Election 2018

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-29-2018, 06:53 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-29-2018, 05:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Most of the above people are clearly Industrial Age.  Thus, using violence as a solution would be expected.  FDR is the cusp figure, who faced a double crisis.  

Sorry to interrupt, but how do you define the Industrial Age?  Wikipedia claims it started in 1760 without specifying an end date. 1991 looks plausible, since it marks the end of Bolshevism, an ideology designed for industrial workers above all. Orion's Arm has 1700-2000, which looks way to simplistic for me. My somewhat heretical choice is 2006, when MySpace kicked in and "You" (anonymous Internet user) was chosen as Time's person of the year. This marks a cultural transition to the Information Age, but as our global economy still uses fossils as the main energy source, one could argue we are still in the Industrial Age.

I originally started to incorporate waves of civilization as a result of The Third Wave.  That book incorporates the Agricultural age as centering on muscle powered weapons, writing and domesticated animal power driving the first wave.  The Industrial Age is the second wave, centered on chemical weapons, the printing press and steam.  The author is concerned more with the Information Age as the third wave with nukes, computers and renewable energy.  In addition, you might count hunter gatherer tribes as a wave zero.

World War II with the first nukes and code solving pre computers might reflect the cusp of the end of the Industrial Age, and thus beginning the Information Age transition, but creation of the internet would definitely put the Information Age transition as starting.  As with turning boundaries, the border is somewhat hard to exactly pin down. 

Note is possible to agree the waves exist without believing in every aspect and theory of the author.   I also incorporate the concept of civilizations without accepting all of Toffler's A Study of History or Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.  They combine with S&H's turnings to form a triple perspective on looking at history.  You have to remember all three perspectives, and consider that an Agricultural Age civilization may be very different from Industrial Age or Information Age, and what might be true about America might not be true about the Middle East.

Turnings are short term.  Ages are much longer term.  Civilizations divide by area.  To make sense of history, you have to be aware of all three.

It is certainly possible to argue where to put a boundary.  One could also say that transferring to the Industrial Age civilization is a lengthy process, with rejecting slavery occurring well after the start of the Enlightenment.  Why should the Information Age be different?  I am looking hard at beginnings where you seem more concerned with mature benchmarks.  There is room for both so long as one admits the process is underway and exists.