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

[David Horn]

(08-03-2020, 05:19 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: So here are the rhetorical questions I would ask anyone who cares to answer:

1. What attracted you to S&H theory in the first place?
   
2. What doubts do you have about the theory, with respect to either process or its conclusions?
   
3. What would it take to disabuse you of the theory completely (i.e., the dealbreaker)?
   

1. My initial introduction was a magazine article that lead to buying T4T. I read Generations later after joining the old forum in 2001. Like many on the forum at the time, I thought that 9/11 was the trigger to start the 4T, and only abandoned that after the response proved so totally out of character to the provocation.
   
2. I never believed that the mechanistic precision that was implied in T4T made any sense, and I still hold that position. I do feel that the underlying concept of different generational groupings having unique character and affecting history is valid at some level, but the character is an overlay on the entire generation, not on singular individuals. Since I never really accepted those premises, I guess they qualify as doubts.
   
3. I think Mike just listed one: the success of the elites in stopping the progress of history. If the tools are that strong and the power imbalance so great, then history ceases to be societal and becomes a product.