Has the regeneracy arrived?

[Kinser79]

(05-16-2016, 06:03 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: 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.

I would argue that it is beyond any human. At best we can use mass psychology to understand, and perhaps manipulate the course of history. Beyond that, anything even close to Asimov's Psychohistory is a pipe dream. But a good dream never hurt anyone.

Quote: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.
  

And a doctrinaire Whig would be right, in so far as that list would conform to their ideology. The question is, however, does that happen in history. Does the transfer of one old elite automatically confer social/economic/political "progress"? I would say largely no. After all to a serf does it matter if the king is a Saxon or is a Norman?

Quote: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.

I would argue that all men are combinations of conservative and progressive ideas and forces, particularly those men who act upon the stage of politics. What is often called progressive historically is the side which one the argument at the time. Remember history is written by the victors.

Quote: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?

On the contrary. I think that interventionism is largely going to be reduced to the role of involving the nation-state that is the US to those interests that directly involved the nation-state. This becomes even more clear when one takes into account the social experiment in multiculturalism which will end in disaster. One culture will have to dominate all the others if a nation is to survive as a nation is not the same thing as a state, but rather is a historically constituted group of people which must have national psychology that manifests itself as culture.

Quote: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.  

Something I know all too well being from Generation Slacker...I mean X.

Quote:While the Boomers didn’t invent the various causes they fought for, they pushed for necessary and appropriate changes that were in time made.

During the 2T as I pointed out these changes were initiated by Silents and implmented by GIs. The Boomer role was relegated to that of petulent children screaming in the background. The end in Vietnam didn't come about because college kids protested (even though the anti-war movement at the time was largely returning vets with those college kids getting in the way). It ended because the GIs got tired of seeing body bags on the evening news.

Quote:  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.

My grandfather was a WW2 vet, and black WW2 vet at that. He told me in no uncertain terms that steps toward racial equality were initiated by the GI generation (as the bulk of it was accomplished during the 1T--in fact I consider the Civil Rights act of 1964 be the last act of the 1T) because of the horrors of racism that they saw in Europe and the Pacific.

Quote: 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.

If we are going to talk about civil rights, the Boomers were literal children, complete with diaper shitting and all. They had NOTHING to do with it not even as expendable foot soldiers. The environmentalist movement wouldn't have gotten started without major environmental disasters such as the Cuyahogoa River catching fire. At the time most boomers were too busy smoking pot and practicing free love lust to really involve themselves.

Quote:You are not the worst of the Boomer Bashers

I don't bash boomers, I merely tell the truth about them.

Quote:here, but you seem to be indulging yourself with this post.

Nah. If I wanted to indulge myself in pointing out factual and logical inconsistencies of the narratives Boomers tell themselves I'd argue with Eric, or my mother.

Quote: 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.

And I don't see the point of giving people credit where it isn't due. It seems to me that doing such is the equivilant of handing out trophies for participation. That only happened to me once, when I was 12. I promptly threw that trophy in the trash because it was meaningless (and yes my mother still has my collection of school trophies, ribbons and so on). After all what does it matter if you show up for every football game if you just lose every single one. If you don't win, you don't deserve a trophy; that was true when I was 12 it will be true when I'm 112.

As for Millies today and their antics. I think a large part of it is millies of a certain economic class acting as rebels without a clue in precisely the manner that they have been trained to act by their boomer parents. If they are lucky real life will kick the shit out of them and they'll grow up. If not, then there is no hope. As for Boomers pushing for change, I think you over estimate their young years, which they primarily spent smoking pot, burning bras and practicing free love lust.

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

You mean there is conceivably something good to be said about Bush 43? Seriously if the man wasn't such a blundering idiot I'd call him evil.

Quote: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.

I think you're over estimating the good will of the Europeans, Japanese and Koreans. For the most part prior to the 1970s they couldn't do anything about US imperialism because they were not economically strong enough to. Imperialism is expensive. By the time they had the economic means to the so-called communist threat was pretty much over. The USSR's economic means to build empires were exhausted, China was moving capitalist, which left the only countries attempting to actually construct socialism to be Tiny Albania, Isolated DPRK (though Juche should not be confused with M-L), and maybe Cuba (which was heavily revisionist to start with as Castro really isn't a commie). Vietnam and Laos are not now and never have been socialist of any type. The communist parties of both exist because Russia not the US helped them in ending colonialism--they are vestigial organs.

Quote: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.

I think we largely agree that we are not disagreeing. I've started to think that when dealing with all the big issues, the really important issues (you know the ones that you're not supposed to talk about in mixed company but are really the only issues worth talking about--seriously you have no idea how much I hate "chit-chat" and "small talk") the result always reminds me of the parable of the blind men and the elephant.