When did the current 4T begin?

[Bill the Piper]

There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.

[pbrower2a]

2008, with the financial panic and the election of Barack Obama. The combination showed that America was no longer in a 3T mood and could not return to it if it wanted to.

[AspieMillennial]

(09-06-2019, 05:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.

So class of 05 not class of 08 had the last fully 3T high school experience you think?

[Hintergrund]

2008 would have been a logical point...

...buuut the powerful Silents prevent that the old time passes on as it should. That's why we've been waiting for more than ten years that "something changes bigly". Maybe they're afraid that something even worse than WW2 might happen.

Will the Crisis return with a vengeance because of this? Or will it be suffocated, and the Unraveling will never really end?

[David Horn]

(09-06-2019, 05:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.

In the US, the mood started to shift after Katrina, but the nail in the coffin was the Great Recession.  I've been in the 2005-6 camp in the past, but the impacts never aligned with the trigger, if the storm response was it.  Just look at the poor response to Maria in Puerto Rico.  Disgraceful after the lesson Katrina provided.

So it's either money or war, and it seems to be money this time.

[Bill the Piper]

(09-06-2019, 07:32 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(09-06-2019, 05:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.

So class of 05 not class of 08 had the last fully 3T high school experience you think?

Yes.   I am class of 05.

[Bill the Piper]

For those who voted "other", which dates do you have in mind?

[pbrower2a]

The economic elites panicked in 2008 as they saw signs of another Great Depression. Once that was over they went back to 3T ways even if the rest of America didn't -- and it was back to the elite conception that the rest of Humanity can simply suffer for the gain, indulgence, and power of that elite. Much of this Crisis has its 'flavor' in 2% of the people having the power to dominate politics and economics through political trickery. Trump is perfect for the elites in being a mirror-image Marxist while appealing to mass vulgarity -- but that itself implies contradictions that will bring down the last vestiges of 3T tendencies.

The well-educated people already reject the 3T, and their voting practices show that.

[tg63]

(09-10-2019, 03:53 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: For those who voted "other", which dates do you have in mind?

this is not a well thought out position, and I know there are a lot of strong opinions in here, so take this with a grain of salt ... after all this is a message board, not a thesis proposal ...

I didn't vote Other, but I'm seriously considering that the 4th turning doesn't fit the same cycle other turnings do. The depression last time provided a nice demarcation but aside from that, one could consider the crisis of past turnings - the actual conflict periods - to have been 1939-45, 1861-65, 1775-83 ... I haven't done the math but an argument could be made that a typical cycle involves the 3T extending significantly beyond the 20 or so years that S&H defined and shortening the actual length of the crisis part of the 4T.

So in that light ... perhaps, the 4T started with the 2016 election???

[David Horn]

(09-10-2019, 11:30 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(09-10-2019, 03:53 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: For those who voted "other", which dates do you have in mind?

this is not a well thought out position, and I know there are a lot of strong opinions in here, so take this with a grain of salt ... after all this is a message board, not a thesis proposal ...

I didn't vote Other, but I'm seriously considering that the 4th turning doesn't fit the same cycle other turnings do. The depression last time provided a nice demarcation but aside from that, one could consider the crisis of past turnings - the actual conflict periods - to have been 1939-45, 1861-65, 1775-83 ... I haven't done the math but an argument could be made that a typical cycle involves the 3T extending significantly beyond the 20 or so years that S&H defined and shortening the actual length of the crisis part of the 4T.

So in that light ... perhaps, the 4T started with the 2016 election???

Assuming you believe that something dramatic like a war is necessary: a 4T should have a semi-dormant phase, when the stresses build and lesser solutions are tried in vain.  Eventually, the dam breaks and the full crisis response ensues.  That was true prior to the AR, the ACW and the GD/WW-II. I wouldn't count those periods as 3T.  They have no 3T characteristics.

[Hintergrund]

(09-10-2019, 03:53 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: For those who voted "other", which dates do you have in mind?

I think the 4T is on hold, eg hasn't really started yet.

Or, if you prefer: We have its bad sides (recession, other huge unsolved problems), but no people's tribune who starts doing something, fast. So, the 4T's only half there, and we got its worse half.

[Teejay]

The Americans who posted on the Old Fourth Turning forum I am in contact with, many of them argue that America's current crisis started as early as 2005. I find their arguments very compelling, seeing parallels between what happened in America in 2005 and Australia in 2009.

Anyway, when it comes to Australia, it started in early 2009, with specifically the Black Saturday Bushfires of February to March 2009. While bush-fires, even devastating ones are common in Australia.  However, these bushfires woke up society up to sheer lack of foresight and preparation by the state government of Victoria (where the fires occurred) to anticipate such a disaster. The Victorian state government in response initiated a Royal Commission into the bush-fires which was unprecedented in history. 

Also in 2009 the country's politics, particularly at the Federal level, started to experience radicalization, with the issue of Global Heating and measures to combat it is the main issue. The Rudd Labor government had been elected in a landslide in 2007, at the start of 2009, the government enjoyed a high level of popular support. However, in 2009 the government's popularity tanked, which led to Kevin Rudd's overthrow as Prime Minister and Labor leader in 2010.

There were various factors, including failure of a home insulation program that the government had introduced, the controversy over a tax on mining profits. There was also the failure of the government to secure passage of its Carbon Trading Scheme through the Senate. With both the Greens who thought it wasn’t radical enough and benefited the mining companies, along with the Conservative Parties, who became increasingly dominated by climate change opposing the legislation. Incidentally, Malcolm Turnbull who was Opposition leader in 2009, was deposed for supporting the Carbon Trading scheme. His replacement was Tony Abbott, who was The Tea Party in his ideology.

Indeed 2009 was a year for Australia, that everything wasn't the same anymore, the same went for 1990, 1968, 1950 and 1930 as well. Therefore; I can certainly see these years as those when a change in turnings occurred.

[AspieMillennial]

(11-19-2019, 01:45 AM)Teejay Wrote: Many others who and I have done research into turnings and generations in various societies across the world. Argue that not all the world is on the same saeculum as us. Some of us have lived in some of these societies and can be considered ‘on the ground’ observers. I consider myself as an ‘on ground’ observer for Australia and can argue that our generations are 5-6 years younger than North America’s.

Therefore; when you encounter a public figure from a society which does not have the same saeculum as ours, you need to consider how they fit archetypically wise with their society.
For example; Ali Khamenei (1939), Alexander Lukashenko (1954) and Vladimir Putin (1952) have very Reactive personalities. However, they are all members of their society’s Reactive generations, which were born roughly from the late 1930s to late 1950s (roughly). Going back into the histories of these regions, it explains why both Lenin and Stalin had personalities consistent with that of members of a Reactive generation, well they were members of their societies Reactive generation. The same went for Ataturk (1981), Khrushchev (1894) and an contemporary example Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) having Civic personalities, well they were members of their societies Civic Generations. To give another example; South Africa Trevor Noah seems to have an adaptive personality, well South Africans born from say the early 1970s to early 1990s, belong to an Adaptive generation which grew up in a Crisis. Also, you need to account for turning and generation boundaries in societies, even those on roughly the same saeculum as ours.

However; every generation is composed of people of every archetype, however one archetype dominates each generation. But you need to know what a particular society's generational lineup is like as well.

(11-19-2019, 02:20 AM)Teejay Wrote: The Americans who posted on the Old Fourth Turning forum I am in contact with, many of them argue that America's current crisis started as early as 2005. I find their arguments very compelling, seeing parallels between what happened in America in 2005 and Australia in 2009.

Anyway, when it comes to Australia, it started in early 2009, with specifically the Black Saturday Bushfires of February to March 2009. While bush-fires, even devastating ones are common in Australia.  However, these bushfires woke up society up to sheer lack of foresight and preparation by the state government of Victoria (where the fires occurred) to anticipate such a disaster. The Victorian state government in response initiated a Royal Commission into the bush-fires which was unprecedented in history. 

Also in 2009 the country's politics, particularly at the Federal level, started to experience radicalization, with the issue of Global Heating and measures to combat it is the main issue. The Rudd Labor government had been elected in a landslide in 2007, at the start of 2009, the government enjoyed a high level of popular support. However, in 2009 the government's popularity tanked, which led to Kevin Rudd's overthrow as Prime Minister and Labor leader in 2010.

There were various factors, including failure of a home insulation program that the government had introduced, the controversy over a tax on mining profits. There was also the failure of the government to secure passage of its Carbon Trading Scheme through the Senate. With both the Greens who thought it wasn’t radical enough and benefited the mining companies, along with the Conservative Parties, who became increasingly dominated by climate change opposing the legislation. Incidentally, Malcolm Turnbull who was Opposition leader in 2009, was deposed for supporting the Carbon Trading scheme. His replacement was Tony Abbott, who was The Tea Party in his ideology.

Indeed 2009 was a year for Australia, that everything wasn't the same anymore, the same went for 1990, 1968, 1950 and 1930 as well. Therefore; I can certainly see these years as those when a change in turnings occurred.

Living in the US, 2005 wasn't the start of any crisis. The big changes started to happen in 2008 when the financial collapse happened. Everything felt very fine in 2005.

[sbarrera]

(09-06-2019, 05:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.

I've also heard 2003 (U.S. invasion of Iraq) and 2005 (Hurricane Katrina) brought up as possibilities. Both were jarring events.

[Eric the Green]

(11-19-2019, 07:21 AM)sbarrera Wrote:

(09-06-2019, 05:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: There are two main possibilities, either 9/11 or the Great Recession. I support the Great Recession camp, though there were 4T like traits in the 2006-8 pop culture like the rise of social media (MySpace). The 2001-5 period was pure 3T and the general theme of this Crisis has nothing to do with al-Qaeda and the war on terror.

I've also heard 2003 (U.S. invasion of Iraq) and 2005 (Hurricane Katrina) brought up as possibilities. Both were jarring events.

Boy, that's an old debate on these forums!

Great Recession, for sure.

[Eric the Green]

(09-10-2019, 06:19 PM)Hintergrund Wrote:

(09-10-2019, 03:53 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: For those who voted "other", which dates do you have in mind?

I think the 4T is on hold, eg hasn't really started yet.

Or, if you prefer: We have its bad sides (recession, other huge unsolved problems), but no people's tribune who starts doing something, fast. So, the 4T's only half there, and we got its worse half.

That's about it. Obama came along in the nick of time this time, and administered some mild curatives, whereas in 1929 the people had to suffer through 4 years of great depression before any relief came, and then when it came it was a more compelling cure. And then the big war came, which did the most to cure the depression.

Our 4T is 1850s redux. The authors saw that this time was such a 4T on hold, that they labelled it part of a 3T. The double rhythm of 4Ts means ours is also a cold civil war, and the more drastic events are delayed again.

[Eric the Green]

(09-10-2019, 11:30 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(09-10-2019, 03:53 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: For those who voted "other", which dates do you have in mind?

this is not a well thought out position, and I know there are a lot of strong opinions in here, so take this with a grain of salt ... after all this is a message board, not a thesis proposal ...

I didn't vote Other, but I'm seriously considering that the 4th turning doesn't fit the same cycle other turnings do. The depression last time provided a nice demarcation but aside from that, one could consider the crisis of past turnings - the actual conflict periods - to have been 1939-45, 1861-65, 1775-83 ... I haven't done the math but an argument could be made that a typical cycle involves the 3T extending significantly beyond the 20 or so years that S&H defined and shortening the actual length of the crisis part of the 4T.

So in that light ... perhaps, the 4T started with the 2016 election???

It's the difference between being stuck in the crisis, and the crisis climax providing the impetus to lift us out of the crisis after facing up to the conflict. So, it's all 4T.

[Mikebert]

I used to think 2008, but now I am not sure. The reason is the secular cycle concept I have been working with since 2014. Secular cycles are cycles that tend to be longer than saecula. The border between them tend to align with 4Ts.

These border eras tend to be times of political turmoil often involving state collapse--civil war, revolution, invasion. There are math models that described these cycles and empirical data that fits these models, so they have more empirical and theoretical support than the saeculum. In agrarian nations the cycle is driven by demographics and can be characterized in terms of cycles in population and economic inequality. In industrial nations population cycles are no longer a factor but inequality can still be used to track them. Piketty and his co-workers have tracked inequality in a number of nations, which provides examples of secular cycles in modern nations.

At present inequality is about as high as it was in 1916/1929 (twin peak), which was the last time we had one of those border crisis eras.  Secular cycle theory calls for high levels of social unrest and intra elite political conflict which can manifest as extreme polarization and take no prisoners politics. All three of these things are happening today. Last time these things we more associated with the first peak around 1916 than the one in 1929, whereas the long term decline in inequality that is part of a new cycle happened after 1929. Peter Turchin, the developer of this theory holds that secular cycle border last time was in the 1910's, whereas I hold it was the 1930's.

I am working on a hypothesis that inequality in an industrial capitalist country leads to financial instability, meaning that we should see a repeat of the financial crisis in the next recession. Part of secular cycle theory is a measure of political instability called PSI. PSI was low in 1893, 1907 and 2008, but very high in 1929 and today. Because PSI was low for the first three financial crises, they did not lead to the sort of structural changes that produce long term declines in inequality. The high PSI in 1929 meant these reforms did happen.

So we now have an opportunity for a test. If the hypothesis is valid we should see these structural changes happen, and this new panic could serve as a regeneration, with the first one as a trigger. The 4T would have begun in 2008. If not, then we will have to wait another decade for a chance at fundamental economic change (i.e. a regeneration), and the case of a 4T start in 2008 looks untenable.

[David Horn]

(11-19-2019, 05:33 PM)Mikebert Wrote: I used to think 2008, but now I am not sure. The reason is the secular cycle concept I have been working with since 2014. Secular cycles are cycles that tend to be longer than saecula. The border between them tend to align with 4Ts.

These border eras tend to be times of political turmoil often involving state collapse--civil war, revolution, invasion. There are math models that described these cycles and empirical data that fits these models, so they have more empirical and theoretical support than the saeculum. In agrarian nations the cycle is driven by demographics and can be characterized in terms of cycles in population and economic inequality. In industrial nations population cycles are no longer a factor but inequality can still be used to track them. Piketty and his co-workers have tracked inequality in a number of nations, which provides examples of secular cycles in modern nations.

At present inequality is about as high as it was in 1916/1929 (twin peak), which was the last time we had one of those border crisis eras.  Secular cycle theory calls for high levels of social unrest and intra elite political conflict which can manifest as extreme polarization and take no prisoners politics. All three of these things are happening today. Last time these things we more associated with the first peak around 1916 than the one in 1929, whereas the long term decline in inequality that is part of a new cycle happened after 1929. Peter Turchin, the developer of this theory holds that secular cycle border last time was in the 1910's, whereas I hold it was the 1930's.

I am working on a hypothesis that inequality in an industrial capitalist country leads to financial instability, meaning that we should see a repeat of the financial crisis in the next recession. Part of secular cycle theory is a measure of political instability called PSI. PSI was low in 1893, 1907 and 2008, but very high in 1929 and today. Because PSI was low for the first three financial crises, they did not lead to the sort of structural changes that produce long term declines in inequality. The high PSI in 1929 meant these reforms did happen.

So we now have an opportunity for a test. If the hypothesis is valid we should see these structural changes happen, and this new panic could serve as a regeneration, with the first one as a trigger. The 4T would have begun in 2008. If not, then we will have to wait another decade for a chance at fundamental economic change (i.e. a regeneration), and the case of a 4T start in 2008 looks untenable.

If this is a 4T in the true sense of the term, then this election must be a dramatic one.  So far, I don't see that happening.  I doubt Trump will get another 4 years, but the Dems aren't covering themselves in rose petals either.  Most of the early energy in that party seems to be focused on "a return to normal", whatever that is in today's terms. If the Dems win by being the milquetoast party, then your 10-year delay of the next crisis era seems spot on. On the other hand, if they choose an activist candidate, that candidate wins, and has the coattail to carry the Congress, then the 2008 start of the 4T may be real.  Needless to say, that's the option I prefer.  Unfortunately, I'm typically more the outlier than guide-on.

[Ghost]

In the US, it's probably like this:

1T/2T cusp: 1960-1965 (invention of the birth control pill to the start of US involvement in Vietnam)
2T starting point: November 22, 1963 (JFK's assassination)
2T absolute: 1965-1978 (the start of US involvement in Vietnam to the banning of lead paint)
2T/3T cusp: 1978-1984 (the banning of lead paint to Reagan's 1984 landslide win)
3T starting point: November 4, 1980 (Reagan winning the Reagan vs. Carter election)
3T absolute: 1984-1999 (Reagan's 1984 landslide win to the Columbine shootings)
3T/4T cusp: 1999-2005 (the Columbine shootings to Hurricane Katrina)
4T starting point: September 11, 2001 (9/11)
4T absolute: 2005-present (since Hurricane Katrina)