The Coronavirus

[David Horn]

(04-13-2020, 11:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-13-2020, 10:37 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-13-2020, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: So who said that a Crisis had to be a war?

John Xenakis is the primary exponent of the crisis war, and a firm believer in the necessity of them.  In fact, he hangs generational dynamics on that premise.

Where I would say nukes make the Crisis war obsolete.  While in the Industrial Age leaders and elites would start a war trivially, in this time the elites would lose influence and status, and make sure the leaders don’t threaten their position.  In the Information Age, the Crisis war is virtually obsolete.  That was why I was trying to rework the S&H theory to figure out how the cycles world work without a Trigger or a Regeneracy.  Would the Awakening become the turning with the radical change?  Can one change through democracy rather than conflict?  Should we look to the Conscious Revolution as the only Awakening that gives us an example of how it works in the Information Age?

But then along came the Coronavirus…  I would not guarantee that a Trigger will happen in every period that the Prophet - Nomad - Civic generational alignment occurs.  This time, if you consider September 11th, we had two such Triggers.  The first failed to change the culture.  The second?  It seems too early to tell for certain.  Will the old patriotic swing from selfishness to loyalty to the country still happen without a war to compel the change?  That does not guarantee we will get even one Trigger next time around.

When the great powers decided to retreat from fighting wars by the Marquis of Queensbury Rules, the idea of total war emerged in earnest. With total war, all tools are authorized, so WWI gave us poison gas and WWII gave us nukes.  Note the lack of poison gas use in WWII: lesson learned. If we assume that nukes are truly off the table as well, we're back in an era of constrained war … assuming we actually engage in a major one at all.  I agree that the best strategy is avoidance, with proxy wars being a less fulfilling but safer substitute, and that's how it's been played so far.  

And as you said, along came Coronavirus.  Can we agree that the threat is adequately serious? If so, then is this a reasonable proxy for the war we wish to avoid?  Can we rally to the cause?  So far, it has the feel of a proxy civil war, with each "side" having apoplexy about the other side's plan to solve the crisis.  It's an odd configuration, with the virus on one side, and the competing political actors arrayed against one another on the other side.

Is this the new crisis modality?