01-05-2019, 08:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-05-2019, 08:32 PM by Eric the Green.)
(01-05-2019, 08:04 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: People who stayed engaged beyond their generational time. I think they can be a beneficial influence, since they are the only ones to have already seen a turning before.
Conrad Adenauer (Missionary), basically re-created Germany during the last 1T.
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (both GI), did some tidying up after the Countercultural revolution in the early 3T. Although they represented the crudest type of Civic materialism, so I don't see them as good super-elders.
John Paul II (GI), led the Catholic Church throughout the entire 3T (1980-2005)
Benedict XVI and Francis (both Silent), Popes during the current 4T
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden (Silent). Influenced the Democratic Party during the current 4T.
Also, which boomers do you see as being super-elders during the 1T?
Reagan and Thatcher no indeed, and no good for "tidying up" the counter-culture too. Reagan was the lead suppressor of it starting from his days running for Governor of California (I know, I was there). Just my inevitable 2 cents.
But yes they can be beneficial, I agree.
I especially liked how a 93-year old veteran of the French Resistance helped spark the Arab Spring 2010-2011 era revolts around the world including Occupy Wall Street and the Bernie Sanders campaign with his short book Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!), a 32-page pamphlet authored by 93-year-old Stéphane Hessel
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/538792/summary
The old generation can do their best by keeping the original spirit of their youth alive and transmitting it again to the next incarnation of their archetype, as Hessell did. If they make it to 90, they can as Hessell did help to open the turning in which they came of age; thus Hessell helped launch the fourth turning in 2008-2011 which he hoped would keep alive the tradition he played his part in during the previous fourth turning in World War II.
So, the real question, especially for boomers, is what boomers will be super-elders in the next 2T, not the next 1T. Who cares about a 1T anyway? Boomers don't. They care about a 2T. We've been in a stagnant 1T-like condition for 40 years now. We need a new 2T pretty soon. Prophets are supposed to be disappearing but not absent in a 1T.
Lack of fortitude, disciple and character seem a problem for boomers, once often spoiled in childhood and materialistic in middle age. So who will the super-elder boomers be? Besides me, maybe? Well, let's see: who has not been burned out by the first 2T so much, or by the obesity epidemic later, so that they can still make it to the next one? Late wavers, probably, like Terry McAuliffe and Mitch Landrieu. They are healthy and vibrant. Bill McKibben, leader of 350.org. Climate change is going to be around a while; he'll be needed. Leaders in the environmental climate movement also include Al Gore. Ellen DeGeneres seems like a good bet, and Oprah Winfrey. Bill Gates is rich enough to keep himself young if he wants to, but he's not exactly buff and brawny. A number of other boomers also have led the way with the new high tech, such as Berners-Lee, Schmidt, Wozniak, etc., and are still influential. Barack Obama is an Xer by S&H dating, but he seems like a good bet.
That's a good question, food for further thought. They probably won't live much longer after 90; Mr. Hessell died soon after his sensational best-selling tome.
Looking through this list is a good start,
http://all-quote.com/a/baby-boomers-who-...est-impact