Does this 4T seem a little 2T-ish to anyone else?

[galaxy]

Obviously it's still very much a 4T, but I can't help but notice it gets a little awaken-ish sometimes.

There have been some 2T-isms in different ways - 2012-2015 stands out as a period of "cultural awakening" to me. At the time it kind of seemed like we were heading toward another sexual revolution, for example. New media was appearing everywhere, the world was superconnected and it seemed to be going well (the Internet at the time only showed tiny hints of the dark side it would fully reveal later in the decade). It felt like the cultural future would be bright, even if the environmental (climate change not really being seriously fought) and political (endless gridlock) futures looked dark. And at least to me, it felt like the national mood steadily brightened from about early 2012 until the middle of 2015. Or maybe that "bright cultural future/dark material future" thing is just the last bits of Unravelingism dying away (very clear that 2016-2020 was a period of rapid 4Tification).
Meanwhile, looking at the current time, it kind of feels like ever since later in 2015 we've been retracing the 1890s - high inequality, high political polarization, lots of social movements, fake news and just general "media wars" ("the new yellow journalism"), and then of course there's the remarkable comparison between the 2020 and 1896 elections.

I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but it's been on my mind lately as I begin to speculate about near-future elections. Will 2024 look like 1900? From where I am right now in October 2021, it kind of seems like it might, and that 2020 might be the realigning election that begins the Seventh Party System, which might be a mirror-image of the Fourth Party System (which began with 1896)?

[pbrower2a]

(10-17-2021, 12:53 PM)galaxy Wrote: Obviously it's still very much a 4T, but I can't help but notice it gets a little awaken-ish sometimes.

There have been some 2T-isms in different ways - 2012-2015 stands out as a period of "cultural awakening" to me. At the time it kind of seemed like we were heading toward another sexual revolution, for example.

What was opening was LGBT rights at the same time in which America was cracking down on child sexual abuse and domestic violence (much of the latter sexual). America was liberalizing in one direction and clamping down in others, which is not characteristic of an awakening. LGBT interests got their way by shoving the pedophiles under the bus just as sexual traditionalists were doing.

I could tell you much about the 'gay' scene of the 1970's; much of it was men picking up boys for sexual gratification, and that was called "sexual liberation". In the 2010's the LGBT appeal was to accept what adults were doing already and to not treat youth finding that they were homosexuals as pariahs. At one point three of every ten teenage males committing suicide were gay. Allowing LGBT adults to do what straight adults were doing and to not reject LGBT children isn't an awakening. It is simply practical and humane.

Quote:New media was appearing everywhere, the world was superconnected and it seemed to be going well

That is technology, and technology simply offers new modes of expression without creating new ones. The effect of the internet and virtual reality on culture is parallel to the influence of the automobile on the lives of young adults (then the Lost) about 110 years ago. People could go off in their "merry Oldsmobile" to get away from the prying eyes of repressive adults. Technology will fit the culture, but will not create it. The Internet functions like many things that have long existed: the book, the broadsheet and tabloid, the telegraph, the telephone, the stock ticker, the phonograph, the camera (still or video), radio, and television -- all well entrenched. 

Quote:(the Internet at the time only showed tiny hints of the dark side it would fully reveal later in the decade). It felt like the cultural future would be bright, even if the environmental (climate change not really being seriously fought) and political (endless gridlock) futures looked dark.

As if people have not used telephones, radio, posters, motion pictures, and television to get people to do horrible things long before there was an Internet. The political gridlock that we have came into existence before the Internet, and it reflects the conflict between entrenched power and democratic tendencies. American plutocrats are no different from feudal lords in expressing the sentiment that he who owns the gold makes the rules. A corollary of that view is that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful. A real awakening would challenge those precepts. By 2016 the people who most clearly held those precepts held both Houses of Congress, and in the Presidential election those people got Donald Trump, who exemplifies flamboyant 2T indulgence and arrogance and those two precepts of pure plutocracy. Trump has never been involved in any Voyage to the Interior or quest for deep knowledge as was the norm for smart Boomers (he is one of the hollowest people that I have ever seen in the news media). The pole stars of his existence are power, sex, and luxury irrespective of how those hurt others. Trump got nothing out of the Boom Awakening, but he is very much a 3T character.

3T behavior becomes discreditable, offensive, and ineffective in a 4T as social needs come to the fore. Trump is catastrophic failure as President, but this is what one can legitimately expect of someone who believes that he who owns the gold makes the rules and that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful.

Donald Trump never grew out of the infantile ideal that the world revolves around him. Most of us find all that revolves around us is people who believe that they have some claim to our toil and our earnings and assets.

Quote:And at least to me, it felt like the national mood steadily brightened from about early 2012 until the middle of 2015. Or maybe that "bright cultural future/dark material future" thing is just the last bits of Unravelingism dying away (very clear that 2016-2020 was a period of rapid 4Tification).

Obama promoted optimism, and the economy was picking up -- at least in terms of stock prices and property rents. People scared of America going into as catastrophic a tailspin as the one that started in 1929 were reassured. Obama was much more like FDR than like Hoover.

Quote:Meanwhile, looking at the current time, it kind of feels like ever since later in 2015 we've been retracing the 1890s - high inequality, high political polarization, lots of social movements, fake news and just general "media wars" ("the new yellow journalism"), and then of course there's the remarkable comparison between the 2020 and 1896 elections.

The movements on the Right have overlapping concerns... and direction. So far they have excellent coordination and copious funding. Obviously in an inhuman plutocracy he who owns the gold makes the rules and that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful. With such questionable doctrines as the mandatory focus of us all, rather few people can be happy. The Hard Right rules by cunning exploitation of visceral fears of people of difference among a near-majority of people and by dashing the hopes of people who refuse to believe in the economic agenda of the Hard Right. (Work and starve, and take delight in our castles and palaces going up!)

Quote:I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but it's been on my mind lately as I begin to speculate about near-future elections. Will 2024 look like 1900? From where I am right now in October 2021, it kind of seems like it might, and that 2020 might be the realigning election that begins the Seventh Party System, which might be a mirror-image of the Fourth Party System (which began with 1896)?

COVID-19 is killing like a badly-bungled shooting war. That may be the bloodletting (or in its case the breath-denying) that marks other Crises. If there is to be a Seventh Party System, then such begins with a crushing of the near-majority Right or Left. Americans can adapt to the new potentialities of high technology that can relieve us of much toil, or they can abandon those potentialities on behalf of people who can do quite well with any level of technology so long as 95% of the populace suffers with exhausting toil for near-starvation rations of those who own the gold and make the rules and can enforce the doctrine that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful.

In case you think it impossible that a sophisticated, modern society can revert to a new form of serfdom, then recall the Third Reich. Even without the militarism, racism, mass murder, and brutal repression Nazi Germany was a worker's Hell. Aside from overt victims, the people who had most to lose were the toilers of field and factory.

[Eric the Green]

More media outlets is not a cultural awakening; just more tech as brower said. I think there was something of a pop culture awakening in the 2012-2015 period; the music was getting better and I was following it more for the first time in decades. I was "Happy" about that! Lots of folks did not agree though, and it didn't seem to penetrate, catch on widely, or lead to deeper experiences and critiques like it did in the mid/late 1960s and early 70s. But content, and not just means to spread content, are the indicators of an Awakening. The new media did offer some young artists the chance to get noticed, after decades of corporate restriction of pop music, so I agree there. But now this would-be cultural upsurge has vanished. And Youtube, for example, is itself much more restricted now.

I always thought some aspects of the last 2T would continue on in this 4T and at other times, since turnings are not monolithic. I expect that more cultural events will happen next year that may be significant. Right now though, the climate crisis is so severe, and accompanied by other crises, that today's 4T challenges can't be ignored, and they must be met if any future Awakenings are to ever occur again. Civilization is under attack, and ecology and economy/tech must become fused if it is to survive.

[Anthony '58]

It seems a lot 3Tish to me.

I'd like to live to see these fratricidal Culture Wars end - but I despair that I will need to outlive Methuselah to see it happen.

[pbrower2a]

f you can see any "Awakening" behavior among Millennial adults other than the word woke, then you have a wild imagination. They want to work within the system unless they are obviously cheated or abused. They are not experimenting with exotic religions. They aren't going for hallucinogenic drugs. Millennial adults are good at teamwork, on the whole. This is very GI-like for the time.

The every-man-ethos that one associates with the Hard Right and a tendency to burn almost everyone who adopts it looks awful to this generation.

[David Horn]

The alternative that we should fear or welcome (which of the two is hard to say at this point) is a failed 4T and timeline resetting 2T -- possibly with a US-China War. AGW is in charge now, and how this ends is driven by that reality. We adults owe an apology to the future for being the piss-poor stewards we all certainly are.

[beechnut79]

(11-20-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote: The alternative that we should fear or welcome (which of the two is hard to say at this point) is a failed 4T and timeline resetting 2T -- possibly with a US-China War.  AGW is in charge now, and how this ends is driven by that reality.  We adults owe an apology to the future for being the piss-poor stewards we all certainly are.

When reading the comment about Obama promoting optimism, in retrospect it is pretty evident that all of the "Yes We Can" spirit promoted during his initial campaign did not last for long once he took office, and pretty much fell in line with the status quo of the times which is still very much with us, couple with a much worse societal malaise than which existed during the Carter years. This even though it isn't touted as much as a malaise as it probably needs to be. When campaign he was very optimistic and thinking big picture. Many of us who had high hopes for significant change for the better, myself included, were utterly disappointment. His thought of letting those largely responsible for economic fallout help to fix it proved disastrous. He apparently trusted in those who were married to the corporate machine, again a disaster. Could this have been one of the reasons that neither Bernie Sanders nor Elizabeth Warren were able to get the nomination, and that Biden was considered to be "safe"?

At times I feel that the "Yes We Can" rhetoric was a bit too over the top. I’m all for a glass half-full, we just need to make sure that you also pay close attention to any details. Was this something that Obama didn't really think to do?

[Eric the Green]

It seems to me that Obama said exactly that; not promising perfection; constantly telling his associates in the White House, "not perfect; better!"

(click on this link)
https://youtu.be/7hZgg_KjvDQ?t=2752




In this portion below (follow the url link), he puts the onus where it belongs, on Millennials who, as we might say, need to live up to their civic archetype; to do their civid duty!

https://youtu.be/7hZgg_KjvDQ?t=3250




I say this speech may be his finest; his great clarion call to get involved and do our part. Everyone should see these last portions of this speech.

Although this seems like a different point than your other one, Obama indeed did not free himself sufficiently from the power and influence of the economic powers and their neoliberal ideology. He did, to a large extent; not enough. And the main reason Democrats cave in too often, is because the people are deluded by neoliberal trickle-down economics and self-reliance memes into voting for those who defend the economic powers-that-be.

[David Horn]

There has been Full-On Republican and Republican Lite for the past 40 years. That doesn't change easily. Yes, the more engaged can see through the fog, but the 90% who just live their lives don't really care. To them, politics is an issue so far down their priority list, it only gets attention during big elections -- POTUS being the most common ones. At the same time, they hold office holders responsible for everything from the weather to unfriendly neighbors. There's no mandate for rationality.

It will take a hard hit in the gut to realign their thought processes. Millennials have already had a punch or two, so they're already wary. The older gens are too insolated and the come-to-Jesus moment stillr needs to happen for them.

[pbrower2a]

(11-21-2021, 09:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: There has been Full-On Republican and Republican Lite for the past 40 years.  That doesn't change easily.  Yes, the more engaged can see through the fog, but the 90% who just live their lives don't really care.  To them, politics is an issue so far down their priority list, it only gets attention during big elections -- POTUS being the most common ones.  At the same time, they hold office holders responsible for everything from the weather to unfriendly neighbors.  There's no mandate for rationality.

It will take a hard hit in the gut to realign their thought processes.  Millennials have already had a punch or two, so they're already wary.  The older gens are too insolated and the come-to-Jesus moment still needs to happen for them.

Millennial adults are all old enough to remember two events -- the botched response to Hurricane Katrina and of course the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 which looks much like the first half of the economic meltdown of 1929-1932. If they can remember Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath they can also recall the speculative frenzy that initiated the meltdown of 2007-2009. Well-targeted use of the federal budget can solve another meltdown.

The Millennial Generation is unlikely to expect miracles from On High to solve their problems. Other generations may believe such out of faith (Boomers) or desperation (X). They have tried their formulas for supernatural miracles with no success. 

Note well that although Millennial adults have been slow to reach high political office, probably because the Silent and early-wave Boomers have held onto power longer than usual due to longevity, they are starting to reach nigh public office. To be sure there is but one Millennial in the US Senate (Jon Ossoff), such may be approaching the end. The Millennial constituency is still growing in public life. 

Civic generations typically get early starts in high public office in contrast to Adaptive generations (Progressive, Silent) and Reactive (Lost, X). What is different is that people in high positions have every cause to stay in or near the apex of power if they can live to old age without losing their ability to perform the functions of the job. The pay is great; the work is cerebral; the working conditions are excellent. Why quit? 

But -- Millennial pols may far better understand the interests of fellow Millennial adults, all of whom are of voting age. Even the oldest of their net-senior generation have reached 60, like Barack Obama. (By the way -- I don't see his career in public life over. Supreme Court?)
Millennial adults do not whine about their plight, but they will be receptive to one of their own who has logical solutions to their problems and who make coherent promises to fit their hopes.

[galaxy]

(11-22-2021, 04:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-21-2021, 09:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: There has been Full-On Republican and Republican Lite for the past 40 years.  That doesn't change easily.  Yes, the more engaged can see through the fog, but the 90% who just live their lives don't really care.  To them, politics is an issue so far down their priority list, it only gets attention during big elections -- POTUS being the most common ones.  At the same time, they hold office holders responsible for everything from the weather to unfriendly neighbors.  There's no mandate for rationality.

It will take a hard hit in the gut to realign their thought processes.  Millennials have already had a punch or two, so they're already wary.  The older gens are too insolated and the come-to-Jesus moment still needs to happen for them.

Millennial adults are all old enough to remember two events -- the botched response to Hurricane Katrina and of course the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 which looks much like the first half of the economic meltdown of 1929-1932. If they can remember Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath they can also recall the speculative frenzy that initiated the meltdown of 2007-2009. Well-targeted use of the federal budget can solve another meltdown.

The Millennial Generation is unlikely to expect miracles from On High to solve their problems. Other generations may believe such out of faith (Boomers) or desperation (X). They have tried their formulas for supernatural miracles with no success.

A little perspective for you. I was born January 4, 2001, at probably the extreme late end of the Millennial generation. I don't remember Katrina itself, but I do remember people talking about it. All I could gather at my young age was that it was a hurricane, that it had hit Louisiana in the recent past, and that it was very bad.

I do remember the economic crisis, though I didn't understand it particularly well at the time. My understanding was:
Suddenly everyone was saying this word "economy" all the time, a word that I didn't understand, and every time I asked for an explanation I only got more confused. I eventually worked out that in practice, what all the big words meant was "something big happened somewhere far away but very important, and now suddenly no one has money and it's very bad." I think the moment I realized the seriousness of it for me personally was when my mother asked me to bring her her cell phone, a clunky late-2000s Windows Phone smartphone with a stylus, so that she could cancel the data plan on it to save money. There was another thing that I didn't understand at the time, but now shocks and horrifies me: there was a period of time during which my father would come home from work every day (he worked at a large casino) and tell my mom, looking more dead than alive as he did, how many people he had had to lay off that day.

I was in second grade during the 2008-2009 school year, and third grade during the 2009-2010 school year. I've only realized this recently, but I actually attended a private school at the time (for reasons that even my parents are still unsure about), and the reason there was such a dramatic difference between the size of my second-grade and third-grade classes was because a lot of people just couldn't afford it anymore. There were only 12 students in my third-grade class, compared to over 20 the year before.

My dad used to drive me to school every day then, and we'd always go down a long "suburban main drag"-type road on the way there (North Oak Trafficway in Gladstone, Missouri, for the curious), and I remember looking out the window and seeing "going out of business" signs everywhere, all over the many strip malls and old-houses-converted-into-businesses. For eight-year-old me, everything going out of business was quickly just part of the scenery, the new normal to me, though it definitely didn't fill me with a sense of optimism about my future, if the "default state" of businesses was to not last long and quickly fail. I imagine that drive would have been incredibly depressing if I had known what it meant.

At the same time, despite me not truly understanding it at the time, I'm just beginning to learn how much it actually did influence me. My parents (early X, born 1966 and 1968) have told me that they lost more than half of their entire life savings - financially ruined Nomads, just as S+H predicted. There was a clear mood change of the world and the people around me between 2007 and 2010 that I noticed even then, though it never stood out as unusual to me at the time with less than a decade of life. As far as I knew, that was just the way the world was. In 2007, while helping my parents clean the basement, I discovered a compilation of all of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, and loved them. As a very precocious six-year-old at the time myself, I saw a lot of myself in Calvin, and a lot of my own life and family in his. What wasn't so obvious to me at the time was how quintesentially 3T everything about Calvin and Hobbes is. I can read it now and be taken back very specifically to 2007 and what the world seemed like then, because it's both the first year I remember clearly in my life and the last year that was fully within the 3T.

Millennials definitely do not expect miracles. Especially those like me, the younger ones, who only remember a little bit of 3T before the Crisis Era began, and don't remember a time before 9/11, the event that sent the country into "maximum 3T" - we do not remember a time when the future ever seemed bright. I've talked about this in the "national mood" thread - 2015 seemed like a cheerful enough time to me, but to someone who experienced the 1950s and 1960s, it probably seems absolutely dismal, and everything in my life before or since that year has been even darker. This generation has never seen a miracle. The prevailing opinion among those near my age is that the only way these problems can ever be fixed is by a whole lot of work and dramatic change. There is a very high level of frustration with what is perceived as "the old sticks-in-the-mud standing in the way," the Boomers who refuse to give up their ideology and absolutism for any reason, even in the depths of crisis, when it is so clear to anyone actually paying attention that in this moment what is desperately needed is for people to leave their ideologies behind and do what needs to be done, regardless of what their "values" confabulations and theological (mis)interpretations have to say about it.

[pbrower2a]

(11-23-2021, 12:13 AM)galaxy Wrote:

(11-22-2021, 04:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(11-21-2021, 09:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: There has been Full-On Republican and Republican Lite for the past 40 years.  That doesn't change easily.  Yes, the more engaged can see through the fog, but the 90% who just live their lives don't really care.  To them, politics is an issue so far down their priority list, it only gets attention during big elections -- POTUS being the most common ones.  At the same time, they hold office holders responsible for everything from the weather to unfriendly neighbors.  There's no mandate for rationality.

It will take a hard hit in the gut to realign their thought processes.  Millennials have already had a punch or two, so they're already wary.  The older gens are too insolated and the come-to-Jesus moment still needs to happen for them.

Millennial adults are all old enough to remember two events -- the botched response to Hurricane Katrina and of course the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 which looks much like the first half of the economic meltdown of 1929-1932. If they can remember Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath they can also recall the speculative frenzy that initiated the meltdown of 2007-2009. Well-targeted use of the federal budget can solve another meltdown.

The Millennial Generation is unlikely to expect miracles from On High to solve their problems. Other generations may believe such out of faith (Boomers) or desperation (X). They have tried their formulas for supernatural miracles with no success.

A little perspective for you. I was born January 4, 2001, at probably the extreme late end of the Millennial generation. I don't remember Katrina itself, but I do remember people talking about it. All I could gather at my young age was that it was a hurricane, that it had hit Louisiana in the recent past, and that it was very bad.

I do remember the economic crisis, though I didn't understand it particularly well at the time. My understanding was:
Suddenly everyone was saying this word "economy" all the time, a word that I didn't understand, and every time I asked for an explanation I only got more confused. I eventually worked out that in practice, what all the big words meant was "something big happened somewhere far away but very important, and now suddenly no one has money and it's very bad." I think the moment I realized the seriousness of it for me personally was when my mother asked me to bring her her cell phone, a clunky late-2000s Windows Phone smartphone with a stylus, so that she could cancel the data plan on it to save money. There was another thing that I didn't understand at the time, but now shocks and horrifies me: there was a period of time during which my father would come home from work every day (he worked at a large casino) and tell my mom, looking more dead than alive as he did, how many people he had had to lay off that day.

I was in second grade during the 2008-2009 school year, and third grade during the 2009-2010 school year. I've only realized this recently, but I actually attended a private school at the time (for reasons that even my parents are still unsure about), and the reason there was such a dramatic difference between the size of my second-grade and third-grade classes was because a lot of people just couldn't afford it anymore. There were only 12 students in my third-grade class, compared to over 20 the year before.

My dad used to drive me to school every day then, and we'd always go down a long "suburban main drag"-type road on the way there (North Oak Trafficway in Gladstone, Missouri, for the curious), and I remember looking out the window and seeing "going out of business" signs everywhere, all over the many strip malls and old-houses-converted-into-businesses. For eight-year-old me, everything going out of business was quickly just part of the scenery, the new normal to me, though it definitely didn't fill me with a sense of optimism about my future, if the "default state" of businesses was to not last long and quickly fail. I imagine that drive would have been incredibly depressing if I had known what it meant.

At the same time, despite me not truly understanding it at the time, I'm just beginning to learn how much it actually did influence me. My parents (early X, born 1966 and 1968) have told me that they lost more than half of their entire life savings - financially ruined Nomads, just as S+H predicted. There was a clear mood change of the world and the people around me between 2007 and 2010 that I noticed even then, though it never stood out as unusual to me at the time with less than a decade of life. As far as I knew, that was just the way the world was. In 2007, while helping my parents clean the basement, I discovered a compilation of all of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, and loved them. As a very precocious six-year-old at the time myself, I saw a lot of myself in Calvin, and a lot of my own life and family in his. What wasn't so obvious to me at the time was how quintesentially 3T everything about Calvin and Hobbes is. I can read it now and be taken back very specifically to 2007 and what the world seemed like then, because it's both the first year I remember clearly in my life and the last year that was fully within the 3T.

Millennials definitely do not expect miracles. Especially those like me, the younger ones, who only remember a little bit of 3T before the Crisis Era began, and don't remember a time before 9/11, the event that sent the country into "maximum 3T" - we do not remember a time when the future ever seemed bright. I've talked about this in the "national mood" thread - 2015 seemed like a cheerful enough time to me, but to someone who experienced the 1950s and 1960s, it probably seems absolutely dismal, and everything in my life before or since that year has been even darker. This generation has never seen a miracle. The prevailing opinion among those near my age is that the only way these problems can ever be fixed is by a whole lot of work and dramatic change. There is a very high level of frustration with what is perceived as "the old sticks-in-the-mud standing in the way," the Boomers who refuse to give up their ideology and absolutism for any reason, even in the depths of crisis, when it is so clear to anyone actually paying attention that in this moment what is desperately needed is for people to leave their ideologies behind and do what needs to be done, regardless of what their "values" confabulations and theological (mis)interpretations have to say about it.

Children between the ages of 5 and 10 are far more perceptive than adults often give them credit for. They get the signals when magazines quit appearing in the mail, when blocks of cable channels are no longer available, when the family vacations are to duller and less-expensive places or involve staying with relatives instead of in motels, families eat out less, when Mommy spends less time getting new clothes, when Daddy quits talking about his golf game (he has cancelled his membership), and there are fewer presents around the Christmas tree. 

Perhaps most obviously, children often hear of the direness of the economic order from parents that their parents would never express on the job. In many jobs (especially those with public contract, which have heavily supplanted industrial work), people are obliged to show unbounded optimism and confidence in all things related to the working environment even if they find their personal lives a mess due to bad bosses, work-life balances that sacrifice personal life tor corporate profit and image, and of course poverty. People who would be scared to gripe on the job to bosses, clients, customers, or co-workers aren't so scared to gripe about such things in the presence of their kids. Economic realities weren't all that great in the first half or middle of the Double-Zero decade, and when "the economy" went into the septic tank, Millennials were the children from about toddler age. That has greatly shaped the political orientation of Millennial adults.

In politics, the showiest part is the Presidency. That Obama is the most competent and least troubled of Presidents that anyone under 40 can remember is good for Obama-like liberal ideals on economics and arch-conservatism on rule of law, law and order, foreign policy, respect for expertise, adherence to protocol and precedent, the validity of tradition (the Obama innovation on that is recognition of traditions different from his) and rejection of populist demagoguery.  Sane conservatives have always recognized that if they are to have any appeal, then they must allow the common man to have a stake in the system. Fear goes only so far in winning acquiescence in hurtful behavior by economic, political, and bureaucratic elites. 

We obviously can't go back to the 1950's; there's much that we would not now accept:

Jim Crow practice
polio
male chauvinism
prohibition of interracial marriage
heavy use of tobacco
relegation of nearly all minorities into second-class citizenship
marginalization of the handicapped
the Red Scare
leaded gasoline and paint
"Blood-Alley" intercity roads
cars that were deathtraps in collisions
the insipid music of hollow crooners and boring arrangers
outlawry and vilification of homosexuality

Maybe there will be parallels, but I can see some 2T, 3T, and even 4T innovations and practices being enshrined as reality. Some of the big "no's" that we have generally established (against drunk driving, meth, child sexual abuse, gay-bashing, disenfranchisement of minorities) will stick. Women will not be consigned again entirely to domestic servitude. Tobacco will not make a comeback. Model minorities will be a big part of public life. Gutter racism will be very much on the margin. People will complete more years of schooling (they will need to just so that they have the capacity to cope with the technology of entertainment and knowledge).  Of course most of the pop culture and many academic fads will go onto the trash heap of history. Speculative booms will be recognized as the destructive frauds that they are. We are going to recognize poverty as a form of child abuse even if we treat skid-row bums as pariahs.

This, I hope, is not a wish list. There is much that I would like to see that will not come to pass. We are not a truly rich country if we must impose mass poverty to ensure that a few people get to live in opulent splendor. We will not remain free if a majority of us follows religious fanatics and Trump-like demagogues. (Demagogues make conflicting promises, so once in power they choose which people they will betray. Should I die soon (I'm not saying that that will happen) I hope that we Americans have learned something essential from the putrid example of Donald Trump. We are not exempt from Christian versions of Ruhollah Khomeini or from mirror-image Marxists.

There is no magic in being American that exempts us from the consequences of mass stupidity.

[beechnut79]

(10-17-2021, 12:53 PM)galaxy Wrote: Obviously it's still very much a 4T, but I can't help but notice it gets a little awaken-ish sometimes.

There have been some 2T-isms in different ways - 2012-2015 stands out as a period of "cultural awakening" to me. At the time it kind of seemed like we were heading toward another sexual revolution, for example. New media was appearing everywhere, the world was superconnected and it seemed to be going well (the Internet at the time only showed tiny hints of the dark side it would fully reveal later in the decade). It felt like the cultural future would be bright, even if the environmental (climate change not really being seriously fought) and political (endless gridlock) futures looked dark. And at least to me, it felt like the national mood steadily brightened from about early 2012 until the middle of 2015. Or maybe that "bright cultural future/dark material future" thing is just the last bits of Unravelingism dying away (very clear that 2016-2020 was a period of rapid 4Tification).
Meanwhile, looking at the current time, it kind of feels like ever since later in 2015 we've been retracing the 1890s - high inequality, high political polarization, lots of social movements, fake news and just general "media wars" ("the new yellow journalism"), and then of course there's the remarkable comparison between the 2020 and 1896 elections.

I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but it's been on my mind lately as I begin to speculate about near-future elections. Will 2024 look like 1900? From where I am right now in October 2021, it kind of seems like it might, and that 2020 might be the realigning election that begins the Seventh Party System, which might be a mirror-image of the Fourth Party System (which began with 1896)?

Definitely not been heading toward another sexual revolution. From what I have understood the so-called hookup culture is not the new free love. In fact it has been disclosed that many of those sites are propped up by numerous fake ads. In some ways I would like to see another sexual revolution but so far is not only not happening, but sexual activity in general, even among married couples, has been on the wane for quite some time. Many of us, even before the Covid disaster took hold, could not feel enthusiastic and energized enough to participate in that kind of activity. This even though the concern over AIDS has also been on the wane. Although we still don't have an established cure, there are lots of drugs which help prolong life and minimize the ravages of this disease.

[beechnut79]

(10-17-2021, 02:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(10-17-2021, 12:53 PM)galaxy Wrote: Obviously it's still very much a 4T, but I can't help but notice it gets a little awaken-ish sometimes.

There have been some 2T-isms in different ways - 2012-2015 stands out as a period of "cultural awakening" to me. At the time it kind of seemed like we were heading toward another sexual revolution, for example.

What was opening was LGBT rights at the same time in which America was cracking down on child sexual abuse and domestic violence (much of the latter sexual). America was liberalizing in one direction and clamping down in others, which is not characteristic of an awakening. LGBT interests got their way by shoving the pedophiles under the bus just as sexual traditionalists were doing.

I could tell you much about the 'gay' scene of the 1970's; much of it was men picking up boys for sexual gratification, and that was called "sexual liberation". In the 2010's the LGBT appeal was to accept what adults were doing already and to not treat youth finding that they were homosexuals as pariahs. At one point three of every ten teenage males committing suicide were gay. Allowing LGBT adults to do what straight adults were doing and to not reject LGBT children isn't an awakening. It is simply practical and humane.

Quote:New media was appearing everywhere, the world was superconnected and it seemed to be going well

That is technology, and technology simply offers new modes of expression without creating new ones. The effect of the internet and virtual reality on culture is parallel to the influence of the automobile on the lives of young adults (then the Lost) about 110 years ago. People could go off in their "merry Oldsmobile" to get away from the prying eyes of repressive adults. Technology will fit the culture, but will not create it. The Internet functions like many things that have long existed: the book, the broadsheet and tabloid, the telegraph, the telephone, the stock ticker, the phonograph, the camera (still or video), radio, and television -- all well entrenched.   

Quote:(the Internet at the time only showed tiny hints of the dark side it would fully reveal later in the decade). It felt like the cultural future would be bright, even if the environmental (climate change not really being seriously fought) and political (endless gridlock) futures looked dark.

As if people have not used telephones, radio, posters, motion pictures, and television to get people to do horrible things long before there was an Internet. The political gridlock that we have came into existence before the Internet, and it reflects the conflict between entrenched power and democratic tendencies. American plutocrats are no different from feudal lords in expressing the sentiment that he who owns the gold makes the rules. A corollary of that view is that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful. A real awakening would challenge those precepts. By 2016 the people who most clearly held those precepts held both Houses of Congress, and in the Presidential election those people got Donald Trump, who exemplifies flamboyant 2T indulgence and arrogance and those two precepts of pure plutocracy. Trump has never been involved in any Voyage to the Interior or quest for deep knowledge as was the norm for smart Boomers (he is one of the hollowest people that I have ever seen in the news media). The pole stars of his existence are power, sex, and luxury irrespective of how those hurt others. Trump got nothing out of the Boom Awakening, but he is very much a 3T character.

3T behavior becomes discreditable, offensive, and ineffective in a 4T as social needs come to the fore. Trump is catastrophic failure as President, but this is what one can legitimately expect of someone who believes that he who owns the gold makes the rules and that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful.

Donald Trump never grew out of the infantile ideal that the world revolves around him. Most of us find all that revolves around us is people who believe that they have some claim to our toil and our earnings and assets.  

Quote:And at least to me, it felt like the national mood steadily brightened from about early 2012 until the middle of 2015. Or maybe that "bright cultural future/dark material future" thing is just the last bits of Unravelingism dying away (very clear that 2016-2020 was a period of rapid 4Tification).

Obama promoted optimism, and the economy was picking up -- at least in terms of stock prices and property rents. People scared of America going into as catastrophic a tailspin as the one that started in 1929 were reassured. Obama was much more like FDR than like Hoover.

Quote:Meanwhile, looking at the current time, it kind of feels like ever since later in 2015 we've been retracing the 1890s - high inequality, high political polarization, lots of social movements, fake news and just general "media wars" ("the new yellow journalism"), and then of course there's the remarkable comparison between the 2020 and 1896 elections.

The movements on the Right have overlapping concerns... and direction. So far they have excellent coordination and copious funding. Obviously in an inhuman plutocracy he who owns the gold makes the rules and that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful. With such questionable doctrines as the mandatory focus of us all, rather few people can be happy. The Hard Right rules by cunning exploitation of visceral fears of people of difference among a near-majority of people and by dashing the hopes of people who refuse to believe in the economic agenda of the Hard Right. (Work and starve, and take delight in our castles and palaces going up!)

Quote:I'm not sure what it means, if anything, but it's been on my mind lately as I begin to speculate about near-future elections. Will 2024 look like 1900? From where I am right now in October 2021, it kind of seems like it might, and that 2020 might be the realigning election that begins the Seventh Party System, which might be a mirror-image of the Fourth Party System (which began with 1896)?

COVID-19 is killing like a badly-bungled shooting war. That may be the bloodletting (or in its case the breath-denying) that marks other Crises. If there is to be a Seventh Party System, then such begins with a crushing of the near-majority Right or Left. Americans can adapt to the new potentialities of high technology that can relieve us of much toil, or they can abandon those potentialities on behalf of people who can do quite well with any level of technology so long as 95% of the populace suffers with exhausting toil for near-starvation rations of those who own the gold and make the rules and can enforce the doctrine that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the service of the rich and powerful.

In case you think it impossible that a sophisticated, modern society can revert to a new form of serfdom, then recall the Third Reich. Even without the militarism, racism, mass murder, and brutal repression Nazi Germany was a worker's Hell. Aside from overt victims, the people who had most to lose were the toilers of field and factory.

Do you think that we will ever stop treating those who engage in sexual activity for money as pariahs, as we now for the most part have with gays despite some obvious holdouts? Seems as though the opposite has happened in this sphere, in that we seem to be stigmatizing them even more.

Decriminalization if not outright legalization needs to happen here. Then they will at least be able to report abuses without fear of arrest. Now that gambling is nearly everywhere and marijuana chasing at its heels, why hasn't the sex work domino fallen yet?

[pbrower2a]

Prostitution will be legal when it can be made 'corporate', much as was the case with gambling a few years ago and marijuana sporadically. When something is profitable and cash flows are controllable it will have the support of Big Business. If Big Business wants something legal it becomes legal.

What isn't controllable about prostitution? It's a dangerous way to make a living. Many serial killers select prostitutes as prey. Killing their mothers who might have been prostitutes or at least 'loose women' through the surrogate of prostitutes? Big Business must be able to determine how much will be paid for certain acts and require that the condom be supplied by the company. When everything about it is proprietary, prostitution will be legal.

[Eric the Green]

This 4T has a lot of 3T left over. Neoliberalism/Reaganomics is tempting sloganeering, and nothing has really replaced it as the dominant ideology. This sort of 4T is that way also because there's a lot of civil war crisis in it. The previous civil war crisis had so much 3T in it all the way to 1860 that the T4T authors could not bring themselves to admit that 1850-1860 was also 4T.

I see very little in these times that is 2T. The Awakening has all but dried up. There are still people around seeking or experiencing spiritual awakening, but mostly these are older people who were already awakened. The pop culture in the USA is even more crass now than during the 3T. Nor do I see any signs of a real artistic renaissance. Sexual freedom has all but dried up, often for good reason, first due to AIDS in the 3T, and then the extreme reaction to sexual abuse including the MeToo movement. The easy-going trust of the love generation is nowhere to be found. How many hitchhikers have you picked up lately? The fear of the crime wave that happened during the 3T has never quite left us, and crime is on the rise again. Covid has eliminated establishing new close relationships. The love-ins are over for now. The greeting we give each other now is not the 2T's peace sign or "far out/groovy", but "stay safe". And with good reason. Such popular movements as exist now are either invalid reactionary ones, economic-focused ones, or the same political or racial/identity-focused ones from before. Outward and political concerns dominate, and for good reason. So I don't understand the title of this thread at all.

I see what you mean about 2012-2015, to some extent, galaxy. To me there seemed to be some bright pop stars, most of them solo female, and some good "Happy" "Good Time" songs that enthralled lots of young people, and I thought there was potential there. But some of them like Justin Bieber, whose deserved success starting in 2009-2010 was owed to youtube as part of the internet revolution, were also ridiculed and had some trouble. This has all melted away by now, and it never reached toward any level to compare with the pop or classical culture of awakenings. Such Happy songs are not really that characteristic of a 2T anyway. They emphasized the collegial and the culturally-superficial nature of the young civic Millennial Generation as they dominated pop culture.

"then of course there's the remarkable comparison between the 2020 and 1896 elections." 2020 has the potential to become a political re-aligning election, but so far it looks like it may be just another 1992 or 2008, with the people still being unwilling to support a Democratic president when they finally elect one. If Biden and the Democrats recover, then perhaps the trickle-down ideology will finally be broken if the BBBBB is finally passed. Taxes must be raised permanently on the wealthy, and it must stick, and it must be OK again to provide government social welfare to those in need. Anything less is completely anachronistic in an economy in which the jobs are either high tech, done by robots or sent overseas. Anything less and our nation has sold out to the Reagans and their big money backers, and there will be no 1T to follow because our nation and our world will not survive a permanent neoliberal Reaganomics USA government that is inherently unwilling to address climate change or growing inequality.

The fact though Mr. Galaxy is that re-aligning elections happen during both 2Ts and 4Ts. They happen about 40 years apart according to a famous cycle often discussed here. 1896 was certainly one during a 2T, and so was 1980, and 1932 was during the previous 4T, and as 1860 was during the previous civil war 4T, and so on.

[beechnut79]

(03-04-2022, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Prostitution will be legal when it can be made 'corporate', much as was the case with gambling a few years ago and marijuana sporadically.  When something is profitable and cash flows are controllable it will have the support of Big Business. If Big Business wants something legal it becomes legal.

What isn't controllable about prostitution? It's a dangerous way to make a living. Many serial killers select prostitutes as prey. Killing their mothers who might have been prostitutes or at least 'loose women' through the surrogate of prostitutes?  Big Business must be able to determine how much will be paid for certain acts and require that the condom be supplied by the company.  When everything about it is proprietary, prostitution will be legal.

I would rather see it remain independent and probably might prefer decriminalization. Corporatizing it wouldn't make it less expensive and would rather see it become affordable to the masses. Sex work has become the more politically correct name for that P-word. Jackpot question is whether it would become less stigmatized. The FOSTA law along with the forced seizure of the original Backpage (many clones have sprung up since then, mostly populated with fake and/or questionable ads), 

It has been for a long time packaged differently under the name escort services. Sure, sex is often a part of it but most reputable escorts heavily screen potential clients, and are quite expensive, with the going rate in the Chicago area now at about $500 an hour. For both parties' protection should be packaged as for companionship, and anything that happens between the two parties is contingent on where the mood takes them.

[Eric the Green]

(03-05-2022, 11:55 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-04-2022, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Prostitution will be legal when it can be made 'corporate', much as was the case with gambling a few years ago and marijuana sporadically.  When something is profitable and cash flows are controllable it will have the support of Big Business. If Big Business wants something legal it becomes legal.

What isn't controllable about prostitution? It's a dangerous way to make a living. Many serial killers select prostitutes as prey. Killing their mothers who might have been prostitutes or at least 'loose women' through the surrogate of prostitutes?  Big Business must be able to determine how much will be paid for certain acts and require that the condom be supplied by the company.  When everything about it is proprietary, prostitution will be legal.

I would rather see it remain independent and probably might prefer decriminalization. Corporatizing it wouldn't make it less expensive and would rather see it become affordable to the masses. Sex work has become the more politically correct name for that P-word. Jackpot question is whether it would become less stigmatized. The FOSTA law along with the forced seizure of the original Backpage (many clones have sprung up since then, mostly populated with fake and/or questionable ads), 

It has been for a long time packaged differently under the name escort services. Sure, sex is often a part of it but most reputable escorts heavily screen potential clients, and are quite expensive, with the going rate in the Chicago area now at about $500 an hour. For both parties' protection should be packaged as for companionship, and anything that happens between the two parties is contingent on where the mood takes them.

Prostitution is patronized by those who are lonely and sexually frustrated. Right now sexual relationship is given enormous stigma. That makes loneliness and frustration even greater. The likelihood of sex crimes and abuse leading to murder of women is greater because the sex crime is punished so severely by society and by the law. So rapists feel no alternative but to murder their victims to try and cover up their rape. Rape is a crime, especially forcible rape, but it should not be subject to capital punishment or to decades in jail if the perp is required to get therapy and supervision.

What is needed is a revival of the human potential movement. Therapy needs to be available; loneliness needs to be less pervasive. This will have to wait until the next awakening, when I see it coming again. Such awakenings can be ruined by abusive and entitled males who force their will on women and even on other men, as well as on children within families and outside-- and even long after the Awakening era itself (and usually the result of pre-awakening eras and non-awakened people). But the more open and less stigmatized sexual relationships are, the more it becomes a way of liberation and not of male domination, the more it receives good education, the more sex therapy is available, the more priests are allowed to marry and be women and not be celebate, the more all this and more happens, the more healthy sex will be, and the less need we'll have for prostitutes, and fewer sex crimes will happen.

I don't see any need for prostitution to be corporate. Legalization and regulation seems the best strategy to lessen the abuse and crime associated with it.

[linus]

I think this 4t (and maybe others too) is like the last 2t turned inside out, with the Nixon-Reagan majority collision in a slow death spiral, much as the New Deal majority coalition declined and fell in the late 1960s and 70s.

What are the hallmarks of a majority coalition in its latter days? A greater concern for speaking its truths (ie the "free speech" movement of today's GOP, and its preoccupation with "political correctness") than effectively governing, and addressing the problems of the day (back in the day it was inflation, crime, unemployment, and national security - today it is inequality, the high cost of health care, housing, and higher education, as well as now [and again] Russia, only this time with the GOP divided between Putin equivocators and extreme hawks). The rise of extremist groups, cults, and conspiracy theories that threaten civil society (back in the day it was the rise of the revolutionary left, following the Weatherman takeover of SDS, and the string of acronymical radical groups - the BLA, SLA, FALN - et al, and now it's the rise of far right groups, effectively merging with the GOP under Trump and now after him; then of course QAnon and all that toxic nonsense, some offshoots of which have dangerous cult-like qualities).

Provided we all don't end up vaporized in a third world war, I continue to think that despite whatever setbacks, here and abroad, the center-left will prevail and this time will reflect very, very poorly on the American right - with lasting consequences politically, and reputationally.

[pbrower2a]

(03-05-2022, 03:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-05-2022, 11:55 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-04-2022, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Prostitution will be legal when it can be made 'corporate', much as was the case with gambling a few years ago and marijuana sporadically.  When something is profitable and cash flows are controllable it will have the support of Big Business. If Big Business wants something legal it becomes legal.

What isn't controllable about prostitution? It's a dangerous way to make a living. Many serial killers select prostitutes as prey. Killing their mothers who might have been prostitutes or at least 'loose women' through the surrogate of prostitutes?  Big Business must be able to determine how much will be paid for certain acts and require that the condom be supplied by the company.  When everything about it is proprietary, prostitution will be legal.

I would rather see it remain independent and probably might prefer decriminalization. Corporatizing it wouldn't make it less expensive and would rather see it become affordable to the masses. Sex work has become the more politically correct name for that P-word. Jackpot question is whether it would become less stigmatized. The FOSTA law along with the forced seizure of the original Backpage (many clones have sprung up since then, mostly populated with fake and/or questionable ads), 

It has been for a long time packaged differently under the name escort services. Sure, sex is often a part of it but most reputable escorts heavily screen potential clients, and are quite expensive, with the going rate in the Chicago area now at about $500 an hour. For both parties' protection should be packaged as for companionship, and anything that happens between the two parties is contingent on where the mood takes them.

Prostitution is patronized by those who are lonely and sexually frustrated. Right now sexual relationship is given enormous stigma.

One of the attractions of prostitution to the client is often the absence of a relationship.  Relationships often prove inconvenient or troublesome to people with mental illness or moral depravity. Some people have gotten perverse training from their parents, such as that all women are gold-diggers or worse. Some men are physically unattractive for reasons from disfigurement to obesity and cannot attract a woman except with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Some have distorted views of women as a consequence of over-indulgence in pornography or taking it too seriously. Anyone excessively fussy about getting the ideal partner will be disappointed.

Quote:That makes loneliness and frustration even greater. The likelihood of sex crimes and abuse leading to murder of women is greater because the sex crime is punished so severely by society and by the law. So rapists feel no alternative but to murder their victims to try and cover up their rape. Rape is a crime, especially forcible rape, but it should not be subject to capital punishment or to decades in jail if the perp is required to get therapy and supervision.

Anyone can be frustrated, but as a general rule, the nastier a person one is te more likely one is to be frustrated. Anyone who demands to get away with personal vileness will be all the more likely to fail in achieving one's desires. So if we become as a whole nicer people and that the expectations are such and are well known, then we will have far less frustration. Of course more social equity will be a good thing.

Rape involves at best treachery and at worst violence. A strong correlation exists between burglary and rape -- perhaps that burglary gets a rapist to potential victims, or that people who do not heed property rights might have lax boundaries on the dignity of others. California imposed a three-strikes law, and after many burglars got their third strike for a burglary conviction and got put away for years, rapes declined.

Quote:/
What is needed is a revival of the human potential movement. Therapy needs to be available; loneliness needs to be less pervasive.

Therapy does not work on narcissism, sociopathy, or psychopathy.

I suggest that we put much of the emphasis on human kindness and getting along with others in K-12 education that nobody can escape. Learning how to be a good person is essential to getting along at work. Marginally-competent people can hold jobs, but nasty people get fired for so-called personality conflicts. STEM is nice, but one must have good character if one is to be trusted with dangerous pathogens, reagents, or power sources.

Part of human development is finding meaning in life. To be sure if all one does is to make people already filthy-rich even more filthy-rich by working multiple jobs just to survive,then not much else matters in life. How long can we maintain that as a norm?

Quote:This will have to wait until the next awakening, when I see it coming again. Such awakenings can be ruined by abusive and entitled males who force their will on women and even on other men, as well as on children within families and outside-- and even long after the Awakening era itself (and usually the result of pre-awakening eras and non-awakened people). But the more open and less stigmatized sexual relationships are, the more it becomes a way of liberation and not of male domination, the more it receives good education, the more sex therapy is available, the more priests are allowed to marry and be women and not be celibate, the more all this and more happens, the more healthy sex will be, and the less need we'll have for prostitutes, and fewer sex crimes will happen.

If I notice any predictable pattern in history it is that the solutions that people find for one problem create another problem. The automobile that freed people from the numbing boredom of isolated rural life became a makeout-place and a getaway car for marauding armed bank robbers like John  Dillinger. Radio became a tool of entertainment (the 1934 World Series!) but also a tool in another country for propaganda that led people far astray, especially with military weapons. The Pill made pregnancy less of a fear but it also made it easier for male-chauvinist-pigs to demand sex. Computers are great tools of reference, information, and self expression but they are also easy to abuse (like the infamous 419 scam and conspiracy theories -- and medical quackery).

If I were to suggest any reforms for the Roman Catholic Church it would be that it accept married priests and female priests. It seems so obvious! 

Quote:I don't see any need for prostitution to be corporate. Legalization and regulation seems the best strategy to lessen the abuse and crime associated with it.

Taxes and regulation.