05-28-2018, 07:48 AM
(05-28-2018, 12:13 AM)TheNomad Wrote:(05-27-2018, 09:36 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The 1T begins when the winners consolidate their position in the world for the rest of their lives, and establish that people go along or become losers. This might be a low time for Humanity should the Crisis wreck the world. As shown in Franco's Spain, Mainland China, and most countries of central and Balkan Europe, it can be a time of crushing repression on behalf of those who achieve power.
It is a High if most things go well. The heroic Civic generation (Republicans after the American Revolution, the Gilded --sort of -- at least in the North they took over the Civic/Hero role, and GI Generation after WWII) establish the cultural and institutional norms for all. Confident (perhaps excessively so) after their great triumph, they show a love for doing things on a big scale. They are bland.
Shortages vanish, and people feel prosperous again. Children get a new birth of indulgent child-raising, nothing hardscrabble like that that the living Civic/Hero generation knew. (Think about it -- childhood for most GI kids was terribly deprived by current standards. GI adults made America much of what it is now even if they are no longer participants in making it what it is. That's a High.
A 1T can also be a mind-numbing nightmare of rigid conformity and dehumanization.
You said: A 1T can also be a mind-numbing nightmare of rigid conformity and dehumanization.
Boy am I aware of that. And as a Nomad who comes from a complete disdain for rigid conformity, I am ready for some. The times of wild rockers and rappers and a generation that looks like shit, fraks everyone and pierces everything, covers their body in ink, losers (lol) who smash xanax to snort it because they are bored.............. I'm ready for Donna Reed and even The Brady Bunch. It's a small price to pay for a generation of SUCK music and mass conformity. Speaking of music that sucks, I would swear that has already been for a long as I can recall. People who don't seek out the exotic have been getting the shaft in almost all respects of mass media.
The GIs liked their culture insipid, with bland crooners and the infamously-insipid "elevator music" that one heard on FM radio stations with the letters "EZ" in their call letters. That music took show tunes, TV themes, and rock top hits and gave them gimmicky orchestrations -- but apparently no violas in the string sections. It got very boring very fast if one knew anything about music.
This is to be expected of people for whom education was more technical and vocational in objective. Once they succeed, they will want better for their kids who will get to know more leisure. STEM education will give way to a broader base of learning, one that puts more emphasis on culture (including art, music, and literature). Maybe the next Boom-like Idealist generation will get more exposure to humanizing influences. The idea may be that smart kids who listen to Bach, read Dickens, and get field trips to see Degas paintings will be less amenable to extremist ideologies.
I have yet to hear great music that goes along with Crisis eras. Haydn and Mozart in their day were about as wildly popular as Big Band
music around 1940, and for much the same reason: they were really, really good and succeeded at every esthetic level. Today we rely more upon movies for entertainment, but those are getting better. Sure, Disney's Pixar Studios produces 'mere' cartoons -- but they are good enough that the whole family can see them irrespective of the level of intellectual sophistication. Disney also got a hold on Marvel Studios, which has been producing movies of a genre that I long held in disdain -- movies rich in special effects. But with good writing and story lines, my complaints about the lack of good writing and story lines -- or cardboard acting -- become irrelevant. Good example: I got to see Black Panther. which actually shows a largely-black cast in dignified roles of universal appeal. Don't get me wrong: there are and have been excellent African and African-American actors; the best movies involving predominantly-black casts have either been specifically about an exclusively-black world that is one of victimization that should never have happened, or about a world to which non-blacks cannot easily relate. In many cases the writing has been undignified and exploitative. so what might otherwise be good acting goes to waste.
Yes, writing matters greatly, which explains why 1939 was the "Miracle Year" for American cinema, and surrounding years were also very good. We may be seeing much the same now; if that analogy holds we may be approaching the final stage of the current Crisis Era. Of course the difference between this Crisis and the last one is between FDR and Trump.
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.