11-27-2019, 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-27-2019, 09:58 PM by ResidentArtist.)
I'm probably in the minority here, but based on my perception and personal experiences, I think the 4T began with 9/11 and deepened with the Great Recession. It's sort of like a reverse of the previous crisis, which started with economic depression and deepened with Pearl Harbor.
Just because not everyone was affected by it (as I've seen suggested elsewhere) doesn't mean the event wasn't a catalyst that changed the national mood. Remember that not everyone was personally affected by the Boston Tea Party in the Revolutionary Saeculum either. The Intolerable Acts which resulted from it were targeted at Massachusetts, yet Strauss and Howe cited it as the beginning of that crisis. It produced enough national fervor that independence started to be considered as a serious possibility.
That the mid-2000s seemed to have returned to 3T normalcy is also not necessarily evidence of a start date of 2008. It isn't uncommon for crisis eras to cool down in between before things get bad again. This is evident by how just four years after a triumphant victory at Yorktown, a Constitutional Convention was needed to prevent the new nation from falling apart financially and politically. Even in the Great Power Saeculum, there is a period of time during FDR's presidency where unemployment drops from nearly 25% in 1933 to a figure of 14.3% four years later, before the recession of 1938 and World War II's start revived troubles.
Thirdly, many later events aren't as separate as one might think. The economy was already being strained by the trillions being spent on two wars being waged in the Middle East and likely worsened the Great Recession. What's more is that 9/11 and the instability it caused led the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates from 3.5% to less than 2% by the end of 2001 to boost consumer confidence, fueling economic bubbles along with them. When they increased again in 2005, so did mortgage prices. 9/11 therefore ramped up the Recession and snowballed into the numerous other effects of that meltdown.
While that day is not clear to me, I do remember certain elements of the aftermath. My childhood school used to play Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" every morning, although I didn't see the context of it until later on. It just seemed like something we always did as Americans, so we took direction first and asked questions later, much like how Fourth Turnings go down. It ultimately goes without saying that 9/11 fundamentally changed the national aura into one driven by a sense of urgency. Isn't that what the start of the 4T does?
Just because not everyone was affected by it (as I've seen suggested elsewhere) doesn't mean the event wasn't a catalyst that changed the national mood. Remember that not everyone was personally affected by the Boston Tea Party in the Revolutionary Saeculum either. The Intolerable Acts which resulted from it were targeted at Massachusetts, yet Strauss and Howe cited it as the beginning of that crisis. It produced enough national fervor that independence started to be considered as a serious possibility.
That the mid-2000s seemed to have returned to 3T normalcy is also not necessarily evidence of a start date of 2008. It isn't uncommon for crisis eras to cool down in between before things get bad again. This is evident by how just four years after a triumphant victory at Yorktown, a Constitutional Convention was needed to prevent the new nation from falling apart financially and politically. Even in the Great Power Saeculum, there is a period of time during FDR's presidency where unemployment drops from nearly 25% in 1933 to a figure of 14.3% four years later, before the recession of 1938 and World War II's start revived troubles.
Thirdly, many later events aren't as separate as one might think. The economy was already being strained by the trillions being spent on two wars being waged in the Middle East and likely worsened the Great Recession. What's more is that 9/11 and the instability it caused led the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates from 3.5% to less than 2% by the end of 2001 to boost consumer confidence, fueling economic bubbles along with them. When they increased again in 2005, so did mortgage prices. 9/11 therefore ramped up the Recession and snowballed into the numerous other effects of that meltdown.
While that day is not clear to me, I do remember certain elements of the aftermath. My childhood school used to play Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" every morning, although I didn't see the context of it until later on. It just seemed like something we always did as Americans, so we took direction first and asked questions later, much like how Fourth Turnings go down. It ultimately goes without saying that 9/11 fundamentally changed the national aura into one driven by a sense of urgency. Isn't that what the start of the 4T does?