ACA Repeal/Replace: Progressives Face Moral Dilemma

[Kinser79]

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-18-2017, 02:02 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: So voting for the moat status quo/business as usual presidential candidate in the last 50 years is now "anti-authority".

The TDS is strong with Eric.  So strong I may need a booster shot.  But it does prove one thing conclusively, he has no idea who is and who is not the the Establishment. 

In the days and years following the September 11th attacks, conservatives on the old forum were pushing Bush 43 as the Grey Champion and suggesting that the regeneracy was well underway.

And they were wrong because the 4T hadn't even started yet. The living generations were not in their proper places for there to even be a 4T start let alone a regeneracy.

Quote:  He was pushing different values and foreign policy...  Invading the Middle East was considered a good idea.  I called it preemptive, unilateral, serial nation building.  We built huge military and embassy complexes in our new puppet state of Iraq.  There was a question of whether Syria or Iran was our next target.  We used every boot on the ground we had, turning around National Guard forces as fast as we could refurbish and retrain.

The only thing new about that is the target.

Quote:I have called this a false regeneracy.

Possible--but only if one can agree that 43's era was even 4T, an argument that can only be made of the last 2 years. If you want a false regeneracy it was the hope and change of 09 under Obama.

Quote:  Since the Bush 43 era, we have come to see meddling in the Middle East as expensive and not constructive.  We had a Pearl Harbor sort of trigger event that put the country in a militant mood.  The government shifted policies to go with the shifted values.  What they tried didn't work.  We had for a time a united people willing to try new ideas, but the new ideas didn't work.  From my perspective, we had a sorta half hearted crisis period, but the new values and policies flopped.  We ended up stepping back into a 3T mood of stagnation and stalemate.

I would argue that what we had was the micro-crisis of the late 3T. Naturally the policies flopped they were based on the idea that we can make the population of a country love us by bombing the shit out of them. Anyone with any sense already knew it was going to fail, as I said at the time to my own parents--this isn't going to work. It didn't work in vietnam either.

Quote:So.  Is Trump triggering a regeneracy?  Have we a united people trying out new values, ideas, concepts that will transform the country?

I think the idea that a regeneracy is united is misplaced. For that I blame S&H themselves on poor language choice. If we go back and look at news accounts of the Depression people were clearly not united and during the Civil War we had a civil war going on....the most not united it is possible for a single people to be.

Quote:

1. It is not clear he has united the country.  He has made a big splash for sure, but we seem to be as divided as ever.
   
2. The ideas are not new.  He is for the most part pushing the unravelling memes of cut taxes, cut services, and assume the government is the problem not the solution.  If 'establishment' means doing the same thing as has we have been all along, it is possible to say Trump is establishment.  (This isn't to say Hillary wasn't also establishment.  I don't think she would have made a Grey Campion pushing a strong values shifting regeneracy either.  Bernie, maybe.)
   
3. It's not clear that his 'new' values and ideas will work.  If borrow and spend trickle down does what it usually does, we will at best have another false regeneracy.  It's hard to transform the country when what you're trying to transform it into doesn't work.
   

1. He's united the two factions by serving as a lightning rod.
2. No they are not new. The tax cutting stuff comes from the late 3T to be sure. I don't think that it would be possible to get the GOP nomination without them though. Most of the rest of his ideas come from much older traditions in the US. These older traditions have been ignored for a saeculum so it isn't exactly the same thing over and over.
3. I actually said that Bernie was the Whig GC. Honestly I think he had a chance to defeat Trump but $hillary never had a chance. If one wants to assign blame to a group because Trump is the 45th president then that blame falls squarely on the DNC who cheated Bernie Sanders out of his bid at the Presidency.
[BTW: No matter who was president now, they'd be hated by at least half the country. Doesn't matter if it was Jeb!, $hillary, Bernie, Trump, or Joe Shmoe from down the street.]
4. It never is. If you want to use "new" ideas that are "known to work" then you'll have a hard time finding any.

Quote:It's still early days, but your father seems to be walking the country into a tangled mess.  There is no lack of energy.  Things are going to get shaken up.  I'm not expecting business as usual.  Still, he looks more to me like a Buchanan or Hoover than a Lincoln or FDR.  He seems more likely to prove that the unravelling values must go that set up a new transforming set of values.

I'm not discounting that possibility--it just seems to me that the time for that is past. If the 4T began in 08 like Howe claims then we're already half way to a third done with the turning. If it started in 06 like I say, we're already half way through. If he proves to be a Buchanan figure or a Hoover figure I expect the left to be dancing in the street. If instead he is FDR or Lincoln the right should be.

Over all though I think we've already had our Hoover in the person of Obama.

Quote:A central abstract problem is that the unravelling values are unravelling values.  Come a crisis, one is supposed to solve the most drastic problems facing the country.  If one of the central memes of the unraveling values is that governments shouldn't solve problems, that one should cut taxes and cripple domestic problem solving efforts, you can't make the unraveling values stronger and end up with crisis values.  Trump is pushing hard, but in a direction that simply can't result in a successful crisis resolution.

The problem you seem to be having here is that the previous 4T sets up the next 4T. (I'll also throw in my Mega-Saeculum too.) In the last 4T the problem was economic depression and foreign war. The time before that was civil war. Wars are almost always run by governments.

Now let us suppose we can have a 4T without a major war. It is possible that if the solutions implemented during the last 4T would be reversed so a new 1T can start. If those solutions are essentially free market then that means governmental intervention (see New Deal), but if those solutions are government regulation then the solution is free market.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-18-2017, 02:02 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: So voting for the moat status quo/business as usual presidential candidate in the last 50 years is now "anti-authority".

The TDS is strong with Eric.  So strong I may need a booster shot.  But it does prove one thing conclusively, he has no idea who is and who is not the the Establishment. 

In the days and years following the September 11th attacks, conservatives on the old forum were pushing Bush 43 as the Grey Champion and suggesting that the regeneracy was well underway.

And they were wrong because the 4T hadn't even started yet.  The living generations were not in their proper places for there to even be a 4T start let alone a regeneracy.

It was early.  That might have contributed to the failure.  However, invading the Middle East was apt to fail even if it had occurred a few years later.  The mood swing was that of a Pearl Harbor style trigger event, though.  Perhaps if Bush 43 had really mobilized into a true Crisis War style army, he could have won.  However, he was still doing the 'read my lips, no new taxes' thing.  He asked people to contribute to the war effort by going shopping to improve the economy.

I'm still thinking that president using those tactics and economics would have failed even with a good generation alignment. If one is going to transform a culture, you have to have a new culture worth transforming into. The public has to perceive the new culture as worth shifting to. I don't think he could have got there combining trickle down borrow and spend with serial preemptive unilateral nation building.

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:  He was pushing different values and foreign policy...  Invading the Middle East was considered a good idea.  I called it preemptive, unilateral, serial nation building.  We built huge military and embassy complexes in our new puppet state of Iraq.  There was a question of whether Syria or Iran was our next target.  We used every boot on the ground we had, turning around National Guard forces as fast as we could refurbish and retrain.

The only thing new about that is the target.

For a long while our military values were dominated by the Domino Theory, by containment.  One couldn't let an autocratic militaristic power start expanding cause if it started it would continue.  Nip it in the bud early and it takes less effort.  That 'lesson' was from Hitler and was at the core of the Cold War.  Domino Theory was moderated by Vietnam.  Perhaps one shouldn't defend tyrants?  Perhaps one shouldn't get involved in a land war in Asia?  Later, the Powell Doctrine laid down a number of questions on when force should be used.

But the Domino Theory and containment were essentially defensive strategies.  Going on offense then building giant bases and embassies so one could launch the next offensive was a large large doctrine change.  I might be more into military history than most on this forum.  I see the shift from Domino Theory to preemptive unilateral serial nation building to be a really big deal.  I see the 'stay the course' against 'cut and run' debate that dominated the Bush 43 years as a crisis level values shift debate.  Very few others see it that way, apparently including yourself.

The question of when we fight wars is to me a values question.  When the possibility of a change in values is very real, we're apt to be in a crisis.  To me, the possibility of values change is a more important marker than generation alignment.  That might be just me, though.

Anyway, we spent a lot of gold, iron and blood learning that returning to a variation of colonial imperialism wasn't a good idea.  I'm hoping we don't forget that lesson, that we don't have to learn it again.

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I have called this a false regeneracy.

Possible--but only if one can agree that 43's era was even 4T, an argument that can only be made of the last 2 years.  If you want a false regeneracy it was the hope and change of 09 under Obama.

Let me suggest that a true regeneracy is one where new values / doctrines / policies are seen to succeed, are accepted by the population as a whole, and become set in stone as the rigid status quo of the 1T.

I might propose that every time the White House has changed hands lately might be called a false regeneracy.  The new president tries to impose his values on the entire country, without understanding or perhaps caring how upset the other half of the country is going to get.  Four or eight years later, the other party gets the White House, the ideas that were tried are rejected, and the new president sets out to get the other half of the country angry.

Presidents might start their first term with control of Congress, but when they try to act like they have a mandate they become unpopular and often lose control of Congress two years after getting elected.  It's early days yet, but Trump might be setting himself up to continue the pattern.  If he wants to get reelected and have a well considered legacy, he's got to keep promises he made to his base.  If he follows those promises, he is going to make a lot of people mad.

It might make sense to say that every time the White House changes hands, we have been starting another false regeneracy.  This will continue happening until the new ideas start working, and that a clear majority of the people perceive them as working.

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:  Since the Bush 43 era, we have come to see meddling in the Middle East as expensive and not constructive.  We had a Pearl Harbor sort of trigger event that put the country in a militant mood.  The government shifted policies to go with the shifted values.  What they tried didn't work.  We had for a time a united people willing to try new ideas, but the new ideas didn't work.  From my perspective, we had a sorta half hearted crisis period, but the new values and policies flopped.  We ended up stepping back into a 3T mood of stagnation and stalemate.

I would argue that what we had was the micro-crisis of the late 3T.  Naturally the policies flopped they were based on the idea that we can make the population of a country love us by bombing the shit out of them.  Anyone with any sense already knew it was going to fail, as I said at the time to my own parents--this isn't going to work.  It didn't work in vietnam either.

I too thought it was going to fail.  We can quibble about whether to call it a micro crisis or a false regeneracy.  That's just word preference.  I think we see the reality in a similar way.

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: So.  Is Trump triggering a regeneracy?  Have we a united people trying out new values, ideas, concepts that will transform the country?

I think the idea that a regeneracy is united is misplaced.  For that I blame S&H themselves on poor language choice.  If we go back and look at news accounts of the Depression people were clearly not united and during the Civil War we had a civil war going on....the most not united it is possible for a single people to be.

In the Civil War, both haves of the country were united and had governments each pursing their aims.  There was certainly differences in opinion and constant quibbling over strategy, but both factions knew where they wanted to get and strove earnestly to get there.  The 100 days at least had everybody united.  Later, FDR made some mistakes.  Things got harder for him.  Still, he kept getting re-elected by ever larger margins.

The Crisis is a time when the problem is clearly identified and lots of trial and error is going on to figure out how to best solve things.  The Unravelling is a time when the basic approach is still up in the air, and there is a struggle to do anything.  That's how I see it at least.  In recent decades, while a newly elected president might be able to push a few initiatives through, they have not been successful enough to become popular enough to build momentum and use it on other issues.  They'll spend their political capitol, feel a backlash, lose control of Congress, and we're back in a muddle of 3T going nowhere.

Too early to be sure Trump will go the same way, but he hasn't had clean sailing so far.  He hasn't got a lot done yet, but his popularity has gone wookie.  We'll have to see.

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: It's still early days, but your father seems to be walking the country into a tangled mess.  There is no lack of energy.  Things are going to get shaken up.  I'm not expecting business as usual.  Still, he looks more to me like a Buchanan or Hoover than a Lincoln or FDR.  He seems more likely to prove that the unravelling values must go that set up a new transforming set of values.

I'm not discounting that possibility--it just seems to me that the time for that is past.  If the 4T began in 08 like Howe claims then we're already half way to a third done with the turning.  If it started in 06 like I say, we're already half way through.  If he proves to be a Buchanan figure or a Hoover figure I expect the left to be dancing in the street.  If instead he is FDR or Lincoln the right should be.

Over all though I think we've already had our Hoover in the person of Obama.

Or perhaps we've had multiple Hoovers, multiple presidents who were unable to lay down a solid enough legacy for a successor to continue the legacy.  We have two sets of values.  It seems like having a president advocate his values has recently resulted in the opposing values growing stronger.

(03-19-2017, 04:37 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-19-2017, 06:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: A central abstract problem is that the unravelling values are unravelling values.  Come a crisis, one is supposed to solve the most drastic problems facing the country.  If one of the central memes of the unraveling values is that governments shouldn't solve problems, that one should cut taxes and cripple domestic problem solving efforts, you can't make the unraveling values stronger and end up with crisis values.  Trump is pushing hard, but in a direction that simply can't result in a successful crisis resolution.

The problem you seem to be having here is that the previous 4T sets up the next 4T.  (I'll also throw in my Mega-Saeculum too.)  In the last 4T the problem was economic depression and foreign war.  The time before that was civil war.  Wars are almost always run by governments.

Now let us suppose we can have a 4T without a major war.  It is possible that if the solutions implemented during the last 4T would be reversed so a new 1T can start.  If those solutions are essentially free market then that means governmental intervention (see New Deal), but if those solutions are government regulation then the solution is free market.

As I see it, the Agricultural Age had lots of problems.  Early crises like the English Civil War, American Revolution and American Civil War attacked one set of problems...  the land owning and militaristic noble ruling class was too powerful.  Suppress that one, and you have a capitalist class that was (and still is) too powerful.  The old Agricultural Age military pattern was that whenever the economic cycles had the economy in decent shape, someone would start a war.  The world wars convinced a lot of people that this was no longer a good idea.  Problems with inequality by race, gender and culture were in their as well.  The environment is a problem that once wasn't considered important, but has been consider more problematic in time.

Yes, you can generally find the seeds of the next crisis in the prior crisis.  One can also generalize that crises solve various types of problems.  The dominant elite ruling class is always to powerful.  The dominant cultural class is always oppressing other cultures, races, genders, etc.  New technology is always shaking up the society.  Those profiting from the new technology firmly believe they need more political clout to see the technology used and integrated properly, while the establishment elites will cling to power.

Which gives a Whig like me an arrow of progress.  Push for equality.  Try to cut back on the power and wealth of the elite ruling class.  Try to oppose those attempting to maintaining the influence and privilege of a given race, gender, religion, or culture.  Human rights and democracy are useful tools, best aimed at elite ruling classes.

[Eric the Green]

(03-18-2017, 02:02 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: So voting for the most status quo/business as usual presidential candidate in the last 50 years is now "anti-authority".

Yes, that's definitely a roll-eyes moment. Why did kinser do that? (vote for the most status quo/business as usual candidate in the last 50 years?)

Of course, I would say that Drump is the most status quo/business as usual candidate EVER (not just the last 50 years).

[Kinser79]

The tags are getting messy again.

Bob Wrote:It was early.  That might have contributed to the failure.

Or, and I know this sounds like a crazy theory, the 4T wasn't early at all and that 9/11 was not a 4T catalyst but rather a terrible thing that happened but it happened in a 3T so any response to it was destined to fail.

Quote: However, invading the Middle East was apt to fail even if it had occurred a few years later.

Mucking about in the Middle East has a long history of failure.  I'm starting to think it is something no western country should do.

Quote:The mood swing was that of a Pearl Harbor style trigger event, though.

Not really.  My 1921 GI grandmother was still alive in 2001.  She said it was no where near the same.  There was no country to declare war on and defeat so after a number of years it fizzled--which it did.  The problem with a wars on things (poverty, drugs, terrorism, etc) is that they lack the focus that wars on Japan or Germany have.

Quote:Perhaps if...

Is a dangerous game.  The fact is that the generations were not in position for a major 4T war.  If 9-11 happened this September you can bet that a 4T war would happen.  There are enough Xers in Mid-life and in positions of power to call for "kill them, kill them all".

All history of the past decade to decade and a half indicates that the 4T started between 2006-2008.  I personally place it at Katrina because that is when people started really saying "business as usual isn't working anymore".  That mood shift rather than any flag waving or buildings getting demolished changed the turning.

Quote:I'm still thinking that president using those tactics and economics would have failed even with a good generation alignment. If one is going to transform a culture, you have to have a new culture worth transforming into. The public has to perceive the new culture as worth shifting to. I don't think he could have got there combining trickle down borrow and spend with serial preemptive unilateral nation building.

True, which is why I early on named Trump the GC.  He's calling for a new direction.  Well it isn't very new to those who have studied history, but rather lain dormant for a saeculum.

Quote:To me, the possibility of values change is a more important marker than generation alignment.

Values change is only possible with the correct generational alignment.  You're not going to get an Awakening with Civics in young adult hood, and you're not going to get a Resolution/Exposition with Nomads in Mid-Life.

Quote: I'm hoping we don't forget that lesson, that we don't have to learn it again.

I don't think we're going to have that problem.  The collapse of American Empire is baked into the cake.  The question is do we have managed collapse ala British Empire or Soviet Union (slow or fast) or do we have rapid catastrophic unmanaged collapse. 

Considering the options I'm viewing Trump mostly as a Gorbachev figure rather than a Lincoln, or FDR.  We'll have managed collapse until we're a nuclear armed regional power.  The other option offered by the Dims and their NeoCon buddies (who are really just going home) is thermonuclear exchange.  Given the choice between death of the Empire and death of all humanity....I'll take the former please.

Quote:Let me suggest that a true regeneracy is one where new values / doctrines / policies are seen to succeed, are accepted by the population as a whole, and become set in stone as the rigid status quo of the 1T.

Then you're not going to get a regeneracy until after the 1T has already started.  I would suggest that the regeneracy starts when a leader is selected and he says let's go in this direction.

Obama had this opportunity but he squandered it.  Because he did so Trump became inevitable.  I was arguing that Obama was pre-seasonal as early as 2011.  He got re-elected only because the GOP ran an incredibly weak candidate who was viewed by many people as utterly repugnant.  Pretty much the same reason he got elected, McCain was a weak candidate and an old man who picked a moron to be his VP.  I might have voted for him could he have found a VP candidate who could say "I read my local newspaper and playboy" or well anything other than what she said to the question "what newspapers/magazines do you read?"

That question wasn't one of how informed she was, like the lugenpresse would spin it, but rather one of being able to think on one's feet.  Many including myself viewed it as a question of "some black guy with no experience at all" versus "a 72 year old man running with someone who is likely a moron".  Coming off Bush II we were as a nation tired of morons so picked the black guy.  As I told my sperm donor, "He can't possibly do worse than what we've had for 8 years".

Quote:I might propose that every time the White House has changed hands lately might be called a false regeneracy.

Maybe, but that is more easily explained through Micro-turnings.  As a turning plays out it goes through four stages just like a saeculum does:  Resolution/Exposition, Awakening (the ideas/artistic movements/etc are born here), Unraveling, Crisis (the turning breaks down here and moves into the next turning here).

Given that we elect a president on 4 year basis and the micro-turning on average is 4-6 years it might appear to have a "false regeneracy" when all that is happening is the natural progression of a turning.

Quote:If he wants to get reelected and have a well considered legacy, he's got to keep promises he made to his base.  If he follows those promises, he is going to make a lot of people mad.

True.  However, those people he'll be making "mad" weren't going to vote for him anyway.  So I'm not sure it will really matter.  What he has to be mindful of is not alienating his own base.

Quote:[regarding hearts and minds strategy]I too thought it was going to fail.  We can quibble about whether to call it a micro crisis or a false regeneracy.  That's just word preference.  I think we see the reality in a similar way.

I don't know if there is anything to quibble over.  I quite simply find the hole notion of "false regenerates" to be dubious at best.  I refer you back to my answer in this post about your definition of a regeneracy--how taking that definition to its logical end results in no regeneracy in the 4T.

Rather, with the case of Bush II I see 9-11 as essentially ending the micro-unraveling of the late 90s.  In my view the last micro-awakening ended when Kurt Cobain was found dead in wherever it was he was staying at the moment.  (I'm not going to get into theories about him being murdered here as it quite simply isn't relevant.)

It should be noted that I do not subscribe to the Awakening ending in 1980 like S&H do but rather that 1980-1984 was the micro-crisis within the Awakening.  With a brief cusp point between Reagan's re-election and the Challenger explosion.  Seriously Boomers can remember what they were doing when JFK was shot, well Xers can remember Challenger but probably don't remember JFK at all (except as a historical figure).  Just like Millies can remember 9-11 but can't remember Challenger.  Seriously I just asked my 1982 cusper BF if he remembered Challenger and he said, only as part of history.  Honestly he was too young being an August Baby so he was 3 1/2 at most.  I remember it though being 7.

In any event if we break down the late 3T into it's component micro-turnings we find the following

P/E:  1985-1990
A:     1990-1994  (the half decade of grunge, electronica, and so forth)
U:   1995-2001 
C:  2002-2007

This lays the ground work for the catalyst to be Katrina.

Quote:In the Civil War, both haves of the country were united and had governments each pursing their aims.  There was certainly differences in opinion and constant quibbling over strategy, but both factions knew where they wanted to get and strove earnestly to get there.  The 100 days at least had everybody united.  Later, FDR made some mistakes.  Things got harder for him.  Still, he kept getting re-elected by ever larger margins.

The Crisis is a time when the problem is clearly identified and lots of trial and error is going on to figure out how to best solve things.  The Unravelling is a time when the basic approach is still up in the air, and there is a struggle to do anything.  That's how I see it at least.  In recent decades, while a newly elected president might be able to push a few initiatives through, they have not been successful enough to become popular enough to build momentum and use it on other issues.  They'll spend their political capitol, feel a backlash, lose control of Congress, and we're back in a muddle of 3T going nowhere.

Too early to be sure Trump will go the same way, but he hasn't had clean sailing so far.  He hasn't got a lot done yet, but his popularity has gone wookie.  We'll have to see.

We actually agree on most points.  As to Trump's popularity I have no idea what "wookie" means so I'm not agreeing to that point.  At this point Trump's popularity is maintaining at least Honeymoon Average and every new Prez gets one.

I would argue that this phenomenon you call "false regeneracy" is really a product of the mega-saeculum placement of the MillSaec.  In my thread Wheels Within Wheels I demonstrate that my theory is that the current saeculum is one of indecision and decay.  It is a Unraveling on a Mega-Level. The thread is a good read if you ignore the whole Idealism V Materialism argument between myself and Eric.  When I see Dan I'm going to see if I can have him split that crap off as it adds nothing to my theory.

Quote:Or perhaps we've had multiple Hoovers, multiple presidents who were unable to lay down a solid enough legacy for a successor to continue the legacy.  We have two sets of values.  It seems like having a president advocate his values has recently resulted in the opposing values growing stronger

Possible.  I would contend that this would be indicative of a Mega-Unraveling.

Quote:Which gives a Whig like me an arrow of progress.  Push for equality.  Try to cut back on the power and wealth of the elite ruling class.  Try to oppose those attempting to maintaining the influence and privilege of a given race, gender, religion, or culture.  Human rights and democracy are useful tools, best aimed at elite ruling classes.

In general I would agree but I do not subscribe to the Whig Historian notion of an arrow of progress.  Rather I see a more spiral like cycle at play.  Nations and Empires are born, have their productive time periods, grow old and then die.  There may or may not be progress materially or within the realms of rights but often there is not.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-20-2017, 05:24 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The tags are getting messy again.

Yep.  Most exchanges we're more or less in the same ballpark.  I'll focus on one, and try to revert to essay format.

(03-20-2017, 05:24 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

I Wrote:Which gives a Whig like me an arrow of progress.  Push for equality.  Try to cut back on the power and wealth of the elite ruling class.  Try to oppose those attempting to maintaining the influence and privilege of a given race, gender, religion, or culture.  Human rights and democracy are useful tools, best aimed at elite ruling classes.

In general I would agree but I do not subscribe to the Whig Historian notion of an arrow of progress.  Rather I see a more spiral like cycle at play.  Nations and Empires are born, have their productive time periods, grow old and then die.  There may or may not be progress materially or within the realms of rights but often there is not.

I have three perspectives which I juggle together.  The longest term is Waves of Civilization, vaguely line with Toffler's 'The Third Wave', but in my opinion Toffler got a lot of stuff wrong.  I have no interest in defending most of his stuff, but he did draw some lines dividing some quite distinct patterns of human cultures.  The four waves might be hunter-gatherer, agricultural empire, industrial age and a hypothetical information age which might or might not be starting.

The second pattern is civilizations, touched on by Toynbee's A Study of History, Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and others.  Civilizations might include Western, Islamic, Orthodox, Chinese and others.  Civilizations have core states.  As you say, the rise in influence and fade in time.  Again, I'm not interested in defending the specifics of Toynbee and especially Huntington, but they drew some relevant borders.

The third is the S&H cycle.  This works reasonably well for the transition of western civilization from the agricultural age to the industrial age.  It works far less well for any other wave and any other civilization.  I like the four moods of a culture might be in, high, awakening, unravelling and crisis.  I am not a believer that the cycle is universal, regular and clock work.  I can't treat S&H cycles as equivalent of Newton's classic clockwork physics.  Modern physics, with chaos theory and quantum effects, is a lot messier than Newton, as is my view of history.  

My Whig arrow of progress does reasonably well for western civilization during the transition from the Agricultural Age pattern to the Information Age.  Try to use it in earlier times and places that aren't shifting towards the industrial pattern and it won't be overly relevant.  I'm generally dubious that lessons learned by studying one wave of civilization will apply cleanly in another wave.  Toynbee looked at a lot of centuries and a lot of civilizations and made some solid generalizations that apply nicely to Agricultural Age cultures.  To me, they smell awfully fishy if one tries to apply them to Industrial Age or hunter gatherer cultures.

My big problem is the hypothetical Information Age.  The Industrial Age centered on printed information, fossil fuel energy, and chemical weapons.  The hypothetical Information Age might be based on computer networked information, renewable energy, and weapons of mass destruction (and/or proxy guerrilla tactics).  These changes seem to me significant enough to consider that the hypothetical Information Age is real, that everything we think we know, all the lessons we have learned from earlier patterns of civilization, must be questioned.  While a lot of people are looking in the past for patterns that might be repeating, I am looking for old patterns that made sense during the Industrial Age that are falling apart.

Where would the transition point be?  Start with the two nukes at the end of World War II.  Look at the computers and networks that started in the 1950s and have since gone hog wild.  Any pattern that might be fond based on history before that point might be taken with a grain of salt.  One must look for new patterns as well as trying to apply old ones.

Hypothesis.  The four stroke S&H cycle?  Caput.  Gone.  The 1960s awakening was as much like a crisis as an awakening.  The four stroke spiral drove whiggish progress nicely until then, with major big deal crisis wars resulting in major transformations in the culture.  Given nukes, will we see major big deal crisis wars on a regular basis anymore?  We might disagree on what to call the recent pattern of alternating power in the US.  False Regeneracy?  Micro-turning?  Whatever we call it, we might not get the much desired and expected regeneracy and crisis transformation.  The physical analogy might no longer be an ascending spiral.  It might be a pendulum swinging between red and blue.

I am not confident that old patterns are going to hold.

I can appreciate that you are looking at history and looking for patterns that are echoing the present.  That's fair game.  That's what we do here.  Carry on.

I'm nervous that a lot of patterns that were solid enough in the past might no longer apply in a transformed technological environment.

And for that reason, I'm not following in great depth theories like mega saeculum.  I've got enough going on trying to combine waves, civilizations and S&H cycles meaningfully.  My focus isn't currently on looking too deeply into the past.

[Eric the Green]

Seems like the S&H pattern could not be more on schedule.

The regeneracy can only be the resistance to Drump. If that does not succeed by the end of the 4T in 2028-29, then the S&H cycle still holds; except now for the first time our perfect record of victorious 4Ts in the Anglo-American "civilization" will have been broken. But we now are certainly in crisis, or the word has no meaning.

But things always look bleak when we are in the early or middle stages of a 4T.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-20-2017, 10:24 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Seems like the S&H pattern could not be more on schedule.

The regeneracy can only be the resistance to Drump. If that does not succeed by the end of the 4T in 2028-29, then the S&H cycle still holds; except now for the first time our perfect record of victorious 4Ts in the Anglo-American "civilization" will have been broken. But we now are certainly in crisis, or the word has no meaning.

But things always look bleak when we are in the early or middle stages of a 4T.

I'm seeing extreme partisans who are also S&H believers from both parties express confidence that their next president in will be a Grey Champion and hold a successful regeneracy.  Especially after the last election, some Trump believers were confident of a bright future with the liberals defeated.  I don't need to explain to you that there are blue believers as well.

Neither set of extreme partisans has me convinced yet.  I see extreme partisans of all flavors as quite capable of seeing whatever they want to see.

[Eric the Green]

(03-21-2017, 12:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-20-2017, 10:24 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Seems like the S&H pattern could not be more on schedule.

The regeneracy can only be the resistance to Drump. If that does not succeed by the end of the 4T in 2028-29, then the S&H cycle still holds; except now for the first time our perfect record of victorious 4Ts in the Anglo-American "civilization" will have been broken. But we now are certainly in crisis, or the word has no meaning.

But things always look bleak when we are in the early or middle stages of a 4T.

I'm seeing extreme partisans who are also S&H believers from both parties express confidence that their next president in will be a Grey Champion and hold a successful regeneracy.  Especially after the last election, some Trump believers were confident of a bright future with the liberals defeated.  I don't need to explain to you that there are blue believers as well.

Neither set of extreme partisans has me convinced yet.  I see extreme partisans of all flavors as quite capable of seeing whatever they want to see.

Probably if you lived in 1852, you'd be seeing quite a similar situation.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-21-2017, 01:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Probably if you lived in 1852, you'd be seeing quite a similar situation.

No, the situations were quite different.  If I thought you'd listen, I'd say how, but you have access to history books.  Don't know that quoting them would do any good.

Start with The Cousins' Wars.

[Kinser79]

(03-20-2017, 10:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-20-2017, 05:24 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The tags are getting messy again.

Yep.  Most exchanges we're more or less in the same ballpark.  I'll focus on one, and try to revert to essay format.

The format itself isn't a problem, I just find it easier to abbreviate the tags on occasion as they get messy and I can't visualize the post before I post it.

Quote:I have three perspectives which I juggle together.  The longest term is Waves of Civilization, vaguely line with Toffler's 'The Third Wave', but in my opinion Toffler got a lot of stuff wrong.  I have no interest in defending most of his stuff, but he did draw some lines dividing some quite distinct patterns of human cultures.  The four waves might be hunter-gatherer, agricultural empire, industrial age and a hypothetical information age which might or might not be starting.

The second pattern is civilizations, touched on by Toynbee's A Study of History, Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and others.  Civilizations might include Western, Islamic, Orthodox, Chinese and others.  Civilizations have core states.  As you say, the rise in influence and fade in time.  Again, I'm not interested in defending the specifics of Toynbee and especially Huntington, but they drew some relevant borders.

I'm aware of those three authors. Can't say I've read Toffer but I've heard of there being three separate ages of humanity's heretofore recorded history.

Quote:The third is the S&H cycle.  This works reasonably well for the transition of western civilization from the agricultural age to the industrial age.  It works far less well for any other wave and any other civilization.  I like the four moods of a culture might be in, high, awakening, unravelling and crisis.  I am not a believer that the cycle is universal, regular and clock work.  I can't treat S&H cycles as equivalent of Newton's classic clockwork physics.  Modern physics, with chaos theory and quantum effects, is a lot messier than Newton, as is my view of history.  

I would not liken the S&H cycle to being clock work-like. Though I've at times drawn inspiration when thinking about it by observing the movements of my own pocket watch. I can't wear a quartz watch for some reason, and don't care for things on my wrists so I've taken to keeping a mechanical pocket watch.

In the world according to my mother my "aura" is interfering with the electronics of the quartz watch but that sounds like a bunch of woo-woo to me. I don't have similar problems with personal electronics though so I doubt it is related to an electromagnetic field. I'm also not the only person in my family this happens to either.

In any event I would liken the S&H cycle to be similar to tides. While it is very apparent in the transition from an agricultural based economy to an industrial one I think that the cycle existed prior to that time period--just the vast majority of the population was illiterate and thus left few written records. There appears to be a similar pattern in the medieval aristocracy--well the literate parts of it.

Quote:My Whig arrow of progress does reasonably well for western civilization during the transition from the Agricultural Age pattern to the Information Age.

Perhaps but there was no clear arrow of progress during the agricultural ages much less during a hunter gatherer eons. In short given the length of recorded history and that much of it lacks this arrow of progress it is reasonable to assume that this arrow is in fact an anomaly rather than the norm.

Quote:My big problem is the hypothetical Information Age.  The Industrial Age centered on printed information, fossil fuel energy, and chemical weapons.  The hypothetical Information Age might be based on computer networked information, renewable energy, and weapons of mass destruction (and/or proxy guerrilla tactics).

I'm dubious as to the applicablity of renewable energy. Nuclear on the other hand.... Solid state would work but LFTRs would be better.

Quote: These changes seem to me significant enough to consider that the hypothetical Information Age is real, that everything we think we know, all the lessons we have learned from earlier patterns of civilization, must be questioned.  While a lot of people are looking in the past for patterns that might be repeating, I am looking for old patterns that made sense during the Industrial Age that are falling apart.

Okay what old patterns are falling apart?

Quote:Where would the transition point be?  Start with the two nukes at the end of World War II.  Look at the computers and networks that started in the 1950s and have since gone hog wild.  Any pattern that might be fond based on history before that point might be taken with a grain of salt.  One must look for new patterns as well as trying to apply old ones.

Hypothesis.  The four stroke S&H cycle?  Caput.  Gone.  The 1960s awakening was as much like a crisis as an awakening.  The four stroke spiral drove whiggish progress nicely until then, with major big deal crisis wars resulting in major transformations in the culture.  Given nukes, will we see major big deal crisis wars on a regular basis anymore?  We might disagree on what to call the recent pattern of alternating power in the US.  False Regeneracy?  Micro-turning?  Whatever we call it, we might not get the much desired and expected regeneracy and crisis transformation.  The physical analogy might no longer be an ascending spiral.  It might be a pendulum swinging between red and blue.

Interesting. But I think the problem here is you're looking for a whiggish progress arrow which itself is an anomaly. I do not believe that the generational cycle has been broken. Granted the Boomers did break many things but I doubt they could break that. I think that the notion that a crisis must be resolved in a major war is caput. With the power to destroy all life on the planet, war becomes much more expensive. And that of course assumes we keep those weapons. For which we have no reason to expect we wouldn't.

Rather than a pendulum I think what we are witnessing is the Mega-Unraveling coming to its fruition. Remember the Glorious Revolution did not have a major war either, and it was over all mostly political. But it set the stage for the Enlightenment and a big huge crisis in France, that the likes of Eric tend to ignore when they bring criticism of my mega-saeculum theory.

Quote:I am not confident that old patterns are going to hold.

I'm not confident that they will be replaced without a major event up ending society as we know it. Inertia is a powerful force.

[Odin]

The US is quite obviously the Western analogue of Rome. The only question is if the US can maintain it's representative government or, like Rome, falls into dictatorship.

[Eric the Green]

(03-21-2017, 01:41 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-21-2017, 01:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Probably if you lived in 1852, you'd be seeing quite a similar situation.

No, the situations were quite different.  If I thought you'd listen, I'd say how, but you have access to history books.  Don't know that quoting them would do any good.

Quite similar, I'm sure. The nation was divided. People on both sides said the others were "too radical and extreme." In the end, only one side would win and be proven correct. That's where we are today. And those who attempted compromise, like you maybe, were swept aside. As you will be. We'll get gun control, discredit Reaganomics as the fraud it always was, and science and spirit will sweep aside the old materialism too

(I'm challenging you there, because that's where you appear to be stuck and think there are "extreme partisans on the Left," especially referring to me; I am actually capable of seeing some qualifications to those idealisms)

Some people try and muddy the waters by regurgitating the demagogue's claims of being an agent of change. But those claims, like everything Drump says, are lies. Drump is the supreme agent of the status quo; the biggest such agent we have ever had. Reagan on steroids. And the most incompetent too, which may work to the favor of the real change agents, just as the incompetence of Pierce and Buchanan and the xenophobia of the Know Nothings worked to the advantage of the real change agents in 1852-56.

[Eric the Green]

(03-21-2017, 04:58 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-20-2017, 10:04 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-20-2017, 05:24 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The tags are getting messy again.

Yep.  Most exchanges we're more or less in the same ballpark.  I'll focus on one, and try to revert to essay format.

The format itself isn't a problem, I just find it easier to abbreviate the tags on occasion as they get messy and I can't visualize the post before I post it.

Quote:I have three perspectives which I juggle together.  The longest term is Waves of Civilization, vaguely line with Toffler's 'The Third Wave', but in my opinion Toffler got a lot of stuff wrong.  I have no interest in defending most of his stuff, but he did draw some lines dividing some quite distinct patterns of human cultures.  The four waves might be hunter-gatherer, agricultural empire, industrial age and a hypothetical information age which might or might not be starting.

The second pattern is civilizations, touched on by Toynbee's A Study of History, Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and others.  Civilizations might include Western, Islamic, Orthodox, Chinese and others.  Civilizations have core states.  As you say, the rise in influence and fade in time.  Again, I'm not interested in defending the specifics of Toynbee and especially Huntington, but they drew some relevant borders.

I'm aware of those three authors. Can't say I've read Toffer but I've heard of there being three separate ages of humanity's heretofore recorded history.

Quote:The third is the S&H cycle.  This works reasonably well for the transition of western civilization from the agricultural age to the industrial age.  It works far less well for any other wave and any other civilization.  I like the four moods of a culture might be in, high, awakening, unravelling and crisis.  I am not a believer that the cycle is universal, regular and clock work.  I can't treat S&H cycles as equivalent of Newton's classic clockwork physics.  Modern physics, with chaos theory and quantum effects, is a lot messier than Newton, as is my view of history.  

...
In any event I would liken the S&H cycle to be similar to tides. While it is very apparent in the transition from an agricultural based economy to an industrial one I think that the cycle existed prior to that time period--just the vast majority of the population was illiterate and thus left few written records. There appears to be a similar pattern in the medieval aristocracy--well the literate parts of it.

Quote:My Whig arrow of progress does reasonably well for western civilization during the transition from the Agricultural Age pattern to the Information Age.

Perhaps but there was no clear arrow of progress during the agricultural ages much less during a hunter gatherer eons. In short given the length of recorded history and that much of it lacks this arrow of progress it is reasonable to assume that this arrow is in fact an anomaly rather than the norm.

Quote:My big problem is the hypothetical Information Age.  The Industrial Age centered on printed information, fossil fuel energy, and chemical weapons.  The hypothetical Information Age might be based on computer networked information, renewable energy, and weapons of mass destruction (and/or proxy guerrilla tactics).

I'm dubious as to the applicablity of renewable energy. Nuclear on the other hand.... Solid state would work but LFTRs would be better.

Quote: These changes seem to me significant enough to consider that the hypothetical Information Age is real, that everything we think we know, all the lessons we have learned from earlier patterns of civilization, must be questioned.  While a lot of people are looking in the past for patterns that might be repeating, I am looking for old patterns that made sense during the Industrial Age that are falling apart.

Okay what old patterns are falling apart?

Quote:Where would the transition point be?  Start with the two nukes at the end of World War II.  Look at the computers and networks that started in the 1950s and have since gone hog wild.  Any pattern that might be fond based on history before that point might be taken with a grain of salt.  One must look for new patterns as well as trying to apply old ones.

Hypothesis.  The four stroke S&H cycle?  Caput.  Gone.  The 1960s awakening was as much like a crisis as an awakening.  The four stroke spiral drove whiggish progress nicely until then, with major big deal crisis wars resulting in major transformations in the culture.  Given nukes, will we see major big deal crisis wars on a regular basis anymore?  We might disagree on what to call the recent pattern of alternating power in the US.  False Regeneracy?  Micro-turning?  Whatever we call it, we might not get the much desired and expected regeneracy and crisis transformation.  The physical analogy might no longer be an ascending spiral.  It might be a pendulum swinging between red and blue.

Interesting. But I think the problem here is you're looking for a whiggish progress arrow which itself is an anomaly. I do not believe that the generational cycle has been broken. Granted the Boomers did break many things but I doubt they could break that. I think that the notion that a crisis must be resolved in a major war is caput. With the power to destroy all life on the planet, war becomes much more expensive. And that of course assumes we keep those weapons. For which we have no reason to expect we wouldn't.

Rather than a pendulum I think what we are witnessing is the Mega-Unraveling coming to its fruition. Remember the Glorious Revolution did not have a major war either, and it was over all mostly political. But it set the stage for the Enlightenment and a big huge crisis in France, that the likes of Eric tend to ignore when they bring criticism of my mega-saeculum theory.

Quote:I am not confident that old patterns are going to hold.

I'm not confident that they will be replaced without a major event up-ending society as we know it. Inertia is a powerful force.

I'm glad for the civil conversation, which I don't always see from you kinser (especially with me).

The "tides" idea seems to fail, for the simple reason that in the long run we have not reverted back to the age of hunter-gatherers, or agriculture, and probably not back to industrial either. The arrow seems more like what has happened than a pendulum, except during the last 33 years. If we reverted back to hunter-gatherer status soon, that would be unprecedented.

The only hope for a typical crisis progressive outcome now is that the resistance to Trump is the regeneracy, so that the momentum on the Left will end up greater than previous momentums that brought in compromisers like Obama and Bill Clinton, and this time a more Bernie-like movement will carry us into the next saeculum despite furious resistance. In a 4T, things look bleak before they look better. The least accurate vision would be to think a 4T is failing before it starts to wrap up.

It's correct that this 4T may be like the Glorious Revolution, in that a major war could be avoided in this time of nukes, but actually King William's War that came out of it was quite a major war for its time. Most of the action of that saeculum was still in the Mother Country.

And there's no reason to be "dubious" about renewable energy, of course. It's the key transition we must make in this 4T, if we are to survive it in decent shape.

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-21-2017, 04:58 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

I Wrote:My Whig arrow of progress does reasonably well for western civilization during the transition from the Agricultural Age pattern to the Information Age.

Perhaps but there was no clear arrow of progress during the agricultural ages much less during a hunter gatherer eons.  In short given the length of recorded history and that much of it lacks this arrow of progress it is reasonable to assume that this arrow is in fact an anomaly rather than the norm.

(03-21-2017, 04:58 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

I Wrote:Where would the transition point be?  Start with the two nukes at the end of World War II.  Look at the computers and networks that started in the 1950s and have since gone hog wild.  Any pattern that might be fond based on history before that point might be taken with a grain of salt.  One must look for new patterns as well as trying to apply old ones.

Hypothesis.  The four stroke S&H cycle?  Caput.  Gone.  The 1960s awakening was as much like a crisis as an awakening.  The four stroke spiral drove whiggish progress nicely until then, with major big deal crisis wars resulting in major transformations in the culture.  Given nukes, will we see major big deal crisis wars on a regular basis anymore?  We might disagree on what to call the recent pattern of alternating power in the US.  False Regeneracy?  Micro-turning?  Whatever we call it, we might not get the much desired and expected regeneracy and crisis transformation.  The physical analogy might no longer be an ascending spiral.  It might be a pendulum swinging between red and blue.

Interesting.  But I think the problem here is you're looking for a whiggish progress arrow which itself is an anomaly.  I do not believe that the generational cycle has been broken.  Granted the Boomers did break many things but I doubt they could break that.  I think that the notion that a crisis must be resolved in a major war is caput.  With the power to destroy all life on the planet, war becomes much more expensive.  And that of course assumes we keep those weapons.  For which we have no reason to expect we wouldn't.

Rather than a pendulum I think what we are witnessing is the Mega-Unraveling coming to its fruition.  Remember the Glorious Revolution did not have a major war either, and it was over all mostly political.  But it set the stage for the Enlightenment and a big huge crisis in France, that the likes of Eric tend to ignore when they bring criticism of my mega-saeculum theory.

As I see it, the transition from Agricultural Age to Industrial was driven primarily by technology, but the technology also made it possible for the Enlightenment values to take hold.  The technology was going to make industry more important.  The influence of the hereditary military - land owning class had to be minimized.  The new capitalist ruling class used the promise of democracy and human rights as a lever to get the nobility out of power.

Thus, the Whiggish 'arrow of progress' might have been said to come into existence with the Enlightenment and the technology shifts taking place at the same time.  I'd not expect you to find the Whiggish 'arrow of progress' in Agricultural or Hunter Gatherer cultures to speak of.  To me, this is an example of patterns that hold in one wave of civilization not being applicable or relevant in others.

Will the arrow continue to be relevant in the hypothetical Information Age?  Technology hasn't stopped changing, but there is no longer much of a need in much of the world to out autocratic tyrants.  The push for human rights and equality isn't complete either, though it isn't as pressing as it was in the times and places of slaves, dictators and kings.  

The capitalist elite has found a pattern of government that gives them a decent strangle hold on power.  Do they need to make promises of democracy and human rights in order to change how Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue work?  As the Industrial Age came in, the capitalists used Enlightenment philosophy to enlist the working classes and fight the nobility, but if the nobility and tyrants are gone, why would the capitalists care about human rights and equality any more?  The Capitalists are now the sole dominant ruling class in much of the world.  They've got a scheme that's working.  I don't expect them to push for further extension of the Enlightenment ideals and values.

Thus, my guess is that the arrow's force won't be a strong as it was, but the Enlightenment ideas are still relevant.  The Whig arrow might not be totally spent.

As I said previously, I use the mood of the country as a marker rather than generation boundaries.  If one is asking whether the four stroke pattern is holding, the validity of the generation boundaries becomes questionable.  From my perspective, Carter's National Malaise opens a clear unraveling tone.  If we are still in an unravelling, this has been a long unravelling.  Perhaps a mega-unravelling?  Perhaps a pendulum?  '

At any rate, I'll express more faith in clear regeneracies, true crisis transformation and 1Ts when they start happening.  The false regeneracies / micro turnings keep on coming.  They've gone on long enough that I can state a hypothesis that the four stroke pattern might well be broken.  The longer the pendulum swings, the more assertive I'll get in suggesting we have a swinging pendulum.  The next major question on whether the pendulum is swinging is whether your father can get his act together sufficiently that he won't loose Congress at the mid term elections.  That seems to be the usual result when a president without a true mandate attempts to rule as if he had a true mandate.

Here we'll get into how extreme partisans see what they want to see more than they see reality.  You're seeing Trump as doing fine.  I'm seeing Washington being highly dysfunctional, as the currently dominant party attempts to do significant culture altering stuff.  Too soon to be sure what's happening.

[Kinser79]

(03-21-2017, 12:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I'm glad for the civil conversation, which I don't always see from you kinser (especially with me).

You typically are not up to having a civil conversation with anyone Eric, not even other idealists. Hence why have little patience for you.

I rarely suffer fools and almost never gladly. Bob is of course a different creature.

Quote:The "tides" idea seems to fail, for the simple reason that in the long run we have not reverted back to the age of hunter-gatherers, or agriculture, and probably not back to industrial either. The arrow seems more like what has happened than a pendulum, except during the last 33 years. If we reverted back to hunter-gatherer status soon, that would be unprecedented.

Strange I distinctly recall S&H using the very same analogy. As for reversion to a less advanced state of development I take it you've never heard of the Maya. States rise and fall, kings and kingdoms come and go but whole peoples rarely disappear without being subsumed.

I'm not going to bother with the rest of your post because it is typical Eric Clueless-ness. Seriously what are you spening your social security/welfare checks on? I want to know what I'm buying with my money here.

[Eric the Green]

(03-22-2017, 10:34 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-21-2017, 12:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I'm glad for the civil conversation, which I don't always see from you kinser (especially with me).

You typically are not up to having a civil conversation with anyone Eric, not even other idealists. Hence why have little patience for you.

I rarely suffer fools and almost never gladly. Bob is of course a different creature.

Back atcha, word for word. But I hope and pray for redemption for you, and I'm glad at least to see a civil conversation between you and Bob.

Quote:

Quote:The "tides" idea seems to fail, for the simple reason that in the long run we have not reverted back to the age of hunter-gatherers, or agriculture, and probably not back to industrial either. The arrow seems more like what has happened than a pendulum, except during the last 33 years. If we reverted back to hunter-gatherer status soon, that would be unprecedented.

Strange I distinctly recall S&H using the very same analogy. As for reversion to a less advanced state of development I take it you've never heard of the Maya. States rise and fall, kings and kingdoms come and go but whole peoples rarely disappear without being subsumed.

Of course, I wrote a whole book covering the rise and fall of states (and their cycles), including the Maya, but that does not cover the 4 ages Bob mentioned, or the more detailed version of those ages covered by spiral dynamics and planetary dynamics.

I don't recall S&H using the idea of tides. But I don't know to what extent their vision of history is progressive. It may not be. What is clear is that in the anglo-american cycle, we have come through cycles better off through increasing liberation and progressive development, despite challenges that at the time seemed possibly-insurmountable.

[Kinser79]

(03-21-2017, 12:52 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: As I see it, the transition from Agricultural Age to Industrial was driven primarily by technology, but the technology also made it possible for the Enlightenment values to take hold.  The technology was going to make industry more important.  The influence of the hereditary military - land owning class had to be minimized.  The new capitalist ruling class used the promise of democracy and human rights as a lever to get the nobility out of power.

Thus, the Whiggish 'arrow of progress' might have been said to come into existence with the Enlightenment and the technology shifts taking place at the same time.  I'd not expect you to find the Whiggish 'arrow of progress' in Agricultural or Hunter Gatherer cultures to speak of.  To me, this is an example of patterns that hold in one wave of civilization not being applicable or relevant in others.

Okay, then we're still mostly on the same page. If one wants to say that in the transition to and since the enlightenment has been a march of technological progress then sure. I would argue that technology is one of the drivers of society, the technological level drives the structure of a society. A agricultural economy based on peasant labor is unlikely to produce a democratic republic for example, unless the demos is limited to free holders and nobles.

Quote:Will the arrow continue to be relevant in the hypothetical Information Age?  Technology hasn't stopped changing, but there is no longer much of a need in much of the world to out autocratic tyrants.  The push for human rights and equality isn't complete either, though it isn't as pressing as it was in the times and places of slaves, dictators and kings.  

Well let us suppose that the prime mover and shaker in the transition from a medieval society to a modern society was the invention of the printing press (I would liken it to today's internet actually--it shook things up in a major way). Following the advent of the printing press came mass distribution of printed materials, books, broadsheets and so forth. The availability of reading material necessitated a large literate class within society--that is to say literacy could no longer be safely contained within the confines of the Church. IE the gate keepers were made redundant.

As such this "arrow of progress" as you've defined it arose out of those conditions, and in an information driven society should accelerate rather than decelerate or disappear.

As for human rights--in the west that battle is won. The reason so many find the SJW types annoying is because they are screaming for special rights for some groups over other groups and in some cases these so-called groups are not actually even groups but merely disturbed individuals.

Quote:The capitalist elite has found a pattern of government that gives them a decent strangle hold on power.

For now. However, I believe that Trump has shown that a different way is possible in the so-called information age. Remember HRC ran ads on TV and had the MSM and Hollyweird behind her and lost, while Daddy had what? 4Chan? Meme Magic?

Suffice it to say the true winners of the election in 2016 were the Kekistanis. (Hey Alphabet that's a remote country somewhere--much more dangerious than the Russians.)

Quote:  Do they need to make promises of democracy and human rights in order to change how Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue work?  As the Industrial Age came in, the capitalists used Enlightenment philosophy to enlist the working classes and fight the nobility, but if the nobility and tyrants are gone, why would the capitalists care about human rights and equality any more?  The Capitalists are now the sole dominant ruling class in much of the world.  They've got a scheme that's working.  I don't expect them to push for further extension of the Enlightenment ideals and values.

I don't expect you to push for the extension of any ideals or values in your time left. My mother is a 54 cohort too. I expect her to be pushing up daisies by the end of the 2030s. For the record she doesn't drink, smoke or imbibe in other party favors and has somehow managed to not develop diabetes. As an Xer I have little time for ideals or values--getting for me and mine take priority. Millies won't take them up unless they are something they can build on--but it appears the foundations of the current structure (the Enlightenment) are rotten.

I expect Z to come in and start the questioning of all the ideologies of the current order in a short time and then once the oldest neo-prophets join the next 2T is upon us. Unlike Eric I don't expect them to be anything like the boomers so they may be tolerable.

The enlightenment may have indeed run its course, not because it was some great awakening though but rather because it was the out growth of the last Mega-Crisis. It will limp along until the next 2T where that paradigm will be up turned.

Quote:Thus, my guess is that the arrow's force won't be a strong as it was, but the Enlightenment ideas are still relevant.  The Whig arrow might not be totally spent.

If we are taking this arrow as leading to and from the enlightenment it probably is. The progression from Wycliff to Luther to other protestants was spent in the 1770s after all and had been for a long time.

I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on the cycle. So rather than talking in circles we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Quote:Here we'll get into how extreme partisans see what they want to see more than they see reality.  You're seeing Trump as doing fine.  I'm seeing Washington being highly dysfunctional, as the currently dominant party attempts to do significant culture altering stuff.  Too soon to be sure what's happening.

Current dominant parties typically attempt to do significant culture (or ideology) altering stuff [dependent on which cycle of the two stroke regulator is operating at the moment] so essentially you're going to see Washington continue to be as dysfunctional as it ever was.

As to Trump yeah he's doing fine, even if I think he's playing with fire with Ryancare. But perhaps what he needs to do is let Ryan get on with his thing and fail. And Ryan will fail. He'd be great in opposition but not so much in government.

[Bob Butler 54]

Kinser.

Tired of all the cut pasting.  Responding ad-hoc.

Just reviewing one short view on the four basic patterns of human culture.  Each period had distinctly different methods for energy, weapons, ways of sharing information and styles of government.

• Hunter Gatherer: human muscle, wood and stone human muscle, memory and verbal, tribal rule.
  
• Agricultural: animal muscle, metal human muscle, written language, hereditary empire.
  
• Industrial: fossil fuel & steam, chemical, printed language, evolving towards democracy.
  
• Information:  ?, weapons of mass destruction and insurgency, computer network, ? 
  

I feel it too soon to call what the mature Information Age pattern might be.  It seems clear we’ll have to wean off fossil eventually, but to what?  I suspect direct vote computer democracy will be necessary to bypass the influence of the elites, but those committed to the status quo try hard to make that seem unworkable.  So far there hasn’t been movement in that direction worth mentioning.  If the pendulum keeps swinging, eventually direct vote networked might be tried in earnest.

I can’t succinctly articulate why agricultural age peasants never got to vote, but intuitively, yes, that is part of the agricultural pattern.

Yes, the printing press was very important.  However, if military and agricultural means of acquiring wealth and power continued to dominate manufacturing, I don’t know that the printing press alone would have triggered a new wave of civilization.  That’s an irrelevant question, though.  The same sort of technology that created the printing press created enough new sources of wealth to weaken the influence of old nobility.  A lot of it was the new class of elites (Robber Barons) needing to replace the old (nobility).

For some reason, you end up aligned with ruling elite classes.  You favored the Marxist elite ruling class, and now Trump’s robber barons.  You fight for privilege rather than equality.  I don’t see the quest for equality as complete in the West.  This might be a crucial place where we aren’t going to agree.  I will continue to advocate for the races, cultures and genders who are being kept in their place.  You seem fond enough of your privilege to continue to cling.

I’m very curious as to what will become in the next 2T.  Like your mother, I don’t really anticipate seeing it.  By that time, I don’t think it will be possible to deny global warming.  I expect a strong element of environmental ideals and activism, and a great deal of anger directed at the earlier generations who denied denied denied, who took zero to weak actions.  I am not sure we will have a regeneracy, crisis and high.  We might go straight from a 3T stagnant pendulum to an awakening feeling.  I anticipate a distrust of corporations, a distrust of representative democracy that becomes a servant of the elites, and strong environmental concerns.

Representative democracy did wonderful things during the transition to the Industrial patterns, but if the government doesn’t become more responsive and united, direct vote democracy might be seen as necessary.

While the next generation of blue prophets won’t be twins of the 1960s hippies, if they look around and see a ruined planet and dysfunctional elite serving government, they might easily be just as angry as the hippies and just as demanding of change.

But that is still just over the horizon.  As my magic eight ball is fond of saying, “Answer Hazy, Try Again Later”.

[Odin]

(03-22-2017, 10:34 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-21-2017, 12:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I'm glad for the civil conversation, which I don't always see from you kinser (especially with me).

You typically are not up to having a civil conversation with anyone Eric, not even other idealists.  Hence why have little patience for you.

I rarely suffer fools and almost never gladly.  Bob is of course a different creature.

Quote:The "tides" idea seems to fail, for the simple reason that in the long run we have not reverted back to the age of hunter-gatherers, or agriculture, and probably not back to industrial either. The arrow seems more like what has happened than a pendulum, except during the last 33 years. If we reverted back to hunter-gatherer status soon, that would be unprecedented.

Strange I distinctly recall S&H using the very same analogy.  As for reversion to a less advanced state of development I take it you've never heard of the Maya.  States rise and fall, kings and kingdoms come and go but whole peoples rarely disappear without being subsumed.

I'm not going to bother with the rest of your post because it is typical Eric Clueless-ness.  Seriously what are you spening your social security/welfare checks on?  I want to know what I'm buying with my money here.

Nitpick, The Maya up in the Yucatan did not collapse had had substantial states all the way up the the Spanish Conquest. The Temple of Kukulkan everyone goes to see at Chichen Itza was built after the collapse of the classical southern Maya states.

[Odin]

Whatever the next 2T is like a major aspect will inevitably be us aging Millies feeling finally free to push for all of our utopian dreams and the hubris going to our heads. I wonder what those dreams are going to be and how that hubris is going to manifest, we all know how it went for the GIs.