05-24-2018, 06:59 PM
(05-24-2018, 06:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(05-24-2018, 03:48 PM)TheNomad Wrote:(05-24-2018, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(05-24-2018, 12:50 PM)TheNomad Wrote:(05-24-2018, 03:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It's good to see your comments on the forum, Nomad.
We are where we are, as I see it, because the wrong decisions have been made for too long. In the end, it is not about ideology. It is about what works best for the people. Right now people in the USA are polarized. Many people on the right and some on the left are dedicated to their ideology and don't see the real needs. Compromise has just not been possible. The first turning, which is really not a "high," but more like a spirit-dead phase of recovery from trauma, is not going to come without first going through the gauntlett and facing the fire. There are no victory celebrations and placid conformity to the consensus until the victory has been won.
The track record of the american/anglo-european saeculum in avoiding major war in a 4T is not good. I hope it will not be a holocaust; I don't think it needs to be. But the issues like climate change and the lack of opportunities for many people will not wait. If those who want to take action can't break the stalemate and act on the real issues, and defeat the opposition, then the problems will just get worse and there will be no first turning. It can only come after some real action has been taken and the opponents to action have been defeated. Defeat for the stand pat opponents, the Republicans, will be best if it is defeat at the ballot box. But if it doesn't happen, bullets will fly, and the outcome may not be good. We do have a good track record of victory in 4Ts; the progressive side has always won the war and we have moved forward; not solving all the problems, but solving enough of them so that we can move forward as a nation and not fall into decline and decay. The left/right paradigm is definitely not a lie, but at bottom it is about solving real problems, not just about whose ideology wins. And it's in 4Ts that the victors are able to make real change and get things done, not in 1Ts. A first turning will just see continuation of what is started in the 4T. The way to get through the 4T and into a 1T, is to face the need for the battle and get involved.
4Ts are not times of compromise. The battle has barely been joined in this one yet. So there's no prospect at all of a first turning starting soon. It won't start until 2028 at the earliest, and even then, the first turning will still see more controversy and activism than the previous one did, along with more consensus than in the 4T. And then a second turning will follow in the late 2040s, bringing today's issues to a climax and fulfillment of purpose.
Thanks, this was a good post. Forgive, I am slightly ornery just now from being sick.
I do not think there has been a history of a 1st turning not happening. From the authors' perspective, the only thing ever skipped was a Hero archetype after the Civil War. O but wait... does that mean 1st turning High was skipped? I haven't been able to understand that one.
I say right/left paradigm is a lie because no matter what anyone thinks, BOTH sides in the Prophet archetype ONLY want their ideology to win. They never care if there is real progress. To say that isn't so is just untrue. We can think one side is the villain, but the authors don't say that at all. They wrote it isn't the ideology that's the problem but pigheaded people in general who have no facility to compromise.
^ sure, I have a hard time with that. I think about how one side when had almost full power was able to pass a healthcare bill and a FEW other things. But when you look at it, there really are many, many Americans who did not want that. For me or anyone to invalidate their view as "wrong" is simply to put on the Prophet hat and get ready to rumble. I think that is why things are not happening.
You said: The first turning, which is really not a "high," but more like a spirit-dead phase of recovery from trauma, is not going to come without first going through the gauntlett and facing the fire. There are no victory celebrations and placid conformity to the consensus until the victory has been won.
In response to that, I really really get that.... and I too have been expecting much worse to come. However, when I put your above into my thoughts and really link up to the events that have already happened, I have to say there was a gauntlet already. I've named them several times and they fit the models laid out by the authors. It just has not been as extreme as I expected. Then I think if I was expecting such an extreme thing because of paying mind to people like Alex Jones or Rush Limbaugh (2 sides of the same blow-hard diatribe). Both of them boomers, both of them pandering to the boomer desire for a House Targaryen Fire and Blood scenario.
You say no victory celebrations and placid conformity until the victory has been won....... and while that does fit with a VJ-Day scenario where mass impregnations happened where the beginning of the boom could be denoted to even the specific day! But what about a softer reboot? Why does it have to be SO drastic? Not all turnings are the same. I am still holding onto 911+Financial Crisis=4th Turning of the 21st Century. But I may be wrong, it has happened before
You said: The track record of the american/anglo-european saeculum in avoiding major war in a 4T is not good.
I would like to hear more about this. Is there a model of this within the saeculum history? Like I said, I'm aware a Hero archetype was skipped after the American Civil War, but has there ever been a skipping of a whole cycle? Perhaps user MikeBert has information -- they had expanded on past cycles well.
You said: 4Ts are not times of compromise. The battle has barely been joined in this one yet. So there's no prospect at all of a first turning starting soon.
This is where I think it comes down to interpretation of the model. Nothing happens in one day. We do not simply wake up into a new turning. I don't think that can ever rarely happen. It does not become that suddenly there is compromise where there was not. Or suddenly Boomers die en masse and that solves things. It is all fluid. At this point we are debating between 5 or 10 years away. But I'd like to know exactly what indicators you base the 4th Turning on.
For me, the 2 main indicators from the authors are 1) a societal shift where outside institutions are transformed and the culture is dramatically different from what it was previously. 911 changed many, many things. Kids born after do not know you used to be able to wander in and out of the airport waiting for your family to arrive or leave. They don't know a time when torture of international prisoners or blank zones like Guantanamo was commonplace. They do not know a time when you can vanish in the middle of the night for being a Muslim and/or speaking your mind could be interpreted in a way that could bring you to jail for observation. We had several wars which transformed places like Iraq and forged new political friends or enemies. America became globally despised. Ties with other nations were ruined. On and on.
2) The same children do not/have not known an America where their parents or family were not (generally) struggling to make ends meet OR homeless OR having to move in with relatives OR not being able to exist on their own without family help OR generally.......... they do not know what it is like to NOT be in a Crisis. This same facet is an indicator of 4th Turning when the authors said wealth would evaporate at a moment's notice. Back in the late 80s, I recall specifically Tom Brokaw calling it "The Fleecing of America". So, it happens with both even-numbered turning - and much harsher in the 4th. I say again, do we truly realize how devastating the 2008 thing was? I was out of work for a long while. I struggled and had to rely on others. I know people who lost property (multiple properties) and this was unthinkable. People being forced to take roomates and live with cousins, those who lived somewhat "posh" lives on the California coast who became as vagrants wandering from one rental unit to the next with their families and ended up dying IN MONTANA or IDAHO. Does anyone remember the BED BUG crisis on the east coast and south in around 2012?? From the displaced thousands who were cast out and staying in motels?
All of this, and we are expecting more Crisis? All I can say is I hope you are wrong. WHEN does the upswing start? When we say "2028" what does that look like? Are people suddenly cooperating on that date? Where is the time for transition? If we say 2028, there will be ARTIST archetypes already starting families and in the workforce, Nomads will almost be out of the game in every respect. It seems really late to me.
I've said rump is an aberration. The neocon cloud cannot assume power. Why? Not because I said NO but because there just isn't more time for that nonsense. People are saying the whole calamity will culminate with Iran and mid-east / Persian war. I can buy that based on what I see in the news lately. But when I consider the saeculum model, there just isn't more time for that. If you think there is, please discuss what that looks like to you. What do you see being the last calamity(s) for this 4th Turning? People like Pelosi and Feinstein are being openly accused of being too old to seek another term. I see the changes coming already. Those kids in Florida -- Heroes and Artists (who are in the model supposed to be helpmates) are already of voting age and they are armed with networks and technology with one voice. They will not ALLOW the government to put them in harm's way over assault weapons coming into their schools anymore. Their voices can only be expanded upon to read a sea-change in MOOD. I view that mood as having already changed. It seems you are saying it can only change after the Crisis. Well, I am proposing maybe the Crisis has already come and went.
You will certainly be disappointed if you expect the 1T to begin before 2028. There is no real basis to assume that the 4T started any earlier than 2008, since 9-11 did NOT change America in the way you say. It was business as usual at home, as we were told to go shopping, and war was limited to some stupid MIC invasions in which most Americans did not materially participate. And given the slow pace of the needed domestic change until now, making our age almost an exact repeat of the 1850s, there is no basis to assume that the real crunch time isn't still ahead. We have not come to terms at all yet with the issues that threaten our nation. How could we enter a 1T then, that would be any different from a prolonged 4T?
The change in mood you mention above is exactly what I see too. That is a willingness among young people to stop with the apathy, and push for change. They are ready to rumble; to "fight for our lives" and "rev up the engines" (quote from Ryan Deitsch, Parkland student). This is definitely 4T stuff, because the resistance is still very strong too. It is highly likely to be the main issue that causes a civil war, secession and/or a rebellion by reactionaries on some scale. The economic problems you mention are exactly correct, and more fuel for the fire, because nothing has been done to change them. The steadfast resistance by the wealthy and powerful Republican corporate establishment continues, in order to keep the people poor and struggling. Their "freedom caucus" forestalls any action at all. Given these facts, change is going to ramp up; bet on it. 10 years of 4T rumbling is plenty of time for lots of conflict to occur. Why would you not see that? If there's good news from me, it is that the worst of the economic crisis happened already starting in 2008. I expect a fear-arousing recession next year, but if anything, the 2020s will be boom times. The crisis will be political and cultural, centering on guns, climate change, and the economic inequality and free-market nonsense that keeps most people struggling and endangered despite a recovering economy.
It looks like to me that by the mid-2020s, there could be domestic and foreign war at once. The bright side is that I expect both to be less severe than previous saecula. But the terrorist threat still exists, and the American MIC still exists. Drump is not necessarily an aberration. He is the climax of reactionary trends that have developed over the last 40 years. He has instituted trickle-down economics on steroids, and stirred up the race war on top of that. His foreign policy of bullying others will not work, and will keep the conflicts bubbling. Due to my own cosmic sources however, I think we will emerge from his term without the USA itself actually going into a major war. That is because of the war cycle that I see. The USA is war weary at the moment, but by 2025 I see the USA engaging abroad again.
2028 is right on time for the next 1T to start, unless it is postponed further. There will still be plenty of boomer leaders around, since there are still plenty of Silents around during this 4T even half way in. The nomads will still be the largest leadership group, with millennials starting to take over. At the end of the last 4T, early-cohort artist-archetype Silents were already involved in the war. That is nothing new. The saeculum is 82+ years, not 70-something. 1946 + 82 = 2028.
I think the entry into the 1T will be less sudden than it was after the clear victory in 1945. Even then, there were lots of strikes in 1946, so that tranquility was still not so clear-cut. There was anti-communist hysteria too. But it was farily decisive. I expect the transition to take a year, and even then, lots of activism will continue. But it won't seriously threaten or disrupt the system after 2029, and needed changes started in the 4T will continue, along with more tech progress than we have seen since the 1960s. Be sure and not speak of the 1T as in any sense a ramping up though. It is a slowing down. After the 4T, the mood is more conservative than during the 4T climax. Expect most big changes to happen in the 2020s.
I mentioned that major war usually happens in the 4T. The weakest 4T war was the Armada Crisis; that was brief and easily won. All other 4Ts involved long, deadly, grueling total wars: the Wars of the Roses, King William's War, the Revolution, Civil War and World War Two. My hope is that, like in Elizabethan times, we are in a Renaissance period of upswing in civilization, so that the conflict may look more like the Armada Crisis. The reason a first turning has always happened, is because victory for the progressive side happened. If it doesn't happen this time, such a first turning as we get will be nothing but a severe, prolonged decline with the people disillusioned and unable to act. It could happen, if as people say the USA has reached its peak and is now going to decline. I still have hope that the progressives will win and thus we will enter a first turning and continue to progress, because we are in a Renaissance stage in the cycle of civilization.
This is where I disagree with you: "I say right/left paradigm is a lie because no matter what anyone thinks, BOTH sides in the Prophet archetype ONLY want their ideology to win. They never care if there is real progress. To say that isn't so is just untrue. We can think one side is the villain, but the authors don't say that at all. They wrote it isn't the ideology that's the problem but pigheaded people in general who have no facility to compromise.
^ sure, I have a hard time with that. I think about how one side when had almost full power was able to pass a healthcare bill and a FEW other things. But when you look at it, there really are many, many Americans who did not want that. For me or anyone to invalidate their view as "wrong" is simply to put on the Prophet hat and get ready to rumble. I think that is why things are not happening."
Boomers are prophet archetypes, and prophets are a divided generation. It is divided now between blue and red. The blue side cares about real progress, which the Affordable Care Act was an example of. No, we want real progress; that's why we support health care reform. The people and even business wanted it, but the red side stirs up opposition with their trickle-down free market rigid ideology. THAT is exactly what needs to be defeated. The Paul Ryans and Donald Trumps must go. Only if free market economics is defeated, can we progress. Compromise is not 4T, according to the authors; it is 3T, and it fails. Prophets and Xers too may be pig-headed, but the authors state that one side DOES win, led by a prophet group of gray champions. They are champions because they fight the obstruction and win. Don't knock the prophet archetype; it is part of the cycle. 4Ts are times for heroism and victory, not meek compromise with evil. Do not be deceived about the nature of today's opposition to progress. The red side is evil, and must be defeated. The way around that is not for Democrats to keep compromising and aping the ways of the Reaganoids. Not at all. The way around this is to mobilize and break through the 40-year stalemate with a victory for progress. The "rumble" IS what's happening. Compromise with people who don't want any change, so that nothing changes, is not the way to have things "happening." There is NO way around this. The only way forward is to bust our way through. Compromise is possible among today's "moderates" and many (but not all) leftists, but NOT with the dedicated obstructionists (who are not just prophets, but even more now composed of nomads). Either you are on the side of progress, or not. Which will it be, Sir Nomad?
Much of what you say makes total sense. I always have seen the notion of "dealing with our problems" as the initial phase of the 1st Turning or LATE in the 4th. You say there will be a boom in the next few years, but you also say a recession next year? The transition period from Crisis to High takes time. Like I said it doesn't happen immediately. Or how rump is the culmination of boomer nonsense, sure. But I do not see him lasting past the next full election. And I see his influence wasting away at the end of this year with the elections of lower stature.
There are lots of things you said to go word for word, but not necessary. I think we are not far apart. Even though you call certain people "evil" (while I agree, I am teaching myself not to do that because it's unproductive to the conversation). BTW when the CNN Hall happened and those people vilified the NRA woman, I felt that was unproductive and was a product of the PARENTS in the crowd more than the youngers. Those young people do not think that way except for the bombastic ones who stir up the others. I've noticed I have parts of each archetype in my attitude (so does everyone) and to survive and thrive in the present and future we have to choose to erase that rhetoric.
I agree democrats/left will begin to dominate and stay for a long period of time. Starting when? I think it will be sooner than people realize. I was surprised when it became clear the ARTISTS are even coming of age to vote at 18. That means ALL Heroes are able to vote now and Artists only are their "helpmate" and will bring this wave I am talking about. I think when I meditated on that, it forced me to re-examine my thought of the generational model as to where it is now.
4Ts are times for heroism and victory, not meek compromise with evil.
I get that. Seriously. However, I am selling a possible soft reboot here. That a soft reboot is what has happened, and since we all are expecting armageddon, we maybe cannot or are unwilling to accept it wasn't as hash as we wanted it to be.
Either you are on the side of progress, or not. Which will it be, Sir Nomad?
Of course I am for progress. I am also for really being willing to examine the generational model and make a "forecast" based on past events and trends instead of holding out for the apocalypse because I think that's the only way it can happen.
Much of your ideas are totally acceptable to me. Some maybe are not. 911 was so long ago now and flushed from memory due to trauma, we maybe cannot remember what it was like and how much our civilization has changed. I can only think that in 2000 I visited Boulder Dam and made a joke in a crowd that I should "leave my nuclear device outside". Only a year later, I may have been whisked off to a secret prison to be interrogated for that one simple joke. When, I drove into work on 911 and then was ushered by a loudspeaker out to the parking lot with hundreds of co-workers to be filmed during the national anthem. Some friends of mine purchased flags for their car windows...................... flying tattered in the wind into ashes. Flags on the side of their homes, people who did not agree with the war(s) were extricated to the side and labeled treasonous. Young men and women shipped off to the slaughter in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. And you say "it was nothing?" Me thinks you have forgotten how that event restructured America. Plus, we have a whole generation of people alive now who have no idea what it was like to actually go into any airport and wait for a friend without being strip searched. The "shoe bomber". A WHOLE GENERATION OF PEOPLE WHO KNOW AND EXPECT THEY WILL HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR SHOES IN THE AIRPORT. The Patriot Act. All the rhetoric and laws that came with it which are almost unchangeable now. We've had no terror attack since that, yet, all this nonsense remains in place. And I know someone here will say "we haven't had an attack because of the "nonsense". w/e
I'm asking you to consider that instead of America becoming a wasteland of humans foraging for food in a nuclear winter that maybe it is possible the reboot was not as cold as you'd maybe like it to be. Because in all honesty, you do sound like it's a sort of fervor. I see that in a lot of people, they once looked for biblical prophecy to tell them the End was Nigh, then when all that becomes ludicrous, we look at S&H and pick up the thread there. And I will go so far to say that S&H are fearmongers of a sort themselves with these books. However, I sense they did it as a marketing ploy. I don't know who would purchase such a supposed DRY book about generations unless there was some sex factor like a fiery flaming end.
I think that in saying that the wars domestic and foreign will be less severe and not armageddon or holocaust, that I am not doing the boomer thing you suggest. Many others in these forums believe things will be much worse. From the resistance to change I see, I can't see that it's anything but a brick wall that needs to be punched down. I don't think it's because I want it that way; it's been that way for 40 years, and increasingly so. And it seems to me that a crisis of the kind that S&H predicted will happen because of it.
I don't think the airport thing is anything but an irritant. No I certainly don't think 9-11 changed America. It was an excuse for the military industrial complex and "neocon" war mentality just to continue as it had been before the Cold War ended. It was business as usual resuming, not because boomers wanted it that way, but because the MIC wanted it that way. And there are wars in all turnings; a 4T war has been a total war fought with the intent of gaining unconditional surrender; Iraq and Afghanistan were not that.
I totally get that you don't want to call the other side evil. Rhetoric can be a problem, but I have never subscribed to the idea that it's the main problem. If people are determined in their actions solely by reaction to bad rhetoric, then they are not paying attention. It's the problems themselves that are the problem, not how we talk about them.
I'm sure we want a lot of the same things. There will be plenty of people in America who do so that a consensus will eventually develop, but more new folks have to come on the scene and older ones leave, and a lot of the folks resisting change will need to be convinced or forced to stop resisting and cooperate instead of being so attached to the ideologies they hold: free market, religious right, etc.; a resistance that unfortunately makes a crisis necessary that hasn't happened yet.
I don't buy that today's 18-year olds are artist archetypes. I know David Hogg calls himself a millennial, and so do the others. Only the 14-year olds are artists. We can disagree about that though, and that's cool. I just see no basis for speeding up the saeculum. It is 82 years long, and is proceeding just as I predicted. We can't always get what we want. The 4T may not be as severe as some fervent boomers or others want, but it may not be as quick and easy as you or some others prefer either. I don't quite understand why some S&H followers somehow think the saeculum will suddenly speed up and go by faster than they said it would, especially in regard to the lynchpin of the whole cycle, the great crisis that returns every 80+ years. We ain't seen nothin' yet.
The seeds are being planted for a 1T, because the possibility exists now that a millennial surge supported by older folks in positions of power facilitating it will establish the moral and political tenets that will power to victory in this 4T, and be the foundation for the 1T consensus to come. That was no different from what happened with the declaration of independence, or the reaction to the Dred Scot decision in the abolitionist movement, or the New Deal and the reaction to Pearl Harbor. Lots of fighting was still ahead, and it's ahead of us now, just as the students at the March for Our Lives rally say.
So describe the continued Crisis as you see it. Who is involved at all generational levels, what exactly will be the war of unconditional surrender, who fights in it, by what mandate do you see people sending millennials and artists into the woodchipper, etc. Fighting as you describe it mean these people are going to sign themselves up and their protective parents are going to let encourage and support them. Remember, Nomads are too old to be fighting this war, the one thing I learned about Heroes is they do not get sent down the drain under any circumstance.
Artists are 18 right now if you keep the bracket at 2002. Born after the beginning of Crisis, never knowing what it was like prior to the Crisis, coming to age IN the Crisis.