What's your generation and how would you change your government?

[Eric the Green]

(03-28-2022, 09:42 AM)galaxy Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 12:25 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(03-21-2022, 12:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Things won't be exactly the same next time around starting in 2029, but it'll be enough alike so that the cycle goes on. Well, at least unless and until it doesn't. We get off Reaganomics in the 2020s, or we don't turn the cycle.

Not necessary to turn the cycle. Though it certainly would make the 1T a whole lot better. 1Ts are under no obligation to be "the good times." We may be heading for a turning like Moldova's current one. It's not exactly cheerful, but it is still just as much a 1T as the US had in the 1950s.

I don't know about Moldova, I don't think it's on a separate cycle. Too small. However, the only place in the anglo-american cycle for 500 years that ever had a bad-times 1T is the American South, or "Dixie." It eventually got over this, to some extent (it is still an extremely backward region) because of the North's power to create the Great Power USA. But what a failed 4T will bring now will be the end of democracy, the end of our republic, the end of our climate, the end of our health, and maybe the end of peace. That will be a lot worse than no "good times." It will in-fact be the end of the cycle. Only societies that progress and develop have saecula.

Moldova is in a 1T, along with most of the rest of Eastern Europe. I pointed to that country specifically because it is by most metrics the poorest country in Europe.

I don't believe there is such a thing as a "failed turning." The turnings happen in their order because they are caused by generations, which are shaped by their life experiences. Turnings only describe characteristics, personalities, and responses. They do not describe events. Ukraine is currently being devastated by war. It is a country in crisis. However, it is not in a Crisis (4th) turning, which is made obvious by the fact that it is responding to the crisis in a very 1T way. The kind of total unity and remarkable calm that Ukraine has right now simply does not occur in response to a crisis, except during late 4T and early-to-mid 1T.

Maybe democracy will end in America by the end of this turning. Maybe the fight against climate change will fail, and maybe the 2030s will be a dark and violent decade. I certainly hope it doesn't happen that way, but if it does, the 1T will begin regardless. It will be a dark 1T, but a 1T all the same.

What's happening now in Ukraine and Eastern Europe shatters the idea that turnings are so different in different countries now. I don't buy it; we are a global society and have been increasingly so ever since the 1890s. Ukraine is in as classic a 4T turning as can be imagined.

A failed turning is certainly what this 4T is, so far. It can be turned around, and in fact this is typical of 4Ts; there's a whole lot of darkness before the dawn. But a saeculum can stop if a society no longer progresses. That is what it's all about, and the progressive side always wins a 4T. Or it stops, unless rescued by the winning side. But who will rescue America if it fails? It will in fact bring the whole world down this time.
You could describe this upcoming turning as a dark 1T, but it will never end. 2Ts cannot begin in darkness.

We now have policies designed to create a feudal society. Take that into deep consideration. The Dark and Middle Ages did not have turnings and saecula, because societies and generations did not change. There were no generation gaps and people did what their fathers did.

A feudal police state will not have turnings and saecula.

And that is what we will become if this 4T does not turn around and rid itself of neoliberalism aka Reaganomics economic theory.

Quote:

(03-27-2022, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 12:25 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(03-21-2022, 12:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The crisis mindset is increasing; perhaps that offers some hope.

The regeneracy has been reached, at least in some countries. Germany is probably the strongest example right now, but really it's happening all over Europe. There have been some faint signs of it here (for example, the partisan gap in Ukraine/Russia support is literally zero), but I'm holding off on declaring it for now, mostly out of a feeling of "if a pandemic that sent the nation into lockdown for months and only barely avoided completely overwhelming our healthcare system didn't start it, how can anything else?"

The pandemic added to our 4T crisis for sure. It rallied the nation in so far as those people who resisted the anti-vaxxers got their treatments. But the regeneracy began with the huge rallies against Trump, and in 2018 there was a rebirth of citizenship all across the country, according to Obama, because people knew that "this time's different." I hope you saw that Obama speech; it is seminal both for all Americans and for generations theory. It was FDR's speech saying "this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny" that inspired S&H books and thus this very forum. Obama's speech is the equivalent for this generation.
https://youtu.be/7hZgg_KjvDQ?t=2574

There was a huge movement against him, but was there really any change from that? A whole lot of people were very loud, and for good reason, but it didn't seem to affect the happenings of government much, nor did it affect his level of support, because of the absurd total devotion of his supporters. Nothing has really had long-lasting effect, anywhere, in this entire turning, until now. Looking at Europe right now, it almost feels like the 4T countries are "re-learning" from 1T Ukraine how to do quick and decisive action and how to deal with crises, breaking out of the long 3T stagnation/paralysis/apathy. The regeneracy begins in February 2022. I don't agree with John J. Xenakis and his World View threads much, but he was absolutely right about this: when a regeneracy event occurs, it is clear. There is no question about it.

Obama's speech was excellent (as are almost all of his speeches), but it's not going to leave a lasting legacy like the FDR speech. Obama was ahead of his time. I wish he had been the one tasked with defeating Trump in 2020 instead of Biden. It's becoming more and more clear as time goes on what an exceptional candidate he was.

The Obama speech had its lasting legacy, and that will be increasing civic responsibility by Millennials more able and willing to vote in midterm elections. This speech was right on time, and in fact in the same moment during the 4T as FDR's speech was.

Countries in a 1T do not unite to fight an enemy. 1Ts are placid and conformist but they don't make change and they don't fight. Ukraine is in a 4T if there ever was one.

The regeneracy started in 2017 with the movement against Trump. Obama mentioned it in his speech. But February 2022 could be another spike in it, to be sure.

Quote:

(03-27-2022, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-27-2022, 12:25 PM)galaxy Wrote:

(03-22-2022, 06:41 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: All those great Japanese video games are such precisely because they're on a different phase of the cycle than we are (or else, a different type of cycle altogether).

No, Japan is in a 4T. They're just good at making video games.

And 4T popular culture is often some of the best you'll find. I believe pbrower2a has posted several times about this, about how music and film from the 1930s and 1940s often still holds up very well today (which cannot be said for media of the 1T that followed). Perhaps in America the television of the 2010s, television's last decade before its death-by-streaming, will be remembered in the same way.

Maybe so for the previous 4T. Not for this one.

Current 4T culture is for a narrow sliver of young teenagers and maybe a few young adults. It has left me completely behind. The previous 4T culture appealed to people of all ages, and great culture always does.

I'll admit I'm not very attuned to current popular culture either, so I can't really speak from a place information or experience on it, but is it possible that someone your age in the previous 4T would have said the same? The word "teenager" was coined to describe the teenage GIs, after all.

No, I don't think so. The culture of that time appealed to all ages, although most of all to the GIs. And not just to narrow slices of them like the video game cults appeal to.