11-11-2020, 08:59 PM
(11-11-2020, 10:57 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: Some recent insights into Neil Howe’s thinking about the Fourth Turning:
U.S. faces a potential ‘secession crisis’ at home and ‘open conflict’ with China in the coming decade, says author who predicted 2020 unrest
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/enormo...2020-11-03
And this interview on Hedgeye TV with Keith McCullough:
Howe & McCullough: "The Fourth Turning: Navigating The Crisis In America" - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj5w7BimQJo
Howe drops a hint as to the focus of his next book: the globalizing alignment of his generational theory which, with the near-universal impact of COVID-19, will be interesting to see how he makes that case. He best hurry up, though, on the publication of his presumably updated book because events may be unfolding faster than he can research and write it. I’m guessing that he’s aiming for a 25th anniversary edition of The Fourth Turning, which would put the publication date sometime in 2022.
I would love to participate in his book. I have some insights outside the box, and I can do some research. Note also that the 35th anniversary of Generations is in 2024 (has it been that long?)
What must happen?
1. The interstate polarization in political results must weaken. It got more, and not less severe in 2020 than ever (ruling out the Southern states that did not have a meaningful Republican Party before at least the 1950's) since the run-up to the Civil War.
2. If we need the effect of a Crisis War, then COVID-19 is it. It kills like a Crisis War; it is killing Americans at least on the scale of World War II, and it is likely to kill for a few more months. COVID-19 has forced people to change their behavior or has put them at risk of severe consequences. The body count is at a level that Americans will not long tolerate. COVID-19 will change even American culture to reflect its devastation.
3. Americans must insist on extensive changes in their institutions. We are getting that as on-line marketing drives brick-and-mortar retailing (except for groceries and motor fuels, perhaps clothing and furniture) into oblivion. I can imagine JC Penney surviving -- on-line only. Sears will die. Educational practices will change as schools will have to go from preparing kids to take standardized tests to preparing them for citizenship. Neoliberal economics could approach the end of its shelf life. As is typical in the transition from a 3T to a 1T society goes from being a nation of speculators, the least astute of which are the last participants in the speculative bubble and get burned, to a nation of savers. With thrift as a norm, stewardship becomes a mandatory quality among those trusted with life savings. People accept lower yields in longer-term investments, but in return they get investments that make their lives better -- through better housing and more jobs.
4. Donald Trump is a big scare to a big part of the Establishment. He may have seemed useful to some would-be profiteers, but he has shown the hazards of his reckless disregard for human dignity, science, and social solidarity. Some people have learned a lesson in his uncomfortable approach to re-election. We are going to see institutional changes intended to make the improvement of students an objective of post-secondary education. Higher education has always been an elite phenomenon. That people like Donald Trump emerge from it can scare people once his sort can reach the apex of power.
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.