Gray Champion Predictions

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-14-2020, 01:22 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-14-2020, 06:30 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: This web forum attracts among other things violent conservative viewpoints.  There are people who see the cycles as a chance to support violence and autocratic values.  This does not mesh with my basic view of the theory.  Every four score and seven years, a new birth of freedom.  I can see how the Republicans can push the idea that a small government with small taxes can slow down change, but there are some problems which eventually have to be solved.  It’s that time again.  The unravelling created and defined the break between the old and new values.  I don’t see the old values as prevailing, believing that putting off solving the real problems will end the problems.  It is time again for a real change.

There will always be a fascination with total liberty.  It's unworkable; we know that from the last 40 years of trying so hard to get there. Nonetheless, it's a vision that fits the American spirit -- smart, stupid or otherwise.  Granted, the neoliberal experiment failed yet again, as it did in the first Gilded Age.  Like all zombies, it just keeps ambling on and eating brains. There is an audience that's fixated on it.

The question that needs answering: will the scales fall from enough eyes to allow that zombie to be chained in the closet for another 40-50 years, so progress can be achieved and take hold?  Winning a brief victory will be satisfying, but totally inadequate to address the mess we're in and the fall-out that will come from fixing it.  The virus is a huge challenge, but so is AGW... and racism ... and inequality ... and the rising threat of China.

So exiting the 4T successfully means a lot of things have to go right.  The last 4T presented a similar challenge, and the success was limited to winning the war and jump-starting the economy. Those are far from trivial, but only a true win for the wealthy, merely adequate for non-wealthy whites and a let down for all others.

And yet, it kicked off the progressive era. If America was great, it was then. The great problems of the crisis have always been solved.

Sure, the turnings are going to hit unravelling again. We will get selfish again. Things will look bad and be bad again. The slavery compromises are enough that the elites will be dominant again.

The Agricultural Age was bad. Since, we could only solve a few problems per crisis. No, we are not apt to end the cycles this time around, to solve the last crisis. We don't know how much we will address this early in, and how much will have to wait for the next transformation.

Again, let's not be disappointed in advance. The change is always greater than it looks like going in.