit of those goals.  Most, though not all, in this camp are in the GOP or at least allied with them.  They are typically in the 2001 camp
  
• The liberals of most stripes see us at a crossroads too, but the challenges are social and, to a lesser degree, economic.  Mos of this group are in the Democratic camp to one degree or another.  Typically, they are in the 2008 camp.
  

So you have to ask: are these two groups even responding to the same stimulii, and, if so, are they in opposite camps that have been strangely uncorrelated until now?  If so, then the 4T looks very different to each group, meaning the resoution will have to happen just to know which vision succeeded as "the 4T".

I don't see a 2001 start either, but those who do, really see it clearly.

I follow your thinking here, especially your characterization of this fourth turning as a "hybrid" of sort.  Seems more complex as we go along: a "start-stop-start-stop" kind of crisis, owing perhaps to the many fiscal and monetary policies that the federal government can bring to bear--on the economic/financial manifestations of crisis especially.  As for the political polarization, I'm losing some confidence that the red/blue divide can be bridged.  More and more, Americans are choosing up sides, as if preparing for a cold civil war, hopefully one that doesn't devolve into a spiral of violence.  I wonder, how close are we to the flashpoint when one side or the other declares, "Enough talk, draw your weapon."?   (And we have plenty of those in military ranks and among civilians.)

Perish the thought.  We flirted with that in the Sixties and into the Seventies.  Some of us here remember.

PBS Newshour aired a segment that shows how (even within a state) the political divisions are stark:

"Between this vegetarian cafe and a ‘Trump’ cafe in Texas, a political chasm"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/vegetaria...cal-chasm/

Increasingly, we're talking past each other, shouting over one another, as if across the Grand Canyon.  I keep thinking that the whole Trump/Russia controversy will blow over, that Trump will settle in, get off the perpetual campaign merry-go-round, and get down to the serious business of governing.   One can hope...