What the next First Turning won't be like

[Eric the Green]

(01-12-2021, 12:43 PM)mamabug Wrote:

(01-11-2021, 11:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what groups or ideas you consider "totally reasonable and unobjectionable". You admit to being a "libertarian." I appreciate other views on a discussion board besides my own. Your posts are civil and idea-centered, and that's good IMO. But I admit that I don't consider libertarians to be very constructive these days. The word neo-liberal applies today to those who buy into Reaganomics. That means letting business do whatever it wants and lowering their taxes and cutting government programs, because "government is the problem." This approach has been in power for 40 years now, and it has failed. It is time for progress to resume after this 40-year regression back to the 18th century. Really, this is what today's political divide and all the noise amounts to. The issue you brought up about transgender people seems a distraction from facing it; a diversionary tactic at best.

I'm just going to respond to this point, not that your others aren't interesting I just feel that any discussion of them eventually boils down into the 'one screen, two movies' phenomena Scott Adams articulated.  Normally I'd say 'let's agree to disagree' but I'm pretty sure that option went away for all of us at the end of the 3T.     

Anyway, my 'totally reasonable and unobjectionable' comment was my snark coming out.  In a moral battle, everyone thinks their agenda is totally reasonable and unobjectionable, therefore anyone who opposes it must be evil and obstructionist.  From a somewhat objective standpoint, it is both funny and scary just how much the rhetoric and attitudes mirror each other.

On a side note - I recently googled the birth years of the people in the public arena I still listen to, all of whom tend to be thinkers that try to stay away from attributing moral failure to people as opposed to picking apart ideas for their good points and potential pit falls, and discovered that every last one of them was a Gen X'er.  Maybe that's why, when Nomads finally get dragged into the war, we end it so quickly.  We're the generation willing to compromise with the other side in order to achieve our prime objective at this point in our lifecycle - peace and stability for our Artist children.

Nobody thinks libertarians are constructive in a 4T. That's because, in the middle of the Holy War, we are the atheists.  Libertarianism asserts principles, a framework of ethics, and a model of how people, societies, and economies *actually* function that is wholly incompatible with a zero-sum, good vs. evil, utopia-is-nigh mindset.  It claims government is a necessary evil that, no matter the form, is structurally setup to incentivize corruption and rent-seeking and to perform every task it undertakes in the least efficient and equitable way possible.  In a 4T, the social desire is to use government to enforce conformity with the power of a gun in order to accomplish social change that could never occur as quickly if people actually had to sit down, talk to each other, and compromise.  Libertarians are the ultimate out-group and, thus, will eventually be up against the wall if an actual revolution comes.

Maybe Generation X members in power will achieve the kinds of consensus and compromise you envision. Some nomads have filled that role in past first turnings. So far though, they are the most militant right-wingers and scarcely different from right-wing boomers in that regard. The late boomers through core Xers are the most conservative generation according to voting and poll stats I have seen, which does not appeal to me. Xers have been very critical of boomers in ways that seem unfair to me, a boomer. Of course, some of the most outspoken critics of boomers, are boomers.

Just my views: I don't see government as necessarily evil. It often can be, and often is, if it is run by corrupt tyrants. The aim as I see it is to have a government run of, by and for the people, not the powerful or the privileged. Therefore many civil, political and social freedoms are needed, and checks on corruption; and most of all a politically-informed and active citizenry. Government is needed to keep the greedy in bounds, while libertarians tend to think it is better to let them ply their evil trade, resulting in unfair poverty and harm to the people and their environment. It is also desirable to lead the nation toward what is in its interest, through investments in enterprises that require long-term support that capitalists alone will not provide. Most of our industries depend on such investment at least as much as they depend on entrepreneurs. Government can also do much to lift people out of poverty and disease, and create greater equality. Taxes on big money are necessary for this reason, and even more because excessive wealth means excessive power by the wealthy. Their sails need to be trimmed. And overall I prefer that government spending is not wasteful, and paid for, rather than borrowed forever. A mixed economy is best; some publically-owned, and probably most privately owned-- but kept smaller than is the case today.