Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Eric the Green]

(12-28-2018, 12:52 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We are in a Crisis Era, one in which spiritual awakening is practically impossible. There might be foxhole conversions, but those are hollow and transitory.  Many American soldiers (I refer to Catholics) made vows to God in a tight scrape that if He got them through it they would become priests. Few became priests. They might better serve God as tool-and-die makers who have large Catholic families. (Change stereotypes to fit other religious traditions). Maybe there were too many people experiencing the foxhole conversion.

The time for an Awakening is about twenty years after the end of the Crisis Era, when a fresh set of young adults emerge without memories of the dangerous Crisis era and see themselves with  less stake in economic and political orthodoxies that the winning side imposed or protected. It is still possible that the winners of this Crisis Era might impose a conformist, reactionary, repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable order much like that of Spain after its Civil War. In such a case, America will need an Awakening just to eliminate the scorpions in its collective soul and the cobwebs in its collective mind. I hope for better. But our chances to experience an Awakening anew are practically over unless we reach our 80s or 90s.

The Second Turning is no doubt the best time for spiritual awakenings. The time is ripe, the need is there, and the groundwork has been laid during the first turning, and also in previous saecula. But a spiritual awakening can happen at any time for some people, there's no doubt about that either. They were somewhat common in the late 1930s, which is a similar time to ours. People were not in foxholes yet then, and there may well be fewer foxholes this time around. On the other hand, as you know, if our cold civil war ends up in an order like Spain, then I don't see an Awakening as likely to bloom in the USA when the time for it in the saeculum has come. A groundwork of a decent social order has to be created or restored, before the new artists and prophets can take it mostly for granted in middle age and youth enough to look beyond the need for bread alone and also look for the roses. Even in the Gilded Age, enough of such an order was created that a substantial awakening proceeded, starting in the mid-1880s. Its legacy is still with us today, if you look for it. No doubt, this Awakening was greater in Europe in many ways.

As I see it, this 4T may also have some aspects of an awakening. Such will be the case in all future 4Ts if America ever turns away from materialism and physicalism as its primary lifestyle and philosophy. And so it must, if it is to be sustainable and contribute something to humanity besides technical wizardry and material power. A healthy society always has both spirituality as part of its daily life-- and that being more than just obedience to tradition-- and also the ability to create a just and prosperous social and economic order. Some attention indeed has always been paid to that latter need during previous Awakenings/Second Turnings. So in a healthy society, which I hope someday the USA can become, must also pay attention to spiritual and cultural needs in fourth turnings.

But I would not disagree that, so far, that latter attention has been far from adequate, especially in regard to culture. But pockets of folks, mostly older, do continue to nurture the awakenings that first appeared and happened in the USA 40-50 years ago. People today still practice meditation, for example, and give attention to the beauties of the present moment, whereas in the previous first turning people paid virtually no attention to such things, and were consumed with the need to keep up with the Joneses and make sure to wear that grey flannel suit to their meaningless work every morning, and keep their inner gyroscopes tuned into whatever the authorities wanted amidst the lonely crowd, and respond to the hidden persuaders to buy, buy, buy. But, a prosperous and just social order they did have, at least among those who were white and male adults.