07-21-2019, 01:42 PM
(07-21-2019, 11:12 AM)Mikebert Wrote: For the first point, the imprinting model already accounts for the phenomenon of elders staying active longer. Note the space between the predicted end of this turning (2022) and the last 2T (1980) is 42 years, whereas that between the previous 4T (1945) and 1980 is only 35 years. The 7 year increase in half-saecula length (14 years for a full saecula) is a direct effect of the older people still playing active roles. This fact does not account for how the current turning, although clearly a social moment, does not seem to be either a 4T or a 2T but has some characteristics of each.
My focus is on this social moment and other Crisis Eras as models. I would not use any Awakening as a model for what goes on this time. Note well that the Lost got very different treatment as elders. They did not live as long as the GI, Silent, and (so far) first-wave Boom. They were the generation around as the nursing-home business expanded wildly, and they were the first mass inmates. They were often sent there because younger generations were moving like crazy at the behest of corporate employers and were not adaptable to that. With generally lower education, they were less adaptable to change.
Part of the reason for their short lifespans was their bad diets (heavy in fats and sugars) and heavy smoking. The current image of the elder active deep into his eighties did not apply to them as it did to the GI generation, especially in the middle-to-late waves.
The wildness of the Boom Awakening/Conscience Revolution reflects that the Lost were largely cast-offs or drop-outs from public life if still alive. They are likely to be the last elder generation to be so treated.
Quote:For the second point all of your examples are coming from the recent saecula. The period when the 22 phase of life predicts new generations showing up too early refers to the ten turnings from 1435 to 1704.
I obviously have more examples on the last 200 years than on earlier years, and I consider myself daring enough by contemplating what went on in the 4T of Europe in the 1860s and early 1870s to the American Civil War. I did miss the end of the Brazilian monarchy and abolition of slavery there and I did miss the Lopez war in Paraguay. Maybe in 20 years we will be more concerned with the Awakening Eras than with the Crisis Eras. We must survive this Crisis Era as a civilization, if not as a nation, if an Awakening Era is to be possible around 2040-2050.
Youth may not be growing up economically as they once did; young adults laden with student debt may be slow to buy houses and other big-ticket objects and start businesses. The bureaucratic-plutocratic economy that we have ensures that the rich-and-powerful have first dibs on the economic cornucopia, and of course (to allude to Paul Samuelson) the princess' cat gets cream before the peasant's infant gets milk. Hardships and great responsibilities for the peons but unparalleled indulgence and soft rules for elites could be a recent revival that peters out or a norm that events freeze as a norm. We cannot tell whether the desire of elites or the needs of others will prevail this time; this Crisis will decide that for the next several decades.
Quote:As for the last point. Quite correct. This still could be a 4T its not over yet. But if a decade from now we still have the same situation, extreme polarization, ten more years of climate change with no action, perhaps another financial panic and continue lack of wage growth, it will not look like we had a 4T.
Another financial panic is likely because the cure for the last one did nothing to reform the politics and economic assumptions that made it possible and indeed inevitable. Economic inequality in America is approaching that of fascist dictatorships, plantation societies, traditional monarchies in which the royal families own the resources, and kleptocratic regimes. The rentier is king in the American economy -- and not the true entrepreneur and innovator. I see both Donald Trump (for incompetence and corruption) and Mike Pence (who would likely see a meltdown as Divine Judgment for abortion, same-sex marriage, and the lack of school prayer) as the worst sort of leaders in the event of such a meltdown. Dubya at least acceded to the Secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Obama stayed the course.
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.