Current anomaly: Five generations alive!

[Hintergrund]

I mentioned this in some other threads already - or hinted at it - but here's the theory in full:

Currently, we have five generations alive and kicking - Silents, Boomers, Xers, Millennials, and Homelanders. (I left out the G.I.s because only a tiny minority of them is still alive.)

Theoretically, the old Artists should be out of power, except for some very old intellectuals and some judges. As it was during the last Crisis.

That's why I made the "Powerful Silents" thread - to show how they're still influencing US society from the background. Billionaires like Buffett or Soros and many others doing lobbyism to make sure the laws stay complicated enough they can abuse loopholes and keep their billions. (About one in three people with a net worth >4 billion $ is a Silent!) Old politicians like Pelosi who fight Trump wherever they can.

Originally, Strauss & Howe predicted that the Crisis was supposed to start around 2005! Obviously something went wrong. FDR was able to start reforms in 1933, only four years after the Crisis started - even ten years after the Financial Crisis, we haven't fixed anything, not even in our gut feelings.

Seems to me that S&H didn't consider that people live longer and stay healthier. How many octogenerians did run hedgefunds and administrate fortunes of several billions in the 1930s?

FDR could bully the SCOTUS by threatening to appoint six more pliable younger judges, and they gave in. But how do you get rid of powerful, cunning old billionaires? In a legal way, that is?

[jleagans]

There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly. The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

[David Horn]

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

[Marypoza]

(03-19-2019, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

-- S&H acknowledged that 2, when the Millies were being born while GIs were still alive. They said the GIs were in post elderhood. Now it's the Silents who are in post elderhood

[Marypoza]

(02-07-2019, 10:17 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: I mentioned this in some other threads already - or hinted at it - but here's the theory in full:

Currently, we have five generations alive and kicking - Silents, Boomers, Xers, Millennials, and Homelanders. (I left out the G.I.s because only a tiny minority of them is still alive.)

Theoretically, the old Artists should be out of power, except for some very old intellectuals and some judges. As it was during the last Crisis.

That's why I made the "Powerful Silents" thread - to show how they're still influencing US society from the background. Billionaires like Buffett or Soros and many others doing lobbyism to make sure the laws stay complicated enough they can abuse loopholes and keep their billions. (About one in three people with a net worth >4 billion $ is a Silent!) Old politicians like Pelosi who fight Trump wherever they can.

Originally, Strauss & Howe predicted that the Crisis was supposed to start around 2005! Obviously something went wrong. FDR was able to start reforms in 1933, only four years after the Crisis started - even ten years after the Financial Crisis, we haven't fixed anything, not even in our gut feelings.

Seems to me that S&H didn't consider that people live longer and stay healthier. How many octogenerians did run hedgefunds and administrate fortunes of several billions in the 1930s?

FDR could bully the SCOTUS by threatening to appoint six more pliable younger judges, and they gave in. But how do you get rid of powerful, cunning old billionaires? In a legal way, that is?

-- well there are certain poisons that, once in the body, are absorbed & leave no trace. Not exactly legal but the coroner would have 2 prove poisoning

[Mikebert]

(03-19-2019, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

Yes, but that was 200 years ago. The problem is the missing Civil War civic generation. Obviously for the theory to have even facial plausibility there has to have been this generation. This was pointed out at the T4T site nearly 20 years ago, and several posters came up with alternate turnings that reflected this. Dave Krein posited a 4T ending at the same time as did Reconstruction in 1877. This would leave a 1T featuring the boom to 1881, and then the period of oscillating Republican-Democratic administrations of the 1880's and early 1890's with the end coming at Panic of 1893. David McGuiness argued for a 2T beginning with the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and ending with the Titanic disaster that contained the Populist and Progressive movements and the rise of the Social Gospel and German higher criticism and the reactionary response in Fundamentalism and the Pentecostal movement. This makes the 3T 1912-1929.

This gives the set of Artists, Prophets, Nomads and Civic present for the last 4T born in 1857-1874, 1875-1889, 1890-1908, and 1909-1924. This makes the youngest Artists about 72 at the end of the 4T, compared 77 for Artists today.  With dating that doesn't skip an entire generation, last cycle's artists are a lot younger and plenty of them were still around during the last 4T.

[pbrower2a]

(02-07-2019, 10:17 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: I mentioned this in some other threads already - or hinted at it - but here's the theory in full:

Currently, we have five generations alive and kicking - Silents, Boomers, Xers, Millennials, and Homelanders. (I left out the G.I.s because only a tiny minority of them is still alive.)

Theoretically, the old Artists should be out of power, except for some very old intellectuals and some judges. As it was during the last Crisis.

People are living longer and staying physically and mentally active. Staying active means that one can press one's concerns. The pattern that began with GIs has continued with the Silent -- and Boomers.  Should I start to see the pattern hold with X, then we see a pervasive change in human nature that greatly changes how the generational cycle operates.

Quote:That's why I made the "Powerful Silents" thread - to show how they're still influencing US society from the background. Billionaires like Buffett or Soros and many others doing lobbyism to make sure the laws stay complicated enough they can abuse loopholes and keep their billions. (About one in three people with a net worth >4 billion $ is a Silent!) Old politicians like Pelosi who fight Trump wherever they can.

Don't forget the Koch brothers!

Quote:Originally, Strauss & Howe predicted that the Crisis was supposed to start around 2005! Obviously something went wrong. FDR was able to start reforms in 1933, only four years after the Crisis started - even ten years after the Financial Crisis, we haven't fixed anything, not even in our gut feelings.

As early as 2005 I saw signs of collapse due to the rating fraud in the packaging of fecal loans as an investment. Solid economics depend upon fiduciary integrity, with people refusing to deal in scams. The stock market reached its peak in late 2007 and endured a 1930-style crash (the real crash was in 1930 after a partial recovery)
... and the system stopped the equivalent of destructive bank runs of 1931 and 1932.

The problem? We solved nothing. We backed the shaky survivors but got no major reforms of the financial system. We got a long recovery under Obama and shady economics under Trump. Trump's economics are simple; as much as possible is to go to elite gain, indulgence, and power -- which has never sustained itself in a market economy.

Quote:Seems to me that S&H didn't consider that people live longer and stay healthier. How many octogenerians did run hedgefunds and administrate fortunes of several billions in the 1930s?

FDR could bully the SCOTUS by threatening to appoint six more pliable younger judges, and they gave in. But how do you get rid of powerful, cunning old billionaires? In a legal way, that is?

People don't do raw labor for more than short spurts into their eighties (a poor laborer's life is often 'nasty, short,and brutish'), but if they keep in reasonably-good shape they can do much white-collar work. If one is eighty and capable of operating a hedge fund successfully, then you keep doing so as long as possible. So it is with law, medicine, art, writing, composing, conducting, directing, acting, consulting, politics, preaching... one might do it only part time, but one gets paid well. Raw labor wears one down in one's sixties at the latest.

[Marypoza]

(03-20-2019, 11:28 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-19-2019, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

Yes, but that was 200 years ago. The problem is the missing Civil War civic generation. Obviously for the theory to have even facial plausibility there has to have been this generation. This was pointed out at the T4T site nearly 20 years ago, and several posters came up with alternate turnings that reflected this. Dave Krein posited a 4T ending at the same time as did Reconstruction in 1877. This would leave a 1T featuring the boom to 1881, and then the period of oscillating Republican-Democratic administrations of the 1880's and early 1890's with the end coming at Panic of 1893. David McGuiness argued for a 2T beginning with the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and ending with the Titanic disaster that contained the Populist and Progressive movements and the rise of the Social Gospel and German higher criticism and the reactionary response in Fundamentalism and the Pentecostal movement. This makes the 3T 1912-1929.

This gives the set of Artists, Prophets, Nomads and Civic present for the last 4T born in 1857-1874, 1875-1889, 1890-1908, and 1909-1924. This makes the youngest Artists about 72 at the end of the 4T, compared 77 for Artists today.  With dating that doesn't skip an entire generation, last cycle's artists are a lot younger and plenty of them were still around during the last 4T.

-- ok but what would the dates 4 the Civics be in the Civil War cycle? (pre 1857)

[Eric the Green]

(03-20-2019, 03:34 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(03-20-2019, 11:28 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-19-2019, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

Yes, but that was 200 years ago. The problem is the missing Civil War civic generation. Obviously for the theory to have even facial plausibility there has to have been this generation. This was pointed out at the T4T site nearly 20 years ago, and several posters came up with alternate turnings that reflected this. Dave Krein posited a 4T ending at the same time as did Reconstruction in 1877. This would leave a 1T featuring the boom to 1881, and then the period of oscillating Republican-Democratic administrations of the 1880's and early 1890's with the end coming at Panic of 1893. David McGuiness argued for a 2T beginning with the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and ending with the Titanic disaster that contained the Populist and Progressive movements and the rise of the Social Gospel and German higher criticism and the reactionary response in Fundamentalism and the Pentecostal movement. This makes the 3T 1912-1929.

This gives the set of Artists, Prophets, Nomads and Civic present for the last 4T born in 1857-1874, 1875-1889, 1890-1908, and 1909-1924. This makes the youngest Artists about 72 at the end of the 4T, compared 77 for Artists today.  With dating that doesn't skip an entire generation, last cycle's artists are a lot younger and plenty of them were still around during the last 4T.

-- ok but what would the dates 4 the Civics be in the Civil War cycle? (pre 1857)

I was one of those who suggested an alternative cycle as well 20 years ago, and later so did Chas '88. Unlike Mike and the posters he quotes, I thought the dates should be put back earlier, not later. 

The civil war anomaly arose because the United States was half composed originally of a feudal as well as a modern nation. The feudal nation was Dixie, dependent on slavery supporting an aristocracy of planters. The modern North, or Yankee nation, was pushing things forward, but was held back by the South (as still is happening today between blue and red states). The authors extended the prophet generation of the Transcendentals forward as if it were a generation like those that preceeded the Revolution, in other words medieval and renaissance-era in nature, when the saeculum lasted over 100 years. That prophet generation they said was 30 years long, from 1792 to 1822, and they eliminated the civic generation that followed altogether, in order to give the civil war saeculum a more-modern length (1794 to 1865). I always thought that was an un-natural way to conceive of the cycle, and that they probably extended the Transcendentals so that it would include Abraham Lincoln (b.1809).

The most obvious fix is to say that there really was a civic civil war generation, and/or to shorten this exaggerated Transcendental prophet generation, and change the turning dates accordingly. That's what Chas did in a very thorough fashion. I forget his exact dates but they may be posted here somewhere.

I took a somewhat different approach, and redated the turnings, but not the generations; instead saying that the civil war era generations were hybrids. I admit I liked doing the latter because the S&H generation starting dates coincided with Neptune entering a cardinal sign (a cardinal sign is one that begins at the equinox or solstice signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) with the Transcendental Generation coinciding with Neptune entering Scorpio in 1792.

So I thought of the Transcendentals as including the later cohorts as nomad hybrids. I use the sub-generation idea, so this would fit that idea. The Gilded, said to begin in 1822, is thus a nomad-civic hybrid generation, and the Progressive Generation, said to start in about 1842, is a civic-artist hybrid generation. The Missionaries are a prophet generation that started in 1860, and keeping the S&H dates from then onward. Shelby Foote in Ken Burns' Civil War TV series related how the young soldiers of the civil war had civic virtues.

The turnings as I see them reflect some important transition points. The Revolution 4T could be extended back to 1765 with the Stamp Act, and end with the constitution in 1787. This is how Chas sees it, I believe, and he sets the following turnings as starting earlier from then on until after the Civil War. The First Turnings, as I see it, are not all consensus and light; their early portion contains a lot of dissension and persecution of factions in the country, as well as reconstruction after the great war. So the unrest of the early 1790s and the persecution of aliens and seditions in the late 1790s fit this pattern, and so would the age of hate, the founding of the KKK and the controversy over Reconstruction in the late 1860s, which I see as being correctly designated as 1T, and this was repeated in the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and early 1950s 1T period. With my hybrid Transcendental Generation, though, the 1T would start in 1794 as S&H dated it.

The 2T can be said to begin in 1815, because this was a period of revolutionary revival in Europe after Napoleon's defeat, and a similar upsurge in the anti-slavery movement happened then after the War of 1812, in which the USA entered the war as Napoleon's ally. This anti-slavery movement suffered a reversal in 1834-35 in both Europe and America. The South began to consolidate its opposition by repressing the movement, and it also went underground in many places in the North due to repression. So I date the 3T from 1834-35.

The late 1840s featured a famine in Europe which sparked revolutions there in 1848 and a mass migration to America including the Gold Rush to California. The Mexican War of 1846 ignited sectional disputes after 1848 due to the proposed entry of the newly conquered Gold Rush state of CA and possibly of New Mexico. So I date the onset of the 4T to 1848 or 1850. President Taylor threatened to hang the southern rebels as traitors in the dispute over the NM territory in 1850, and thus almost started the civil war, just as the wars of national liberation in Europe almost started in the same year. The Compromise of 1850 was the result of this bitter dispute, but then right afterward, Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. When Lincoln later met the author, she said to her "so you're the little lady who made this great war." It re-ignited the movement against slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act followed in 1854, igniting Bleeding Kansas in 1856.

I often point out that the civil war was put off by indecisive leadership and muddled affairs in the 1850s, and that's why the authors said it was still the 3T, and the similar muddle today is why Mike and some others think today that the 4T hasn't quite started yet, or only began in 2016. We are 1850s redux, I have said.

There is still something of the anomaly in this scheme, since the later civil war saeculum's turnings were shorter, and the generations were hybrids. The fact remains that the United States had to unshackle itself from the slavery state of Dixie before it could become a modern nation (or industrial rather than agricultural, as Bob Butler says), with the faster 80-84 seacula they bring, as opposed to the 100+ year saeculum of ancient and medieval times when there were only 2 active generations at any one time and most people did not participate in historic events or generational changes. The anomaly reflects the modern Revolution, which opened affairs and changes up to the masses. The saeculum could be said to be stronger and sharper now, like a hurricane with a sharper eye as opposed to a tropical storm. Modern times feature faster change, metaphorically with more and warmer water circulating through them (more people with more life open to them).

[pbrower2a]

(03-20-2019, 05:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [quote pid='42140' dateline='1553114097']
(redacted for brevity)

I was one of those who suggested an alternative cycle as well 20 years ago, and later so did Chas '88. Unlike Mike and the posters he quotes, I thought the dates should be put back earlier, not later. 

The civil war anomaly arose because the United States was half composed originally of a feudal as well as a modern nation. The feudal nation was Dixie, dependent on slavery supporting an aristocracy of planters. The modern North, or Yankee nation, was pushing things forward, but was held back by the South (as still is happening today between blue and red states). The authors extended the prophet generation of the Transcendentals forward as if it were a generation like those that preceeded the Revolution, in other words medieval and renaissance-era in nature, when the saeculum lasted over 100 years. That prophet generation they said was 30 years long, from 1792 to 1822, and they eliminated the civic generation that followed altogether, in order to give the civil war saeculum a more-modern length (1794 to 1865). I always thought that was an un-natural way to conceive of the cycle, and that they probably extended the Transcendentals so that it would include Abraham Lincoln (b.1809).
[/quote]

The Civil War messed up the generational cycle. Howe and Strauss see the Transcendental Generation more as a cultural generation due to its writers than as a political generation (people born in the 1810's effectively shut out of the Presidency, having been cast off by the Lost war-heroes). The cultural and political cycles themselves clashed.

I interpret the slave system as an attempt to commercialize a feudal order of subjection of those who really did the work. In medieval times, lords sold land, but the peasants went with it; in American chattel slavery, slaves could be sold without land being sold. This was even worse for the slave. Note also that the technologies of communication were changing due to low costs of disseminating information. Inexpensive books and broadsheet newspapers could push such an agenda as Temperance -- or Abolition.

Contradictions do not harmonize. Human rights and property rights can go along when publishing and economic power are somewhat separate. They cannot reconcile when property rights imply the gross subjection of people. To save slavery in the United States, the slave-masters would need to destroy democracy in America as a whole.

One explanation of how America would be if the slave interests had prevailed is a cinematic satire, a so-called "mockumentary" as alternative history (and it would be offensive to many):

Quote:The most obvious fix is to say that there really was a civic civil war generation, and/or to shorten this exaggerated Transcendental prophet generation, and change the turning dates accordingly. That's what Chas did in a very thorough fashion. I forget his exact dates but they may be posted here somewhere.

Howe and Strauss suggest that younger Americans put an end to the Transcendental mission to make a 'righteous' America fitting Transcendental ideals by shoving the Transcendental generation aside in politics. The Gilded war-heroes who survived the war, at least in the North, took on many Civic traits -- secularism, conformity, public prudery, cultural staleness, male chauvinism, long political tenure, a love for doing things on a big scale, and social cohesion -- without having the intellectual prowess of a civic generation such as the Republican, GI, or Millennial generations. They also tended to a Civic-like indulgent style of child-raising, which would rush an Idealist generation upon America as it was too late to call the Transcendental Generation back into influence. Meanwhile the Progressive Generation, which had initially been brought up with many Civic characteristics, found its proclivities blunted as the Gilded took on the Civic role.  The Progressive Generation took on an Adaptive character.  So if one saw how generations seemed likely to turn out in 1855 we would have seen (Idealist - I, Reactive - R, Civic - C, Adaptive - A)

Compromise (A) rapidly fading
Transcendental (I)
Gilded ®
Progressive ©
next unborn generation -- probably (A)

and push forward to 1870

Transcendental (I ousted, and having taken on some R traits)
Gilded (C in practice but with some residual R traits) 
Progressive (A in practice, but with some residual C traits)
Missionary (I, with little ambiguity)


By 1890, the Lost ® would be undeniably a Reactive generation and basically complete a C-A-I-R cycle.

Quote:So I thought of the Transcendentals as including the later cohorts as nomad hybrids. I use the sub-generation idea, so this would fit that idea. The Gilded, said to begin in 1822, is thus a nomad-civic hybrid generation, and the Progressive Generation, said to start in about 1842, is a civic-artist hybrid generation. The Missionaries are a prophet generation that started in 1860, and keeping the S&H dates from then onward. Shelby Foote in Ken Burns' Civil War TV series related how the young soldiers of the civil war had civic virtues.

Cultural and political figures contemporary to America's Transcendental Generation seem Idealist enough -- Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, Garibaldi, Juarez, Bismarck, Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Marx, and Dostoevsky -- seem Idealist enough. Howe and Strauss suggest that the American Civil War came too early, with America still polarized into hostile and exclusive camps of extreme, collective self-righteousness. For timing I see an analogue in the Russian Civil War between the Reds and Whites, both sides seeing each other as demons intent on annihilating anything in their way, consummately ruthless and intolerant.

Young soldiers in the American Civil War did not go into the Civil War with civic virtues; they developed them as the war continued. The government enticed soldiers with money to entice them to put off settling the West because with a war bonus for a skirmish that would be over by Christmas they could settle in the West in style. For the Union that was everything from western Minnesota and eastern Nebraska to California, with the American way of life of banks, shops, newspapers, and schools. For the Confederates such would be western Texas (Dallas was a rough frontier community, and Fort Worth was a literal fort) to Arizona as a paradise for slave-owning planters in return for protecting the Dixie way of life.

Quote:The turnings as I see them reflect some important transition points. The Revolution 4T could be extended back to 1765 with the Stamp Act, and end with the constitution in 1787. This is how Chas sees it, I believe, and he sets the following turnings as starting earlier from then on until after the Civil War. The First Turnings, as I see it, are not all consensus and light; their early portion contains a lot of dissension and persecution of factions in the country, as well as reconstruction after the great war. So the unrest of the early 1790s and the persecution of aliens and seditions in the late 1790s fit this pattern, and so would the age of hate, the founding of the KKK and the controversy over Reconstruction in the late 1860s, which I see as being correctly designated as 1T, and this was repeated in the McCarthy era of the late 1940s and early 1950s 1T period. With my hybrid Transcendental Generation, though, the 1T would start in 1794 as S&H dated it.

No time is perfect.  It is only what recent events have prepared people for.  What GI soldiers experienced gave them a taste for a conformist culture. Alan Watts adopting Zen Buddhism and the fictional Jerry Milligan (Gene Kelly) in the film An American in Paris were extreme anomalies. Unless 'ethnic', GI adults liked their food insipid, their vegetables boiled down to a gruel-like mush that barely indicated that they had been carrots or peas except for some residual color and shape. White GI adults bought into Suburbia with its tract houses. (Black GI veterans usually got turned down due to the infamous red-lining). GI taste in music was for Muzak-like arrangements -- gimmicky orchestrations with perhaps one wind or brass instrument and a string section with an etherial sound demonstrating the rejection of violas -- and no troubling counterpoint or only rarely a minor key. 

Most of us would now chafe under the GI culture of the 1950s, indicating that we are not quite ready for a 1T. But once we go through the wringer of a really-nasty economic downturn or an ugly war, we will be ready.

Quote:The 2T can be said to begin in 1815, because this was a period of revolutionary revival in Europe after Napoleon's defeat, and a similar upsurge in the anti-slavery movement happened then after the War of 1812, in which the USA entered the war as Napoleon's ally. This anti-slavery movement suffered a reversal in 1834-35 in both Europe and America. The South began to consolidate its opposition by repressing the movement, and it also went underground in many places in the North due to repression. So I date the 3T from 1834-35.

I concur.

Quote:The late 1840s featured a famine in Europe which sparked revolutions there in 1848 and a mass migration to America including the Gold Rush to California. The Mexican War of 1846 ignited sectional disputes after 1848 due to the proposed entry of the newly conquered Gold Rush state of CA and possibly of New Mexico. So I date the onset of the 4T to 1848 or 1850. President Taylor threatened to hang the southern rebels as traitors in the dispute over the NM territory in 1850, and thus almost started the civil war, just as the wars of national liberation in Europe almost started in the same year. The Compromise of 1850 was the result of this bitter dispute, but then right afterward, Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. When Lincoln later met the author, she said to her "so you're the little lady who made this great war." It re-ignited the movement against slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act followed in 1854, igniting Bleeding Kansas in 1856.

The Irish immigration at the time of the Great Famine and the flight of many Germans from the failed revolutions of 1848 contributed to a time of cynicism. Consider how difficult assimilation was for the Irish. Just imagine the cynicism that comes from having been seen as expendable because a crop failed. 

Quote:I often point out that the civil war was put off by indecisive leadership and muddled affairs in the 1850s, and that's why the authors said it was still the 3T, and the similar muddle today is why Mike and some others think today that the 4T hasn't quite started yet, or only began in 2016. We are 1850s redux, I have said.

There is still something of the anomaly in this scheme, since the later civil war saeculum's turnings were shorter, and the generations were hybrids. The fact remains that the United States had to unshackle itself from the slavery state of Dixie before it could become a modern nation (or industrial rather than agricultural, as Bob Butler says), with the faster 80-84 seacula they bring, as opposed to the 100+ year saeculum of ancient and medieval times when there were only 2 active generations at any one time and most people did not participate in historic events or generational changes. The anomaly reflects the modern Revolution, which opened affairs and changes up to the masses. The saeculum could be said to be stronger and sharper now, like a hurricane with a sharper eye as opposed to a tropical storm. Modern times feature faster change, metaphorically with more and warmer water circulating through them (more people with more life open to them).

...and when the indecisive figures got swept from the state, there was nobody to check the ruthlessness of the opposing camps.  Had the South successfully seceded (which probably means that some of it would have maintained independence -- I can't imagine the Texas Panhandle or the Arkansas Ozarks being compatible with plantation slavery, and eastern Tennessee would have seceded from the South. I figure that southeastern Missouri, a  little piece of Mississippi, would have gone Confederate, then I can imagine the two areas going off in different directions for a while.

The Middle Ages? There were far fewer people., and there was little pressure on th land. Feudalism sounds horrible now, but typically the Lord and Master originated as a relative of the peasants, exchanging organization and defense (against the Vikings or Saracens) in return for free-hold property that one could easily lose to marauders. The printing press brought cheap dissemination of ideas, and it made a difference between the doom of the Hussites and the contrasting success of Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, and even Menno Simons in reshaping minds.

[Mikebert]

(03-20-2019, 03:34 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(03-20-2019, 11:28 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-19-2019, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

Yes, but that was 200 years ago. The problem is the missing Civil War civic generation. Obviously for the theory to have even facial plausibility there has to have been this generation. This was pointed out at the T4T site nearly 20 years ago, and several posters came up with alternate turnings that reflected this. Dave Krein posited a 4T ending at the same time as did Reconstruction in 1877. This would leave a 1T featuring the boom to 1881, and then the period of oscillating Republican-Democratic administrations of the 1880's and early 1890's with the end coming at Panic of 1893. David McGuiness argued for a 2T beginning with the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and ending with the Titanic disaster that contained the Populist and Progressive movements and the rise of the Social Gospel and German higher criticism and the reactionary response in Fundamentalism and the Pentecostal movement. This makes the 3T 1912-1929.

This gives the set of Artists, Prophets, Nomads and Civic present for the last 4T born in 1857-1874, 1875-1889, 1890-1908, and 1909-1924. This makes the youngest Artists about 72 at the end of the 4T, compared 77 for Artists today.  With dating that doesn't skip an entire generation, last cycle's artists are a lot younger and plenty of them were still around during the last 4T.

-- ok but what would the dates 4 the Civics be in the Civil War cycle? (pre 1857)

The Civics would be born 1841-1856 or thereabouts. The Nomads before them 1822-1840. Abd before then as S&H have them. So the oldest Civics would be 19 at the start of the 4T while the youngest Artists would be 69 at the start of the 4T. 

So you can see, in no way did the Civil War come "early". The Artists were *already* mostly gone in 1860 and the oldest Civics were the same age that the oldest GIs were in 1928 and the oldest Millennials were in 2001. At the end of the 4T the oldest Gilded were the same the oldest Lost were in 1945 and the oldest Xers were in 2016.

In other words, generationally the 4T would be projected to have run over 2001-2016 or thereabouts. When we came up with this idea, we all thought 911 was the start of the 4T and we were right on schedule.

But now its 2019, the 4T is supposed to be over or just about over, but my sense is it hasn't even started to rock and roll. 

And if that's it, then it wasn't much of a 4T--much milder and amorphous when compared the three American 4Ts. This is why, I think, many are trying to compare this crisis with the Glorious, because that one was also undramatic.

[Mikebert]

(03-20-2019, 05:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I was one of those who suggested an alternative cycle as well 20 years ago, and later so did Chas '88. Unlike Mike and the posters he quotes, I thought the dates should be put back earlier, not later.... 

There is a simpler explanation for the civil war anomaly. The spacing between the start of the Revolutionary 4T and the Civil War was 87 years (Lincoln's four score and seven). The spacing between the latter and the 1929 Crash is only 69 years, 18 years shorter, or, about one generation. So, drop a generation and its all good.

But now we are supposedly back to four generations. So we go back to four score and seven. Add 87 years to 1929 and your have a new 4T beginning in 2016, with the election of Donald Trump.

If you look at the length of an entire saeculum dated from the start of one 4T to the start of the next, you get:
1459-1569 = 110 yrs
1569-1675 = 106 yrs
1675-1773 = 98 yrs
1773-1860 = 87 yrs
1860-1929 = 69 yrs (anomaly)
1929-2020 = 91 yrs

In other words a 4T start around now looks perfectly normal in that progression. If you through out the anomaly (which S&H identified as such beforehand) the last three saeculum on this list average 92 years in length with a tight relative standard deviation (rsd) of only 6%. If you use all five non-anomalous values you get and average value of 98 years with a reasonable 10% rsd.

In other words a 4T start in 2020, or even later, is perfectly consistent with S&H saecula (in fact the "expected" start would be in 2027).

The problem is with the turning structure within the saecula. S&H also dated the start of a 3T in 1984. A 4T start in 2020 would make this 3T 36 years long, while a 2027 4T start (consistent with average saeculum length) would give a 43 year 3T. Both of these are far longer than any previous turning.

If were consider that when one draws history turnings, she knows when the saeculum ended.  Imagine a future historian who knows that the 4T began with the collapse of the world financial system in 2025 and subsequent limited nuclear war. Knowing this she bracked the millennium saeculum as 1929-2035. She draws the 4T as 1929-1953, from the crash until the end of the New Deal Democratic hegemony. The 1T then runs from 1953 to 1973 (Roe v Wade). The 2T then features the rise of the religious fundamentalism not only in America, but in Iran and elsewhere. The 2T ends in 2001, when religious revival turns to action with 911, and the war on terror. The 3T sees the rise of dictators and authoritarian leaders throughout the Islamic world, in parts of Latin America, and then in America (2016) and elsewhere in the West. This trend leaders to a combustible mix that ignites with the collapse of 2025 which leads to a nuclear exchange. Crisis begins as the war, global warming, and economic chaos create a world-wide crisis that results in 2 billion deaths.

Knowing nothing about the crisis of the 2030's, S&H drew turnings based on the current conditions without considering it, because they did not know this history.

Of course this history hasn't happened yet (and probably won't) but without the context hindsight provides, it is impossible to draw turnings, unless the 4T *acts* like a 4T in that it solves major problems and produces an obvious 1T.

[Eric the Green]

(03-21-2019, 08:29 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-20-2019, 05:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I was one of those who suggested an alternative cycle as well 20 years ago, and later so did Chas '88. Unlike Mike and the posters he quotes, I thought the dates should be put back earlier, not later.... 

There is a simpler explanation for the civil war anomaly. The spacing between the start of the Revolutionary 4T and the Civil War was 87 years (Lincoln's four score and seven).

Yes indeed, although of course when he said that line it was 1863, so the spacing was really four score and four, 84 years, as mentioned in T4T as the archetypal length of the cycle, and corresponding to the Uranus Return cycle. Lincoln in his speech was referring to 1776 (not 1773), 87 years before 1863.

Quote: The spacing between the latter and the 1929 Crash is only 69 years, 18 years shorter, or, about one generation. So, drop a generation and its all good.

That's one way to look at it, but I liked Strauss and Howe's designation of 1944 as the crisis climax, so the correspondence of the Revolution's Declaration and the Fort Sumpter declaration of war with the Great Power Crisis could also be seen as the start of world war two at Pearl Harbor.

I thought the anomaly was caused by the abnormal length they gave the Transcendental Generation of 30 years. That's what struck me the first time I looked at their cycle back in 1991. It seemed like they stretched that generation to make Lincoln an idealist (or prophet, as that archetype was later entitled).

Quote:But now we are supposedly back to four generations. So we go back to four score and seven. Add 87 years to 1929 and your have a new 4T beginning in 2016, with the election of Donald Trump.

If you look at the length of an entire saeculum dated from the start of one 4T to the start of the next, you get:
1459-1569 = 110 yrs
1569-1675 = 106 yrs
1675-1773 = 98 yrs
1773-1860 = 87 yrs
1860-1929 = 69 yrs (anomaly)
1929-2020 = 91 yrs

In other words a 4T start around now looks perfectly normal in that progression. If you through out the anomaly (which S&H identified as such beforehand) the last three saeculum on this list average 92 years in length with a tight relative standard deviation (rsd) of only 6%. If you use all five non-anomalous values you get and average value of 98 years with a reasonable 10% rsd.

In other words a 4T start in 2020, or even later, is perfectly consistent with S&H saecula (in fact the "expected" start would be in 2027).

I have designated 2027 as the crisis climax date. So you are seeing the climactic end of the crisis as actually the start.

But if you see that the climactic battles of the civil war in 1863-64 were the end of the crisis, not the start, and similarly with the outbreak of the Revolution, and its end in 1781 at Cornwallis, and the same with D-Day in 1944, then 2027 makes sense as the coming climax, in an 80 to 84-year modern saeculum.

And remember, modern saecula hurricanes are faster and sharper because change is faster and the storm carries more water (more people).

Remember too that the specifically American saeculum has always been 84 years (or in later cycles, maybe a bit less), because America starts with Jamestown, which was a real crisis because it was a struggle to establish, with many deaths. That was 1607-08. 84 years later was 1691-92 at the outbreak of King William's War after the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the previous 4T to the Revolution that established British Parliamentary Rule under William of Orange. 84 years more brings us to 1775-76.

Quote:The problem is with the turning structure within the saecula. S&H also dated the start of a 3T in 1984. A 4T start in 2020 would make this 3T 36 years long, while a 2027 4T start (consistent with average saeculum length) would give a 43 year 3T. Both of these are far longer than any previous turning.

If were consider that when one draws history turnings, she knows when the saeculum ended.  Imagine a future historian who knows that the 4T began with the collapse of the world financial system in 2025 and subsequent limited nuclear war. Knowing this she bracked the millennium saeculum as 1929-2035. She draws the 4T as 1929-1953, from the crash until the end of the New Deal Democratic hegemony. The 1T then runs from 1953 to 1973 (Roe v Wade). The 2T then features the rise of the religious fundamentalism not only in America, but in Iran and elsewhere. The 2T ends in 2001, when religious revival turns to action with 911, and the war on terror. The 3T sees the rise of dictators and authoritarian leaders throughout the Islamic world, in parts of Latin America, and then in America (2016) and elsewhere in the West. This trend leaders to a combustible mix that ignites with the collapse of 2025 which leads to a nuclear exchange. Crisis begins as the war, global warming, and economic chaos create a world-wide crisis that results in 2 billion deaths.

Knowing nothing about the crisis of the 2030's, S&H drew turnings based on the current conditions without considering it, because they did not know this history.

Of course this history hasn't happened yet (and probably won't) but without the context hindsight provides, it is impossible to draw turnings, unless the 4T *acts* like a 4T in that it solves major problems and produces an obvious 1T.

Patience, my man. Trump just shows that the Crisis that began in 2008 is not over, but is still churning away as we expected. Red and Blue are becoming more and more polarized, just as I predicted according to the double rhythm. Now the Trumpsters are so fanatic that they actually want him to be dictator for life. They are the new Dixie.

Frequently, problems are not solved until the end of the Crisis. The New Deal looked like an anomaly, because FDR was elected and worked on solving the crisis right away. That was great, but as many have noted, he did not really solve the Depression. Only World War Two did that. So, even then, the "solution" came late in the crisis. This time, Obama came along, but was even less effective than FDR because of the divided nation, although his stimulus eventually has worked. This time, the Crisis that began in 2008 will ALSO be solved at the end of the crisis in the mid-2020s. Bank on it! It's in the stars. It's when "the stars will align." And they definitely will.

You and David K have been waiting for another FDR in this crisis. No-one should have expected an FDR to come along in a decade that is 1850s redux. Instead we got Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan. Divided nations can't elect an FDR without a civil conflict of some kind. So it goes. We may yet get a Lincoln.

[Tim Randal Walker]

As I recall, there was a thread to the paleo site which examined 4Ts in relation to the double rhythm. For a Dionysus cycle the 4T question was-should we stick to the existing Civic order, or go back to the past?

(In an Apollo cycle, the question would be-should we stick with the status quo, or build something new?)

In the present the question would be-should we re-embrace the New Deal, or go back to the Gilded Age?

[Eric the Green]

(03-21-2019, 07:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-20-2019, 03:34 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(03-20-2019, 11:28 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-19-2019, 09:38 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-18-2019, 01:00 PM)jleagans Wrote: There are always five generations alive, this isn't an anomaly.  The archetype that is being born is the oldest archetype alive, right now our artists are dying and being born.

When turnings were longer and life expectancy shorter, that was not really true.  Yes, have always been a few superannuated people, but not enough to count as a generation … until now.

Yes, but that was 200 years ago. The problem is the missing Civil War civic generation. Obviously for the theory to have even facial plausibility there has to have been this generation. This was pointed out at the T4T site nearly 20 years ago, and several posters came up with alternate turnings that reflected this. Dave Krein posited a 4T ending at the same time as did Reconstruction in 1877. This would leave a 1T featuring the boom to 1881, and then the period of oscillating Republican-Democratic administrations of the 1880's and early 1890's with the end coming at Panic of 1893. David McGuiness argued for a 2T beginning with the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and ending with the Titanic disaster that contained the Populist and Progressive movements and the rise of the Social Gospel and German higher criticism and the reactionary response in Fundamentalism and the Pentecostal movement. This makes the 3T 1912-1929.

This gives the set of Artists, Prophets, Nomads and Civic present for the last 4T born in 1857-1874, 1875-1889, 1890-1908, and 1909-1924. This makes the youngest Artists about 72 at the end of the 4T, compared 77 for Artists today.  With dating that doesn't skip an entire generation, last cycle's artists are a lot younger and plenty of them were still around during the last 4T.

-- ok but what would the dates 4 the Civics be in the Civil War cycle? (pre 1857)

The Civics would be born 1841-1856 or thereabouts. The Nomads before them 1822-1840. Abd before then as S&H have them. So the oldest Civics would be 19 at the start of the 4T while the youngest Artists would be 69 at the start of the 4T. 

So you can see, in no way did the Civil War come "early". The Artists were *already* mostly gone in 1860 and the oldest Civics were the same age that the oldest GIs were in 1928 and the oldest Millennials were in 2001. At the end of the 4T the oldest Gilded were the same the oldest Lost were in 1945 and the oldest Xers were in 2016.

In other words, generationally the 4T would be projected to have run over 2001-2016 or thereabouts. When we came up with this idea, we all thought 911 was the start of the 4T and we were right on schedule.

But now its 2019, the 4T is supposed to be over or just about over, but my sense is it hasn't even started to rock and roll. 

And if that's it, then it wasn't much of a 4T--much milder and amorphous when compared the three American 4Ts. This is why, I think, many are trying to compare this crisis with the Glorious, because that one was also undramatic.

Ha ha. I'd say one of the great world wars in European and American history was pretty dramatic. King William's War was one of the most dramatic and consequential times in history. From it descend almost all the governments of the developed world today.

We didn't "all" think 9-11 was the start of a Crisis. Polls here have consistently shown that the majority have always agreed with the 2008 date. S&H did too; Strauss compared 9-11 correctly to the Wall Street bombing of 1919. No, 2008 the Great Recession was the successor to the crash of 1929; that remains the obvious start of the current 4T. So of course it isn't "over." It has just begun to rock and roll, and with Trump, and the real American nation's response to this fake travesty, and the push for renewed progress by an energized opposition led by Bernie, is the developing regeneracy.


The GI civics started being born in 1901, just as S&H said. They were 28 in 1929. So an equivalent birthday for the oldest civil war civics should be 28 years before 1850, when the civil war crisis actually began. That would be 1822, the start of the Gilded Generation.

I consider them civic-nomad hybrids, because of the lag caused by agricultural-age Dixie's being half the country. But Shelby Foote, the greatest civil war historian, made it quite clear that civil war soldiers had civic and moral virtues instilled in them by their idealist parents in that Victorian era. They were not at all like the cynical individualistic Xers of today. They were dedicated to their duties as citizens. They were just as brave and heroic as the GIs Greatest Generation in WWII. And it should be noted that most of the actual General Infantry in WWII were late wavers.

My great-grandfather Meece, born in 1842, was one of these heroic civil war soldiers. My father, a typical civic born in 1915, was by contrast a CO pacifist and didn't go fight the war. Instead, he was a co-founder of the Pacifica Radio Network, the first public broadcaster. Today it's broadcasts include Amy Goodman's radio/TV show entitled Democracy Now.

[Eric the Green]

(03-22-2019, 03:00 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: As I recall, there was a thread to the paleo site which examined 4Ts in relation to the double rhythm.  For a Dionysus cycle the 4T question was-should we stick to the existing Civic order, or go back to the past?  

(In an Apollo cycle, the question would be-should we stick with the status quo, or build something new?)

In the present the question would be-should we re-embrace the New Deal, or go back to the Gilded Age?

That has some truth to it. It would be over-simplified though, since the civil war was also an advancement, since it eliminated slavery in the section of the country that clung to the past. So it would be something like: a Dionysian cycle seeks to remove the blocks to the ongoing progress. It's more like a choice between an extension of the still-developing civic order, or going back to the past.

Today the Green New Deal would deal with some issues (like climate change) that were not yet so prominent in 1933.

You can say that the industrial order was developing before the civil war, but had only really taken off during the 4T itself which began in 1850, and had to defeat the agricultural order. Today, the post-industrial and socially-just order that is sustainable with the planet's ecology has been developing since the sixties, but now we have to make the choice to push it forward, as it has taken off only since our 4T began in around 2008. To make this progress, the old industrial gilded-age order has to be curtailed or defeated, rather than returned to as the Reaganoids and Trumpists want.

[Eric the Green]

Things are going to really ramp up soon! I don't even know if I'm ready for what I have predicted for decades. AOC and Bernie and folks like that are going to push us forward willy-nilly. Unfortunately the reactionaries have instilled themselves in power in the presidency, the senate and the courts, and our 232-year old system favors them. So it will be a tough fight ahead. The right candidate to overthrow Trump may or may not even have come forward yet. But just because the reactionaries have most of the cards now, does not mean that change won't come quickly when the stars align and the floodwaters rise!

[Mikebert]

(03-22-2019, 03:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: 1. Ha ha. I'd say one of the great world wars in European and American history was pretty dramatic. King William's War was one of the most dramatic and consequential times in history. From it descend almost all the governments of the developed world today.

2. We didn't "all" think 9-11 was the start of a Crisis. Polls here have consistently shown that the majority have always agreed with the 2008 date. 

1. In Europe, maybe, but in America, not so much.

2. People thought the 4T began in 2008 back in 2001? Really? How would they know?

In 2008 most of us (included me) had dropped the 2001 date, if we hadn't already, in favor of 2008. Right after 2008 it look VERY much like a 4T start. But as the years have gone by it has looked less and less so. Obama changed little in Foreign policy from the path Bush set, the war on terror continued. Obama increased the use of drones and got the US troop back in Iraq and got involved in wars in Syria and Yemen, as well and continue the pointless Afghan war. 

Our default economic policy remains the policy established by the Reagan administration. Inequality continued to rise through Obama's term and into Trumps. Profits are soaring and the stock market is back in the stratosphere. Feels like the 1990's or the "greed is good" eighties again. I haven't seen any significant change in the direction set at the end of the 2T.

[Eric the Green]

(03-22-2019, 04:26 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-22-2019, 03:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: 1. Ha ha. I'd say one of the great world wars in European and American history was pretty dramatic. King William's War was one of the most dramatic and consequential times in history. From it descend almost all the governments of the developed world today.

2. We didn't "all" think 9-11 was the start of a Crisis. Polls here have consistently shown that the majority have always agreed with the 2008 date. 

1. In Europe, maybe, but in America, not so much.

2. People thought the 4T began in 2008 back in 2001? Really? How would they know?

In 2008 most of us (included me) had dropped the 2001 date, if we hadn't already, in favor of 2008. Right after 2008 it look VERY much like a 4T start. But as the years have gone by it has looked less and less so. Obama changed little in Foreign policy from the path Bush set, the war on terror continued. Obama increased the use of drones and got the US troop back in Iraq and got involved in wars in Syria and Yemen, as well and continue the pointless Afghan war. 

Our default economic policy remains the policy established by the Reagan administration. Inequality continued to rise through Obama's term and into Trumps. Profits are soaring and the stock market is back in the stratosphere. Feels like the 1990's or the "greed is good" eighties again. I haven't seen any significant change in the direction set at the end of the 2T.

1. It was pretty big compared to the other colonial wars, the first of the inter-colonial wars. It lasted 9 years. Also, what happened in Europe affected the destiny of its lands in America. They were citizens of the UK and France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_William%27s_War

2. That's true about not knowing about 2008 (although I knew), but many understood in 2001 that 9-11 was not yet the start of the 4T. They knew it couldn't be, according to the generation dates and the theory too. Going shopping was not a 4T response to the 9-11 attack. Bush didn't even put hardly any troops on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001-02 to fight Al Qaeda. There was no 4T war.

I think the war on terror has indeed continued into the 4T, and will probably be back in 2025 when the war cycle comes around again. It has become part of the 4T and will remain so. That war cycle is only about 12 years, and it keeps coming back in all turnings, just about. The need to curtail the IS was strong, I believe, and so that's how we got back into Syria and Iraq, with a relatively small force. We had not gotten involved in those places before 2014, except in 2013 to threaten Assad with bombing after his chemical weapons attacks. But cautious Obama didn't pull the trigger.

I think the Bush policy of preventive imperialist war has been discredited though, even though Obama continued the drone attacks; at least until he greatly curtailed them due to protests.

Again, I think you are being too impatient. We should not have expected an FDR in the 2010s; only politicians like those in the 1850s. Pierce is even a Bush ancestor, if I remember correctly. It still feels like the 3T, just as the 1850s did. But the crisis is ongoing anyway, and will climax on schedule. 

Obama tried to shift away from the Reagan policies, but the nation is too divided for that to stick. The division continued and gave us the Tea Party and Trump. Our crisis is really not economic, primarily, but political polarization. That is the real nature of this 4T, in a double rhythm with the 1850-1865 crisis.

[Marypoza]

(03-22-2019, 04:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-22-2019, 04:26 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(03-22-2019, 03:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: 1. Ha ha. I'd say one of the great world wars in European and American history was pretty dramatic. King William's War was one of the most dramatic and consequential times in history. From it descend almost all the governments of the developed world today.

2. We didn't "all" think 9-11 was the start of a Crisis. Polls here have consistently shown that the majority have always agreed with the 2008 date. 

1. In Europe, maybe, but in America, not so much.

2. People thought the 4T began in 2008 back in 2001? Really? How would they know?

In 2008 most of us (included me) had dropped the 2001 date, if we hadn't already, in favor of 2008. Right after 2008 it look VERY much like a 4T start. But as the years have gone by it has looked less and less so. Obama changed little in Foreign policy from the path Bush set, the war on terror continued. Obama increased the use of drones and got the US troop back in Iraq and got involved in wars in Syria and Yemen, as well and continue the pointless Afghan war. 

Our default economic policy remains the policy established by the Reagan administration. Inequality continued to rise through Obama's term and into Trumps. Profits are soaring and the stock market is back in the stratosphere. Feels like the 1990's or the "greed is good" eighties again. I haven't seen any significant change in the direction set at the end of the 2T.

That's true about not knowing about 2008 (although I knew), but many understood in 2001 that 9-11 was not yet the start of the 4T. They knew it couldn't be, according to the generation dates and the theory too. Going shopping was not a 4T response to the 9-11 attack. Bush didn't even put hardly any troops on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001-02 to fight Al Qaeda. There was no 4T war.

I think the war on terror has indeed continued into the 4T, and will probably be back in 2025 when the war cycle comes around again. It has become part of the 4T and will remain so. That war cycle is only about 12 years, and it keeps coming back in all turnings, just about. The need to curtail the IS was strong, I believe, and so that's how we got back into Syria and Iraq, with a relatively small force. We had not gotten involved in those places before 2014, except in 2013 to threaten Assad with bombing after his chemical weapons attacks. But cautious Obama didn't pull the trigger.

I think the Bush policy of preventive imperialist war has been discredited though, even though Obama continued the drone attacks; at least until he greatly curtailed them due to protests.

Again, I think you are being too impatient. We should not have expected an FDR in the 2010s; only politicians like those in the 1850s. Pierce is even a Bush ancestor, if I remember correctly. It still feels like the 3T, just as the 1850s did. But the crisis is ongoing anyway, and will climax on schedule. 

Obama tried to shift away from the Reagan policies, but the nation is too divided for that to stick. The division continued and gave us the Tea Party and Trump. Our crisis is really not economic, primarily, but political polarization. That is the real nature of this 4T, in a double rhythm with the 1850-1865 crisis.

-- l thought 2008 was the start of the Crisis as well. I agree Bernie is pushing us thru it. He is the GC, even if he doesn't become Prez