06-29-2020, 10:14 AM
(06-27-2020, 02:41 PM)Mikebert Wrote:David Horn Wrote:Bob covered a lot of this already, but I'll still weigh in.
What really constitutes change? I'll agree that the nuts-and-bolts reforms take an inordinate amount of time, but the change of heart needed to get there happens more quickly...
No it doesn't in most cases. The change in mind is an evolutionary change that takes decades. Example: the 1964 Civil Rights Act granted rights to women they didn't previous had. In response women started to support Democrats to a greater extent than before. Yet it took 20 years for the change to full play out.
That actually makes my point. The change of mind (or heart, if that makes more sense) tends to be an emotional response, and tends to be quick. That it failed to produce anything immediately meaningful in the policy realm doesn't obviate that effect. Just because we know that something is wrong doesn't give us the needed insight to effect a real change. If anything, it's a bit disorienting and a case for introspection.
Mikebert Wrote:David Horn Wrote:You cite the last 4T, which has the unique benefit of being a crisis in a fully post-agricultural age. We went from 12 years of GOP dominance and laissez faire economics in the 1920s to a total flip of parties, and eventually philosophy, in 1932.
Similar sharp, long-lasting changes happened as a result all prior 4Ts except for the Armada. It's the normal pattern posty-1435. As you may recall Chaz Donald and I extended the Anglo saeculum back to the ninth century some years ago. The pre-1435 4Ts were not like the later ones. Only some of them show the sharp transitions of the later ones (such as the one you note about the last one). Perhaps that is part of the reason why S&H concluded that the saeculum did not seem to operate before 1435. Actually there are clear-cut awakenings all the way back to the beginning of the second millennium, but the 4Ts are a LOT harder to discern outside of a few that do feature the sharp change (Norman Invasion 4T and the Viking 4T).
We've been down this road before. Can a 'traditional' society, with strongly fixed roles and duties, really follow a pattern that requires a lot of independent thought to trigger and implement change? It's arguable both ways, since human beings are not automatons. It seems more likely in our modern world, since change is actually baked into the sauce. Today, nobody expects to live the life their parents lived. I assume that change will be more readily adopted in this paradigm than older ones. That's no the same as good and proper change. The potential for error is higher, if anything. If this was an engineering problem, it might be a case of too little damping on a change in process.
Mikebert Wrote:David Horn Wrote:For all of that, the public gave Roosevelt unprecedented support as he tried one thing after another. Yes, it was the war that finally resolved the problem, but the massive changes already existed before the economy was restored. Even the Lincoln era failed to grow government like the Great Depression era did. Government wasn't the solution, in and of itself. It was, however, the indispensable tool. The power of capital was enormous, and the countervailing power of labor was small in comparison. At that time there was no real consumer power. Capitalism had triggered the fall, and some other thing needed to fix it. In my opinion, that was the essence of the last 4T.
And capitalism is a big part of the problem now.
This pandemic is trigger. It does not have to lead to 4T-like changes. Last cycle we had lots of triggers, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1919, 1929, 1941, one about every 14 years. the 4th one began the process that created the structural change. This time we've had triggers in 1971, 1987, 2001, 2008, 2020, one about every dozen years. The first four didn't trigger the structural change that characterizes a 4T. Perhaps this one will.
What I am getting at is the generational aspect of the S&H model allows one to approximately date when triggers are supposed to trigger structural change. It eliminates the first two from consideration. Generational timing identifies 2001 and 2008 as the likely 4T triggers with 2020 really being too late. We now have 19 and 12 years of hindsight with which to evaluate what happened after 2001 and 2008.
Have there been substantive structural changes or efforts to solve the problems highlighted by the trigger?
How many Amendments have been passed since 2000? None
Has there been a major change in government structure (e,g, end of absolute monarchy, independence, conversion of a federation into a nation, six fold increase in size of the national state, rise of a dictator, establishment of a theocracy, etc.) since 2000? No.
Has there been a crisis war since 2000? No.
Has there been a civil war, revolution, or foreign invasion? No.
Has there been a critical election, or the appearance of a Skowronek Reconstructive president like FDR, Lincoln or Washington? No.
Things along these lines can still happen and likely will, but they will not have been triggered by events in 2001 or 2008. That ship has sailed. The new trigger candidate is 2020, unless a Biden administration is elected that surprises by being transformational, or Trump remains in power after January, making it 2016.
The point is a 4t start in 2016 or 2020 begins to stress the generational concept. particularly when you consider that there exists a self-conception among late adolescents and young adults that they comprise a new generation, GenZ, distinct from Millennials, whose first cohort was in 1996. This would firmly put the 4T start generation-wise in 2001, which subsequent events have ruled out as a 4T in terms of historical impact.
Your points are all well taken, but this era is also different in both the tools to affect change and the tools to resist it. There is a field know as perception management that exists solely to manipulate the thinking of people susceptible to being manipulated -- frankly, most of us. Originally developed for the Defense Department, this tool has been widely applied by people with the wherewithal to do so in support of their desire to continue as they are.
If we look back at how the previous triggers were defused and responses arrayed against each other, it's not surprising that it took something straight forward and devastating as watching a man die in front of us to overcome the ability of the manipulators to manipulate, though the RW talking heads are still giving it their best. I think 2008 was the real trigger, and the replay we're in now is making that clear. That said, I still have a hard time knowing where this goes beyond the 2020 election. Dems are notorious for dropping the ball.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.