04-20-2019, 01:58 PM
(04-19-2019, 06:20 AM)sbarrera Wrote: I think maybe this Crisis doesn't feel Crisis-y enough but there are signs:
Growing populism/authoritarianism
Culture has become bland/predictable
Extreme factionalism - basically we are in a civil war, just not a shooting war
And the demographic bust, if not economic bust
These seem to be weak tea. S&H defined 4Ts are times of structural change. Such change is fundamental, which means involving the base, or "root" of society. The word radical comes from the Latin word for root, as in striking at the root of the problem. That means the defining trait of a 4T is radical change to the institutions of society (a 2T in contrast would feature radical change to belief systems, but not institutions).
Changes in popular culture are not the stuff of 4Ts. Factionalism is the stuff of 3Ts, as is rising authoritarianism in both 3T and 4Ts (e.g. Mussolini 1922, Pilsudski 1926, Kai-shek 1926, Hitler 1933, Franco 1936 etc.).