Thoughts On Where We Are, and Where We're Going

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-11-2018, 10:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-11-2018, 08:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not a 4T!  A 2T!  Mumble...  

There is a slight uptick in the spiral of violence.  Suicides are pushing for a splash before exiting the scene.  This does not seem linked to any particular political movement, so I am not counting it as a large change in the spiral.  The media is exploiting and boosting the trend by reporting it to an extreme.  You have to kill more people to get lots of impact for your act.  As they once put it, anything to sell papers.  It is blood money.

I think this may be the end point: muddle through and let the next 2T settle the argument philosophically … or not.  Our grandchildren may decide to chop the country into separate nations, and let the teams relocate to areas they find more to their liking, though I see that as a 4T-type effort.

Come to think of it, the blue awakening was pretty much a new thing.  The key central emotional parts of the early American awakenings were highly religious.  The 2T as a social and political movement was pretty new with the 1950s and 1960s, with Martin Luther King and successor movements.  This may be what I'm seeing in the change in the pattern of history, a shift from the Industrial Age pattern to the new age.  Things move faster in the 2T.  The new values, once they go critical, are social, political and implemented faster.  There isn't a slow brewing of an unravelling.  Think the Civil Rights Act, the wave of environmentalism, the softer implementation of the Domino Theory.  The unravelling seems dominated by a counter awakening, an attempt by conservatives to turn back the clock.

If the nature of cultural change has already happened, if we have already seen a new age 2T, we are seeing a new style of transformation for the new age.  The new transformation might be something unlike the Industrial Age 2T or 4T with the Conciseness Revolution as a model for what we are likely to see.

But I will stick to what I have been saying about not being in a classic Industrial Age 4T.   There is a time in the late 3T to early 4T where the new values are shouted loudly enough for people to know them, but the government and people are not united enough to try to implement them, and the eventual Champion has not been elected yet.  The military catalysts (Lexington Green, Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor) have not occurred yet.  The war hasn't started yet.  Maybe a brave speech has redefined what we are fighting for, such as the Four Freedoms speech.  Maybe the big speeches have to wait until near the climax, such as the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural or the Iron Curtain speech.  The Constitution, the post Civil War amendments, the formation of the United Nations, become attempts to nail the thing down, a 'permanence' of the new values for a while, a sign that the 1T has arrived.

But we have not seen yet a nation united in purpose, a successful attempt at making the new values universal.  What we have seen is the see saw, with the conservatives and progressives taking turns at having their innings.  We progressives certainly hope the see saw will flip at least one more time, perhaps thee more times.  It is not clear that Trump has totally discredited Reagan.  The middle of the country could blame Trump, not a failure of Reagan. 

We will see.  I have often called cultures stubborn.  It seems that the S&H fanatics are no exception, would prefer to stick with seeing the old pattern.

[David Horn]

(09-12-2018, 11:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: If the nature of cultural change has already happened, if we have already seen a new age 2T, we are seeing a new style of transformation for the new age.  The new transformation might be something unlike the Industrial Age 2T or 4T with the Conciseness Revolution as a model for what we are likely to see.

But I will stick to what I have been saying about not being in a classic Industrial Age 4T.   There is a time in the late 3T to early 4T where the new values are shouted loudly enough for people to know them, but the government and people are not united enough to try to implement them, and the eventual Champion has not been elected yet.  The military catalysts (Lexington Green, Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor) have not occurred yet.  The war hasn't started yet.  Maybe a brave speech has redefined what we are fighting for, such as the Four Freedoms speech.  Maybe the big speeches have to wait until near the climax, such as the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural or the Iron Curtain speech.  The Constitution, the post Civil War amendments, the formation of the United Nations, become attempts to nail the thing down, a 'permanence' of the new values for a while, a sign that the 1T has arrived.

But we have not seen yet a nation united in purpose, a successful attempt at making the new values universal.  What we have seen is the see saw, with the conservatives and progressives taking turns at having their innings.  We progressives certainly hope the see saw will flip at least one more time, perhaps thee more times.  It is not clear that Trump has totally discredited Reagan.  The middle of the country could blame Trump, not a failure of Reagan. 

We will see.  I have often called cultures stubborn.  It seems that the S&H fanatics are no exception, would prefer to stick with seeing the old pattern.

S&H based a lot of their theory on patterns established during the 12,000 year long Agricultural Age that seemed to be less reliable after the transition to the Industrial Age. Now we're in the Information Age, so more change makes perfect sense, but it does raise the question: what is core to the theory that still stands?

I guess we'll see soon enough.

[Eric the Green]

(09-12-2018, 11:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-11-2018, 10:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-11-2018, 08:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not a 4T!  A 2T!  Mumble...  

There is a slight uptick in the spiral of violence.  Suicides are pushing for a splash before exiting the scene.  This does not seem linked to any particular political movement, so I am not counting it as a large change in the spiral.  The media is exploiting and boosting the trend by reporting it to an extreme.  You have to kill more people to get lots of impact for your act.  As they once put it, anything to sell papers.  It is blood money.

I think this may be the end point: muddle through and let the next 2T settle the argument philosophically … or not.  Our grandchildren may decide to chop the country into separate nations, and let the teams relocate to areas they find more to their liking, though I see that as a 4T-type effort.

Come to think of it, the blue awakening was pretty much a new thing.  The key central emotional parts of the early American awakenings were highly religious.  The 2T as a social and political movement was pretty new with the 1950s and 1960s, with Martin Luther King and successor movements.  This may be what I'm seeing in the change in the pattern of history, a shift from the Industrial Age pattern to the new age.  Things move faster in the 2T.  The new values, once they go critical, are social, political and implemented faster.  There isn't a slow brewing of an unravelling.  Think the Civil Rights Act, the wave of environmentalism, the softer implementation of the Domino Theory.  The unravelling seems dominated by a counter awakening, an attempt by conservatives to turn back the clock.

If the nature of cultural change has already happened, if we have already seen a new age 2T, we are seeing a new style of transformation for the new age.  The new transformation might be something unlike the Industrial Age 2T or 4T with the Conciseness Revolution as a model for what we are likely to see.

But I will stick to what I have been saying about not being in a classic Industrial Age 4T.   There is a time in the late 3T to early 4T where the new values are shouted loudly enough for people to know them, but the government and people are not united enough to try to implement them, and the eventual Champion has not been elected yet.  The military catalysts (Lexington Green, Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor) have not occurred yet.  The war hasn't started yet.  Maybe a brave speech has redefined what we are fighting for, such as the Four Freedoms speech.  Maybe the big speeches have to wait until near the climax, such as the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural or the Iron Curtain speech.  The Constitution, the post Civil War amendments, the formation of the United Nations, become attempts to nail the thing down, a 'permanence' of the new values for a while, a sign that the 1T has arrived.

But we have not seen yet a nation united in purpose, a successful attempt at making the new values universal.  What we have seen is the see saw, with the conservatives and progressives taking turns at having their innings.  We progressives certainly hope the see saw will flip at least one more time, perhaps thee more times.  It is not clear that Trump has totally discredited Reagan.  The middle of the country could blame Trump, not a failure of Reagan. 

We will see.  I have often called cultures stubborn.  It seems that the S&H fanatics are no exception, would prefer to stick with seeing the old pattern.

I think the old pattern does apply, yes.  I also use the planetary pattern to relate it to something ingrained in the very being and the cycles of our planet and solar system within which we live. The spiral dynamics paradigm as originally given by philosophers and psychologists also has a claim on our view of things, as well as other economic and cultural cycles that Mike has discussed.

We have moved from the industrial to the information age, and we also have seen the new age movement grow out of the consciousness revolution. The industrial age definitely shifted the saeculum, from a roughly 100-year duration to a roughly 82-year duration. This also coincided with the period in which Uranus was discovered, and the associated political and scientific changes of that time. The saeculum speeded up, and progress as we know it began.

The switch to the information age, which is also associated with discovery of Pluto and the other smaller bodies in the solar system, could logically, possibly, shift the saeculum. I just don't see Bob's points as indicating sufficient changes to define such a shift.

The double rhythm, as indicated by Neptune's cycle, seems enough of an explanation for why the 4T seems to come upon us more slowly this time. As I have said before, the change that needed to be made in the S&H theory seems not to be to redefine what is happening today. It is to revision what they saw as the anomaly. I have pointed this out many times, and other participants such as Chas and Odin have also revised it. Our 4T is a recurrance of the civil war 4T, which extended back at least to 1850, not just to 1860. That means that the controversies, the failed compromises, the failures to act, the bleeding kansas, the polarization of that time, and the upheavals from abroad that affected us, and the worldwide depression and mass migration preceding 1850, all are reflected in what is happening today as well.

And that means also that the next 1T will be a recurrance of the Gilded Age 1T. What that means, as I see it, is that the controversies of our 4T, with all their procrastination and failed compromises, will be extended into the 1T, so that it won't be as united and peaceful as the previous 1T of the 1950s. So, the double rhythm has meant a milder 4T in its early phase, and a more active 1T, than what we experienced in the 20th century's 4T and 1T. 

This is also indicated by Neptune transiting in muddled Pisces from 1848 through the 1850s, and today since 2011, and Neptune in activist/warlike Aries from 1861 to 1874, and from 2025 to 2039. And remember Neptune entered the sign Aries on the VERY DAY of Ft. Sumter's bombing. All this was covered in my video



4Ts do not indicate or represent a united country. That is the point that I made in my previous post, and Bob seems to not get. It is very clear, though. The country united only in the final defeat of the enemy at the climax and end of all previous 4Ts, when consensus develops as we move into the 1T. 

So there is no change indicated in our saeculum by the fact that we are still polarized and muddling along today. It is 1850s redux. Again, I have indicated this here many times, and predicted this in advance long ago. Things could not be MORE on schedule, considering the saeculum and all the cycles.

The 2T was not different from earlier ones either. The consciousness revolution featured a new spiritual awakening, the new age movement, as previous ones did (e.g. transcendentalism in the 1830s to the 50s, and theosophy/new thought in the 1890s), and a counter-awakening with a powerful fundamentalist revival of traditional Christian evangelism as well, just like previous great awakenings during 2Ts. And 2Ts, just as before, also featured social and political rebellions and new movements emerging, as Bob mentioned, and as happened in previous 2Ts with the populist social gospel and labor and progressive movements of the 1890s and 1900s, the anti-slavery movements of the 1820s and 30s, the great awakening ideals of the new city on a hill of the Enlightenment era of the 1740s period, and the great rebellion of the 1640s. I see no indication of changes to the saeculum in these respects.

So how would the information age shift the saeculum, then? The only thing I could see, possibly, is a slowing down of progress a little. The information age is also what we call post-modernism. This trend has shifted our cultural milieu. It is an outgrowth of the consciousness revolution, both in its social justice movements, which created a mindset to reduce the authority of social roles and increase our awareness of relativity, and the environmental and counter-cultural movements which redefined our whole notion of progress. 

These are also reflected in what spiral dynamics calls the Green Meme, and is roughly equivalent to the cosmic meanings of Pluto, the Kuiper Belt, and Chiron and the centaurs; Pluto having been discovered in 1930 at the time of the uncertainty principle, Heidegger's existentialism, Jungian psychology and gestalt psychology and Reichian bio-energetics, and the rest being discovered in the 1970s to the 1990s. Chiron was discovered in the same year 1977 as Apple Computer was founded and the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber was published. These new discoveries were amplified into entire regions of similar but smaller bodies discovered in the 1990s, just as integral philosophy was fully developed and the internet exploded in scale. More on all this at http://philosopherswheel.com/planetarydynamics.html

The saeculum seemed to speed up even faster than the 82-year cycle indicated by half of Neptune's orbit, in the previous 4T and 1T. JFK's assassination seemed to end the 1T a little prematurely. But the 3T lasted longer. So if there's any effect of the post-modern information age, it may just be to slow the saeculum down again from this acceleration. This may be due to longer lifespans, so that adaptives are in power longer and thus slowing down change and readiness to enter combat and conflict in full-on 4T style. 

But Uranus-Pluto cycles also seemed to speed the end of the 1T, and open the 2T early, in the mid-1960s; and this may happen again in circa 2046, so that the next 1T will also be only about 18 years long; and once again the following 2T through 4Ts will be longer too. So the speeding up and subsequent slowing down may also be coincidental with the cosmic schedule.

The next 1T will therefore not be quite the easy and peaceful breather that folks here hope for, and it will also end too soon! But in compensation, we have had, so far, an easier 4T, and the combat, in whatever form it takes, will be of shorter duration.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-13-2018, 08:22 AM)David Horn Wrote: S&H based a lot of their theory on patterns established during the 12,000 year long Agricultural Age that seemed to be less reliable after the transition to the Industrial Age.  Now we're in the Information Age, so more change makes perfect sense, but it does raise the question: what is core to the theory that still stands?

I guess we'll see soon enough.

If we assume the Information Age kicked in with the end of World War II, certainly by the Consciousness Revolution, if we look primarily at patterns established in the Information Age, and trends are apt to be weaker if they are further in the past, and sort of remembering that one sample does not a pattern make...

The cycle of change does not generally feature the earlier all out crisis war in the Information Age.  Quite simply, with nukes, it is no longer cost effective to declare war against another power that has nukes.  The elites will become weaker, not stronger.  

In democracies, the transformation is more through the democratic process, and the transformation more resembles the Consciousness Revolution than a religious awakening.  Democracies can attempt to use war to change things abroad, but so long as a major autocratic power is willing to act, the result is likely to end in stalemate.  Domestic change is not apt to involve a military catalyst, a war, or the planet Uranus.

In autocratic countries, the resolution is through some combination of guerrilla war and migration.  The autocracy is almost by definition conservative.  Any attempt at an awakening resolution, accepting democratic values and methods, is kind of useless if the dictator cares more about power than about his people, and the people's values are not loaded with a democratic tradition.  If loyalty to the group outweighs equality and the Enlightenment tradition, as is apt to happen in a Agricultural Age tradition, the rebellion as apt to fail.  

So long as there are autocratic major powers willing to back autocratic minor powers, the war will tend to favor the dictator, who however ends up weaker than before due to perpetual conflict and the exodus of refugees away from the conflict zone.  If foreign powers attempt to intervene the result is more apt to be stalemate.  It is that much easier to not loose than to win in a guerrilla conflict.

After a  conflict resolution, it would be primarily up to the conservatives to determine what comes next.  I have come up with three alternatives: a high where the changes are accepted, a compromising unravelling if the change is not accepted, and a see saw if the compromisers attempt to govern as if with a mandate when they do not have a mandate.  See saws are too fast for the Agricultural Age, and seemingly for the Industrial Age.  They were not typical.  The future?  We’ll see.

This is a less deterministic pseudo cycle.  With only one time around to base your samples on, any attempt to be certain is apt to fall short.  We will see about how varied the conservative response is.

It also doesn’t count as much on generation dynamics, on the assumption that the generations have personalities which govern how they will act politically.  One could add that and come up with other predictions.  One such is an alternation between the high resolution and the others.

But it provides something to throw rotten fruit at.

I guess we’ll see soon enough.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-13-2018, 10:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: 4Ts do not indicate or represent a united country. That is the point that I made in my previous post, and Bob seems to not get. It is very clear, though. The country united only in the final defeat of the enemy at the climax and end of all previous 4Ts, when consensus develops as we move into the 1T.

Industrial Age 4Ts at maturity do not indicate a lack of opposition, just that the conservative faction cannot stop the overwhelming majority. There were Tories in the revolution. Lincoln actually wrote a letter around Gettysburg where he took the blame for the war. There were a few points where the martial progress was low, and if the election had occurred at the right moment, history would have been very different. Even in World War II FDR had to fight opposition to invading Japan. There were movements to end the war early.

But in the three American crises at least, the elections did not occur at the right time for a failure of the 4T. It could have been different, but it was what it was.

Bush 43 gives us an example of a failed regeneracy, new values which just don’t work. He had a military catalyst in September 11. He had an idea in serial unilateral preemptive nation building. He had an idea in that technology overcomes boots on the ground, which was more or less true for conventional war, but less true of guerrilla war. He had a climax with the surge. The idea just took too much mobilization for Bush 43’s taste and ran into guerrilla opposition. It failed. The values of that war did not merge with long term US values. There is a vast reluctance to put large numbers of boots on the ground. I imagine the massive bases and embassy that Bush 43 built for his ambitious plans sit empty. It takes a good idea that works to drive a successful cycle.

I try to use scientific values to work a theory. If the existing theory does not fit the data, come up with a better fitting theory. But I also have political values. I am a Whig. Democracy, rights and equality become constants, a common theme across many transformations. However, the transformations are entirely different across history. Different things occupy the most repugnant position, and are the target of a given transformation.

I am not seeing the immediate triumph of my political values. In that I seem to be different from many who post here. Progress, maybe, but progress that can be blocked by autocratic dictators controlling a people with autocratic ideas. There are limits to what can be achieved, and it might well be good to recognize them.

I do find the military progress more easily influences values than non military. What could have helped or hurt the Consciousness Revolution? Some say the Manson killings hurt the hippie movement, but they occurred well after the Summer of Love. Some note the legend of Woodstock in promoting the best of Hippie values, but that the next rock concert featured Hells Angels as security, and pulled rock festivals away from the hippie ideal. Was that inevitable? Was sustaining the Woodstock ideal impossible?

Anyway, your use of astrology steps away from my current areas of interest. I will not comment on your ‘theory’.

[pbrower2a]

The only part of the Boom Awakening that seems to have persisted other than in a fringe is the rise of the Fundamentalist/Evangelical segment of Protestant Christianity. It has proved much more compatible with the economic elites than any of the others because of its unqualified acceptance of economic inequality and rigid hierarchies. It's hard to see any other part of the Boom Awakening getting a revival. X and Millennial adults will never get the Boom Awakening, which for now is a good thing. No, I consider Woodstock and hippie culture irrelevant to our time.

The difference between Obama and FDR is that Obama took over as capitalism was in the early stage of collapse and FDR appeared as things might have bottomed out. Both backed the banks, which stanched the decline. But Obama stopped the economic decline only to save people who would be his political enemies, and FDR put an end to the risk of further economic collapse late enough to ensure that the economic elites had no more funds for buying the political system.

Dubya offered about as failed a Regeneracy as he could have. But remember: 9/11 was almost sixty years after the Pearl Harbor attack, which implies that America was not yet in a mood for a Regeneracy. FDR put an end to the consumer-driven economy quickly after the Pearl Harbor attack; Dubya told us to simply go shopping, the definitive 3T act.

...The shortening of saecula suggests that people are taking on some adult characteristics earlier and more competently than they used to. Long apprenticeships used to be the norm even for some menial occupations. and young adults were typically into their twenties before they could express themselves culturally and in consumer habits. That of course is over, but something has changed: lifespans are longer, which means that we have never had so much influence of people in their seventies and eighties. Such means that there are often four influential adult generations. More elderly people remain around, and they still have the ability to shape events.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-13-2018, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The only part of the Boom Awakening that seems to have persisted other than in a fringe is the rise of the Fundamentalist/Evangelical segment of Protestant Christianity. It has proved much more compatible with the economic elites than any of the others because of its unqualified acceptance of economic inequality and rigid hierarchies.  It's hard to see any other part of the Boom Awakening getting a revival. X and Millennial adults will never get the Boom Awakening, which for now is a good thing. No, I consider Woodstock and hippie culture irrelevant to our time.

Yes. There is little or less hope of reviving the Blue Boomer awakening today. I was wondering if it could have been manipulated back then. The Consciousness Revolution is the only example of a successful Information Age major transformation in my revised sequence, assuming the pattern of history shifts big time with the end of an age.

[Eric the Green]

(09-13-2018, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The only part of the Boom Awakening that seems to have persisted other than in a fringe is the rise of the Fundamentalist/Evangelical segment of Protestant Christianity. It has proved much more compatible with the economic elites than any of the others because of its unqualified acceptance of economic inequality and rigid hierarchies. It's hard to see any other part of the Boom Awakening getting a revival. X and Millennial adults will never get the Boom Awakening, which for now is a good thing. No, I consider Woodstock and hippie culture irrelevant to our time.

I reviewed for you all the aspects of the Consciousness Revolution that are relevant today, and it was quite a list. It is not the "Boom Awakening." That is an incorrect name. Some people still get the hippie/Woodstock aspects as well, and the New Age aspects, regardless of age, and it will remain an example of alternative life. Little revivals have continued. It is a permanent part of our culture, forever. However, that aspect specifically is not as relevant now to the specific issues of our 4T. But most of those were already articulated, and the issues joined, during the 2T as well, and it's all of a piece. There is no difference between today's issues and those that were front and center during the 60s and 70s; they are the same.

And we can't hope to create a new and restored world by only paying attention to economics. We live by bread, but also roses. Quality and personal issues are always on the table in a society whose problems stem specifically from its materialism, over-fondness for technology, social and spiritual alienation and cultural depravity. So, those kind of counter-cultural movements will always be on the table, and will return, because the need for them remains, whether our current younger generations see that need or not. To the extent that they don't see the need, the stronger and larger will the counter-cultural movements of the sixties return. People may easily ignore what I say, but that does not mean I am incorrect.

Quote:The difference between Obama and FDR is that Obama took over as capitalism was in the early stage of collapse and FDR appeared as things might have bottomed out. Both backed the banks, which stanched the decline. But Obama stopped the economic decline only to save people who would be his political enemies, and FDR put an end to the risk of further economic collapse late enough to ensure that the economic elites had no more funds for buying the political system.

Dubya offered about as failed a Regeneracy as he could have. But remember: 9/11 was almost sixty years after the Pearl Harbor attack, which implies that America was not yet in a mood for a Regeneracy. FDR put an end to the consumer-driven economy quickly after the Pearl Harbor attack; Dubya told us to simply go shopping, the definitive 3T act.

correct.

Quote:...The shortening of saecula suggests that people are taking on some adult characteristics earlier and more competently than they used to. Long apprenticeships used to be the norm even for some menial occupations. and young adults were typically into their twenties before they could express themselves culturally and in consumer habits. That of course is over, but something has changed: lifespans are longer, which means that we have never had so much influence of people in their seventies and eighties. Such means that there are often four influential adult generations. More elderly people remain around, and they still have the ability to shape events.

How might that change the saeculum, is the question.

[Eric the Green]

(09-13-2018, 07:07 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-13-2018, 10:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: 4Ts do not indicate or represent a united country. That is the point that I made in my previous post, and Bob seems to not get. It is very clear, though. The country united only in the final defeat of the enemy at the climax and end of all previous 4Ts, when consensus develops as we move into the 1T.

Industrial Age 4Ts at maturity do not indicate a lack of opposition, just that the conservative faction cannot stop the overwhelming majority.  There were Tories in the revolution.  Lincoln actually wrote a letter around Gettysburg where he took the blame for the war.  There were a few points where the martial progress was low, and if the election had occurred at the right moment, history would have been very different.  Even in World War II FDR had to fight opposition to invading Japan.  There were movements to end the war early.

But in the three American crises at least, the elections did not occur at the right time for a failure of the 4T.  It could have been different, but it was what it was.

Bush 43 gives us an example of a failed regeneracy, new values which just don’t work.  He had a military catalyst in September 11.  He had an idea in serial unilateral preemptive nation building.  He had an idea in that technology overcomes boots on the ground, which was more or less true for conventional war, but less true of guerrilla war.  He had a climax with the surge.  The idea just took too much mobilization for Bush 43’s taste and ran into guerrilla opposition.  It failed.  The values of that war did not merge with long term US values.  There is a vast reluctance to put large numbers of boots on the ground.  I imagine the massive bases and embassy that Bush 43 built for his ambitious plans sit empty.  It takes a good idea that works to drive a successful cycle.

I try to use scientific values to work a theory.  If the existing theory does not fit the data, come up with a better fitting theory.  But I also have political values.  I am a Whig.  Democracy, rights and equality become constants, a common theme across many transformations.  However, the transformations are entirely different across history.  Different things occupy the most repugnant position, and are the target of a given transformation.

I am not seeing the immediate triumph of my political values.  In that I seem to be different from many who post here.  Progress, maybe, but progress that can be blocked by autocratic dictators controlling a people with autocratic ideas.  There are limits to what can be achieved, and it might well be good to recognize them.

I do find the military progress more easily influences values than non military.  What could have helped or hurt the Consciousness Revolution?  Some say the Manson killings hurt the hippie movement, but they occurred well after the Summer of Love.  Some note the legend of Woodstock in promoting the best of Hippie values, but that the next rock concert featured Hells Angels as security, and pulled rock festivals away from the hippie ideal.  Was that inevitable?  Was sustaining the Woodstock ideal impossible?

Anyway, your use of astrology steps away from my current areas of interest.  I will not comment on your ‘theory’.

There would have been no regeneracy during Bush 43; it was still the 3T. The military needs for his program were throwbacks to the 1T and a failed 2T unpopular war, and not a forward-looking regeneracy program.

I agree progress is often blocked; we saw that in the Arab Spring, especially in Syria. Often it has been blocked in the USA. The hippie culture had it reversals, which exacted a price, I agree. You being of the Orange/Uranus meme, hold to those Whig values, and in some respects the Uranus element moved forward into the more socialist concerns for equality, beyond the purely early Whig aspect of democracy and rights, across the further transformations. In your preference for scientific analysis, you go back into its roots in the early modern pre-industrial Renaissance and early Enlightenment eras, but I agree it is always useful to base our views of the data, as long as we also maintain our values and ideals for progress beyond what the data indicate as having happened thus far.

[pbrower2a]

(09-14-2018, 03:18 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-13-2018, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The only part of the Boom Awakening that seems to have persisted other than in a fringe is the rise of the Fundamentalist/Evangelical segment of Protestant Christianity. It has proved much more compatible with the economic elites than any of the others because of its unqualified acceptance of economic inequality and rigid hierarchies.  It's hard to see any other part of the Boom Awakening getting a revival. X and Millennial adults will never get the Boom Awakening, which for now is a good thing. No, I consider Woodstock and hippie culture irrelevant to our time.

I reviewed for you all the aspects of the Consciousness Revolution that are relevant today, and it was quite a list. It is not the "Boom Awakening." That is an incorrect name. Some people still get the hippie/Woodstock aspects as well, and the New Age aspects, regardless of age, and it will remain an example of alternative life. Little revivals have continued. It is a permanent part of our culture, forever. However, that aspect specifically is not as relevant now to the specific issues of our 4T. But most of those were already articulated, and the issues joined, during the 2T as well, and it's all of a piece. There is no difference between today's issues and those that were front and center during the 60s and 70s; they are the same.

But the Tea Party, Donald Trump, and GOP fronts have won -- so far -- although they can still be discredited due to gross failure, both technical and moral. For them to maintain and entrench their victory they must entrench their current hold with repression and perhaps violence. We may end up with some great reforms of America, perhaps a result of a Constitutional Convention whose purpose is to close the seams in our political system.

I dread any military coup, but if that is what it takes to prevent a President from becoming a despot or the President from starting an unjustifiable and catastrophic war -- then such might be necessary and justified after the fact. It will be necessary that some junta decides to restore electoral democracy quickly -- at best on the official schedule and in accordance with the Constitution. 

Should the Tea Party, Donald Trump, and the GOP fronts collapse due to criminality and incompetence, then such will be due to the electoral process or to some coup that thwarts some criminal conspiracy. A free election will involve people mostly in Generation X and the Millennial Generation who have concerns other than the cultural ephemera of the Consciousness Revolution. Boomers can no longer sell the Consciousness Revolution except as nostalgia for which younger generations have no bond. By 2020 people under 60 will have more practical concerns than 'rainbows and unicorns' -- such as political freedom, civil liberties, personal and public debt, employment, and health care.

OK, the Civil Rights struggle is entrenched enough that nobody is going to restore Jim Crow practices -- and it has served as a model for environmentalism, feminism, the rights of the handicapped, and same-sex rights. We need also understand that the Boom Awakening also brought about the Religious Right, much of it a reaction to the cultural ephemera of the Consciousness Revolution. It is Jerry Falwell against the Woodstock culture, and in the cultural struggle, Jerry Falwell and his ilk won. America's plutocrats are as rapacious as ever, and they want a political order that follows its commands. Although the Consciousness Revolution has so faded that it is no longer a meaningful target of the Right, something more important is under attack: the fundamental new decencies of the last 4T of the New Deal and the Great Society (LBJ was taking the New Deal to a reasonable direction).

The Hard Right wants the 40-hour workweek, labor unions, poor relief, old-age security, and Medicare privatized or eliminated. It has no problem with public infrastructure except that it is not in the hands of monopolistic gougers who have bought cheaply what the taxpayers built. It wants not only abortion but also contraception outlawed. It wants a social order much like that of Russia in which most people are nearly destitute and oligarchs have all the benefits of a modern economy. If you look at the theological objective -- it is that the masses suffer with smiles for the indulgence of a plutocratic elite in return for promises of a better world in the Afterlife... with the threat of a fate worse than death in This World and eternal damnation in the Afterlife.

Combine the worst parts of the American historical tradition, and you get the worst possible result in this 4T. I can imagine America as a Christian version of Iran, another nightmare of inequality, irresponsible government, a brutal legal system, fanaticism, and repression.  I can also see the end of such an order as free people do to an Evil Empire what they did to the Evil Empires of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo just to survive with some dignity.
 

Quote:And we can't hope to create a new and restored world by only paying attention to economics. We live by bread, but also roses. Quality and personal issues are always on the table in a society whose problems stem specifically from its materialism, over-fondness for technology, social and spiritual alienation and cultural depravity. So, those kind of counter-cultural movements will always be on the table, and will return, because the need for them remains, whether our current younger generations see that need or not. To the extent that they don't see the need, the stronger and larger will the counter-cultural movements of the sixties return. People may easily ignore what I say, but that does not mean I am incorrect.

Man does not live on bread alone, but he still needs bread.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs operates in earnest, and driving people en masse down the hierarchy of needs is unconscionable. But such seems to be what our economic elites want for all but themselves. I consider the crasser forms of materialism representations of the commodity fetish characteristic of people who continue to grasp for low stuff after their basic needs have receded deep into the rear-view mirror. Technology? It can give us easier access to some of the finer things in life -- if one means literature, cinema, music, and art -- and of course education. People can of course use technologies for indulgence in mass low entertainment. The same computer that can provide one with this





can also provide some really-harmful $#!+ as well. It's up to us to make choices that bring us fulfillment and not degradation.

Advanced technology can bring us more leisure because we will no longer need to work so many hours  for basic needs as we used to. That will require social reforms to match the bounty of the capacity for productivity that people once thought impossible. But remember -- we will still need bread... heating fuel, clothing, transportation, medical care, and of course formal education.

(snip)

Quote:

Quote:...The shortening of saecula suggests that people are taking on some adult characteristics earlier and more competently than they used to. Long apprenticeships used to be the norm even for some menial occupations. and young adults were typically into their twenties before they could express themselves culturally and in consumer habits. That of course is over, but something has changed: lifespans are longer, which means that we have never had so much influence of people in their seventies and eighties. Such means that there are often four influential adult generations. More elderly people remain around, and they still have the ability to shape events.

How might that change the saeculum, is the question.

If anything it might lengthen the saeculum. It is possible that the presence of four adult generations influencing public life and the economy will mitigate the worst tendencies of the ages of the generational cycle. So imagine a Crisis Era in which an active Adaptive generation in its seventies and eighties can stanch the fanaticism and cynicism of younger adults, a High in which there are still active Idealists to make cultural life less bland and unreflective, an Awakening Era in which some sober realists can tell Civics that big projects cost real money and young Idealist whipper-snappers that their counter-culture has already been tried and found flawed, and an Unraveling that unravels less because active Civics are still around to remind people of the need for some social structure. (We may have seen the latter as the Civic component of life went from elderly GI adults to young adults of the Millennial Generation; it was awkward, but things could have been far worse).

I can imagine the younger part of the Silent Generation having influence until the early 2030s as kids born after 9/11 begin to appear in large numbers in the workplace and in popular culture. Could Bob Dylan be a living model for young creators of the Homeland Generation?

We shall see. In the absence of knowledge of events, I can only return to the theory with a healthy critique of some of its assumptions. The biggest reality behind the generational cycle is the human life cycle. This Crisis Era may be a muddle, but some alternatives with greater clarity (such as global thermonuclear warfare or genocide that costs hundreds of millions of lives) are obviously unwelcome. I am tempted to believe that Donald Trump is far from the last act of the Boomer Generation, with people with beliefs more like mine who have been shut out of institutional power and electoral politics being around to bring the Crisis of 2020 to a (I hope!) wholesome conclusion. Because Generation X and the Millennial Generation will have the bulk of elected offices and by then command of executive positions the conclusion will not be something like the Woodstock festival. It will be too pragmatic and rational for such -- which is far superior to what Donald Trump and his coterie offer. We cannot achieve the perfect, but we can achieve something benign.

I see optimism in the low approval ratings of Donald Trump. We will go through spectacular failures simply to discover what works and what cannot. Time for another Consciousness Revolution? Only about twenty years after the end of this Crisis Era. Maybe if I live into old age and have as good health as we have seen among GI elders who took care of themselves, I might influence the new Idealists -- that peace and love are wondrous things, but dope (aside perhaps from cannabis) is to be avoided. Just imagine Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix without dope killing them.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-14-2018, 03:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: There would have been no regeneracy during Bush 43; it was still the 3T. The military needs for his program were throwbacks to the 1T and a failed 2T unpopular war, and not a forward-looking regeneracy program.

The 40s, especially the early 40s, were 4T.  It is easy to say the 1950 were 1T, and it was for much of white America.  When did the 2T occur?  The Civil Rights movement plaid out in the 50s and 60s.  The peace movement and gender equality played in the 60s.  Environmentalism played in the 1970s.

If the high was short, the unravelling (and see saw) was long.  I see the National Malaise as a sign that America's confidence was shot, the awakening over.  Reagan defined unraveling politics.  So, depending on the markers you choose, September 11 was close to the expected start of a 4T.  The conservatives on the old site were certainly ready to nominate Bush 43 as Grey Champion early on.

But, anyway, with the crazy timing of the cycles after the mid 40s, an age shift, and the failed crisis, we are pretty much in uncharted territory.  We need a progressive juggernaut, a holding on to the White House and Congress that will not see saw after two years of aggressive progressive rule.  It is not clear that Trump has managed that, though I do see it likely that he has flipped the see saw.  I could see the reds electing a kinder gentler candidate in the mold of Trump or Palin if no one acknowledges their point of view.  They could convince themselves that the problem is Trump, not their values, and look again for someone to make the old red values work.

I do not think the old red values will work, but I do not think the reds are quite ready to admit it.

[pbrower2a]

As I wrote in another thread, a 4T is the time in which social forces, economic reality, and the outright distinction between truth and falsehood, winnows out what works and what doesn't. The success in such may at times reflect the level of bloodletting, as in World War II or the American Civil War.

I see Donald Trump as a likely scapegoat (polling suggests such) representing much that is wrong in contemporary America. He exemplifies the Seven Deadly Sins (anger, envy, greed, lust, excess, sloth, and hubristic pride) and three sins of equal lethality (cruelty, deceit, and cowardice) as few others have. People associated with him have faced severe legal consequences.

Democracy is worth preserving (there are no good alternatives), and I expect that we will want what Abraham Lincoln called "a new Birth of Freedom". Capitalism (probably more capitalism, which means a revival of small business as a share of the economy) is preferable to government ownership unless there are severe questions of equity. OK, so we end up with a social-market economy that affords more opportunity, and maybe we have graduated income taxes that create niches for small-scale entrepreneurs. We need to recognize that education is necessary both as training for work and as a means of making life off work meaningful.

I see Barack Obama as a portent of the sort of leaders that we will have after the 1T is over -- a mature, sixty-year-old Reactive (Obama acted like a sixty-year-old, mellowed Reactive when he was in his mid-40s). Obama was more like an Eisenhower than like an FDR or a Lincoln. Well, in view of Trump, we were certainly not ready for an FDR or Lincoln.

[Bob Butler 54]

As you know, I am floating the idea that we are in a new age, that some of the lessons learned and exercises in changing values will be different.  We might look to the Consciousness Revolution more than the religious awakenings or great wars for making the transitions in values.

One area that doesn't seem to have changed is really bad conservative presidents just before a transition trying to make the older ideas work.  We have had Buchanan and Hoover.  I didn't think you would get worse than Bush.  Trump seems to have managed it.

And yet there are also forces trying to demonize.  Going the other way, the chief victim has been Hillary.  But there are still blue forces trying to portray Trump in a bad light.  In doing so, they have moved the bar as to what is acceptable.  Sexual harassment which was long part of the culture has become grounds for removal in many places.  Racist positions have come out into the open, but become similarly unacceptable in some ways, and big red flags in others.

I'll accept that this demonization was common in past Information Age crises too, that there were people in their reporting and governance trying to make Buchanan, Hoover and others with older values look bad.  From the next High's values perspective, using the new values, they were bad.  Some were slaveholders.  Some forced horrible work conditions on workers.  They accepted and embodied the old values and did not see clearly that they were acting very immorally by the new.  They did see their profits, and justified the old behaviors by their profits.

You remember all that, and Trump still looks bad.  Pbower's recent portrayal of him as embodying the seven deadly sins and more seems apt.  We should not calmly accept people like that in our highest office.

And yet, there is the Tea Party base.  They might eventually accept that Trump is bad, but not see the old values as bad.  They will see the obvious bias of the blue press and politicians, and not see the flaws in the values, where the blue see a need to act.  This is almost predictable.  Well, cancel the 'almost'.  They might try to push the old values by electing another person in the Trump - Palin mold who doesn't have Trumps personal flaws, but will promise to make the red values work, to cling to Reagan's unraveling memes.

I'll repeat that we are in a new age.  We are unlikely to settle the red-blue clash in a war.  The conflict will not be mistakable as a religious awakening, similar to the earlier American great awakenings.  It will be stormy, reminiscent more of the Consciousness Revolution than anything else.

[David Horn]

(09-13-2018, 03:16 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-13-2018, 08:22 AM)David Horn Wrote: S&H based a lot of their theory on patterns established during the 12,000 year long Agricultural Age that seemed to be less reliable after the transition to the Industrial Age.  Now we're in the Information Age, so more change makes perfect sense, but it does raise the question: what is core to the theory that still stands?

I guess we'll see soon enough.

If we assume the Information Age kicked in with the end of World War II, certainly by the Consciousness Revolution, if we look primarily at patterns established in the Information Age, and trends are apt to be weaker if they are further in the past, and sort of remembering that one sample does not a pattern make...

The cycle of change does not generally feature the earlier all out crisis war in the Information Age.  Quite simply, with nukes, it is no longer cost effective to declare war against another power that has nukes.  The elites will become weaker, not stronger.  

In democracies, the transformation is more through the democratic process, and the transformation more resembles the Consciousness Revolution than a religious awakening.  Democracies can attempt to use war to change things abroad, but so long as a major autocratic power is willing to act, the result is likely to end in stalemate.  Domestic change is not apt to involve a military catalyst, a war, or the planet Uranus.

Wherein comes the rub.  Democratic change is always delayed when it can be.  This is a feature of the system -- especially n the US, where change was intended to be hard.  Since the middle is shrinking, in pretty much all respects, and the political fringes are getting noisier and less willing to compromise, the inevitable clashes, will be more pronounced.  I still fail to see a war or massive civil unrest building in the US.  That may be less true in Europe.

Bob Butler Wrote:In autocratic countries, the resolution is through some combination of guerrilla war and migration.  The autocracy is almost by definition conservative.  Any attempt at an awakening resolution, accepting democratic values and methods, is kind of useless if the dictator cares more about power than about his people, and the people's values are not loaded with a democratic tradition.  If loyalty to the group outweighs equality and the Enlightenment tradition, as is apt to happen in a Agricultural Age tradition, the rebellion as apt to fail.  

So long as there are autocratic major powers willing to back autocratic minor powers, the war will tend to favor the dictator, who however ends up weaker than before due to perpetual conflict and the exodus of refugees away from the conflict zone.  If foreign powers attempt to intervene the result is more apt to be stalemate.  It is that much easier to not loose than to win in a guerrilla conflict.

This is the military version of the political stalemates suffered by democracies -- more below.  

Bob Butler Wrote:After a  conflict resolution, it would be primarily up to the conservatives to determine what comes next.  I have come up with three alternatives: a high where the changes are accepted, a compromising unravelling if the change is not accepted, and a see saw if the compromisers attempt to govern as if with a mandate when they do not have a mandate.  See saws are too fast for the Agricultural Age, and seemingly for the Industrial Age. They were not typical.  The future?  We’ll see.

This is a less deterministic pseudo cycle.  With only one time around to base your samples on, any attempt to be certain is apt to fall short.  We will see about how varied the conservative response is.

It also doesn’t count as much on generation dynamics, on the assumption that the generations have personalities which govern how they will act politically.  One could add that and come up with other predictions.  One such is an alternation between the high resolution and the others.

But it provides something to throw rotten fruit at.

I guess we’ll see soon enough.

I can accept an ongoing see-saw non-solution in a democratic state, but that seems far fetched in more autocratic ones.  For autocracies, degradation to a state of chaos seems much more likely -- similar to what occurred in Somalia.  The other alternative, is a state of war that heats and cools but never resolves.  That's the worse case, and the entire middle east may be the test ground for that model.

Of course, the ever-war model cannot be sustained without constant replenishment of war materials.  That makes it a byproduct of other disputes by powers capable of supporting that model: the US, Russia (but not forever), China and Western Europe.  Other than China, I see the others growing weary, so the next round may go to China's proxies by default.

[David Horn]

(09-13-2018, 07:07 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I am not seeing the immediate triumph of my political values.  In that I seem to be different from many who post here.  Progress, maybe, but progress that can be blocked by autocratic dictators controlling a people with autocratic ideas.  There are limits to what can be achieved, and it might well be good to recognize them.

I do find the military progress more easily influences values than non military.  What could have helped or hurt the Consciousness Revolution?  Some say the Manson killings hurt the hippie movement, but they occurred well after the Summer of Love.  Some note the legend of Woodstock in promoting the best of Hippie values, but that the next rock concert featured Hells Angels as security, and pulled rock festivals away from the hippie ideal.  Was that inevitable?  Was sustaining the Woodstock ideal impossible?

The Consciousness Revolution was not a Liberal-Conservative axis movement.  It was much more Authoritarian-Libertarian, and extremely libertarian at that.  It was all about telling the man to take a hike, living the way you want to live, be it Buddhist commune dweller or rebel biker.  Most of that energy went to the right, as the hyper-liberty nonsense began in earnest, and still resides there.  The remnant on the communitarian side is small in comparison.  

On the other hand, the liberty-lovers are not ideal allies of the Christian Right either, though they have made a pact to oppose the PTB.  Both see coastal liberals as adversaries or even enemies.  It's an uneasy alliance, and can be broken if the right ideas are presented by the right people in the right way: a lot of 'rights' there.  This alliance of convenience is the result of 45 years of conservative effort to circle every wagon they can find.

[David Horn]

(09-14-2018, 08:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But, anyway, with the crazy timing of the cycles after the mid 40s, an age shift, and the failed crisis, we are pretty much in uncharted territory.  We need a progressive juggernaut, a holding on to the White House and Congress that will not see saw after two years of aggressive progressive rule.  It is not clear that Trump has managed that, though I do see it likely that he has flipped the see saw.  I could see the reds electing a kinder gentler candidate in the mold of Trump or Palin if no one acknowledges their point of view.  They could convince themselves that the problem is Trump, not their values, and look again for someone to make the old red values work.

I do not think the old red values will work, but I do not think the reds are quite ready to admit it.

The same may be true for the old Blue values.  And let's be frank about it, the neoliberals held all the Blue cards in the 3T and Obama wasn't an improvement in the 4, but both sides of this argument have flawed thinking, though the flaws in the Red side are gargantuan.  No one can convince me that handing over the world's economy and political structure to the private sector has any potential to make life better for those not already making all the money and wielding all the power.

But we still need a viable alternative.  Where's the 21st century's John Maynard Keynes?

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-15-2018, 12:06 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-14-2018, 08:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But, anyway, with the crazy timing of the cycles after the mid 40s, an age shift, and the failed crisis, we are pretty much in uncharted territory.  We need a progressive juggernaut, a holding on to the White House and Congress that will not see saw after two years of aggressive progressive rule.  It is not clear that Trump has managed that, though I do see it likely that he has flipped the see saw.  I could see the reds electing a kinder gentler candidate in the mold of Trump or Palin if no one acknowledges their point of view.  They could convince themselves that the problem is Trump, not their values, and look again for someone to make the old red values work.

I do not think the old red values will work, but I do not think the reds are quite ready to admit it.

The same may be true for the old Blue values.  And let's be frank about it, the neoliberals held all the Blue cards in the 3T and Obama wasn't an improvement in the 4, but both sides of this argument have flawed thinking, though the flaws in the Red side are gargantuan.  No one can convince me that handing over the world's economy and political structure to the private sector has any potential to make life better for those not already making all the money and wielding all the power.

But we still need a viable alternative.  Where's the 21st century's John Maynard Keynes?

In some ways a good post.  My opposition is in the theory.

If Obama was going along with the Neoliberals, and it feels that way, how was he the Grey Champion and how did he rule a 4T?  We have not yet had a regeneracy resulting in a government trying to push the new values.

Now in the Industrial Age, the big war often took around 5 years, while the turning lasted a generation or so, more than 20 years.  You could call it a 4T before any military catalyst, the election of the person who is the eventual embodiment of the new values, and even include the times of the bad conservative presidents who preceded the Champion.  (Buchanan, Hoover, Bush 43, Trump.)

But all of that is before the regeneracy, before a progressive majority attempts to switch to new values and renders the conservatives almost powerless.

I suppose we might be in the early pre regeneracy part of a 4T, but most emphatically we are not in a regeneracy or the heart of a 4T proper.  The country is quite divided with the reds quite capable of, say, holding the White House, controlling the Congress, loading the Supreme Court...

But boundaries aside, good post.

[pbrower2a]

(09-15-2018, 12:06 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-14-2018, 08:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But, anyway, with the crazy timing of the cycles after the mid 40s, an age shift, and the failed crisis, we are pretty much in uncharted territory.  We need a progressive juggernaut, a holding on to the White House and Congress that will not see saw after two years of aggressive progressive rule.  It is not clear that Trump has managed that, though I do see it likely that he has flipped the see saw.  I could see the reds electing a kinder gentler candidate in the mold of Trump or Palin if no one acknowledges their point of view.  They could convince themselves that the problem is Trump, not their values, and look again for someone to make the old red values work.

I do not think the old red values will work, but I do not think the reds are quite ready to admit it.

The same may be true for the old Blue values.  And let's be frank about it, the neoliberals held all the Blue cards in the 3T and Obama wasn't an improvement in the 4, but both sides of this argument have flawed thinking, though the flaws in the Red side are gargantuan.  No one can convince me that handing over the world's economy and political structure to the private sector has any potential to make life better for those not already making all the money and wielding all the power.

But we still need a viable alternative.  Where's the 21st century's John Maynard Keynes?

Piketty, but he is better described as a neo-Marxist. He admits it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-15-2018, 06:22 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-15-2018, 12:06 PM)David Horn Wrote: But we still need a viable alternative.  Where's the 21st century's John Maynard Keynes?

Piketty, but he is better described as a neo-Marxist. He admits it.

Well, it is often said that Marx was half right.  It is possible to hate the division of wealth without advocating autocratic government.  I wouldn't entirely dismiss Piketty.

[pbrower2a]

(09-15-2018, 06:32 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-15-2018, 06:22 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-15-2018, 12:06 PM)David Horn Wrote: But we still need a viable alternative.  Where's the 21st century's John Maynard Keynes?

Piketty, but he is better described as a neo-Marxist. He admits it.

Well, it is often said that Marx was half right.  It is possible to hate the division of wealth without advocating autocratic government.  I wouldn't entirely dismiss Piketty.

Piketty sees history as a succession of elites, with the size of the elite creating the oppression instead of the autocratic character of a leader. Elites are highly selective in nature, selecting for either morality of some standard -- or, if Donald Trump exemplifies America's elite of ownership going in a vile direction, amorality. Entry by merit alone (as in technical proficiency) is inadequate. Being born into the Right Family is more important. Inheritance is obvious enough with the elites of ownership, with a comparatively rare parvenu like John Rockefeller, Henry Ford, or Sam Walton making it and demonstrating the means that allow the origin of the elite.

The executive elite of America is no less oppressive than plutocrats, and it may be even more exclusive. The educational criteria which in recent decades were adequate are becoming more difficult to attain. The elites want formal education to be fiendishly expensive and education for its own sake to not be remunerative. After all, well-educated people with miserable jobs and a strong conscience might find a 'sinful' text by Karl Marx that demonstrates the depravity of the early-industrial capitalism that Marx knew... and depraved variants of modern capitalism such as the pay-to-play economy that we Americans now know all too well.

Add to this corporate attorneys and lobbyists, politicians, and some well-paid journalistic hacks, favored academics, and clerical hacks who remind the common man that his lot is to suffer for the elites in This World. The Koch brothers might have a very different culture than Pat Robertson, but both share a common love for  plutocratic order.

if one sees urban landlords as analogues to the landed magnates of medieval times (if one lives in the more prosperous parts of America one pays a high price for the privilege of living in their midst) one has much the same elite. Landholding elites have typically been the most hide-bound reactionaries in any society, and they were much of the support for Ku Kluxism, Fascism, and Nazism  -- in the latter, Nazis got their start in rural areas in suppressing the pressures of landless farm workers against aristocratic elites. That is one oppressive, demanding elite, and most Americans know such an elite. Add to this elite the class of capitalists -- well, mostly heirs of capitalists. Then add a class of executives,and then sell-out intellectuals that include political operatives, politicians above a certain level, corporate attorneys, and a few academics and clerics who do exceedingly well, and would do well even in a 'classless' society.

So let us suppose that you are a dentist in northern Virginia. That's a well-paying profession, but not wildly so. If you are new to the profession you have a huge student loan to pay. You probably rent, and you pay sky-high rents for a tiny apartment. The insurance company dictates what dental procedures you can perform and what you cannot. You also recognize that the lobbyists pull the strings on the politicians -- at least the current majorities. Those elites are doing an expensive root canal on your economic teeth.