The Coronavirus

[pbrower2a]

(07-19-2021, 04:06 AM)Dustinw5220 Wrote: I look forward to seeing the positive impact super elder Boomers have in the next 1T, at least I am for 'true' authentic Prophet/Idealist Boomers like you and Eric who are on the right side of history and stand for the right values, the Hard-Right neoliberal Boomers (including a certain ex-president) have had far too much power and prominence for far too long! With so many older generations following the pattern the GI's set, I would honestly be shocked if even Generation X (as an elderhood Nomad/Reactive generation) was quite as willing to go off into that good night as their Lost predecessors were (and I hope they don't, we're gonna need continued positive influence from the best kind of Nomads/Reactives to stop the potential excesses of the next Awakening Era from getting too out of hand)!

The worst Boomers got into the limelight -- the ruthless, rapacious, selfish exploiters who insist that others regard them as benefactors. Such is how the Southern Transcendentals saw themselves: that they were doing great good for slaves. They had no trouble with the exploitative, dehumanizing character of slavery. People doing great evil can believe that they are doing great good for Humanity. 

I look at Boomer executives as the worst ever for enriching themselves as no other executives have ever done, keeping their subordinates poor and scared, denying opportunity for anyone not born into the Master Class any opportunity to improve their lives, promoting monopoly and cartels, and squeezing out small business in favor of corporate behemoths with bloated bureaucracies ideally suited to extreme narcissists.

We will need more flexibility in our economy for much more than treating people badly. Let's start with education: elementary school is for the basics, but beyond that we need to teach people how to live. That people are amenable to a crass demagogue like you-know-who indicts the lack of moral content in teaching in K-12 education. The world is more complex than it used to be because of technology that can either ennoble and enrich life or stupefy it into something ugly, mindless, and cruel. Technology, like all power, has no morality attached. It is up to us to use it for benign purposes or to let it go destructive.    

We need more culture and less entertainment. We need the knack for detecting and rejecting propaganda. We need to become more sophisticated about psychological manipulation. We need to recognize the validity of cultural traditions not ours when they are in our midst. Yes, that means "Mr. Patel" and "Mrs. Nguyen" who may are far more admirable people than the meth dealer nearby who might be your third cousin. 

We will need fewer hours of leisure not only due to the greater efficiency of manufacturing but also because we will have largely sated all basic needs. Much of what we experience will be virtual (news media and other reading material as transitory electrons on a screen instead of ink on paper that lasts until one discards the paper; music on electronic channels instead of on vinyl, cassette tapes, or CD). We are going to have 3D printing as a norm for toys, repair parts, and who-knows-what-else. 

At best we are going to need to fill our lives with some sort of intellectual or creative activity, civic service, or enriching experiences (communing with Nature) if the fruits of prosperity that the End of Scarcity implies if the fruits of our prosperous efficiency are not to become "pearls before swine". For many, having huge amounts of spare time and no idea of how to use it will be terrifying. 

Quote:You know, I actually had a similar discussion with Eric about this recently. Only in our case, we were talking about the next Unraveling Era, because chances are many of us Millennials are still gonna be around during that time. If there's enough of us left, we might be able to stop civic/institutional life from entirely decaying in the next 3T. As you pointed out before, older generations are living longer now, suddenly the archetypal/societal role that used to be mostly absent depending on the turning continues to play a pivotal role in the turning they were once largely missing from (old Prophets/Idealists in a High Era, old Nomads/Reactives in an Awakening Era, old Heroes/Civics in an Unraveling Era, and old Artists/Adaptives in a Crisis Era). The fact that all four archetypes now get to have an influence in cultural/public life in each turning is not only completely unprecedented but a whole new ball game, perhaps continued influence from an older generation would help curb some of the worst aspects/extremes of each turning, thus hopefully making the next saeculum calmer and less disruptive than previous ones. If continued influence from an old Prophet/Idealist generation can keep the inner world from fully decaying in a 1T, couldn't continued influence from an old Hero/Civic generation keep the outer world from completely decaying in a 3T?

I am tempted to believe that this Crisis Era ends in the early-middle part of this decade, barring some gigantic shooting war that suddenly blows up (for such a view of the world look to John Xenakis' "Generational Dynamics"... with the caveat that he is extremely pessimistic about human nature and political institutions... and this fellow thinks that Donald Trump is wonderful and that someone like me is stupid for seeing Donald Trump as a disaster. Maybe extreme pessimism in human nature fosters support for right-wing demagogues like Trump, Bolsonaro, etc., who offer authoritarian, anti-egalitarian solutions for all things. I can hit Trump from the Left for violating liberal values and from the Right for his disdain for some well-established traditions that have ensured sanity even in the face of decisive change. I am not sure which tradition will prevail in America in the upcoming High; it could be a composite. Anything is richer than the cultures of "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll" that appeared in the Boom Awakening. As far as I am concerned, poor Latino families that have solid values that include a solid nurturing of their children is far better than what I hear of in the tales of meth busts. Maybe we shouldn't teach unquestioning faith in police, but it's a bad idea to do things that cause the "Big Blue Meanies" to take Mommy and Daddy away when someone reports meth-related activity. 

I have wandered off considerably here. Idealist generations generally fade out in a High as the Idealist component goes from very old people in their late-sixties-to-mid-eighties to the infants. On the other hand, life expectancies are longer because people are staying fit, getting good medical care, staying active, staying involved, and -- this is a big one: not smoking as much. I'm guessing that tobacco use reached its peak among the Lost Generation and has steadily faded, at least through Boomers. One can have "Mormon lungs" and a "Mormon liver" without being a Mormon. I was a moderate drinker in my twenties, and I just can't hold liquor as I used to. I used to be able to drink four drinks in a night by spacing them two hours apart.,. I can do only one now.  Maybe the Boomers who will be most remembered will be the last ones to be remembered -- the ones who weren't the filthy bastards who took everything that they could. 

Think what I have going as a story teller. I take my age (65) and subtract that from my birth-year, and get "1890". I heard tales of people at the unsuccessful tail end of the settling of the Western frontier. That was western Nebraska, where there just isn't enough soil moisture for farming unless you dig a deep-enough well to harvest the Ogallala aquifer. My maternal grandmother's  family went out west to western Nebraska with some livestock and some household possessions by train and returned in two years or so to southern Michigan or northern Indiana. I remember people who lived before automobiles, telephones, phonographs, refrigerators, household electricity, and inside plumbing were norms... and long before there was radio, let alone television. Maybe I will get to tell people about the "primitive" 1960's when color TV was on only one network, when two-lane "Blood Alleys" were the norms of travel, when cable and satellite TV did not exist, when stereo recording was still a novelty, when party lines were the norm in rural America, and when computers were gigantic energy-devouring mainframes that have less computing power than a cell phone roughly the size of a cigarette pack but thinner than a cigarette. I can also tell people about the nastiness of race relations in "Kukluxistan".  I may have been a child at the time but I remember being disgusted about the bombing of the Eighth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in which four innocent girls who had done nothing wrong were torn to pieces... and this poster



Images like this can sear your mind even if you are eight years old, not in the area, and not connected to their cause. People might disappear if they wander off from a "rest home" while senile  on a cold winter day while clothed for July... and their bodies might not be found until April. People in their twenties? Anyone in even mediocre shape can do a twenty-mile hike. 

---

         
How do you think Covid-19 might specifically color the attitudes of the Silent (they grew up during the last Crisis Era, and now they're experiencing another Crisis Era from a late life perspective), Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z (they're the Artists/Adaptives who are experiencing this Crisis Era as children and teens, and many of them will probably live long enough to see the next Crisis Era unfold) respectively?[/quote]

The Silent are what they are. They may have been nimble-minded all their lives, but they are approaching the end of the line. Yes, that includes Joe Biden! They will have the unusual role for an Adaptive generation of shaping events (if only a comparatively-small number of people of their generation) do that. The ideas and ideals that they developed seven to eight decades ago are largely set. Expect nothing really new. This said, they are the last to remember any semblance of the New Deal as an agenda -- even if such is the much-touted Marshall Plan, which is basically the New Deal applied to western Europe. Their creative days are over. They are through with their biggest contribution to American culture, comedy. Among still-living Silent comedians (Mel Brooks, Dick van Dyke, Bob Newhart, John Cleese, Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, and Christopher Lloyd... they just don't do it anymore. The wit is not as sharp and their timing is gone (some have strictly gone to drama, and I speak of many of them no longer with us). We could use that again... but my suspicion is that the kids born in the early part of the twenty-first century will be the likes of the "new Johnny Carson", the  "new Andy Griffith", the "new Joan Rivers", the "new Flip Wilson", the "new Jerry Lewis", the "new Mary Tyler Moore",  tje "new George Carlin", and the "new Richard Pryor". We need that self-effacing comedy to keep from getting too full of ourselves, a fault of many of us in a Crisis Era. 

I expect nothing really new from the Silent.

There may be suppressed boomers who have the virtues that one usually associates with Idealists at their best. OK, many of us, I included, can be self-righteous bastards on such topics as drugs, drunkenness, street crime, racism, homophobia, religious bigotry, corruption, terrorism, human trafficking, poaching, child abuse, and environmental destruction... as if any of those make a better world. Many of us, most infamously Donald Trump, are self-righteous without having any viable morality. It may be that the less narcissistic among us are the ones who didn't Make It during the neoliberal era, which for some of us is practically our entire adult lives between entering the workforce and retirement age.

This said, creativity and moral leadership don't exactly retire. Just think of Robert Frost, Pablo Picasso, and Igor Stravinsky who all remained highly creative late into their lives. I hear plenty of half-wit clergy and think "I could do better than that". I can't say that my writing will be worth remembering... or that my painting. I have found myself able to come up with fresh tunes, and I have the perfect lines for a song...  "I need to love"... don't we all?

Age is starting to take its toll on the earliest wave of X. A hint: Barack Obama turns the Big Six-Oh next month. The contribution most expected from a Reactive generation as workers is athleticism... and that starts fading in one's early thirties.  

Here's how it goes for baseball players:


   Peak Age by Skill
Hitters                   Pitchers
Metric         Peak Age   Metric         Peak Age
Linear Weights   29.4     ERA              29.2
OBP              30.0     Strikeout Rate   23.6
SLG              28.6     Walk Rate        32.5
AVG              28.4     Home Run Rate    27.4
Walk Rate        32.3
2B+3B Rate       28.3
Home Run Rate    29.9

 https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/...27-theory/

Obviously most people are not professional athletes, but for much work such brute force as lugging, hand speed, and hand-eye coordination matter greatly. As with pro athletes, laborers are prone to injuries. The wisest of any Reactive generation try to find other ways in which to make a living than raw labor. When opportunities for advancement in corporate or governmental bureaucracies are rare, many become entrepreneurs who get to use skills that their former employers did not realize that they had or would have dismissed had they known. 

Generation X is just getting into the role of peak participation in political and economic leadership. It won't be able to get away with what Boomers could get away with. Maybe owning a mom-and-pop restaurant is what is available, and it pays far less than the megabuck salaries that corporate executives have been garnering. If one never got a chance to do a skilled trade, then $150,000 a year from a small business is good enough for a good life. Owning an original Picasso or a house full of artifacts from Cartier might get very old very fast. Reactive leaders at their best have the caution of people who "have been burned" unless t6hey are Barack Obama -- who seems to have learned more from other people's mistakes than from his own. They have abandoned any youthful cynicism that might come from "having been burned". The first wave is too old to start feathering any nests. 

I make a distinction between mature Reactives and immature Reactives as political leaders. Mature Reactives are more mellowed, knowing that they can't do good for themselves without doing much more good for others. Their best hope is to do convince people to do on a large scale that they have gotten some success on a smaller scale. They don't pretend to have some highly-systematized moral agenda, but they are moral enough. Think of such American Presidents as Washington, John Adams, Grant, Cleveland, Truman, Eisenhower... and Obama. Foreign figures? Charles de Gaulle is a prime example.  They might have their limits, but if the system is already set they need innovate little. 

So what is an immature Reactive?  Some (including gangsters such as Capone, Siegel, Buchalter) look out for themselves from childhood at the expense of themselves. They use power to settle scores (Quantrill, Hitler, Vishinsky, Himmler, and plenty of characters in ISIS) or to achieve some megalomaniacal dreams (Leopold II, Mussolini, Quisling, Mao Zedong) that hurt people badly.  

The Millennial Generation is just making its way into very high public office.  Not yet forty, it just elected its first US Senator. If that looks slow, such reflects that America's power structure has elderly people wielding power as long as they are physically able. This generation is much more liberal than older generations -- enough that one can predict that unless some countervailing trend takes place, this generation will lead America into a much-more egalitarian mode. Civic generations do much well. They prefer that even their religion (if they do not give it up). They have a tendency toward cultural blandness... especially if they have served in a war that reshapes the world... and themselves. They often have a nearly-magical respect for technology,,, and little foresight about the damage that rigid application of such technology leads. Unlike the older generations, it is not fully halfway through a normal lifespan. Environment and history can still shape it. 

I'm not going to say much about the Homeland Generation because it has yet to fully form.