Alternating 4T pattern explained

[pbrower2a]

(06-24-2021, 10:52 AM)galaxy Wrote: Inspired by a discussion in this thread, particularly this bit here:

(05-15-2017, 04:56 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-15-2017, 11:47 AM)Mikebert Wrote: I have so far never encountered a fully-satisfying explanation for why there should be two different kinds of "crisis" turnings or why they should alternate with each other.

Nor have I, but there is some evidence, thin though it is.  For the alternating 4T pattern to fit the generations model, where the absence of direct knowledge supports the slide into fatal events, there has to be an institutional element of some sort that bridges the gap then decays.  Since institutions are immortal until they are displaced by action (or inaction?), I would look there.  Nothing comes to mind though.

An alternating pattern of "good ending" and "bad ending" 4Ts does not require any mechanism or institution that spans multiple saecula.

The thing that causes a bad-ending 4T appears to be a lack of will, ability, or both to leave the 3T way of life.

So, consider:

good-ending 4T -> very powerful 1T (extremely peaceful, extremely conformist, etc) -> very powerful 2T (strong reaction against intensity of conformism) -> very powerful 3T (result of intense 2T) -> bad-ending 4T (society is too 3T-ish during 4T, failure to unify) -> weak 1T (more active, less conformist) -> weak 2T (just not as much to rebel against) -> weak 3T (society isn't quite so "awakened") -> good-ending 4T (society much more easily leaves the 3T behind).


I've said things to this effect in other posts (such as referring to the post-Civil War 1T as "reconstructing" and post-World War 1T as "reconstructed," and my thread about the distinction between 4Ts in which the country faces an external enemy and 4Ts in which the country battles against itself), but here it is fully articulated.


Thoughts?

The 4T that Howe and Strauss see as least successful for America was the Civil War Crisis. Yes, Abraham Lincoln was as good a leader as was possible, and America did abolish slavery. But the war happened early in the Crisis before there had been any overall unification of America. The Idealists split into two hostile camps intent on destroying the other. The Union side succeeded by breaking the Confederate economy. Maybe it was more humane to encourage slaves to flee to Union lines instead of staging slave revolts, but all in all the Confederacy starved into submission. When the soldiers run out of victuals and ammunition they are through. 

Analogues might apply to other countries. I look at the Russian civil war between the Whites and Reds. Both sides saw the other as incorrigible, evil causes (and such was right, as both sides were horrible) in part for having diametric views on how to organize society. Both were consummately ruthless, and set out to annihilate each other. The Crisis that began with the collapse of the Russian Imperial forces in 1915 and 1916 led to one revolution to overthrow the Tsar and his court, then the Bolshevik coup to overthrow a weak government that could neither wage war effectively not extricate itself from the war. Russia seemed to be in a 3T-4T cusp with a shaky social order split almost evenly between a Hard Left and a Hard Right. In between the Hard Right and the Hard Left were the moderate Cadet (Constitutional Democrats) and Social Revolutionary (the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party without the Bolsheviks) -- and those had too little support.