Gray Champion Predictions

[Tim Randal Walker]

The Japanese, as well as other non-Western cultures, have borrowed clothing styles from the the West. But that is superficial-clothing doesn't alter ones values. Other borrowings can actually be described as modernization, rather than Westernization.

[freivolk]

(05-22-2019, 06:35 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-20-2019, 11:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Japan would seem to be on roughly the same timelines. Arguably India. Countries that went Commie between 1946 and 1949 would seem to be a bit delayed, as might South Korea (Korean War). The former Yugoslavia and current Rwanda have obviously gone through Crisis eras -- if I were looking to be in a post-Crisis world, I would go with Croatia or Slovenia now.

Australia (and by extension New Zealand) are anglophone Western countries and fall more in line with the Big Three Anglophone countries.  US, Canada, UK.

France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain are all Western European.  Greece should be on a separate time line but I think perhaps they were jerked into a more Western mold by WW2 than the rest of Eastern Europe being that they were more exposed to the West after kicking out the Ottomans than otherwise.

Japan is on a similar timeline but only coincidentally--the Japanese are western only in that they like business suits and cell phones, they are still thoroughly Japanese.  South Korea is on the Japanese line, though delayed about five or six years.  Like the Japanese the South Koreans are thoroughly Korean.

Yugoslavia went through a 4T in the 1990s as did all of Eastern Europe including Russia.  As I said in previous posts the Slavic and Slavic-Orthodox countries in particular are a different civilization from the West and thus on a different timeline.

Rwanda has had a 4T and the rest of Central Africa is still in it, but it is fading.  East Africa's 4T is over or nearly so as there is talk of forming an East African Federation.  Rwanda intends to join, and they are actively seeking Chinese investment to rapidly industrialize as Ethiopia and Kenya are doing.  The next Sweatshop of the World will not be in Asia unless India decides it doesn't want to be the world's call center, the rest of Asia simply isn't populous enough but Africa is untapped cheap labor.

India seems poised to leapfrog industrial development because their lingua franca is English.  This means that where cheap labor is required for white collar work, it can be outsourced to India.

Different cultures doesn´t mean, that your clocks running on different time. The West forced his time on the world. Details can differ, but basicly we have now a global 4T and we also had one 1929-1949. You can pray to your shinto-gods all days, if the NewYork-stock-market crashs you still have a crisis and if the USA starts throwing nukes at you, you better hope the crisis end.
The russian Revolution, the Fall of the USSR and the Yoguslavia-war are not 4T-events, they are rather devasting 3T-events (Russia seems to have a tendency for this). The 4T is for Russia about establishing the "New Order" and restoring the Great Power status. Stalin was successfull with this. If Putin will be successfull, we have to wait and see.

[pbrower2a]

At this point the difference of two years in the 3Y/4T divide, as between 1945 and 1947 (the USA and India) means little. Four? The Crisis in Germany ended with the Berlin Air Lift which decided how German history would go to a large extent.

[freivolk]

(05-29-2019, 06:25 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: At this point the difference of two years  in the 3Y/4T divide, as between 1945 and 1947 (the USA and India) means little. Four? The Crisis in Germany ended with the Berlin Air Lift which decided how German history would go to a large extent.

But in China the Crisis ends 1949.

[pbrower2a]

(05-30-2019, 03:29 AM)freivolk Wrote:

(05-29-2019, 06:25 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: At this point the difference of two years  in the 3Y/4T divide, as between 1945 and 1947 (the USA and India) means little. Four? The Crisis in Germany ended with the Berlin Air Lift which decided how German history would go to a large extent.

But in China the Crisis ends 1949.

Yes -- basically.

[Kinser79]

(05-29-2019, 08:37 AM)freivolk Wrote:

(05-22-2019, 06:35 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-20-2019, 11:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Japan would seem to be on roughly the same timelines. Arguably India. Countries that went Commie between 1946 and 1949 would seem to be a bit delayed, as might South Korea (Korean War). The former Yugoslavia and current Rwanda have obviously gone through Crisis eras -- if I were looking to be in a post-Crisis world, I would go with Croatia or Slovenia now.

Australia (and by extension New Zealand) are anglophone Western countries and fall more in line with the Big Three Anglophone countries.  US, Canada, UK.

France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain are all Western European.  Greece should be on a separate time line but I think perhaps they were jerked into a more Western mold by WW2 than the rest of Eastern Europe being that they were more exposed to the West after kicking out the Ottomans than otherwise.

Japan is on a similar timeline but only coincidentally--the Japanese are western only in that they like business suits and cell phones, they are still thoroughly Japanese.  South Korea is on the Japanese line, though delayed about five or six years.  Like the Japanese the South Koreans are thoroughly Korean.

Yugoslavia went through a 4T in the 1990s as did all of Eastern Europe including Russia.  As I said in previous posts the Slavic and Slavic-Orthodox countries in particular are a different civilization from the West and thus on a different timeline.

Rwanda has had a 4T and the rest of Central Africa is still in it, but it is fading.  East Africa's 4T is over or nearly so as there is talk of forming an East African Federation.  Rwanda intends to join, and they are actively seeking Chinese investment to rapidly industrialize as Ethiopia and Kenya are doing.  The next Sweatshop of the World will not be in Asia unless India decides it doesn't want to be the world's call center, the rest of Asia simply isn't populous enough but Africa is untapped cheap labor.

India seems poised to leapfrog industrial development because their lingua franca is English.  This means that where cheap labor is required for white collar work, it can be outsourced to India.

Different cultures doesn´t mean, that your clocks running on different time. The West forced his time on the world. Details can differ, but basicly we have now a global 4T and we also had one 1929-1949. You can pray to your shinto-gods all days, if the NewYork-stock-market crashs you still have a crisis and if the USA starts throwing nukes at you, you better hope the crisis end.
The russian Revolution, the Fall of the USSR and the Yoguslavia-war are not 4T-events, they are rather devasting 3T-events (Russia seems to have a tendency for this). The 4T is for Russia about establishing the "New Order" and restoring the Great Power status. Stalin was successfull with this. If Putin will be successfull, we have to wait and see.

We're not talking about different cultures here.  We're talking about different civilizations.  Clearly Japan and the West are not the same civilization.  Neither is India and the West.  And that begs the question of in what turning was each country at the end of 1945.  And this is before we get into the whole mega-saecular situation.

I'd argue that Russia's last mega crisis ended around 1922
China's 1949.  The century of humiliation was a classic Mega-Crisis.
Japan's when US occupation ended.

Germany's last regular 4T shortly after the Berlin Airlift.


It may be useful to think of it as everyone having different time zones if one chooses to ignore the presence of a higher order of cycle which I call the Mega-Saeculum (lasting around four saecula).

[freivolk]

(05-30-2019, 10:54 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-29-2019, 08:37 AM)freivolk Wrote:

(05-22-2019, 06:35 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-20-2019, 11:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Japan would seem to be on roughly the same timelines. Arguably India. Countries that went Commie between 1946 and 1949 would seem to be a bit delayed, as might South Korea (Korean War). The former Yugoslavia and current Rwanda have obviously gone through Crisis eras -- if I were looking to be in a post-Crisis world, I would go with Croatia or Slovenia now.

Australia (and by extension New Zealand) are anglophone Western countries and fall more in line with the Big Three Anglophone countries.  US, Canada, UK.

France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain are all Western European.  Greece should be on a separate time line but I think perhaps they were jerked into a more Western mold by WW2 than the rest of Eastern Europe being that they were more exposed to the West after kicking out the Ottomans than otherwise.

Japan is on a similar timeline but only coincidentally--the Japanese are western only in that they like business suits and cell phones, they are still thoroughly Japanese.  South Korea is on the Japanese line, though delayed about five or six years.  Like the Japanese the South Koreans are thoroughly Korean.

Yugoslavia went through a 4T in the 1990s as did all of Eastern Europe including Russia.  As I said in previous posts the Slavic and Slavic-Orthodox countries in particular are a different civilization from the West and thus on a different timeline.

Rwanda has had a 4T and the rest of Central Africa is still in it, but it is fading.  East Africa's 4T is over or nearly so as there is talk of forming an East African Federation.  Rwanda intends to join, and they are actively seeking Chinese investment to rapidly industrialize as Ethiopia and Kenya are doing.  The next Sweatshop of the World will not be in Asia unless India decides it doesn't want to be the world's call center, the rest of Asia simply isn't populous enough but Africa is untapped cheap labor.

India seems poised to leapfrog industrial development because their lingua franca is English.  This means that where cheap labor is required for white collar work, it can be outsourced to India.

Different cultures doesn´t mean, that your clocks running on different time. The West forced his time on the world. Details can differ, but basicly we have now a global 4T and we also had one 1929-1949. You can pray to your shinto-gods all days, if the NewYork-stock-market crashs you still have a crisis and if the USA starts throwing nukes at you, you better hope the crisis end.
The russian Revolution, the Fall of the USSR and the Yoguslavia-war are not 4T-events, they are rather devasting 3T-events (Russia seems to have a tendency for this). The 4T is for Russia about establishing the "New Order" and restoring the Great Power status. Stalin was successfull with this. If Putin will be successfull, we have to wait and see.

We're not talking about different cultures here.  We're talking about different civilizations.  Clearly Japan and the West are not the same civilization.  Neither is India and the West.  And that begs the question of in what turning was each country at the end of 1945.  And this is before we get into the whole mega-saecular situation.

I'd argue that Russia's last mega crisis ended around 1922
China's 1949.  The century of humiliation was a classic Mega-Crisis.
Japan's when US occupation ended.

Germany's last regular 4T shortly after the Berlin Airlift.


It may be useful to think of it as everyone having different time zones if one chooses to ignore the presence of a higher order of cycle which I call the Mega-Saeculum (lasting around four saecula).

I think there is a misunderstanding. I used culture in the german sense of Kultur, which can basicly used synonym with civilisation Zivilisation. I know the big differences between the civilisation, but it doesn´t change the fact, that in all this countrys were in the 1930/40th in a crisis, which ended post-1945.
like said before China 1949 
India 1947/48
Japan somewhere between 1945-51 (I tend more to 1948)
and finally the Soviet Union 1945/46.
Like I said, I don´t see the Russian Revolution as a crisis, but as a 3T-event. Devasting like WWI, but like this still only a 3T-event. Post-1922 USSR is no High, for this it is with its NEP and landowning peasant not secure enough. The Crisis is Stalins rule, Collectivisation, the Holodomor, the Great Purge and finally WWII.

[Eric the Green]

I agree, since the world went to war, all countries are on close to a common saeculum clock.

[Hintergrund]

(05-29-2019, 08:37 AM)freivolk Wrote:

(05-22-2019, 06:35 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-20-2019, 11:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Japan would seem to be on roughly the same timelines. Arguably India. Countries that went Commie between 1946 and 1949 would seem to be a bit delayed, as might South Korea (Korean War). The former Yugoslavia and current Rwanda have obviously gone through Crisis eras -- if I were looking to be in a post-Crisis world, I would go with Croatia or Slovenia now.

Australia (and by extension New Zealand) are anglophone Western countries and fall more in line with the Big Three Anglophone countries.  US, Canada, UK.

France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain are all Western European.  Greece should be on a separate time line but I think perhaps they were jerked into a more Western mold by WW2 than the rest of Eastern Europe being that they were more exposed to the West after kicking out the Ottomans than otherwise.

Japan is on a similar timeline but only coincidentally--the Japanese are western only in that they like business suits and cell phones, they are still thoroughly Japanese.  South Korea is on the Japanese line, though delayed about five or six years.  Like the Japanese the South Koreans are thoroughly Korean.

Yugoslavia went through a 4T in the 1990s as did all of Eastern Europe including Russia.  As I said in previous posts the Slavic and Slavic-Orthodox countries in particular are a different civilization from the West and thus on a different timeline.

Rwanda has had a 4T and the rest of Central Africa is still in it, but it is fading.  East Africa's 4T is over or nearly so as there is talk of forming an East African Federation.  Rwanda intends to join, and they are actively seeking Chinese investment to rapidly industrialize as Ethiopia and Kenya are doing.  The next Sweatshop of the World will not be in Asia unless India decides it doesn't want to be the world's call center, the rest of Asia simply isn't populous enough but Africa is untapped cheap labor.

India seems poised to leapfrog industrial development because their lingua franca is English.  This means that where cheap labor is required for white collar work, it can be outsourced to India.

Different cultures doesn´t mean, that your clocks running on different time. The West forced his time on the world. Details can differ, but basicly we have now a global 4T and we also had one 1929-1949. You can pray to your shinto-gods all days, if the NewYork-stock-market crashs you still have a crisis and if the USA starts throwing nukes at you, you better hope the crisis end.

Mostly agree with this, except for the middle part. The last 4T wasn't truly global, I agree w/ Kinser on Russia's Turnings, but this one may well rip all other countries into a maelstrom.

[freivolk]

(05-31-2019, 06:54 PM)Hintergrund Wrote:

(05-29-2019, 08:37 AM)freivolk Wrote:

(05-22-2019, 06:35 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(05-20-2019, 11:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Japan would seem to be on roughly the same timelines. Arguably India. Countries that went Commie between 1946 and 1949 would seem to be a bit delayed, as might South Korea (Korean War). The former Yugoslavia and current Rwanda have obviously gone through Crisis eras -- if I were looking to be in a post-Crisis world, I would go with Croatia or Slovenia now.

Australia (and by extension New Zealand) are anglophone Western countries and fall more in line with the Big Three Anglophone countries.  US, Canada, UK.

France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Spain are all Western European.  Greece should be on a separate time line but I think perhaps they were jerked into a more Western mold by WW2 than the rest of Eastern Europe being that they were more exposed to the West after kicking out the Ottomans than otherwise.

Japan is on a similar timeline but only coincidentally--the Japanese are western only in that they like business suits and cell phones, they are still thoroughly Japanese.  South Korea is on the Japanese line, though delayed about five or six years.  Like the Japanese the South Koreans are thoroughly Korean.

Yugoslavia went through a 4T in the 1990s as did all of Eastern Europe including Russia.  As I said in previous posts the Slavic and Slavic-Orthodox countries in particular are a different civilization from the West and thus on a different timeline.

Rwanda has had a 4T and the rest of Central Africa is still in it, but it is fading.  East Africa's 4T is over or nearly so as there is talk of forming an East African Federation.  Rwanda intends to join, and they are actively seeking Chinese investment to rapidly industrialize as Ethiopia and Kenya are doing.  The next Sweatshop of the World will not be in Asia unless India decides it doesn't want to be the world's call center, the rest of Asia simply isn't populous enough but Africa is untapped cheap labor.

India seems poised to leapfrog industrial development because their lingua franca is English.  This means that where cheap labor is required for white collar work, it can be outsourced to India.

Different cultures doesn´t mean, that your clocks running on different time. The West forced his time on the world. Details can differ, but basicly we have now a global 4T and we also had one 1929-1949. You can pray to your shinto-gods all days, if the NewYork-stock-market crashs you still have a crisis and if the USA starts throwing nukes at you, you better hope the crisis end.

Mostly agree with this, except for the middle part. The last 4T wasn't truly global, I agree w/ Kinser on Russia's Turnings, but this one may well rip all other countries into a maelstrom.

I think we will reach no aggrement on this, but.....the time of the Great Purge and the Great Patriotic War a High? The Redarmist-Generation, which brought incredible sacrifices to defeat Nazi Germany, just a bunch of Artists? Really? And were are the signs of a Awakening in 1945-1960?

[pbrower2a]

I see almost the entire history of Russia between 1905 as, on the whole, cataclysm between the Russo-Japanese War and some horrible pogroms to the extreme carnage of the Nazi-Soviet Front up to the fall of Berlin. There were efforts to get Russia and the Soviet Union on the right track (establishment of a Duma in 1906, NEP in the mid-1920s, and the inevitable abatement of the Great Purge) with some political catastrophes. Tsar Nicholas II might have been wiser to let the inchoate democracy forming after 1906 to take its course, but somehow he chose to turn the Duma into a debating club for his political flunkies. The pogroms against the Jews created an internal enemy hostile to everything conservative and Russian -- the "Jewish bolshevik" who would do the worst when the opportunity arose. World War I showed the unreadiness of Russia for modern warfare and the fragility of its economic and political order -- no redundancy and no competence -- and what might have been deliverance from the breakdown of civil order, the February Revolution toppling the Tsar and establishing a flimsy republic, failed because a wartime enemy was more intent on turning most of the western part of what had been the Russian Empire into colonies of the German Empire. Lenin would do what William II wanted.

Lenin's Bolshevik regime took over in a coup in November 1917 and split Russia into two hostile and exclusive camps, similarly destructive and intolerant, set on annihilating each other. The Reds won, but it is not certain that the Whites would have been any better. Lenin imposed some revolutionary experiments upon the Russian economy and found that they did not work, so he made some compromises with capitalism that might have worked had they gotten the chance -- only for Stalin to seize power by squeezing out rivals and then impose a collectivism of Soviet agriculture that turned peasants into serfs if they did not starve to death. Stalin killed off real and imagined rivals until he surrounded himself with yes-men. He thought that he would buy some time by arranging to partition eastern Europe with Hitler -- and dismember potential allies against Hitler. Then came the Great Patriotic War, one of the greatest slaughters of Humanity that ever existed.

It is the historical language of Arnold Toynbee that fits Russia in the first half of the twentieth century -- the Time of Troubles -- and not that of Howe and Strauss. If the Great Depression and World War II are horribly inconvenient for Americans who wanted neither, at least the Depression compelled lasting reforms, and the enemies of America ravaged 'only' a colony (the Philippines) that America had scheduled for independence but compelled America to become a Great Power establishing its own new order. Sure, America exacted revenge -- on murderers.

Russia experienced a Crisis Era too long and too severe for any country to survive without being weakened as an economic power and compromised as a military power. Russia's leaders either were too incompetent (Nicholas II), had no chance to establish themselves (Kerensky), or were simply too ruthless (Lenin and Trotsky) or too ruthless, cruel, cynical, and insane (Stalin) to achieve anything more than survival.

See also China.

[Hintergrund]

Maybe the circles in Russia work in a different way. Not only that it's shifted by one Turning or so, but it really works very different. This might also apply to other cultures. In the Muslim world, Mohammed was a prophet AND a general/statesman - as if he had the strengths of both HERO and PROPHET. And in Khaldun's cycle of four generations, each generation is worse than that before.

[freivolk]

(06-01-2019, 08:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I see almost the entire history of Russia between 1905 as, on the whole, cataclysm between the Russo-Japanese War and some horrible pogroms to the extreme carnage of the Nazi-Soviet Front up to the fall of Berlin. There were efforts to get Russia and the Soviet Union on the right track (establishment of a Duma in 1906, NEP in the mid-1920s, and the inevitable abatement of the Great Purge) with some political catastrophes. Tsar Nicholas II might have been wiser to let the inchoate democracy forming after 1906 to take its course, but somehow he chose to turn the Duma into a debating club for his political flunkies. The pogroms against the Jews created an internal enemy hostile to everything conservative and Russian -- the "Jewish bolshevik" who would do the worst when the opportunity arose. World War I showed the unreadiness of Russia for modern warfare and the fragility of its economic and political order -- no redundancy and no competence -- and what might have been deliverance from the breakdown of civil order, the February Revolution toppling the Tsar and establishing a flimsy republic, failed because a wartime enemy was more intent on turning most of the western part of what had been the Russian Empire into colonies of the German Empire. Lenin would do what William II wanted.

Lenin's Bolshevik regime took over in a coup in November 1917 and split Russia into two hostile and exclusive camps, similarly destructive and intolerant, set on annihilating each other. The Reds won, but it is not certain that the Whites would have been any better. Lenin imposed some revolutionary experiments upon the Russian economy and found that they did not work, so he made some compromises with capitalism that might have worked had they gotten the chance -- only for Stalin to seize power by squeezing out rivals and then impose a collectivism of Soviet agriculture that turned peasants into serfs if they did not starve to death. Stalin killed off real and imagined rivals until he surrounded himself with yes-men. He thought that he would buy some time by arranging to partition eastern Europe with Hitler -- and dismember potential allies against Hitler. Then came the Great Patriotic War, one of the greatest slaughters of Humanity that ever existed.

It is the historical language of Arnold Toynbee that fits Russia in the first half of the twentieth century -- the Time of Troubles -- and not that of Howe and Strauss. If the Great Depression and World War II are horribly inconvenient for Americans who wanted neither, at least the Depression compelled lasting reforms, and the enemies of America ravaged 'only' a colony  (the Philippines) that America had scheduled for independence but compelled America to become a Great Power establishing its own new order. Sure, America exacted revenge -- on murderers.

Russia experienced a Crisis Era too long and too severe for any country to survive without being weakened as an economic power and compromised as a military power. Russia's  leaders either were too incompetent (Nicholas II), had no chance to establish themselves (Kerensky), or were simply too ruthless (Lenin and Trotsky) or too ruthless, cruel, cynical, and insane (Stalin) to achieve anything more than survival.

See also China.

(06-01-2019, 09:28 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: Maybe the circles in Russia work in a different way. Not only that it's shifted by one Turning or so, but it really works very different. This might also apply to other cultures. In the Muslim world, Mohammed was a prophet AND a general/statesman - as if he had the strengths of both HERO and PROPHET. And in Khaldun's cycle of four generations, each generation is worse than that before.

I don´t think its so complicated in the russian case. Russia has just in this and the last saeculum a  very hard Unraveling. The reasons for this? Exhausting conflicts like WWI and the Cold War; clinging to long to ineffective political and economic system like absölutism and communism and strong influenceof Western civilisation on Russia.

[Skabungus]

The Gray Champion... From the very first time I read S&H I made the assumption that the Gray Champion did not refer to a certain individual, but rather intended a broad reference to many persons of a certain age that possessed the knowledge, foresight and fortitude to serve in the role. I still believe that is how S&H intended the term "Gray Champion" to be interpreted and applied. I find the idea of a singular GC to be awfully simplistic. In the 21st century shouldn't we be beyond seeking "the anointed one"?

[David Horn]

(06-19-2019, 08:26 AM)Skabungus Wrote: The Gray Champion...  From the very first time I read S&H I made the assumption that the Gray Champion did not refer to a certain individual, but rather intended a broad reference to many persons of a certain age that possessed the knowledge, foresight and fortitude to serve in the role.  I still believe that is how S&H intended the term "Gray Champion" to be interpreted and applied.  I find the idea of a singular GC to be awfully simplistic.  In the 21st century shouldn't we be beyond seeking "the anointed one"?

Exactly!  Expecting to find a single human to fill that role is expecting a miracle.  Of course, citing examples of GC behavior is something we should be doing.  Just keep it at that level.

[pbrower2a]

(06-25-2019, 02:09 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-19-2019, 08:26 AM)Skabungus Wrote: The Gray Champion...  From the very first time I read S&H I made the assumption that the Gray Champion did not refer to a certain individual, but rather intended a broad reference to many persons of a certain age that possessed the knowledge, foresight and fortitude to serve in the role.  I still believe that is how S&H intended the term "Gray Champion" to be interpreted and applied.  I find the idea of a singular GC to be awfully simplistic.  In the 21st century shouldn't we be beyond seeking "the anointed one"?

Exactly!  Expecting to find a single human to fill that role is expecting a miracle.  Of course, citing examples of GC behavior is something we should be doing.  Just keep it at that level.

Some that I propose as Grey Champions for their countries:


Otto von Bismarck, Germany
Meiji, Japan
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy
Abraham Lincoln, USA
Benito Juarez, Mexico
Winston Churchill, UK
Franklin Roosevelt, USA
Karl Mannerheim, Finland
Karl Renner, Austria
Mohandas Gandhi, India
Konrad Adenauer, German Federal Republic

These men (what is to say that a woman could not do this?) are all Idealists who got their countries through or out of Crises, reshaping their countries in lasting ways. They are all Idealists, and they utterly dominated the political process without being discredited.

Serving as foci of resistance to occupiers? There are Haakon VII of Norway, Christian X of Denmark, and Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. All three of these were royals as heads of democratic orders.

[David Horn]

(06-25-2019, 09:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-25-2019, 02:09 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-19-2019, 08:26 AM)Skabungus Wrote: The Gray Champion...  From the very first time I read S&H I made the assumption that the Gray Champion did not refer to a certain individual, but rather intended a broad reference to many persons of a certain age that possessed the knowledge, foresight and fortitude to serve in the role.  I still believe that is how S&H intended the term "Gray Champion" to be interpreted and applied.  I find the idea of a singular GC to be awfully simplistic.  In the 21st century shouldn't we be beyond seeking "the anointed one"?

Exactly!  Expecting to find a single human to fill that role is expecting a miracle.  Of course, citing examples of GC behavior is something we should be doing.  Just keep it at that level.

Some that I propose as Grey Champions for their countries:

• Otto von Bismarck, Germany
  
• Meiji, Japan
  
• Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy
  
• Abraham Lincoln, USA
  
• Benito Juarez, Mexico
  
• Winston Churchill, UK
  
• Franklin Roosevelt, USA
  
• Karl Mannerheim, Finland
  
• Karl Renner, Austria
  
• Mohandas Gandhi, India
  
• Konrad Adenauer, German Federal Republic
  

These men (what is to say that a woman could not do this?) are all Idealists who got their countries through or out of Crises, reshaping their countries in lasting ways. They are all Idealists, and they utterly dominated the political process without being discredited.

Serving as foci of resistance to occupiers? There are Haakon VII of Norway, Christian X of Denmark, and Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. All three of these were royals as heads of democratic orders.

All valid, but less helpful to us today. What we need is a list of potential GCs who will/may influence the direction of the current 4T, its climax and the emerging 1T. Other than Trump and Bernie Sanders, the list is pretty short. I guess Elizabeth Warren may make the cut, but she's more of a policy wonk than inspirational leader. We also used to have culture leaders, but I can't think of any that makes the list today … none! It's like the entire nation is in a state of limbo, with drift being the most pronounced direction.

[pbrower2a]

I missed Frederick the Great of Prussia... and Chaim Weizmann (Israel).


Setting new politics that repudiate the follies of recent years could make one a Grey Champion for getting a country out of a mess. Sure, it is my bias, but Trump got us into the mess that we are now in as an odd mix of evil and muddle. What says that a policy wonk could not be a Grey Champion? George W. Bush and Donald Trump have shown the seams in our political order; unlike prior political leaders, they have chosen to exploit those in abuse of power. Maybe the solution at the end of this Crisis is Constitutional reforms to close seams that prior figures either refused to exploit or were stopped from exploiting.

Government by corporate lobbyist must go even if such leads to a reduction in living standards. We have the fundamental basis of democracy at stake in America, and to modify a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary (economic) safety deserve neither liberty nor (economic) safety.. We will need to deal with global warming lest the next Crisis Era have its dire consequences in the inundation of some prime farmland upon which hundreds of millions of people depend upon for even bare sustenance. Global warming could cause more deaths than World War II did from normal combat and (worse) deliberate cruelty and exploitation.

America came out of the Great Depression little the worse for wear -- and as a whole, better. Many of us will be figuratively digging the graves of some of our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren if we follow Donald Trump's energy policy of accelerating the use of fossil fuels should such lead to the legal and political chaos that I see as certain from global warming.

[Bill the Piper]

If the boomers don't produce a grey champion, the generational cycle will carry on. In such case there will be a growing trend to move away from the failed values of the millennial saeculum, though they certainly will eventually be re-discovered, maybe in another Dionysian cycle in he 22nd century.

A grey champion pope is a possibility though, if the successor of Francis is a boomer. Perhaps an African pope, who supported the national liberation movements of the 60s in his youth. I imagine such a pope preaching a synthesis of postwar progressivism with genuine Christian Democracy, continuing the work of Francis with more vigour, and purging the Church of paedophiles.

[David Horn]

(06-27-2019, 12:54 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote: If the boomers don't produce a grey champion, the generational cycle will carry on. In such case there will be a growing trend to move away from the failed values of the millennial saeculum, though they certainly will eventually be re-discovered, maybe in another Dionysian cycle in he 22nd century.

A grey champion pope is a possibility though, if the successor of Francis is a boomer. Perhaps an African pope, who supported the national liberation movements of the 60s in his youth. I imagine such a pope preaching a synthesis of postwar progressivism with genuine Christian Democracy, continuing the work of Francis with more vigour, and purging the Church of paedophiles.

H-m-m-m.  I think we may be seeing the end of the RC Church's power … at least on the grand scale.  More primitive religions, like the many evangelical Christian churches as well as the most conservative elements of Judaism, Islam and perhaps others, will hold sway in their regional power centers, but modernity will pass them by.  I'm not sure how that resolves, but I assume it will at some point.