America is a sick society

[Eric the Green]

(08-06-2017, 08:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-03-2017, 11:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see that the USA can survive as a leading democratic country and economy if another entire saeculum must take place before it changes course. The forces of decline will prevail in that case. The momentum will not be stoppable. The backlash will have been robbed of any awareness or power to stop it, and the result of the overextension will be collapse pure and simple, augmented by climate collapse on a massive scale. A large middle class is usually necessary for a revolution to be successful, unless it's a temporary one soon taken over again by the new boss, same as the old boss.

The US has a unique situation that makes a rebound possible for us that might not be for others.  First, we are very large, both in land mas and population.  Size matters.  Second, we have a wealth of natural resources to draw on.  Third, we have friendly neighbors, and one is physically as large as the US with even greater natural assets.

So, we can and most likely will recover, if it comes to that.

Why would you assume that a recovery is possible later after a massive breakdown of civil society, the middle class, education/media and democracy, but no recovery is possible sooner, before these collapses fully set in?

[David Horn]

(08-06-2017, 08:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-06-2017, 08:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-03-2017, 11:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see that the USA can survive as a leading democratic country and economy if another entire saeculum must take place before it changes course. The forces of decline will prevail in that case. The momentum will not be stoppable. The backlash will have been robbed of any awareness or power to stop it, and the result of the overextension will be collapse pure and simple, augmented by climate collapse on a massive scale. A large middle class is usually necessary for a revolution to be successful, unless it's a temporary one soon taken over again by the new boss, same as the old boss.

The US has a unique situation that makes a rebound possible for us that might not be for others.  First, we are very large, both in land mas and population.  Size matters.  Second, we have a wealth of natural resources to draw on.  Third, we have friendly neighbors, and one is physically as large as the US with even greater natural assets.

So, we can and most likely will recover, if it comes to that.

Why would you assume that a recovery is possible later after a massive breakdown of civil society, the middle class, education/media and democracy, but no recovery is possible sooner, before these collapses fully set in?

I don't see a rebound to hegemon status, but we will be the singular power in the western hemisphere, mostly by default.

[Eric the Green]

(08-06-2017, 08:45 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-06-2017, 08:29 PM)e a rebound to hegemon status, butEric the Green Wrote:

(08-06-2017, 08:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-03-2017, 11:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see that the USA can survive as a leading democratic country and economy if another entire saeculum must take place before it changes course. The forces of decline will prevail in that case. The momentum will not be stoppable. The backlash will have been robbed of any awareness or power to stop it, and the result of the overextension will be collapse pure and simple, augmented by climate collapse on a massive scale. A large middle class is usually necessary for a revolution to be successful, unless it's a temporary one soon taken over again by the new boss, same as the old boss.

The US has a unique situation that makes a rebound possible for us that might not be for others.  First, we are very large, both in land mas and population.  Size matters.  Second, we have a wealth of natural resources to draw on.  Third, we have friendly neighbors, and one is physically as large as the US with even greater natural assets.

So, we can and most likely will recover, if it comes to that.

Why would you assume that a recovery is possible later after a massive breakdown of civil society, the middle class, education/media and democracy, but no recovery is possible sooner, before these collapses fully set in?

I don't see a rebound to hegemon status, but we will be the singular power in the western hemisphere, mostly by default.

Yes, possibly. What is now the USA may be able to fend off enemies for a while because of its location and size, etc. But will it be possible for a new prophet generation, or a new civic generation, to arise and recover their idealism and courage to speak up, in a society being produced by the people now taking over our country, who leave us in the mess we're in, with no resolution in this 4T? And even if there are some young people like that, will they be able to succeed in a society in which ignorance, greed and superstition have been so firmly planted among the majority of people? Assuming our rulers are not stopped and outvoted before they can accomplish their current aim to create such a society? Can true prophet generations arise in a society whose 4T has just failed? The first failure in Anglo-American history? A rebounding country of this type, is not worth living in or hoping for. And its economy cannot succeed either, except for only a small number of its people. They may have resources, but since they will not be distributed to the people, the economy will fail anyway too. And the climate will have been destroyed beyond repair too, don't forget that. There will be no idealists, because only survival will be on peoples' minds. They will all be nomads, all generations; without any redeeming features of nomads either. The cycle will end, and so will our country. In my estimation.

The alternative is for us to recover our faith in our own generations, to do what all previous anglo-american generations have done: rise to the occasion, and make this 4T successful. We must throw the bastards out and reclaim our country from the reactionaries. They must become the permanent minority, instead of a minority that can take power (and has taken power) in the rigged system we have today.

[David Horn]

(08-06-2017, 08:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-06-2017, 08:19 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-03-2017, 11:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't see that the USA can survive as a leading democratic country and economy if another entire saeculum must take place before it changes course. The forces of decline will prevail in that case. The momentum will not be stoppable. The backlash will have been robbed of any awareness or power to stop it, and the result of the overextension will be collapse pure and simple, augmented by climate collapse on a massive scale. A large middle class is usually necessary for a revolution to be successful, unless it's a temporary one soon taken over again by the new boss, same as the old boss.

The US has a unique situation that makes a rebound possible for us that might not be for others.  First, we are very large, both in land mas and population.  Size matters.  Second, we have a wealth of natural resources to draw on.  Third, we have friendly neighbors, and one is physically as large as the US with even greater natural assets.

So, we can and most likely will recover, if it comes to that.

Why would you assume that a recovery is possible later after a massive breakdown of civil society, the middle class, education/media and democracy, but no recovery is possible sooner, before these collapses fully set in?

Even in the worst of times, there is a core of sensible people who are available for clean-up duty.  Will it be easy or quick?  No, of course not, but the inherent wealth of the country and that core of good people make it possible.  Look at Germany at the end of WW-II and today.  They had a long period of national soul searching but came through.  The US can as well.

[David Horn]

(08-07-2017, 12:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, possibly. What is now the USA may be able to fend off enemies for a while because of its location and size, etc. But will it be possible for a new prophet generation, or a new civic generation, to arise and recover their idealism and courage to speak up, in a society being produced by the people now taking over our country, who leave us in the mess we're in, with no resolution in this 4T? And even if there are some young people like that, will they be able to succeed in a society in which ignorance, greed and superstition have been so firmly planted among the majority of people? Assuming our rulers are not stopped and outvoted before they can accomplish their current aim to create such a society? Can true prophet generations arise in a society whose 4T has just failed? The first failure in Anglo-American history? A rebounding country of this type, is not worth living in or hoping for. And its economy cannot succeed either, except for only a small number of its people. They may have resources, but since they will not be distributed to the people, the economy will fail anyway too. And the climate will have been destroyed beyond repair too, don't forget that. There will be no idealists, because only survival will be on peoples' minds. They will all be nomads, all generations; without any redeeming features of nomads either. The cycle will end, and so will our country. In my estimation.

Just as success is its own reward, failure is its own corrective.  Sam Brownback nearly bankrupted Kansas, but calmer heads are now beginning to rethink the stupidity that got them into the mess they were in.  Kansas is still in the woods, but that may be ending.  If it corrects quickly, I may consider this 4T viable after all. 

FWIW, I think Kansas has a long road back -- too long to get to an apotheosis in this 4T.

Eric continues ... Wrote:The alternative is for us to recover our faith in our own generations, to do what all previous Anglo-American generations have done: rise to the occasion, and make this 4T successful. We must throw the bastards out and reclaim our country from the reactionaries. They must become the permanent minority, instead of a minority that can take power (and has taken power) in the rigged system we have today.

Nice words, but only operational if enough people believe them and act.  Many of today's European nations had horrid leaders during the same period FDR was the US President.  Most of them are much more forward thinking now than we are.  Youth always sees the errors of their elders.  Some rally to make those errors history and build something better.  That's my expectation, even though I won't live to see it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-07-2017, 10:05 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 12:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, possibly. What is now the USA may be able to fend off enemies for a while because of its location and size, etc. But will it be possible for a new prophet generation, or a new civic generation, to arise and recover their idealism and courage to speak up, in a society being produced by the people now taking over our country, who leave us in the mess we're in, with no resolution in this 4T? And even if there are some young people like that, will they be able to succeed in a society in which ignorance, greed and superstition have been so firmly planted among the majority of people? Assuming our rulers are not stopped and outvoted before they can accomplish their current aim to create such a society? Can true prophet generations arise in a society whose 4T has just failed? The first failure in Anglo-American history? A rebounding country of this type, is not worth living in or hoping for. And its economy cannot succeed either, except for only a small number of its people. They may have resources, but since they will not be distributed to the people, the economy will fail anyway too. And the climate will have been destroyed beyond repair too, don't forget that. There will be no idealists, because only survival will be on peoples' minds. They will all be nomads, all generations; without any redeeming features of nomads either. The cycle will end, and so will our country. In my estimation.

Just as success is its own reward, failure is its own corrective.  Sam Brownback nearly bankrupted Kansas, but calmer heads are now beginning to rethink the stupidity that got them into the mess they were in.  Kansas is still in the woods, but that may be ending.  If it corrects quickly, I may consider this 4T viable after all. 

FWIW, I think Kansas has a long road back -- too long to get to an apotheosis in this 4T.

Eric continues ... Wrote:The alternative is for us to recover our faith in our own generations, to do what all previous Anglo-American generations have done: rise to the occasion, and make this 4T successful. We must throw the bastards out and reclaim our country from the reactionaries. They must become the permanent minority, instead of a minority that can take power (and has taken power) in the rigged system we have today.

Nice words, but only operational if enough people believe them and act.  Many of today's European nations had horrid leaders during the same period FDR was the US President.  Most of them are much more forward thinking now than we are.  Youth always sees the errors of their elders.  Some rally to make those errors history and build something better.  That's my expectation, even though I won't live to see it.

I'd agree failure is theoretically its own corrective.  Europe had World War II fought all over its soil.  That's quite a corrective.  Kansas?  While they may be starting to get it, too few people in the rest of the country don't see a problem with a debt economy.  Too many people can also ignore the climate problem.  I don't know how long it will take before the problems get in you face not ignore-able.

[David Horn]

(08-07-2017, 10:20 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'd agree failure is theoretically its own corrective.  Europe had World War II fought all over its soil.  That's quite a corrective.  Kansas?  While they may be starting to get it, too few people in the rest of the country don't see a problem with a debt economy.  Too many people can also ignore the climate problem.  I don't know how long it will take before the problems get in you face not ignore-able.

History has given us several major changes, but the most dramatic have all happened in the last 200 years or so.  It's hard to base a recurrent theme of 80 year cycles on such thin gruel.  I guess we'll have to see if the rising Civic generation lives up to expectations and acts decisively.  I tend toward pessimism, so I try to overlay optimism on my projections to balance that.  I'm sure I don't do it well. 

We Boomers have made a mess of things, but certainly no worse than the Transcendentals did in their time.  Of course, the Transcendentals marched the nation into the ACW, so a better outcome can still be plenty bad.

[Eric the Green]

Psychological Study Of Trump Voters Reveals Creepy Common Traits They Share





A psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz has put together a psychological profile based on other psychological studies, polls and demographics to really get a good mental view of what is inside the mind of a Donald Trump voter. What he's come up with are five common traits that we see throughout almost all Trump supporters in this country. Here they are.

The first one, authoritarian personality disorder. What this means is that people who support Donald Trump are people who support a very strong rule of law, at the expense of their own freedoms. Now this is something we have absolutely seen since Donald Trump took office. We have seen far too many Donald Trump supporters saying that they support his strong enforcement of immigration laws, and then, "Oh no, they deported my husband. They deported the rest of my family." That is the authoritarian personality disorder. They lost their own freedom, their family lost their freedom, all because they wanted that strict rule of law.

The second common personality trait, social dominance orientation. Now what this means is that Trump voters are far more likely than other people in this country to believe that we need some kind of societal hierarchy where the higher class, the upper class is clearly above and gets to oppress those below them. A little bit of irony here, considering the fact that many Donald Trump voters are not in that top 1%, they're actually down here in the bottom. But they believe that one day they will be at the top and they deserve all the power and they'll be the ones holding down everybody else.

The third, and this is probably one of the most important personality traits found, and again not found in all of them but found in most of them, prejudice. People who think they're losing their rights to minorities. People who believe that their whiteness makes them better than a Black person or a Hispanic person or anyone else or an Asian person. That is a very common theme seen throughout Donald Trump voters.

Another one, inter-group contact, that's the fourth one. What that means is that Donald Trump voters are far less likely than their Democratic counterparts, or Libertarian or Green Party counterparts, to actually have interactions with people outside of their own race, outside of their own city and outside of their own country. They're very isolated. They're very insulated. They interact with only people who agree with them and are never exposed to differing viewpoints, differing world views or differing views of the world. Physically, geographically, they do not move around, they do not talk to other people. They don't expand their own horizons and that leaves them with this feeling that they are superior, that they are better, and that leads them to vote for Trump.

The fifth and final common trait he found, relative depravation. This is the one. It's a little more controversial but it says that the depravation is not that they're deprived of any kind of horrible thing, but that they feel like they're owed a better economic situation. They've been deprived of moving up the social ladder and they feel like they deserve that. That is one that is actually true. That is one that's been hotly debated amongst the Democratic Party. Some people say that we have to reach out to these disaffected Donald Trump economic voters, while others say that no, all Trump voters are racist.

In reality both are true. Not all Trump voters are racist and not all Trump voters are suffering from a bad economic position. But both of these factors played a role in the election of Donald Trump and these psychologists have worked very hard to come up with these profiles. Hopefully, the Democrats can use this and understand it and find a way to actually work around these issues to convince these people that voting for Republicans is not in their best interest and that the Democrats hopefully, maybe, if they fix themselves, are the ones who can actually help improve their lives.

[Eric the Green]

(08-07-2017, 01:40 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 10:20 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'd agree failure is theoretically its own corrective.  Europe had World War II fought all over its soil.  That's quite a corrective.  Kansas?  While they may be starting to get it, too few people in the rest of the country don't see a problem with a debt economy.  Too many people can also ignore the climate problem.  I don't know how long it will take before the problems get in you face not ignore-able.

History has given us several major changes, but the most dramatic have all happened in the last 200 years or so.  It's hard to base a recurrent theme of 80 year cycles on such thin gruel.  I guess we'll have to see if the rising Civic generation lives up to expectations and acts decisively.  I tend toward pessimism, so I try to overlay optimism on my projections to balance that.  I'm sure I don't do it well. 

We Boomers have made a mess of things, but certainly no worse than the Transcendentals did in their time.  Of course, the Transcendentals marched the nation into the ACW, so a better outcome can still be plenty bad.

I think the cycle does go back over 500 years, although its changes have been more substantial during and since the founding of the USA. But the record of coming through 4Ts is strong and goes back over 500 years at least. But you're right; the cycle such as it is does not guarantee success. The outcome of the ACW was positive and we moved forward from it to world dominance and success, but a better 4T than the civil war isn't saying much, that's true. It's also true that all 4Ts have been difficult and violent. So I see more trouble ahead in the 2020s. I think it will in fact be less violent than the civil war. 

My hunch is that some rebels could get upset at what the government pushes forward, and these are most likely to be right-wing rebels after the Left (such as it is; likely another Obama-type left, not a Socialist left) has recaptured the government for a few years. The rebels will lose fairly easily, in that case, and we'll move forward as a country from there; but the reverse possibility is also true, if the rebels of the mid-2020s come from the Left against an entrenched right-wing government that emerges from the current one and maintains power into the mid-2020s. If the only option for the Left in the 2020s (and probably any time after that) is to violently rebel, the Left will lose (and so will our country).

If the desire of the rebels is a vote by some red states to secede, however, which itself is a non-violent (although illegal) act, then the government of the Left might agree to let them go, instead of invade as Lincoln did after the rebels violently attacked federal property. A government of the Right might not be as willing to let blue states like CA go, but it could happen.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-07-2017, 02:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 01:40 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 10:20 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'd agree failure is theoretically its own corrective.  Europe had World War II fought all over its soil.  That's quite a corrective.  Kansas?  While they may be starting to get it, too few people in the rest of the country don't see a problem with a debt economy.  Too many people can also ignore the climate problem.  I don't know how long it will take before the problems get in you face not ignore-able.

History has given us several major changes, but the most dramatic have all happened in the last 200 years or so.  It's hard to base a recurrent theme of 80 year cycles on such thin gruel.  I guess we'll have to see if the rising Civic generation lives up to expectations and acts decisively.  I tend toward pessimism, so I try to overlay optimism on my projections to balance that.  I'm sure I don't do it well. 

We Boomers have made a mess of things, but certainly no worse than the Transcendentals did in their time.  Of course, the Transcendentals marched the nation into the ACW, so a better outcome can still be plenty bad.

I think the cycle does go back over 500 years, although its changes have been more substantial during and since the founding of the USA. But the record of coming through 4Ts is strong and goes back over 500 years at least. But you're right; the cycle such as it is does not guarantee success. The outcome of the ACW was positive and we moved forward from it to world dominance and success, but a better 4T than the civil war isn't saying much, that's true. It's also true that all 4Ts have been difficult and violent. So I see more trouble ahead in the 2020s. I think it will in fact be less violent than the civil war. 

My hunch is that some rebels could get upset at what the government pushes forward, and these are most likely to be right-wing rebels after the Left (such as it is; likely another Obama-type left, not a Socialist left) has recaptured the government for a few years. The rebels will lose fairly easily, in that case, and we'll move forward as a country from there; but the reverse possibility is also true, if the rebels of the mid-2020s come from the Left against an entrenched right-wing government that emerges from the current one and maintains power into the mid-2020s. If the only option for the Left in the 2020s (and probably any time after that) is to violently rebel, the Left will lose (and so will our country).

If the desire of the rebels is a vote by some red states to secede, however, which itself is a non-violent (although illegal) act, then the government of the Left might agree to let them go, instead of invade as Lincoln did after the rebels violently attacked federal property. A government of the Right might not be as willing to let blue states like CA go, but it could happen.

Hmm...  I don't know exactly where you are coming from Eric, but the Reformation might be said to have started in 1517 with the publishing of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses.  The timing is right, anyway.

That is roughly where the Agricultural Age trickles out and the Industrial Age starts phasing in.  I don't trust the S&H cycles much earlier than that or away from Europe and North America.  You are focused on an interesting time frame anyway. 

I'm still thinking the debit economy and climate shift will in time break the unraveling memes.  We'll have to see.

I'm still pleased with what the GIs and young Boomers did with civil rights, gender rights, anti war and starting towards the environment.  I can't sneer at the New deal through Great Society era.  If anything, there was too much success during that time.  The kick back has been intense.  You get headaches by dancing on the ashes of the conservatives.  Whether it's the mid 20th century awakening or the recent raising of the rainbow flag, rousing them too much just gets them mad.

[Eric the Green]

(08-07-2017, 09:32 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 02:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 01:40 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 10:20 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'd agree failure is theoretically its own corrective.  Europe had World War II fought all over its soil.  That's quite a corrective.  Kansas?  While they may be starting to get it, too few people in the rest of the country don't see a problem with a debt economy.  Too many people can also ignore the climate problem.  I don't know how long it will take before the problems get in you face not ignore-able.

History has given us several major changes, but the most dramatic have all happened in the last 200 years or so.  It's hard to base a recurrent theme of 80 year cycles on such thin gruel.  I guess we'll have to see if the rising Civic generation lives up to expectations and acts decisively.  I tend toward pessimism, so I try to overlay optimism on my projections to balance that.  I'm sure I don't do it well. 

We Boomers have made a mess of things, but certainly no worse than the Transcendentals did in their time.  Of course, the Transcendentals marched the nation into the ACW, so a better outcome can still be plenty bad.

I think the cycle does go back over 500 years, although its changes have been more substantial during and since the founding of the USA. But the record of coming through 4Ts is strong and goes back over 500 years at least. But you're right; the cycle such as it is does not guarantee success. The outcome of the ACW was positive and we moved forward from it to world dominance and success, but a better 4T than the civil war isn't saying much, that's true. It's also true that all 4Ts have been difficult and violent. So I see more trouble ahead in the 2020s. I think it will in fact be less violent than the civil war. 

My hunch is that some rebels could get upset at what the government pushes forward, and these are most likely to be right-wing rebels after the Left (such as it is; likely another Obama-type left, not a Socialist left) has recaptured the government for a few years. The rebels will lose fairly easily, in that case, and we'll move forward as a country from there; but the reverse possibility is also true, if the rebels of the mid-2020s come from the Left against an entrenched right-wing government that emerges from the current one and maintains power into the mid-2020s. If the only option for the Left in the 2020s (and probably any time after that) is to violently rebel, the Left will lose (and so will our country).

If the desire of the rebels is a vote by some red states to secede, however, which itself is a non-violent (although illegal) act, then the government of the Left might agree to let them go, instead of invade as Lincoln did after the rebels violently attacked federal property. A government of the Right might not be as willing to let blue states like CA go, but it could happen.

Hmm...  I don't know exactly where you are coming from Eric, but the Reformation might be said to have started in 1517 with the publishing of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses.  The timing is right, anyway.

The first S&H 4T is the Wars of the Roses. They considered the Reformation as a 3T, and for England it started later than 1517. The pre-industrial or pre-Revolution 4Ts were longer.

Quote:That is roughly where the Agricultural Age trickles out and the Industrial Age starts phasing in.  I don't trust the S&H cycles much earlier than that or away from Europe and North America.  You are focused on an interesting time frame anyway. 

I'm still thinking the debit economy and climate shift will in time break the unraveling memes.  We'll have to see.

Yes, as the wicked witch would say, "all in good time, my pretty; all in good time."

The Industrial Age was a very slight trickle until the 18th century, as I read my history. And the take-off date is 1781 or thereabouts, according to what I read. But the engines were starting up as early as 1712 when the first steam engine came online, and then Watt's more-practical invention in 1769. But of course, industry is said to be more than the inventions, but primarily the way society was organized to accommodate the work requirements. Before the Industrial Age, though, came the revolution in science, which was characteristic of the period after the Reformation, at least.

Quote:I'm still pleased with what the GIs and young Boomers did with civil rights, gender rights, anti war and starting towards the environment.  I can't sneer at the New deal through Great Society era.  If anything, there was too much success during that time.  The kick back has been intense.  You get headaches by dancing on the ashes of the conservatives.  Whether it's the mid 20th century awakening or the recent raising of the rainbow flag, rousing them too much just gets them mad.

I look forward to dancing on the ashes of the unravelling memes.

[pbrower2a]

I'd be wary of seeking a 4T to solve any of the glaring faults of America. A heritage of militarism can end in catastrophic defeat that implies that giant cities and everything unfortunate enough to be in them (from goldfish to masterpieces of painting) being turned into cinders. Taking out the narcissism of America's economic elites will take another Great Depression that dashes the selfishness of current plutocrats and executives but also delivers mass poverty as few living Americans can now know (aside from immigrants from poorer countries) or a violent revolution that topples the economic elites and culminates in a lethal purge (with Madame Guillotine or its higher-tech stand-in performing the questionable honors).

One thing is certain: after this 4T is over there will be little nostalgia for the degenerate times leading to the Crisis. Commonplace objects left over from the 3T will often be put to new purposes that mock their banality:



I can hardly imagine the appearances of numerous Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and low-end GM, Chrysler, and Ford vehicles of our time being turned into hot rods... but I expect it to happen.

[Bob Butler 54]

Eric, while the Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment were in many ways separate movements, I see all three as part of the development of the Industrial Age pattern. The technology featured gunpowder, steam and the printing press. I also see the Reformation as starting to break up hierarchical authoritarian thinking in a way that helped the Enlightenment in turn. Anyway, yes, things started popping. It was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The War of the Roses? I'm not so sure. While it has many of the symptoms of 4T, and I won't argue the point intensely, there are few to no issues where the Agricultural / Industrial mind patterns are put on the line. That has always felt more to me like an old fashioned Agricultural Age dynastic conflict. There were enough of those back in the day.

Anyway, if you see kings fighting democracy, agricultural elites squaring off against robber barons, industrialized urban areas opposing rural zones, established hierarchical autocratic churches going against upstarts that let worshipers read the Bible... In many of those cases, it is fairly easy to say the Agricultural / Industrial transition is underway, who is on the progressive side, and who has a big leg up on coming out on top. Bet on the urban folk with new money and new technology. The people with dated culture and technology didn't generally do well. When the above things aren't present, the transition to the Industrial pattern may not be underway yet. You may want to look harder at what people are struggling over.

Alas, if the Industrial Age pattern is complete, if networked knowledge, post scarcity economics, ecological problems, nukes and insurgent warfare are becoming the way to go with a new age of civilization starting, all bets are off as we have to figure out how the new pattern has to take shape.

[David Horn]

(08-08-2017, 01:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Eric, while the Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment were in many ways separate movements, I see all three as part of the development of the Industrial Age pattern.  The technology featured gunpowder, steam and the printing press.  I also see the Reformation as starting to break up hierarchical authoritarian thinking in a way that helped the Enlightenment in turn.  Anyway, yes, things started popping.  It was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The War of the Roses?  I'm not so sure.  While it has many of the symptoms of 4T, and I won't argue the point intensely, there are few to no issues where the Agricultural / Industrial mind patterns are put on the line.  That has always felt more to me like an old fashioned Agricultural Age dynastic conflict.  There were enough of those back in the day.

Anyway, if you see kings fighting democracy, agricultural elites squaring off against robber barons, industrialized urban areas opposing rural zones, established hierarchical autocratic churches going against upstarts that let worshipers read the Bible...  In many of those cases, it is fairly easy to say the Agricultural / Industrial transition is underway, who is on the progressive side, and who has a big leg up on coming out on top.  Bet on the urban folk with new money and new technology.  The people with dated culture and technology didn't generally do well.  When the above things aren't present, the transition to the Industrial pattern may not be underway yet.  You may want to look harder at what people are struggling over.

Alas, if the Industrial Age pattern is complete, if networked knowledge, post scarcity economics, ecological problems, nukes and insurgent warfare are becoming the way to go with a new age of civilization starting, all bets are off as we have to figure out how the new pattern has to take shape.

I understand your bounding, though we can argue whether all the periods are sufficiently similar to justify them under the same rubric.  Suffice it to say that the Agricultural Age didn't die a quick death.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-08-2017, 03:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-08-2017, 01:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Eric, while the Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment were in many ways separate movements, I see all three as part of the development of the Industrial Age pattern.  The technology featured gunpowder, steam and the printing press.  I also see the Reformation as starting to break up hierarchical authoritarian thinking in a way that helped the Enlightenment in turn.  Anyway, yes, things started popping.  It was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The War of the Roses?  I'm not so sure.  While it has many of the symptoms of 4T, and I won't argue the point intensely, there are few to no issues where the Agricultural / Industrial mind patterns are put on the line.  That has always felt more to me like an old fashioned Agricultural Age dynastic conflict.  There were enough of those back in the day.

Anyway, if you see kings fighting democracy, agricultural elites squaring off against robber barons, industrialized urban areas opposing rural zones, established hierarchical autocratic churches going against upstarts that let worshipers read the Bible...  In many of those cases, it is fairly easy to say the Agricultural / Industrial transition is underway, who is on the progressive side, and who has a big leg up on coming out on top.  Bet on the urban folk with new money and new technology.  The people with dated culture and technology didn't generally do well.  When the above things aren't present, the transition to the Industrial pattern may not be underway yet.  You may want to look harder at what people are struggling over.

Alas, if the Industrial Age pattern is complete, if networked knowledge, post scarcity economics, ecological problems, nukes and insurgent warfare are becoming the way to go with a new age of civilization starting, all bets are off as we have to figure out how the new pattern has to take shape.

I understand your bounding, though we can argue whether all the periods are sufficiently similar to justify them under the same rubric.

 

I think S&H developed an interesting language and became aware of an interesting pattern in history.  I don't see it as absolute and firm, especially outside of the Anglo American sequence of history.  Certainly there is much to be said about whether this time and place is really similar to that one.  Even where the pattern doesn't hold firmly the descriptive language might come in handy.

(08-08-2017, 03:16 PM)David Horn Wrote: Suffice it to say that the Agricultural Age didn't die a quick death.

Amen.

One of the key memes for me is the notion of the Great Man, Fill In The Blank the Great.  During the agricultural age, the time of a countries' greatest wealth and power was often when one of their strongest leaders established the most complete control.  This created the aura or myth of the great leader who alone could ride herd on a fractious and selfish group of nobles or serfs.  If you keep your mind open, you can come up with examples enough.  If you need help, Cynic Hero is a big fan of the old time 'greats' and how to succeed within the agricultural age memes.

Democracies run on a very opposing theory, that there should be checks and balances, that the government's and the leader's power should be limited, that politics and the economy are only healthy if the elites running things are kept in check, that the interests of the common man are always very much represented.  The majority can out vote the elites, and that's how things ought to be.  The People should win, in a revolution, a civil war, or at the ballot box.

I am not one to throw the word 'demagogue' around lightly, or to claim a great likeness between Bush 43 and Stalin.  It is not clear to me, however, that the struggles that created the Industrial Age are complete and successful.  The middle east is still far more in the agricultural pattern than the industrial.  The clout of traditional religion there is comparable or exceeds the power of democracy.  Human rights can be disregarded by terrorist, militant or religious groups.  People including but not limited to Saddam will use classic government by fear that includes genocide, knocks on the door in the middle of the night, with tribal, religious and political prejudices applied freely.  I see the middle east as still in the early phases of agricultural - industrial age conflict and transition.  While you might learn from history how these transitions tend to go, each takes a different form, and each is ugly and horrible in a different way.

The result is not inevitable and beneficial.  Russia and China did not and are not developing functional multi party democracies.  They will put Fill In The Blank the Great in charge, then have layers of lesser bureaucrats ad-lib some sort of limits to power that further the interests of the lesser bureaucrats.  You can even say the United States is faltering.  Did presidential candidate Trump see himself as the only man great enough to solve the problems we had gotten ourselves in?  Trump the Great?  Is this part of a country flirting with the big man meme rather than checks and balances?

During the transition to the Industrial Age, the robber barons have often been on the side of progress.  At this point, are they pushing to increase their own influence and profit rather the the country's benefit?  If there isn't an elite group backing the progressive masses, do the progressive masses get anywhere?

It is not clear to me which path the hypothetical post-scarcity / information age might take.  There is a lot more at stake than whether we call certain elites by questionably humorous names.

[pbrower2a]

(08-07-2017, 02:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Psychological Study Of Trump Voters Reveals Creepy Common Traits They Share





A psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz has put together a psychological profile based on other psychological studies, polls and demographics to really get a good mental view of what is inside the mind of a Donald Trump voter. What he's come up with are five common traits that we see throughout almost all Trump supporters in this country. Here they are.

The first one, authoritarian personality disorder. What this means is that people who support Donald Trump are people who support a very strong rule of law, at the expense of their own freedoms. Now this is something we have absolutely seen since Donald Trump took office. We have seen far too many Donald Trump supporters saying that they support his strong enforcement of immigration laws, and then, "Oh no, they deported my husband. They deported the rest of my family." That is the authoritarian personality disorder. They lost their own freedom, their family lost their freedom, all because they wanted that strict rule of law.

As a liberal I assume the worst with a right-wing, authoritarian regime. "Tough on crime" by a right-wing government friendly to elites and at best indifferent to the well-being of everyone else implies that the government will become a tool of enforcement of the economic and bureaucratic elites. Maybe the economy becomes more efficient in ensuring that people work harder and longer for less and that monopoly power gets the opportunity for a coldly-rational, if cruel, planning that ensures that certain people get the capital and that others get drained...

I have no problem with police enforcing the law against the street criminal who is the friend of nobody, especially those who must live in the domain of the violent, exploitative criminal.

The authoritarian personality is a well-recognized, if often controversial, construct.

Quote:Authoritarians are nearly always ethnocentric in that they have a certain, simple and unshakable belief in the superiority of their own racial, cultural and ethnic group with a powerful disclaim for all those in other groups.  This can easily lead to brutality, aggression and naked open prejudice.

Whilst the idea took hold it has been criticized both because many other factors lead to the development of authoritarian thinking and behavior but also because prejudiced behavior is shaped by others for powerful situational factors. Social psychologist reject the fundamental attribution error concept of authoritarianism explaining every day prejudice. They believe group and situational factors are much more important in the development and maintenance of discrimination and prejudice.

Yet authoritarians have been shown to avoid situations that involve any sort of ambiguity or uncertainty, are reluctant to believe that ‘good people’ possess both good and bad attributes.  However they often appear less interested in political affairs, participate less in political and community activities, and tend to prefer strong leaders.

There are a number of well-established measures of authoritarianism; the best known (and hence the most widely used) is the California F Scale which attempts to measure prejudice, rigid thinking.  There are nine factors and statements reflecting each factor:

1. Conventionalism: rigid adherence to conventional middle-class values. (‘Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.’)
2. Authoritarian submission: uncritical acceptance of authority. (‘Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down.’)
3. Authoritarian aggression: a tendency to condemn anyone who violates conventional norms.  (‘A person who has bad manners, habits and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people.’)
4. Anti-intraception: rejection of weakness or sentimentality.  (‘The businessman and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and professor.’)
5. Superstition and stereotypy: belief in mystical determinants of action and rigid, categorical thinking. (‘Some day it will probably be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things.’)
6. Power and toughness: preoccupation with dominance over others.  (‘No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough willpower.’)
7. Destructiveness and cynicism: a generalized feeling of hostility and anger. (‘Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict.’)
8. Projectivity: a tendency to project inner emotions and impulses outward. (‘Most people don’t realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places.’)
9. Sex: exaggerated concern for proper sexual conduct. (‘Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished.’)

Of course this may not fully mesh with the conventional Left-Right division on the political spectrum. It obviously fits fascists extremely well, and right-wingers who claim to hold fascists in disdain (like members of the John Birch Society, Opus Dei, or cultists of Ayn Rand) slightly less well. But replace the conservative agenda with Stalinism or Trotskyism as a 'socialist' ideal or with either Ba'athist ideology or that of the Jihadist agenda of al-Qaeda or the Taliban of a culture offered as a rival to the West... and only ugliness can result. All cultures are prone to this authoritarianism, as with Aum Shinrikyo (Buddhism) or Kahane Chai (Judaism). The anti-homosexual crusade of the late Fred Phelps fits in well.

OK. People will try to go conventional no matter how they differ because being the odd-man-out is uncomfortable unless being such is a corollary of high achievement. Some authorities are benign and well-meaning (the typical schoolteacher), and part of maturity is finding out which authority is benign and needful (the traffic cop who sees me accelerating a bit early at the edge of town) and which is unacceptable (the cop who assumes that dark skins imply that someone is up to no good).

We had better show empathy with those in distress if we are to consider ourselves good people. (Surely you remember my tale of calling the cops on a situation that suggested that a child was in danger of brutality from parents). There are gentler means of exercising power than brutal command with harsh punishment for any deviance from the orders. We can all be rendered helpless, which suggests that we must limit the possibility of people being turned into helpless victims. Because sex is a cornerstone of much identity and is essential to reproduction, it is safest that we select what sex is acceptable because it is an inevitable and benign part of life (homosexuality) and what isn't (child sex abuse).

Quote:The second common personality trait, social dominance orientation. Now what this means is that Trump voters are far more likely than other people in this country to believe that we need some kind of societal hierarchy where the higher class, the upper class is clearly above and gets to oppress those below them. A little bit of irony here, considering the fact that many Donald Trump voters are not in that top 1%, they're actually down here in the bottom. But they believe that one day they will be at the top and they deserve all the power and they'll be the ones holding down everybody else.

The more virulent supporters of President Trump may be in miserable states of life, but they may see him as a hero for repressing what those wretches see as elites. Middle-class minorities who don't know their place under the comforting myth of white supremacy. The educated. Those in wretched economic situations (let us say the rural white unmarried woman with a child out of wedlock) may have a job in which they see incidences of spending beyond their dreams (short of buying the winning ticket of the Super-Duper Megabucks Lottery) in some middle-class person buying enough motor fuels, snacks, and beer in one transaction that adds up to more money than that convenience-store clerk makes in a day. That middle-class person owns a cottage at the lake where that convenience-store clerk swam as a child and is now priced out of the experience.

Life can be rough, and Donald Trump suggests that he can "make America great again". Never mind that 'great' really means 'easier'. Real estate alone was far less pricey when America had 150 million people than when it has 300 million people. White privilege used to be more of a reality... but America was clearly not better for blacks who have at least as strong a claim to being Americans as I do when Jim Crow practice made life miserable for most blacks. Add to this, the Manufacturing Era ensured that so long as there were shortages of manufactured goods, there would be good pay for working on an assembly line -- especially when the ownership recognized that workers needed a stake in the system. Better consumerism than communism?

The fault with Donald Trump is that he profiteers upon the economic competition of the middle class to be able to afford living in expensive housing -- housing expensive because the opportunities are in place in which Donald Trump collects exorbitant rents. He's as shameless an exploiter as any capitalist ever was (short of a slave-owning planter or a German industrialist exploiting labor in concentration camps). But he has a safe distance from the wretched white people.

Quote:The third, and this is probably one of the most important personality traits found, and again not found in all of them but found in most of them, prejudice. People who think they're losing their rights to minorities. People who believe that their whiteness makes them better than a Black person or a Hispanic person or anyone else or an Asian person. That is a very common theme seen throughout Donald Trump voters.

White privilege is a comforting myth -- and fraud.

Quote:Another one, inter-group contact, that's the fourth one. What that means is that Donald Trump voters are far less likely than their Democratic counterparts, or Libertarian or Green Party counterparts, to actually have interactions with people outside of their own race, outside of their own city and outside of their own country. They're very isolated. They're very insulated. They interact with only people who agree with them and are never exposed to differing viewpoints, differing world views or differing views of the world. Physically, geographically, they do not move around, they do not talk to other people. They don't expand their own horizons and that leaves them with this feeling that they are superior, that they are better, and that leads them to vote for Trump.

I think that they do meet fellow poor people, black or Hispanic, but they rarely develop any intimacy in those meetings. The work that such people do is not the sort to create any sort of solidarity. The business that they work for want workers atomized so that they do not try to form labor unions. OK, so the child out of wedlock might be by a black man -- in a relationship that went no further than a whirlwind fling that fit some fantasy. But figure that these people are told for all practical purposes

"Can't live on your full-time minimum wage wage job? Work another one!"

Quote:The fifth and final common trait he found, relative deprivation. This is the one. It's a little more controversial but it says that the deprivation is not that they're deprived of any kind of horrible thing, but that they feel like they're owed a better economic situation. They've been deprived of moving up the social ladder and they feel like they deserve that. That is one that is actually true. That is one that's been hotly debated among the Democratic Party. Some people say that we have to reach out to these disaffected Donald Trump economic voters, while others say that no, all Trump voters are racist.

Deprivation is real for many in the destitute part of the working class. But if one is black or Hispanic one knows who the Enemy is, and that Enemy is the distant, exploitative plutocrat. I'm guessing that the poor white woman in a super-cr@ppy job believes some Cinderella myth that few black or Hispanic women think applies to themselves. There is some prince out there, someone who will relieve all her hardships through marriage. (White males from the proletariat? They know from early on that they are not the princes).

Quote:Not all Trump voters are racist and not all Trump voters are suffering from a bad economic position. But both of these factors played a role in the election of Donald Trump and these psychologists have worked very hard to come up with these profiles. Hopefully, the Democrats can use this and understand it and find a way to actually work around these issues to convince these people that voting for Republicans is not in their best interest and that the Democrats hopefully, maybe, if they fix themselves, are the ones who can actually help improve their lives.

Look at the policies and connect those policies to personal consequences.

[Eric the Green]

(08-08-2017, 03:03 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 02:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Psychological Study Of Trump Voters Reveals Creepy Common Traits They Share





A psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz has put together a psychological profile based on other psychological studies, polls and demographics to really get a good mental view of what is inside the mind of a Donald Trump voter. What he's come up with are five common traits that we see throughout almost all Trump supporters in this country. Here they are.

The first one, authoritarian personality disorder. What this means is that people who support Donald Trump are people who support a very strong rule of law, at the expense of their own freedoms. Now this is something we have absolutely seen since Donald Trump took office. We have seen far too many Donald Trump supporters saying that they support his strong enforcement of immigration laws, and then, "Oh no, they deported my husband. They deported the rest of my family." That is the authoritarian personality disorder. They lost their own freedom, their family lost their freedom, all because they wanted that strict rule of law.

The second common personality trait, social dominance orientation. Now what this means is that Trump voters are far more likely than other people in this country to believe that we need some kind of societal hierarchy where the higher class, the upper class is clearly above and gets to oppress those below them. A little bit of irony here, considering the fact that many Donald Trump voters are not in that top 1%, they're actually down here in the bottom. But they believe that one day they will be at the top and they deserve all the power and they'll be the ones holding down everybody else.

The third, and this is probably one of the most important personality traits found, and again not found in all of them but found in most of them, prejudice. People who think they're losing their rights to minorities. People who believe that their whiteness makes them better than a Black person or a Hispanic person or anyone else or an Asian person. That is a very common theme seen throughout Donald Trump voters.

Another one, inter-group contact, that's the fourth one. What that means is that Donald Trump voters are far less likely than their Democratic counterparts, or Libertarian or Green Party counterparts, to actually have interactions with people outside of their own race, outside of their own city and outside of their own country. They're very isolated. They're very insulated. They interact with only people who agree with them and are never exposed to differing viewpoints, differing world views or differing views of the world. Physically, geographically, they do not move around, they do not talk to other people. They don't expand their own horizons and that leaves them with this feeling that they are superior, that they are better, and that leads them to vote for Trump.

The fifth and final common trait he found, relative depravation. This is the one. It's a little more controversial but it says that the depravation is not that they're deprived of any kind of horrible thing, but that they feel like they're owed a better economic situation. They've been deprived of moving up the social ladder and they feel like they deserve that. That is one that is actually true. That is one that's been hotly debated amongst the Democratic Party. Some people say that we have to reach out to these disaffected Donald Trump economic voters, while others say that no, all Trump voters are racist.

In reality both are true. Not all Trump voters are racist and not all Trump voters are suffering from a bad economic position. But both of these factors played a role in the election of Donald Trump and these psychologists have worked very hard to come up with these profiles. Hopefully, the Democrats can use this and understand it and find a way to actually work around these issues to convince these people that voting for Republicans is not in their best interest and that the Democrats hopefully, maybe, if they fix themselves, are the ones who can actually help improve their lives.

I'm calling BS on #4. Many if not most Trump voters are low educational attainment White Trash who live either with or near blacks and / or latinos depending on what part of the country they hail from. There is a lot of interaction in that case. I will admit however that WT Trumpists probably lack interaction with Bubble Dwellers, who are, ironically, also mainly white, with minorities of Asians and descending percentages of other groups. The main interactions between Trumpists and Bubble Dwellers are when they fix Bubble Dwellers stuff, improve their homes, etc. Or when the Trumpists vacation in Bubble Dweller areas.

I think the point of #4 was that it's the "white trash" that live in a bubble, not the white mostly-urban liberals, who are more broadly informed and connected with other views and peoples. Some of the "WT" may live close to blacks or latinos, but for the most part, in red Republican-voting areas there are fewer people of those races, and segregation is much higher there. According to #4, the bubble is not principally geographical, nor about whom they meet in their jobs, but largely-willful ignorance of views different from their own usually fundamentalist, anti-socialist/liberal government, authoritarian and at-least closet racist and/or anti-immigrant views. The Trump/GOP less-educated bubble is mainly about what media they watch and whom they socialize with, as well as the fact that they don't move around much. America has always had some of these very parochial, provincial, narrow-minded conformists since the days of Sinclair Lewis' Main Street. Recent years have magnified the regressive trend toward this old-fashioned outlook among mainly rural and small-town/small city flyover-country folk to a degree I would not have imagined we would ever return to in the more progressive times of the 2T.

[Eric the Green]

(08-08-2017, 01:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Eric, while the Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment were in many ways separate movements, I see all three as part of the development of the Industrial Age pattern.  The technology featured gunpowder, steam and the printing press.  I also see the Reformation as starting to break up hierarchical authoritarian thinking in a way that helped the Enlightenment in turn.  Anyway, yes, things started popping.  It was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The War of the Roses?  I'm not so sure.  While it has many of the symptoms of 4T, and I won't argue the point intensely, there are few to no issues where the Agricultural / Industrial mind patterns are put on the line.  That has always felt more to me like an old fashioned Agricultural Age dynastic conflict.  There were enough of those back in the day.

Anyway, if you see kings fighting democracy, agricultural elites squaring off against robber barons, industrialized urban areas opposing rural zones, established hierarchical autocratic churches going against upstarts that let worshipers read the Bible...  In many of those cases, it is fairly easy to say the Agricultural / Industrial transition is underway, who is on the progressive side, and who has a big leg up on coming out on top.  Bet on the urban folk with new money and new technology.  The people with dated culture and technology didn't generally do well.  When the above things aren't present, the transition to the Industrial pattern may not be underway yet.  You may want to look harder at what people are struggling over.

Alas, if the Industrial Age pattern is complete, if networked knowledge, post scarcity economics, ecological problems, nukes and insurgent warfare are becoming the way to go with a new age of civilization starting, all bets are off as we have to figure out how the new pattern has to take shape.

Yes, as I put it in my planetary dynamics view, Uranus was rising throughout the Saturn period. It's not totally either/or. The trends that would prepare the way for the Uranus Age (which is the early industrial revolution and liberal revolution) and the Neptune Age (full-scale industrialism and collectivist trends) were in progress. (And both were also culturally romantic in various ways btw, although Uranus represents more the romantic-classical or neo-classical, and Neptune the emotional and impressionist styles and mystical movements). So, in my metaphor, Uranus was moving up to the horizon in the Renaissance-Reformation period and was almost visible in the Enlightenment period broadly-defined, but did not emerge as itself until the 1780s.

S&H defined the Wars of the Roses as a 4T, and it certainly was, given how it consumed the country and the politics of the time in a violent struggle, but since it was still fairly early in the Saturn period (which in my planetary metaphor is the centralized dynastic state period as well as the early-modern science period, and the last agriculture-based aristocratic period), it featured little if any direct conflict between agricultural and proto-industrial values, as the following 4Ts did. But it turned out that it did establish the foundation for the proto-industrial trends to begin soon afterward. Mikebert and others have identified similar possible 4Ts earlier than the Wars of the Roses which are also not agricultural-industrial conflicts.

In the 1460-1485 period, the way forward was to establish a strong monarchy that would eventually pave the way for the industrial states of the future, replacing the more anarchistic and decentralized feudal system. Circa 1310 under Philip the Fair and Edward I was the turning point that established the more-centralized dynastic monarchy in the Saturn age, as I call it. But it took events over another two centuries to fully establish this trend not only in England and France, but also Spain, Russia, and central Europe, and arguably China too under the Ming. The Wars of the Roses ended dynastic wars and rivalries in England and established the powerful Tudor dynasty, which was eventually to lead the way forward into the English Reformation and its imperial sea-power that would eventually enable parliamentary democracy to spread.

[pbrower2a]

(08-08-2017, 08:08 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-08-2017, 03:16 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-08-2017, 01:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Eric, while the Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment were in many ways separate movements, I see all three as part of the development of the Industrial Age pattern.  The technology featured gunpowder, steam and the printing press.  I also see the Reformation as starting to break up hierarchical authoritarian thinking in a way that helped the Enlightenment in turn.  Anyway, yes, things started popping.  It was the best of times, and the worst of times.

The War of the Roses?  I'm not so sure.  While it has many of the symptoms of 4T, and I won't argue the point intensely, there are few to no issues where the Agricultural / Industrial mind patterns are put on the line.  That has always felt more to me like an old fashioned Agricultural Age dynastic conflict.  There were enough of those back in the day.

Anyway, if you see kings fighting democracy, agricultural elites squaring off against robber barons, industrialized urban areas opposing rural zones, established hierarchical autocratic churches going against upstarts that let worshipers read the Bible...  In many of those cases, it is fairly easy to say the Agricultural / Industrial transition is underway, who is on the progressive side, and who has a big leg up on coming out on top.  Bet on the urban folk with new money and new technology.  The people with dated culture and technology didn't generally do well.  When the above things aren't present, the transition to the Industrial pattern may not be underway yet.  You may want to look harder at what people are struggling over.

Alas, if the Industrial Age pattern is complete, if networked knowledge, post scarcity economics, ecological problems, nukes and insurgent warfare are becoming the way to go with a new age of civilization starting, all bets are off as we have to figure out how the new pattern has to take shape.

I understand your bounding, though we can argue whether all the periods are sufficiently similar to justify them under the same rubric.

 
The Agrarian Age never fully disappeared. America still has yeoman farmers long recognized as necessary for a free society. A healthy agrarian society within the rest of the society creates a market for manufactured goods from reaping machines to smart phones and satellite dishes. It may be ironic, but the more rustic the location, the more one needs such things as smart phones and satellite dishes to make life tolerable.

I live in such an area (and practically live to get away from it), and I can attest to some realities. One is that much of the agricultural activity has become industrial in character. The typical dairy, greenhouse, feed lot, or meat-processor is organized like a factory often of the early-industrial era. That the product is milk, eggs, tomatoes, beef, or poultry makes the activity no less industrial in organization -- or along class lines. The worker in such places is as much a member of a proletariat out of Marxist caricature as was a toiler in a manufacturer of glassware, shoes, or textiles. I consider the distinction between agriculture and 'industry' almost specious. The worker turning leather into shoes or spinning cotton into cloth is also dealing in agriculture as someone who makes something more blatantly edible.

Quote:I think S&H developed an interesting language and became aware of an interesting pattern in history.  I don't see it as absolute and firm, especially outside of the Anglo American sequence of history.  Certainly there is much to be said about whether this time and place is really similar to that one.  Even where the pattern doesn't hold firmly the descriptive language might come in handy.

It is hard to see how the generational cycle does not apply to other countries, even if with different (and often awkward) timing.  Just consider that the T'aiping Revolution in China, the unification of Italy and Germany, the Franco-Prussian War (one of whose consequences was the Paris Commune), the Juarista Revolution in Mexico, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, the Sepoy Rebellion in India and a failed uprising in Poland in the 1860s are within a few years of the American Revolution, typically on the later side. The Crimean War (for Russia and Britain) seems to be a bit earlier.

I am also tempted to believe that the volcanic eruptions of  Tambora (1815) and Krakatoa (1883) had insidious effects upon children either born at the time or soon afterward.

(08-08-2017, 03:16 PM)David Horn Wrote: Suffice it to say that the Agricultural Age didn't die a quick death.

Amen.

One of the key memes for me is the notion of the Great Man, Fill In The Blank the Great.  During the agricultural age, the time of a countries' greatest wealth and power was often when one of their strongest leaders established the most complete control.  This created the aura or myth of the great leader who alone could ride herd on a fractious and selfish group of nobles or serfs.  If you keep your mind open, you can come up with examples enough.  If you need help, Cynic Hero is a big fan of the old time 'greats' and how to succeed within the agricultural age memes.

Personality + property = power, at least in medieval and early-modern times.  Maybe Ivan the Terrible might have had just the personality to squelch Lenin as Nicholas II lacked.

Quote:Democracies run on a very opposing theory, that there should be checks and balances, that the government's and the leader's power should be limited, that politics and the economy are only healthy if the elites running things are kept in check, that the interests of the common man are always very much represented.  The majority can out vote the elites, and that's how things ought to be.  The People should win, in a revolution, a civil war, or at the ballot box.

One revolution followed by an unending series of free and competitive elections with a populace getting increasingly wise and moral. That's how we want history to go. Then along comes Donald Trump.

Quote:I am not one to throw the word 'demagogue' around lightly, or to claim a great likeness between Bush 43 and Stalin.  It is not clear to me, however, that the struggles that created the Industrial Age are complete and successful.  The middle east is still far more in the agricultural pattern than the industrial.  The clout of traditional religion there is comparable or exceeds the power of democracy.  Human rights can be disregarded by terrorist, militant or religious groups.  People including but not limited to Saddam will use classic government by fear that includes genocide, knocks on the door in the middle of the night, with tribal, religious and political prejudices applied freely.  I see the middle east as still in the early phases of agricultural - industrial age conflict and transition.  While you might learn from history how these transitions tend to go, each takes a different form, and each is ugly and horrible in a different way.

...and throughout the West, the End of Scarcity shakes much of the smug certainty that multitudes, including some well-educated masses, held as certainty.

Quote:The result is not inevitable and beneficial.  Russia and China did not and are not developing functional multi party democracies.  They will put Fill In The Blank the Great in charge, then have layers of lesser bureaucrats ad-lib some sort of limits to power that further the interests of the lesser bureaucrats.  You can even say the United States is faltering.  Did presidential candidate Trump see himself as the only man great enough to solve the problems we had gotten ourselves in?  Trump the Great?  Is this part of a country flirting with the big man meme rather than checks and balances?

We got a very flawed man as our leader -- but how did we get vulnerable to a demagogue? Did the economy become more effective at enriching elites than in producing contentment? Donald Trump is the most effective demagogue in American politics ever as a candidate. As a President? We shall see.
 

Quote: During the transition to the Industrial Age, the robber barons have often been on the side of progress.  At this point, are they pushing to increase their own influence and profit rather the the country's benefit?  If there isn't an elite group backing the progressive masses, do the progressive masses get anywhere?

The economic elites -- big landowners, industrialists and financiers, political hacks and corporate attorneys, the executive elite, and even a big chunk of organized crime united to make liberalism irrelevant in America. I expect them to start going after each other.

Quote:It is not clear to me which path the hypothetical post-scarcity / information age might take.  There is a lot more at stake than whether we call certain elites by questionably humorous names.

We may have a scarcity of opportunity that goes along with the absence of material scarcity. Many people will effectively be living in the Last Good Times of their lives, their living spaces reflecting the technology and fads of those times.

[Eric the Green]

(08-07-2017, 10:05 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-07-2017, 12:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Yes, possibly. What is now the USA may be able to fend off enemies for a while because of its location and size, etc. But will it be possible for a new prophet generation, or a new civic generation, to arise and recover their idealism and courage to speak up, in a society being produced by the people now taking over our country, who leave us in the mess we're in, with no resolution in this 4T? And even if there are some young people like that, will they be able to succeed in a society in which ignorance, greed and superstition have been so firmly planted among the majority of people? Assuming our rulers are not stopped and outvoted before they can accomplish their current aim to create such a society? Can true prophet generations arise in a society whose 4T has just failed? The first failure in Anglo-American history? A rebounding country of this type, is not worth living in or hoping for. And its economy cannot succeed either, except for only a small number of its people. They may have resources, but since they will not be distributed to the people, the economy will fail anyway too. And the climate will have been destroyed beyond repair too, don't forget that. There will be no idealists, because only survival will be on peoples' minds. They will all be nomads, all generations; without any redeeming features of nomads either. The cycle will end, and so will our country. In my estimation.

Just as success is its own reward, failure is its own corrective.  Sam Brownback nearly bankrupted Kansas, but calmer heads are now beginning to rethink the stupidity that got them into the mess they were in.  Kansas is still in the woods, but that may be ending.  If it corrects quickly, I may consider this 4T viable after all. 

FWIW, I think Kansas has a long road back -- too long to get to an apotheosis in this 4T.

Eric continues ... Wrote:The alternative is for us to recover our faith in our own generations, to do what all previous Anglo-American generations have done: rise to the occasion, and make this 4T successful. We must throw the bastards out and reclaim our country from the reactionaries. They must become the permanent minority, instead of a minority that can take power (and has taken power) in the rigged system we have today.

Nice words, but only operational if enough people believe them and act.  Many of today's European nations had horrid leaders during the same period FDR was the US President.  Most of them are much more forward thinking now than we are.  Youth always sees the errors of their elders.  Some rally to make those errors history and build something better.  That's my expectation, even though I won't live to see it.

As long as we remain one country, what happens in Kansas will not determine whether there's an apotheosis in this 4T. That apotheosis would be the defeat of the red states that is largely permanent, or some degree of separation between the red and blue states that holds at least for a while.

I would expect that you would live to see "it," unless you die too young. Our millennial youth have potential to correct their elders. They haven't used our democratic process to do this yet, but they could-- as they mature and fully fill out their generation as voters. That full millennial voting bloc will only arrive in Nov. 2024, and it will then be easily the largest bloc. Civics are supposed to be the generation that powers a 4T in youth, and maintains a moderate 1T that keeps the new regime and consensus going. The prophets as a whole, although awakeners, seem to be less reliable as a liberal voting bloc, and become divided in the 3T.