I'm a sceptic that the 4th Turning started in 2008

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-03-2020, 02:01 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: Mike, I would like to make an apology of sorts. When I asked, why are you here on this forum if you believe S&H generational theory is “discredited,” I should have posed it more generally to everyone on the forum. I had hoped the question would serve as a jumping-off point for a deeper dive into the validity of the theory. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you don’t have the right to participate in this forum even if you dismiss the theory out of hand, which maybe you don’t.  Honestly, I’d love to see some techie wiz set up a poll to see where the members—be they posting freaks or “eavesdroppers”—currently stand as to their level of confidence in the theory, now that 23 years have passed since its publication. That might be particularly revealing as we await a new book on the subject by Neil Howe in the not-too-distant future.

So glad you asked.  Actually, I had half written in my own my a response to the questions you asked Mike from my own perspective, but an invitation never hurts.  

I think something is going on.  Certain things in S&H resonated more than others, though.  I like that cultures tended to be traumatized by crisis wars, and would not tend to start another while the previous was in living memory.  I was not enthralled by some of the more esoteric childrearing aspects, and let those pass by not commented on by me.  I also saw it as a loose theory, where exceptions ought to be expected, and exact clockwork not.  Things like the civil war anomaly and the two intense world wars close to each other are going to happen.  You knew if things were in season and apt to happen in a given time, but you usually don’t pull out a stopwatch and make specific predictions counting on clockwork precision.  There is still room for unfolding history to surprise you.

So there are times when I will defend S&H orthodoxy vehemently, but a lot of the time I expect a lot of loose give.

I also think most of the author’s observations took place in the Industrial Age.  There was a pattern they saw which was valid then.  Religious revivals in the awakening.  A big time values change happened in the crisis.  A crisis war was usually featured the crisis.  There was always someone who believed themselves militarily superior waiting on the slightest excuse to start things if the last crisis war was not in living memory.

But the Industrial Age was then.  The Information Age is now.  The patterns of civilization are different.  There is no reason to assume the Information Age observations will remain valid.  One might expect a new pattern to emerge.  Sitting at the beginning of a new age, one must try to find a new pattern without having enough repetitions to be sure of the new pattern.

Simply put, nukes and insurgent wars have made war much less cost effective.  This results in the elites discouraging leaders who want to start something.  In theory terms, this results in few to no crisis war triggers among the major powers.  The existence of nukes makes everybody reluctant to confront another major power.  As a result, we are permanently traumatized, almost like the last crisis war was always in living memory.   The crisis is thus no longer the prime time for values shift.  The awakening - through protest, non violence and legislation - is now the primary time for large cultural shifts.

At least, that was the theory I was working on when COVID 19 hit.  COVID 19 seemed the perfect Information Age trigger.  It hit the old values hard.  If you try to go all small government, ignore the science, wish the problem away, it would kill you.  It would force the sudden value change that usually happened in the Industrial Age only with a crisis war.

Suddenly, in an age when crisis triggers were supposed to be rare to non existent, we had a crisis trigger.

Or two triggers.  We seem to be dealing with two issues at once, the other being violent police racism leading to Black Lives Matter.  Now, this one is much more an Information Age thing.  You have protest, non violence, and solution through legislation.  You have progressives seeing a flaw in the culture that ought to go away now, and conservatives thinking it is not a flaw but a feature.  This belongs in an awakening, not a crisis.  It is awakenings which transform the culture during the Information Age, not crises.  (So declares the old prophet.)

So….  I am confused.  The Industrial Age pattern seems to be going on by inertia.  We have our crisis trigger after all.  But the Information Age pattern seems to be looking to emerge.  We have versions of both patterns attempting to emerge at the same time.

Did S&H foresee all this?  Nope.  Did they invent a language which is very useful to describe what is going on?  That much credit they deserve.  Do I bow and worship every letter of The Theory?  Well, no.  Will I attack variations on The Theory which exaggerate or predict violence in the modern period?  Yep.

Anyway, that’s where I am at.  Confused.