Has the regeneracy arrived?

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-16-2016, 01:21 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Over all, I stress generation archetype because when we're dealing with masses of people and their movement in masses it is best to think in terms of archetype.  Honestly I wish I could break it down into mathematics--I could be Hari Sedon.  The S&H theory seems to work best when we're examining large groups of people who are largely ignorant of the forces at work.

I think you’re dreaming, unless and until you reduce values and emotion to numbers.  Values have a huge amount of momentum.  They don’t change without large pressures applied and blatant failures of principles that likely worked quite well at one time.  It would be very difficult to objectively assign mass weights to existing cultural memes and force vectors to new technologies or ideas that might cause change, especially if one’s own values are part of the system one is trying to objectively and mathematically model.  Being objective enough to play Hari Seldon is way beyond you and me.  We are both far too wedded to our own perspectives.

(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: I actually don't think so.  As I pointed out Lincoln was a unionist first and foremost.  Unionism that Andrew Jackson agreed with and Andy J was not exactly a "progressive". (Awesome President, but definitely not a progressive, you should hear some of the shit those people say about him sometime.)  The Founders largely had the American revolution to not pay taxes to Parliament (which they never had to do before), the UK government trying to enforce their trade laws (which they never had before--for a century I might add), and imposing laws from without (prior to the 1760s all the colonies were essentially self governing with the Crown just appointing the governor, and often a local at that).  Given these facts it seems that the revolutionary war was fought to maintain a status quo rather than to create something new.  Even the argumentation of the Declaration of Independence all has content that any person literate in English would have likely have read at the time.  FDR did many progressive things but did so for inherently conservative reasons--the preservation of capitalism, and later democracy.

At one time I was challenged to identify an ‘arrow of progress’.  If a doctrinaire Whig were to identify what type of progress is more or less inevitable, what would it be?

• People who did not have rights acquire them.  There is a step towards equality.
  
• Elites who control a new area of business, often the result of new technology, take political power from established interests.  The largest of these involved loss of influence by the old royalty and nobility, with increased influence by the Robber Barons.
  
• In general, the new elites demonize the old elites, and make promises to The People.  Inequality in political power is often linked to inequality in wealth.  Thus, there is generally an element of class struggle wrapped into it somewhere.
  

This perspective is often rejected by the conservatives who try to make the conservatives into the heroes…  or rather make the heroes into conservatives.  I remain dubious.  While one can always and justly cast doubt on the motivations of the new elites, on the idea side the Revolution implemented the Enlightenment ideas, the Civil War was about slavery, the New Deal about government serving the working people more the elites less, while Fascism was a modernized authoritarian tyranny, Agricultural Age militaristic tyranny with different trappings.  The key is that the new elites can’t usurp power without the backing of the People.  To get this backing they have to make badly wanted concessions.

(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: What happened with Bush 43 was there was a tragic event, it gave him some political capital and he spent it like a drunken sailor.  There was no "false regeneracy" because someting like a regeneracy would have to have happened to confuse people into thinking it was a real one.  Likewise there was no false crisis because 9-11 ultimately did not set into motion an existential threat to the nation.  The terrorism and the wars were things that happened "over there".

Ideas entirely at odds with either George Washington’s isolationism or the World War / Cold War containment policies were tried.  They failed.  These bad new policies have hopefully been purged from the playbook.  The competing memes of stay the course against avoid quagmire were resolved.  I see this as a major trial of values with a resolution that was expensive in gold, iron and blood.  I don’t think you are actually disagreeing with me on this?  You just don't want to acknowledge it as important?

(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Anti-war movements are not new, and Boomers certainly didn't start them.  Racial and gender equality are pretty much the same thing.  Environmentalism was actually started by Missionaries.  According to S&H it is the prophet generation in the 2T that come up with the new ideas, the new paradigms and so forth.  Much of the 60s was recycling Missionary materials and most of the effective leadership was conducted by Silents.  From what I've seen the new ideas that Boomers are responsible for are largely equated to mass marketed watered down occultism (aka New Age), fad diets, and various cults.  There is a lot of destructive, stupid and just plain garbage to go around from that generation, it wasn't Bush 43 alone.

Was it Sturgeon who propose that 95% of anything is garbage?  Generations have different styles and obsessions.  It’s traditional and easy to diss on other generations.  

While the Boomers didn’t invent the various causes they fought for, they pushed for necessary and appropriate changes that were in time made.  Still, these changes happened with the GIs in control.  I doubt blindly following of the Domino Theory would have stopped without loud obnoxious objection.  The time for a big step forward in gender and racial equality had come.  I don’t know that the Boomers should be exalted as they were the kids on the ground when it happened, but they were the kids on the ground when it happened.  Similarly, while others were concerned about the environment before the awakening, the awakening was a time of a vast change in policy.

You are not the worst of the Boomer Bashers here, but you seem to be indulging yourself with this post.  Personally, I don’t see the point of placing the blame on generations.  The original S&H put an emphasis on the positive aspects of each generation, and projected that one could expect great things when the various positive aspects of several generations lined up in a constructive way.  Many of those who come to this forum dwell on the negatives.  I see it as about as constructive as dwelling on the alleged negative stereotypes of this race or that gender.  I hope I don’t have to explain to you how stereotyping and prejudice have their down sides?

I could pick on other generations.  Most of what I’d rather see the youngsters change is in complaining less and working for change more.  Things aren’t going to change without more people pushing for change.  That was the Blue Boomer’s role in their younger days.  Still, that was then.  These days the Blue Boomers are sitting on the sidelines while griping just as much as any other generation.  It’s a problem for the whole culture, not just the Blue Boomers.

(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Furthermore I would argue that Bush 43 failed not because of the turning, but rather because of a complete misunderstanding of human nature and how values interplay with that nature.  

Are you trying to trick me into saying something good about Bush 43?  Ha!  No way.

Actually, during the Cold War the United States played some imperialistic hardball, using military and political methods to gain economic advantage.  The rest of the world let us get away with it as we were picking up a lot of the cost of containing communism.  Many in the Bush 43 administration thought the world would continue to let us get away with it.  They did not anticipate the degree with which the world recognized and opposed neo colonialism in a post Cold War world.  They should have.  A little bit of empathy would have served them very well.  I won't object to the description of 'complete misunderstanding of human nature and how values interplay with that nature.  They were just used to the idea of being a superpower and drunk with the idea of being the sole superpower.

(05-16-2016, 08:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: You could of perhaps worded it better.  I would say that a large part of the Red Resistance you allude to comes from Boomers mostly.  As long as the GIs were in charge they could push through an agenda you'd call progressive and the Silents would go along with them--mostly.  That being said, one needs to understand that when we're dealing with political movements, even if we're not talking about movement politics, Natural Conservatives are always going to try to "hit the breaks", that is what Natural Conservatives do.  Furthermore, Natural Conservatives exist in all generations, they just tend to be over-represented in Nomad generations for some pretty good reasons.

That being said, 2Ts largely do not result in structural social change.  Even today we see that some are calling for a re-institution of Jim Crow but on different lines.

A lot of stuff happened in the Awakening.  When you were a Communist, you indulged in the usual business of ignoring certain aspects of history while emphasizing others.  You’re still doing it.  I do it too.  Everyone with a strong political worldview is apt to do it.  If someone has a world view centered on a set of broad principles, they will see clearly the events that support said principles while dismissing or ignoring events fitting conflicting principles.  I’m a fan of Jefferson.  I’ll see the echoes of his self-evident Truths.  You’ve got other Truths to chase.

In this exchange I’m not disagreeing much with the history you are emphasizing, but we’re emphasizing different patterns in said history.  Likely inevitable.