10-22-2018, 11:53 AM
(10-22-2018, 07:19 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Does Trump have any Idealist traits? I don't think so. His bully-style masculinity, hedonism and lack of interest in moral or spiritual issues seems Reactive to me. He is sort of Xer born too early. Actual boomers seem to despise him, while he is more popular among Xers.
Vladimir Putin and the autocrat of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko have very similar traits despite having been born in the early 1950s.
He is ruthless, arrogant, and selfish -- the Dark Side of Idealist generations as Howe and Strauss see it. He may be decisive, but he is decisively wrong. His vision is undeniably reactionary. His culture is populist schlock. He reminds me of Idealists at their worst: exploiters who demand to be seen as benefactors to those that they even have as slaves. If you wonder why the Southern Transcendental generation could make so fervent a defense of slavery, they were convinced that slavery was the best of all possible worlds for people who needed the firm and loving kindness of a wise master.
Contrast Obama, who is the better aspects of a Reactive generation -- perceptive, shrewd, and respectful of precedent -- without showing the greed, revenge-seeking, and cynicism common of young-to-midlife Reactive adults. As shown by the last three Reactive Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, and Obama) a Reactive leader can be very effective except at growing a power base. Obama and Truman at the least knew enough to let older Idealists do the moral preaching.
Trump is getting away with what a Reactive leader could not get away with unless the Reactive leader is a despot or tyrant. Fair, free, and competitive elections will test how desirable the Trump agenda is -- assuming that we get them.
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.