(04-20-2018, 01:03 PM)Another Xer Wrote: Even though we are well into the 4T, defining it can be a hard thing. This isn't a new phenomenon, after all, in 1862 the Confederates thought they were the future. When thinking about how to interpret the current 4T I find it best to start at the ending. That seems counterintuitive, except that the ending may be the one thing we know. We can't even agree on when the 4T started (I tend to think Hurricane Katrina, give or take a couple years). But the one thing we know is this - the big winner of the 4T will be the Milleninals.
We all have our ideas of how the Crisis will play, and until events turn something in flux into something inevitable and irrevocable, how we see it likely to happen will fit our chosen narratives. Hitler could never have predicted that he would blow his brains out as the Soviet Army closed in on his dank bunker. Tojo would have never predicted that he would die dangling with a rope around his neck. We now look at history and see Hitler having doomed himself by attacking the Soviet Union and Tojo having doomed himself by ordering the Pearl Harbor attack. We also may recognize that the bleak prediction of Churchill of what a bleak world would follow a Nazi victory that seemed so nigh would itself fail. No -- Hitler thought that by defeating the Soviet Union he could effectively defeat the tough nut to crack in Britain, and Tojo thought that he could prevail in eastern Asia only if he knocked out the United States.
We don't know what the 'right side of History' is until History shows what that 'right side' is. One of the darkest of Christmas carols, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", reflects the despair of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at a series of horrible events (including the death of his wife in a fire). But ultimately
"The wrong shall fail,
the Right prevail!"
With an obvious change, it could apply as easily to the Second World War as to the American Civil War.
Quote:We know this because a key component of the Generational Theory is that the future is shaped by the Hero generation coming of age. That's the Millennials. The patterns of behavior following the Greatest Generation (GI) are already being established. The Greatest Generation started becoming a force in electoral politics early in the Great Depression. All signs are pointing towards increased activism from a Millennial Generation of which, only 29% think the country is headed in the right direction (link below).
It's not that simple. A Civic generation is unlikely to establish a firm purpose for a Great Struggle. That is usually for an Idealist generation, like those whence came Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams in the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln in the American Civil War, and Churchill and FDR in the Second World War. Such comes from the struggles over ideas, principles, and cultures in an Awakening Era as only Idealist generations can make sense. Likewise, wet-behind-the-ear young adults are not yet the administrators and entrepreneurs needed for ensuring that the logistics of the Great Struggle be solved. The Millennial generation, like the GI Generation needs guidance
-- and a material basis for executing the orders of older adults.
Quote:So where are the Millenials taking us? For starters, Millenials are only 55% white, so expect the future to accept much more diversity. According to studies, Millenials believe in education and place lower value on traditional roles of marriage and family. About 1/3 of Millenials say faith plays no part in their lives. Politically, 57% of Millenials view themselves as "Consistently or Mostly" Liberal while only 12% call themselves "Consistently or Mostly" Conservative. 27% approve of Trump's job performance.
One thing is certain -- Donald Trump cannot be the anointed leader who sets an agenda that the Millennial Generation will fight for at the risk of their lives. I see Donald Trump as the worst vices of an Idealist generation -- arrogance, ruthlessness, and selfishness -- but without culture, education, or principle. Movement conservatism is little more than the endorsement of superstition, the rejection of any intellectual process that challenges that superstition, and a whole-hearted endorsement of class privilege at the expense of everything else. He reminds me of the worst Idealist leaders in American history -- the pre-Civil-War advocates of slavery who presented slavery as the best thing that ever happened to black people. Such people in essence see their harsh exploitation and regimentation of others as charity.
I am tempted to believe that the Millennial Generation will endorse marriage and family' once the world is no longer in supreme danger, and when society as a whole creates a pro-child environment that puts child-bearing and child-raising as virtues higher than hedonism, gain, and indulgence. So it was with the GI Generation. When life is a struggle for economic struggle, people get materialistic in the extreme.
Quote:Given where we currently are and the viewpoints of the Millenials, Trump and his supporters seem to have a very short window to change the opinions of the Millenials en masse. If they aren't able to accomplish that, it will likely be lights out for any effectiveness from the Trump Administration after the November 2018 elections. At which point, it is hard to imagine the Trump ideal winning the future.
https://impact.vice.com/en_us/article/gy...-than-ever
Civic generations like things rational -- easy to explain, easy around which to develop a consensus even among marginalized people, and easy to enforce. With Donald Trump, all is about his ego, his class privilege, and his self-esteem. That is emptiness.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.