America is a sick society

[Bob Butler 54]

Eric, while the Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment were in many ways separate movements, I see all three as part of the development of the Industrial Age pattern. The technology featured gunpowder, steam and the printing press. I also see the Reformation as starting to break up hierarchical authoritarian thinking in a way that helped the Enlightenment in turn. Anyway, yes, things started popping. It was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The War of the Roses? I'm not so sure. While it has many of the symptoms of 4T, and I won't argue the point intensely, there are few to no issues where the Agricultural / Industrial mind patterns are put on the line. That has always felt more to me like an old fashioned Agricultural Age dynastic conflict. There were enough of those back in the day.

Anyway, if you see kings fighting democracy, agricultural elites squaring off against robber barons, industrialized urban areas opposing rural zones, established hierarchical autocratic churches going against upstarts that let worshipers read the Bible... In many of those cases, it is fairly easy to say the Agricultural / Industrial transition is underway, who is on the progressive side, and who has a big leg up on coming out on top. Bet on the urban folk with new money and new technology. The people with dated culture and technology didn't generally do well. When the above things aren't present, the transition to the Industrial pattern may not be underway yet. You may want to look harder at what people are struggling over.

Alas, if the Industrial Age pattern is complete, if networked knowledge, post scarcity economics, ecological problems, nukes and insurgent warfare are becoming the way to go with a new age of civilization starting, all bets are off as we have to figure out how the new pattern has to take shape.