01-09-2021, 04:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-09-2021, 04:46 PM by Eric the Green.)
(01-09-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:(01-08-2021, 02:20 PM)mamabug Wrote: New here - I was part of the very first 4th Turning forums many years ago, left when it started dying off. The events of this year have been bringing it all back. For reference I am an old, mid-wave Gen X'er on the libertarian side who is old enough to remember the end of the last Awakening and has seen first-hand how the country has changed around me.
It is clear to me that we are just entering the crux of the crisis period. The country is still roughly split 50/50 between two sides that both feel threatened by each others existence and it will only get worse now that one side effectively controls the media, Hollywood, academia, Wall Street, and all three branches of federal government. The crisis can't end until either one side is so thoroughly decimated that they no longer exist OR a social compromise is reached that purges the extremists on one end while allowing the rest to hold on to the social structures and values most important to them. For the former example, see Stalin literally killing any opposition. For the latter, see the end of reconstruction and beginning of Jim Crow. They extremely hyperbolic and hypocritical reactions to the events in D.C. on both sides illustrate that we are nowhere near a compromise.
Artist generations continue to be born until at least two years before the actual end of the crisis. The question is whether 2022 or 2024 is more likely to mark the end of it and the beginning of the high. How the administration in power handles dissent over the next 2-4 years will be the key to determining not just when the crisis ends but also what the high will look like.
Welcome back! You ask a good question, but one with no immediate answer. The Crisis continues, at least for awhile. So far, we've only dealt with a single demagogue, and he's only one of many crises (small 'c') that need attending -- as you inferred. 2022 is certainly the earliest. If you follow Eric the Green's reasoning, 2028 is more likely.
Yes, 2028, or 2029; I'm not sure which. Mr. Howe, the co-author of The Fourth Turning, says 2029. I think people here can look on Mr. Howe's determination with some respect, given that he and Mr. Strauss started this whole conversation.
What Tim suggests is also something I have suggested. Whether some kind of break-up happens remains to be seen. That decision will largely rest with the Republicans. They can continue to be deceived and loyal to their extremist ideologies and cults, or they can join in a center-left consensus dedicated to progress and solutions, which is what the other side of our divide wants and has tried to create for many decades, but which the right-wing has blocked for 40 years now.
We are entering the crux of the Crisis indeed. But the climax will not come until mid-decade. That is when Gen Alpha will start coming in. Gen Z starts in about 2003-2004.
The Crisis will get better, the more that the blue side gains control. 4Ts have never been resolved by both sides compromising. That is not how a 4T works. Our two sides currently cannot come together; one must be defeated. How violent that contest becomes lies entirely in the hands of the right-wing and the alt-right.
The right-wing does not now have the level of control that you say, mamabug. The filibuster is still in place and can continue to block any progress as it has done all during these last 40 years of stalemate and regression, whenever Democrats had any degree of power. The left does not control media and Hollywood to the extent you say mamabug. The right-wing still has many outlets, such as talk radio, Fox News, the podcasts etc. Most of the rest of the news media is non-partisan and fact-based. Academia as always is dedicated to a search for good education and research; it is non-partisan, except that since it is dedicated to truth and facts, it tends to go Democratic because that is where the truth and the facts are. Wall Street is certainly the headquarters of the right-wing oligarchy, which still effectively buys and controls the country thanks in part to the right-wing supreme court, which now can block any progressive legislation that it wants to block. The stalemate between the two sides continues, for now.
The crisis can only end when one side wins. If the blue side wins, we move on into a reasonable consensus that sustains some progress. If the red side wins, we slide further and quickly into banana republic status and the problems engulf us and leave us without any recourse. The break-up of the country may be the only way that both sides can win, if the red side can't be defeated.
In the previous Crisis that resembles ours, that is basically what happened; although the break-up only happened 12 years into the 1T, in 1877, when Reconstruction ended and Dixie was allowed to resume its hateful and oppressive ways. Our country remains divided this way to this day, and we face the challenge of what to do about this once more.