11-30-2022, 04:55 AM
Basically, take a look at the last 1T (late 1940's and the 1950's), adapt it for about twice the population and the irreversible trends of technology (cell phones and music CD's are not going away), allow for some technological change possible because real wages will be higher than in the previous two turnings, and you have the forthcoming 1T. Except for LGBT rights it will be more sexually repressive, with monogamy as the norm. The sexual revolution of the 2T will be repudiated. (The jury is out on abortion and contraception because the Bible-thumpers may still be powerful in some states).
Education will be more rigorous as a norm, largely because of the increasing influence of America's Model Majorities. I expect the intellectual smorgasbord of the 2T Multiversity to disappear as solid citizenship will become an objective. To that end I expect at least two years of liberal-arts education, highly-standardized so that the results will be predictable outcomes, to become the norm for all but dullards. Mass culture will be smarter, if insipid, reflecting raised standards for education.
3T ephemera will die. Most mass culture of the 3T seems made for morons. This, I hope, includes the Gospel of Wealth. If 1T religiosity is any indication of what awaits us, then look again at Fulton Sheen and Billy Graham. This 4T has had no new pop music on par with that of the Big Band era, but the cinema has been the best since the Golden Age of American cinema circa 1940. There's little else new from the current 4T to preserve.
Politics? Donald Trump will be widely excoriated. After he dies he will be the whipping boy for much that Americans despise in the past that they know. Much that establishes a new era of cultural, economic, and administrative norms results from excoriation of what is seen as despicable in recent times. An example: Americans might have tolerated Jim Crow practice somewhat longer had it not been for encounters with the more virulent Nazi racism.
A 4T is to no small part a struggle between stale 3T ways and the potential of a new 1T. When the 4T struggles generally come to an end, then what emerges is a 1T. I expect a 1T to clearly delineate what differences must be tolerated (differences between the Model Minority cultures and white nominal Christians who have similar economic and educational ways) and what isn't (any drugs "harder" than marijuana, street crime, and anything that violates the yet-to-be-established orthodoxy in business). Yes, I expect J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to survive, bur such will be an outlier.
Education will be more rigorous as a norm, largely because of the increasing influence of America's Model Majorities. I expect the intellectual smorgasbord of the 2T Multiversity to disappear as solid citizenship will become an objective. To that end I expect at least two years of liberal-arts education, highly-standardized so that the results will be predictable outcomes, to become the norm for all but dullards. Mass culture will be smarter, if insipid, reflecting raised standards for education.
3T ephemera will die. Most mass culture of the 3T seems made for morons. This, I hope, includes the Gospel of Wealth. If 1T religiosity is any indication of what awaits us, then look again at Fulton Sheen and Billy Graham. This 4T has had no new pop music on par with that of the Big Band era, but the cinema has been the best since the Golden Age of American cinema circa 1940. There's little else new from the current 4T to preserve.
Politics? Donald Trump will be widely excoriated. After he dies he will be the whipping boy for much that Americans despise in the past that they know. Much that establishes a new era of cultural, economic, and administrative norms results from excoriation of what is seen as despicable in recent times. An example: Americans might have tolerated Jim Crow practice somewhat longer had it not been for encounters with the more virulent Nazi racism.
A 4T is to no small part a struggle between stale 3T ways and the potential of a new 1T. When the 4T struggles generally come to an end, then what emerges is a 1T. I expect a 1T to clearly delineate what differences must be tolerated (differences between the Model Minority cultures and white nominal Christians who have similar economic and educational ways) and what isn't (any drugs "harder" than marijuana, street crime, and anything that violates the yet-to-be-established orthodoxy in business). Yes, I expect J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to survive, bur such will be an outlier.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.