(08-19-2021, 03:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know if the mood has brightened much during this 4T. Maybe a little as Biden's leadership is re-assuring after the Trump debacle. So, it seems in this saeculum that the 1T mood was brighter than in other saecula, because the USA was on top of the world, although cold war and nuclear fears were worrisome; but since then the mood has been a bit darker for longer than the graph indicates for the average archetypal saeculum. Perhaps with "Morning in America", initially the 3T saw an uptick in the national mood after the stagnant years of the late Awakening.
Well, like I said in the post, 4Ts are more complicated. 2010 to 2015 was a period of pretty steady brightening, at least in my memory. 2017 to 2019 was too, in a different way. I'd say 2015 was the last time I would have said I was personally optimistic about the future if you asked me (before learning about the saeculum in late 2020, obviously).
Of course, this is a personal view, influenced by my own lived experience, having never lived in a truly positive national mood. So a mood that seems "bright" to me may be absolutely dismal to those who experienced the 2T or even the early 3T (the "Morning in America" part of the 3T).
2001, a very artistic hero and/or a very heroic artist