Originally Posted by Chas'88

This is always one of the things I associate with the 1980s--especially the latter half of the 1980s when there was plenty of references reflecting back to the 1950s floating around. I believe Tussliago linked this video to me before: True Blue. References to the late 50s/early 60s High "Normal" were all over the place: the first few minutes of Adventures in Babysitting is another example. Peggy Sue Got Married takes the concept to its logical conclusion with regards to who's responsible for the entire thing: the late Silents and War Babies.

Here's a link to an interesting abstract of an academic article on the idea.

When I think of the beginning of the Unraveling, I think of society saying "we're gonna turn back the clock before that mess began" and start things over right this time, but this time "we'll fix the problems that led to the mess in the first place". So that our Normal can continue on in existence for forever now that "Happy Days Are Here Again".

~Chas'88

Yes, there was "Happy Days," but no "here again." Our Unravelling didn't even make a pretense of fixing anything or doing anything "right" this time, really; it was just getting back to obeying father, and children being seen but not heard, and reading your Bible (and plenty of material excess and indulgence anyway, like Madonna). In other words, people did nothing constructive or useful with our Unravelling, except among those on the fringe who were pursing the new age; continuing and further developing the Awakening, in other words, which was the true purpose of a true 3T.

It looks like the "adventures" didn't go so smoothly though, as they discovered periodically in real life (such as in Oct. 1987, Sept.2001), as well as in the movie.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

This is always one of the things I associate with the 1980s--especially the latter half of the 1980s when there was plenty of references reflecting back to the 1950s floating around. I believe Tussliago linked this video to me before: True Blue. References to the late 50s/early 60s High "Normal" were all over the place: the first few minutes of Adventures in Babysitting is another example. Peggy Sue Got Married takes the concept to its logical conclusion with regards to who's responsible for the entire thing: the late Silents and War Babies.

Here's a link to an interesting abstract of an academic article on the idea.

When I think of the beginning of the Unraveling, I think of society saying "we're gonna turn back the clock before that mess began" and start things over right this time, but this time "we'll fix the problems that led to the mess in the first place". So that our Normal can continue on in existence for forever now that "Happy Days Are Here Again".

~Chas'88

Silly as it may sound in retrospect, that's like it was. Only that the 50's nostalgia thing motivated largely by such emotions as "let's just pretend the 60's never happened" belonged to the 70's and early 80's. American Graffiti was ahead of its time and Grease hit right into it (1978). That's when the Awakening was ending. Madonna was really at the tail end of the rope with that record as were the movies you reference. A year later (1987) and late 60's Awakening nostalgia was in full swing and began to feel like such a long time ago it was ready to be forgiven. Another late example of 'the 50's - the world we lost' nostalgia would be probably be Stay By Me (come to think of it, I never saw it).

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Subtle, are we? Well, there are a lot of things I wish I had never had to watch again.

I think you're glossing over some of the major contributions of the 3T, there, eric. The technology distributed during the 3T, while initially the plaything of the wealthy, eventually became cheap enough to distribute to the masses. The technological accomplishments of the prior two 3T's were primarily authoritarian and required a centralized authority to operate. From telegraphs to television, all were created with a centralized control in mind.

This 3T broke that trend. It started with VCR's and home video equipment and computers all as seperate objects, but it ultimately grew into the 4T's plug and play, do it yourself style of distro. This allows free dissemination and distribution of information without having to have it okayed prior to production. Free creation and distribution of books, movies, music, news, discussions, ideas all at your finger-tips without having to get goahead in the form of an investment. That's undercuts authoritarian goals and aims in a huge way. The internet is as revolutionary to humanity as the printing press, and the proliferation of technology that makes that possible is all 3T.

While it was created in what I consider the 4T, the ICS is a very 3T concept in spirit for creating temporary command structures to deal with situations, then disolve. As this concept expands (my brother and I worked out a concept to make it work for film crews, and with a little thinking, we can make it available for any task), it's going to completely undercut and mitigate the need for authority in the work place. You're looking at the 3T being responsible for a level of nonsuperficial personal freedom while allowing for authority in situations that require control, and then the disolution of that authority when the task is done, which is something that both governance and free market solutions are terrible at.

The 3T makes these options possible, and an extended 2T would have snuffed the proliferation of anti-authoritarian goals out because the 2nd half 2T was about the replacement of old authority with new authority, not loosening the shackles to allow people to have greater options in their own decision making. While the 3T carried darkening times, it had a highly constructive underbelly, the fruts of which will have major implications for the next 1T. On the other hand, the 2T's values were reshaped in the 3T, and those are the values that will pass on into the next 1T, because those are the values Millennials raised themselves on.

Originally Posted by Kepi

The 3T makes these options possible, and an extended 2T would have snuffed the proliferation of anti-authoritarian goals out because the 2nd half 2T was about the replacement of old authority with new authority, not loosening the shackles to allow people to have greater options in their own decision making. While the 3T carried darkening times, it had a highly constructive underbelly, the fruts of which will have major implications for the next 1T. On the other hand, the 2T's values were reshaped in the 3T, and those are the values that will pass on into the next 1T, because those are the values Millennials raised themselves on.

Meet... the... Silents!

Becoming the majority generation in Congress in 1977, these early marrying, soap opera obsessed, divorce getting, game show watching mid-lifers were now becoming increasingly concerned about the state of things in the country. Nothing was "normal" anymore, and they regretted where some of their Boomer juniors were going. Solution? Bring "Normal" back!

The Silent Generation, yearning for "Normal" since 1963.

Tell the man what he's won, Chas.

Kepi, you've won a brand... new... car! Now, for the grand grand prize of a trip to Los Angelos, California, can he tell us the price of bringing "Normal" back?

~Chas'88

You know, I can't even come up with something clever about this, because the loss is so insufferably total, from infrastructure to industry to even petty crap like the reason we all wear dumb old world clothes to work, it's them. I can't come up with a great analogy for what they did, but fortunately I don't have to. Look up the Old World Blues DLC for Fallout New Vegas. The Thinktank? That's Silents in a nutshell.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes, there was "Happy Days," but no "here again." Our Unravelling didn't even make a pretense of fixing anything or doing anything "right" this time, really; it was just getting back to obeying father, and children being seen but not heard, and reading your Bible (and plenty of material excess and indulgence anyway, like Madonna). In other words, people did nothing constructive or useful with our Unravelling, except among those on the fringe who were pursing the new age; continuing and further developing the Awakening, in other words, which was the true purpose of a true 3T.

It looks like the "adventures" didn't go so smoothly though, as they discovered periodically in real life (such as in Oct. 1987, Sept.2001), as well as in the movie.

Eric is looking for things in all the wrong places. It's Let's make a Deal and here's your big dealer, Rags.

Eric picks curtain#3

Eric wins big:

Audience claps wildly

Originally Posted by Tussilago

Silly as it may sound in retrospect, that's like it was. Only that the 50's nostalgia thing motivated largely by such emotions as "let's just pretend the 60's never happened" belonged to the 70's and early 80's. American Graffiti was ahead of its time and Grease hit right into it (1978).

If American Graffiti was ahead of its time, it was only a few minutes ahead: Lucas' film was released in 1973, Happy Days went on the air in 1974, the same year that The Lords of Flatbush was released and Richard Price's The Wanderers hit bookstores. Cooley High (kind of an African-American Graffiti version of American Graffiti) came out the following year.

But American Graffiti wasn't really that far ahead of its time, I don't think. By the time it came out at the end of the summer of '73, Grease had been the hottest ticket on Broadway for a little over a year. "American Pie", Don McLean's lament for a lost golden age, had made it to number one nearly a year before that, and Sha Na Na had played Woodstock almost exactly two years before that. In fact, by the time American Graffiti came along, Sha Na Na's label was able to repackage their hit albums from the late 1960s to take advantage of the explosion of late 1950s/early 1960s nostalgia. Before Sha Na Na at Woodstock, there was Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special. Hell, if you're willing to include S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders as part of the trend (and I would, because she did more than anyone to create the archetype of the "greaser" that so many later works would trade on), then you could date the trend's beginnings as far back as 1967! Which means that people started pining for the Fabulous Fifties (or at least a certain reinvention or interpretation of it) about as soon as they looked around and realized it was over.

Of course, it wasn't the actual 1950s; it wasn't President Eisenhower and cool jazz and Jackson Pollock and Tailgunner Joe and Pat Boone and Doris Day. It was freewheeling greasers in leather jackets cavorting with beauty school dropouts. It was golden age R&B, rock'n'roll, and doo wop. It was motorcycles and hot rods. The blue collar Italian-American male became a symbol of American masculinity, which actually extended beyond the retro trend (Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II--and note that the last two films covered the period from 1945-1960. The Awakening was transforming even the recent past.

But if I were to go into that, then I'd have to start talking about the Blue-Collar Awakening, which is what the Little Fifties was really a manifestation of, and then I'd have to talk about the Redneck Renaissance (the Southern-fried Awakening), and that would open up the possibility that there wasn't just one Awakening (the one associated with upper-middle class types), but a series of staggered Awakenings that took place between about 1964 and 1984.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Eric is looking for things in all the wrong places. It's Let's make a Deal and here's your big dealer, Rags.

Eric picks curtain#3

Eric wins big:

Audience claps wildly

Like I said, most people did nothing constructive with the 3T. Thanks for the example. No, I did not listen.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Like I said, most people did nothing constructive with the 3T. Thanks for the example. No, I did not listen.

<Prince, shaking head...yet again!>

3T?

Judas Priest: Metal Gods(Side 1-Track 2): British Steel(1980)

You Don't Have to be Old to be Wise!


Prince

PS:

Originally Posted by Semo '75

If American Graffiti was ahead of its time, it was only a few minutes ahead: Lucas' film was released in 1973, Happy Days went on the air in 1974, the same year that The Lords of Flatbush was released and Richard Price's The Wanderers hit bookstores. Cooley High (kind of an African-American Graffiti version of American Graffiti) came out the following year.

But American Graffiti wasn't really that far ahead of its time, I don't think. By the time it came out at the end of the summer of '73, Grease had been the hottest ticket on Broadway for a little over a year. "American Pie", Don McLean's lament for a lost golden age, had made it to number one nearly a year before that, and Sha Na Na had played Woodstock almost exactly two years before that. In fact, by the time American Graffiti came along, Sha Na Na's label was able to repackage their hit albums from the late 1960s to take advantage of the explosion of late 1950s/early 1960s nostalgia. Before Sha Na Na at Woodstock, there was Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special. Hell, if you're willing to include S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders as part of the trend (and I would, because she did more than anyone to create the archetype of the "greaser" that so many later works would trade on), then you could date the trend's beginnings as far back as 1967! Which means that people started pining for the Fabulous Fifties (or at least a certain reinvention or interpretation of it) about as soon as they looked around and realized it was over.

Well, I'd also throw the Shangri-Las as having influence on the Greaser with their hit single of "Leader of the Pack" in 1964, but that can be considered part of the "late 50s/early 60s" proper.



~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Semo '75

But if I were to go into that, then I'd have to start talking about the Blue-Collar Awakening, which is what the Little Fifties was really a manifestation of, and then I'd have to talk about the Redneck Renaissance (the Southern-fried Awakening), and that would open up the possibility that there wasn't just one Awakening (the one associated with upper-middle class types), but a series of staggered Awakenings that took place between about 1964 and 1984.

A a child I saw the awakening come in regionally. First, as a 7 year old in southern California I saw the surfer culture go acid. That was roughly 1968-69. Yes, I know that older people may have seen the change earlier but even in the second grade I knew that the junior high/high school aged guys wearing longer hair was a part of something different. As indded suddenly hearing about the dangers of drugs. To be sure, we elementary schoolers were not educated about specific drugs, they were at least in my mind an unseen mass that was somehow consodered dangerous. Specifics would come later.
Not too long after that we moved to the south. And all of the guys had short hair again. But only for about a year. By about 1971 the southern boys were also growing their hair long and of course popular culture saw the rise of southern rock musical style. Of course drug education suddenly followed and this time I was old enough to hear specific infomation.

Did the awakening come in sectionally? I believe that it did. To not believe so would be to ignore most of the physocal evidence from my childhood.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Well, I'd also throw the Shangri-Las as having influence on the Greaser with their hit single of "Leader of the Pack" in 1964, but that can be considered part of the "late 50s/early 60s" proper.

Good catch.

There are two reasons that I pick S.E. Hinton as kind of the beginning of the whole greaser thing:

The first is that she uses the term "greaser" explicitly without references to Italians, Mexicans, or Puerto Ricans. If you go back to that period, that was rare. Indeed, when Sha Na Na were reinventing the Fifties in the year or two after The Outsiders, they were worried that their references to "grease" and "greasers" might be interpreted as insensitive to Italians. Hinton, Sha Na Na, and Jacobs & Casey (the creators of Grease) all took the term "greaser" and emptied it of its ethnic connotations (at least partially).

The second is that she consciously deals with the idea that a golden age is passing. In The Outsiders, it's a personal and intimate thing (consider the use of Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and the classic line, "Stay gold, ponyboy."), but it's there, and it flows through her work as a whole. (Take a look at That Was Then, This Is Now--chronologically, it follows pretty close on the heels of The Outsiders and while the main characters' lives intersect with the lives of some of those from the earlier novel, but it might as well be a completely different world.)

I've always thought that the "dead teenager" genre of songs (which "Leader of the Pack" is most definitely a part of) came from a very different place that had more to do with young people trying to navigate a radically different style of dating. I also think that the biker, proper, might be a different type. I don't know. I'll have to think about this now that it's in front of me.

EtA: Oh, and to be clear, yes: I think that the "Fifties" ended right around 1963/1964. People seemed to recognize this intuitively, even without some kind of theory to guide them. "Where were you in '62?" "Oh what a night / Late December back in '63 / What a very special time for me" "We now know the 1950s ended in 1963. The fall of '63 was the end of an era; new voices were being heard." Even so, in individual works, you get dates as early as 1959 and as late as 1965.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The only people who got "screwed" in this downturn are people who were moderately successful and financially responsible before the crash. Wall Street is to blame, but so are all the people who irresponsibly drowned themselves in debt, and so is the government that encouraged the whole thing by keeping interest rates too low and guaranteeing home mortgages.

Aren't all the folks who hooked the society on credit cards at least partly responsible as well?

Originally Posted by Kepi

I think you're glossing over some of the major contributions of the 3T, there, eric. The technology distributed during the 3T, while initially the plaything of the wealthy, eventually became cheap enough to distribute to the masses. The technological accomplishments of the prior two 3T's were primarily authoritarian and required a centralized authority to operate. From telegraphs to television, all were created with a centralized control in mind.

This 3T broke that trend. It started with VCR's and home video equipment and computers all as seperate objects, but it ultimately grew into the 4T's plug and play, do it yourself style of distro. This allows free dissemination and distribution of information without having to have it okayed prior to production. Free creation and distribution of books, movies, music, news, discussions, ideas all at your finger-tips without having to get goahead in the form of an investment. That's undercuts authoritarian goals and aims in a huge way. The internet is as revolutionary to humanity as the printing press, and the proliferation of technology that makes that possible is all 3T.

While it was created in what I consider the 4T, the ICS is a very 3T concept in spirit for creating temporary command structures to deal with situations, then disolve. As this concept expands (my brother and I worked out a concept to make it work for film crews, and with a little thinking, we can make it available for any task), it's going to completely undercut and mitigate the need for authority in the work place. You're looking at the 3T being responsible for a level of nonsuperficial personal freedom while allowing for authority in situations that require control, and then the disolution of that authority when the task is done, which is something that both governance and free market solutions are terrible at.

The 3T makes these options possible, and an extended 2T would have snuffed the proliferation of anti-authoritarian goals out because the 2nd half 2T was about the replacement of old authority with new authority, not loosening the shackles to allow people to have greater options in their own decision making. While the 3T carried darkening times, it had a highly constructive underbelly, the fruts of which will have major implications for the next 1T. On the other hand, the 2T's values were reshaped in the 3T, and those are the values that will pass on into the next 1T, because those are the values Millennials raised themselves on.

I disagree with your next to last paragraph because now the need for authority in the workplace seems to be at an all-time high. Call in sick, you're fired--for example. And the lack of worker empowerment is ludicrous. In fact, by empowering our workers more and going to a situation where you can only be fired for just cause and have a shot at speaking your voice, couldn't a lot more episodes such as the Christopher Dorner rampage be prevented?

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

I disagree with your next to last paragraph because now the need for authority in the workplace seems to be at an all-time high. Call in sick, you're fired--for example. And the lack of worker empowerment is ludicrous. In fact, by empowering our workers more and going to a situation where you can only be fired for just cause and have a shot at speaking your voice, couldn't a lot more episodes such as the Christopher Dorner rampage be prevented?

I've wondered what would trigger an outburst like this, because one had to erupt eventually. No, Dorner was not a hero by any stretch of the imagination. He was both a victim and a victimizer. The sad part is, he will be a model for others, much as prior malcontents like the Blind Shiek were models in their times.

It's both sad and very scary.

Given the way that discussions of contemporary hot-button topics can explode here, I'm going to respectfully request taking the Dorner discussion to any one of a large number of threads in which it would be more appropriate. Thread drift happens, it's part of how this medium works, but there's a difference between thread drift and a complete and total change of a thread's focus.

Originally Posted by Kepi

I think you're glossing over some of the major contributions of the 3T, there, eric. The technology distributed during the 3T, while initially the plaything of the wealthy, eventually became cheap enough to distribute to the masses. The technological accomplishments of the prior two 3T's were primarily authoritarian and required a centralized authority to operate. From telegraphs to television, all were created with a centralized control in mind.

This 3T broke that trend. It started with VCR's and home video equipment and computers all as seperate objects, but it ultimately grew into the 4T's plug and play, do it yourself style of distro. This allows free dissemination and distribution of information without having to have it okayed prior to production. Free creation and distribution of books, movies, music, news, discussions, ideas all at your finger-tips without having to get goahead in the form of an investment. That's undercuts authoritarian goals and aims in a huge way. The internet is as revolutionary to humanity as the printing press, and the proliferation of technology that makes that possible is all 3T.

While it was created in what I consider the 4T, the ICS is a very 3T concept in spirit for creating temporary command structures to deal with situations, then disolve. As this concept expands (my brother and I worked out a concept to make it work for film crews, and with a little thinking, we can make it available for any task), it's going to completely undercut and mitigate the need for authority in the work place. You're looking at the 3T being responsible for a level of nonsuperficial personal freedom while allowing for authority in situations that require control, and then the disolution of that authority when the task is done, which is something that both governance and free market solutions are terrible at.

The 3T makes these options possible, and an extended 2T would have snuffed the proliferation of anti-authoritarian goals out because the 2nd half 2T was about the replacement of old authority with new authority, not loosening the shackles to allow people to have greater options in their own decision making. While the 3T carried darkening times, it had a highly constructive underbelly, the fruts of which will have major implications for the next 1T. On the other hand, the 2T's values were reshaped in the 3T, and those are the values that will pass on into the next 1T, because those are the values Millennials raised themselves on.

Sure, there were tech advances; that's a given. I was speaking more of the culture, politics, moral, etc that Chas was mentioning. But the tech advances of the 3T did allow for more access to it by individuals (including "ICS"), and that was a great accomplishment. These inventions continued the trend of the 2T, in which Silicon Valley developed and the integrated circuit, personal computer, the original internet, and GUI were invented.

Again I disagree that what values are passed on, depends on which generation is supposed to dominate a turning. Millennials do not equal a 1T. There will be many generations alive and shaping values and events in any future turning, and many influences from the past including those that precede peoples' lifetimes. The 2T is when new values and ideals are conceived, and that's why it will be the 2T ideals that are developed and passed on. I don't see that the 3T contributed much to that, except in technology (which is only a means to communicate) and on society's fringes. But naturally what was conceived in the 2T has to be made practical and applied to the needs of the 4T crisis.

@ Eric -

The tech advances required the 3T values for distribution. 3T is all about the harvest, and it requires a fast paced, low complexity value system with which to make distribution easy. Meanwhile values aren't "out on the fringes" they're just implemented in a tribal format which is conducive to Xers, and which is propogated by them.

When I thanked you earlier for making me look up information to realize the actual story of punk rock. You have all these later wave boomers (a quick estimate says their average year of birth is 1954-5) playing songs to Xers. This is where punk rock gets it's reputation for nihilism, not from Xers.

Early punk bands were highly varied in values and beliefs, from The Clash's Socialism to Crass's Anarchism to The Ramones' general political disinterest to The Sex Pistols' extreme nihilism (they were not Anarchists in a traditional sense but in a promoters of chaos and disorder sense). These sort of values are an idealist thing.

Also, even though Xer's got the crap end for it, it was Boomers singing about "No Future" and belonging to a "Blank Generation". Meanwhile, while Boomers were getting famous off this prodominantly Xer bands such as Social Distortion and Bad Religion were building the tribal infrastructure with a little direction from a few of the sterner, more values oriented punk groups and figure heads such as Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys and Keith Morris of Black Flag and The Circle Jerks (interestingly one of the very few Boomer punks who was willing to work with Xers in the early 80's).

As boomer musicians left the punk scene for popularity in new waye or just to move on, the Xer core carried on with punk as their tribe. At the time, many such subcultures emerged in metal, goth, hip-hop, etc. and while each subset around the country had a slightly different values with slighly differing levels of intensity, they were all very ethically stern. If you, in fact, wanted to be a part of any subculture you really had to abide by a stern set of ethical rules, and pass plenty of litmus tests.

This is a common feature of a Boomer-Xer mix, and you can see it in the work force now. They go through a period of mutual distrust/and misunderstanding (early to mid 90's) to acceptance (mid 90's to very early 00's) to an impossible to maintain set of standards under heavy, heavy scruitiny (early/mid 00's to current) and an unneccessary vetting process.

So the values are there amongst people, they're just supressed or used as a weapon to make room for the turning's needs. In the 3th turning this was distribution and creation. A harvest. In the first half 4th turning it's used to create a shelter for desireables and in group folks to ride the storm out. We'll see how it goes in the latter half 4th (I predict increased inclusivism, as that would follow the trend of the subculture pattern the generation established in the 90's as they geared to entertain and raise millennials).

As for the 1T, it's very values oriented, it's just a system that is unsustainable (as the conditions of all turnings are). Keep in mind a lot of major projects occur in the 1T which tend to embody the finalization of the consensus of the last 2T. Major super projects like the Hoover Dam and the Interstate system were built in the last 1T which really go to embody the core values of Modernism as interpreted by the GI's. Similarly the Millennials will take the helm, and they'll create a world which reflects their interpretation of the values they received. There will be other generations inhabiting the country, but they won't be capable of taking the reigns from the Millennials, who will be the driving force. They'll keep control until about the next 3T, they may try to hold it until the next 4T depending on how this turning ends, but that would most likely be disasterous.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Like I said, most people did nothing constructive with the 3T. Thanks for the example. No, I did not listen.

Boomers (JP) mentoring Xer's is nothing constructive? I think not. The lyrics seem to be an excellent 3T anthem for Xer's.

Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford (born 25 August 1951)
Glenn Tipton (born Glenn Raymond Tipton, 25 October 1947)
Alan John "Al" Atkins (born 14 October 1947
Dave Holland (born David Holland, 5 April 1948
Alan Moore (born 1947)

Later band members:

Joneser
Scott Travis (born September 6, 1961)

Yer
Richard Ian Faulkner (born 1 January 1980)

"You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise"

[Tipton/Halford/Downing]

I've had enough of being programmed
And told what I ought to do
Let's get one thing straight
I'll choose my fate
And it's got nothing to do with you

The years are flying by and it's time I got high
Took a sample of the good things in life
This is a chance
I'm gonna take
Gonna get out trouble and strife

I grow sick and tired of the same old lies
Might look a little young
So what's wrong
You don't have to be old to be wise

No I don't care that the people stare
Accuse me of going mad
Just get a long hard look into the mirror
Then, tell me now who's been had

The way things are going I won't get to show 'em
Go single all the time's up to me
So it's off with the ties
No compromise
Wanna taste what it's like to be free

I grow sick and tired of the same old lies
Might look a little young
So what's wrong
You don't have to be old to be wise

I grow sick and tired of the same old lies
Might look a little young
So what's wrong
You don't have to be old to be wise

I'm gonna gather my things
Go through the door
Every night I'll live on my own
I'd like to be there
And I'm gonna be there
I got a will of my own

I go as I please
Fend for myself
Pull all the stops, roll the dice
Out on my own, gonna go it alone
When I need it
Then I'll ask for advice

You don't have to be old to be wise
You don't have to be old to be wise
You don't have to be old to be wise
You don't have to be old to be wise
You don't have to be old to be wise
You don't have to be old to be wise
You don't have to be old to be wise

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Boomers (JP) mentoring Xer's is nothing constructive? I think not. The lyrics seem to be an excellent 3T anthem for Xer's.

I don't know about Xers. They are innovative and practical, but their contribution to culture has been negative. But my point is not about them, but about the 3T. Xers may have been the dominant influence in music then, but all generations were responsible for the 3T being largely a waste of time, by no means just Xers.

Yer
Richard Ian Faulkner (born 1 January 1980)

Generation Y = Millennials; started in 1982. The cuspers should be called X/Yers.

"You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise"

So, they can tell people they can be wise (and did they do it before 1984?). Now if they could have put some good music with it, they would have had something.

Originally Posted by Kepi

@ Eric -

The tech advances required the 3T values for distribution. 3T is all about the harvest, and it requires a fast paced, low complexity value system with which to make distribution easy. Meanwhile values aren't "out on the fringes" they're just implemented in a tribal format which is conducive to Xers, and which is propogated by them.

The best values were out on the fringes, and consisted of those who were developing the 2T culture.

But I agree the 3T is about harvest. But what was required was only the development of personal computing, which was a 2T achievement, largely by counter-cultural folks too. I don't think distributing it required a value system. Capitalism worked just fine.

When I thanked you earlier for making me look up information to realize the actual story of punk rock. You have all these later wave boomers (a quick estimate says their average year of birth is 1954-5) playing songs to Xers. This is where punk rock gets it's reputation for nihilism, not from Xers.

Early punk bands were highly varied in values and beliefs, from The Clash's Socialism to Crass's Anarchism to The Ramones' general political disinterest to The Sex Pistols' extreme nihilism (they were not Anarchists in a traditional sense but in a promoters of chaos and disorder sense). These sort of values are an idealist thing.

Well taken point. Rock was certainly on the decline before the 3T; it's just that there was still plenty of good music around. After 1984 that was not the case, except on the new age fringes of society where 2T consciousness continued.

If you, in fact, wanted to be a part of any subculture you really had to abide by a stern set of ethical rules, and pass plenty of litmus tests.

You could have fooled me.

This is a common feature of a Boomer-Xer mix, and you can see it in the work force now. They go through a period of mutual distrust/and misunderstanding (early to mid 90's) to acceptance (mid 90's to very early 00's) to an impossible to maintain set of standards under heavy, heavy scruitiny (early/mid 00's to current) and an unneccessary vetting process.

Boomers have gotten more arrogant and insecure during the 3T until today, no doubt, which is reflected in the behavior you mention.

So the values are there amongst people, they're just supressed or used as a weapon to make room for the turning's needs. In the 3th turning this was distribution and creation. A harvest. In the first half 4th turning it's used to create a shelter for desireables and in group folks to ride the storm out. We'll see how it goes in the latter half 4th (I predict increased inclusivism, as that would follow the trend of the subculture pattern the generation established in the 90's as they geared to entertain and raise millennials).

The 4T is about rediscovering that society is needed to sustain our lives. If there's any trend in the "first half" of a 4T toward groups protecting themselves, that's left-over 3T fracturing. We see that now with the Tea Party and the Boehner Republicans. They are nothing but leftovers, or else the basis for our 4T as a clash between red and blue, which will climax only later. In which case, the 4T consists not of one value set as opposed to another, but a conflict between the new and old values.

As for the 1T, it's very values oriented, it's just a system that is unsustainable (as the conditions of all turnings are). Keep in mind a lot of major projects occur in the 1T which tend to embody the finalization of the consensus of the last 2T.

I don't disagree there.

Major super projects like the Hoover Dam and the Interstate system were built in the last 1T which really go to embody the core values of Modernism as interpreted by the GI's. Similarly the Millennials will take the helm, and they'll create a world which reflects their interpretation of the values they received. There will be other generations inhabiting the country, but they won't be capable of taking the reigns from the Millennials, who will be the driving force. They'll keep control until about the next 3T, they may try to hold it until the next 4T depending on how this turning ends, but that would most likely be disasterous.

Again, I disagree that one generation will be "at the helm."

Hoover Dam was 4T.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

A a child I saw the awakening come in regionally. First, as a 7 year old in southern California I saw the surfer culture go acid. That was roughly 1968-69. Yes, I know that older people may have seen the change earlier but even in the second grade I knew that the junior high/high school aged guys wearing longer hair was a part of something different. As indded suddenly hearing about the dangers of drugs. To be sure, we elementary schoolers were not educated about specific drugs, they were at least in my mind an unseen mass that was somehow consodered dangerous. Specifics would come later.
Not too long after that we moved to the south. And all of the guys had short hair again. But only for about a year. By about 1971 the southern boys were also growing their hair long and of course popular culture saw the rise of southern rock musical style. Of course drug education suddenly followed and this time I was old enough to hear specific infomation.

Did the awakening come in sectionally? I believe that it did. To not believe so would be to ignore most of the physocal evidence from my childhood.

Right. To deny that would be to ignore not only the physical evidence from your youth, but also the public record. Did "pink-collar" women (working class hairdressers, waitresses, nurses, and beauticians) awaken at the same time as relatively affluent Berkeley students? Were there differences in the way the Awakening hit in San Francisco, Chicago, Omaha, and Newark? The West Coast, the Rustbelt, and the South? Or, when looking at tighter geographical groupings, did the awakening hit the same way and at the same time on the Mainline (Philadelphia's famous old money suburb), Queens Village (Philadelphia's Bohemian center between the late 1960s and mid-1980s), and North Philadelphia (one of Philadelphia's poorer African-American neighborhoods)?

This isn't just a matter of when people let their hair go long, or when they traded in their cateye frames from granny glasses. People look at what Strauss & Howe call Turnings as distinct bounded time periods, but I think that they're more like impulses that sort of move underneath the surface of society, reconfiguring the culture in those spots that they erupt through. (Hopefully that makes some kind of sense.)

Originally Posted by Semo '75

This isn't just a matter of when people let their hair go long, or when they traded in their cateye frames from granny glasses. People look at what Strauss & Howe call Turnings as distinct bounded time periods, but I think that they're more like impulses that sort of move underneath the surface of society, reconfiguring the culture in those spots that they erupt through. (Hopefully that makes some kind of sense.)

More like alternating waves and conflicting currents rather than a single ripple in a pond?

~Chas'88

@ Eric - Capitalism is a value system. And it was absolutely necessary for that value system to be placed above all others to distribute this technology to people. Remember, Clinton was bragging about never having sent an e-mail in his 92 campaign as a sign of his mainstream, downhome normalcy.

If self seeking spiritual revelation was what people was making people happy during the 3T, computers never would have sold enough to make them usable and available to consumers. What made it happen was people saying "you know what would make me happy? A video camera!" That's what the 3T was about and that's what allowed technology to develop. It wasn't just that it existed, it was the demand that drove it to get bigger, better, faster, smaller and more powerful. If we'd stuck with 2T values, a computer would still be a glorified type writer and spread sheet, videogames would still be kids stuff (keep in mind, games have driven the power end of computing, which in turn, is what gives us all this ability to make and edit video and audio and stream it online), and we'd all be sitting around trying to make our own sitars.

I also disagree that 3T music was bad. Hip-hop was extremely creative and interesting. And music that has been good, has mostly always been on the fringes. Even in the 2T, it was the folks pushing the limits of rock and roll, the fringe groups, that were progressing the genre. Counter culture in the 2T was even more fringe than punk rock or goth in the 3T.

By the late 90's punk rock was everywhere. I had a friend from Ely Nevada. It's a town of over 4,000 people now. Cable, Satalite, etc. were everywhere and people had access in a way that they didn't in the 2T. So where there was no way to get fringe music into Ely in 1968, there sure was in 1995.

I stand corrected on the Hoover Dam, but the overall point stands. We made huge infrastructural headway in the 1T.

As for there only being one generation at the helm, there's always 1 generation predominantly at the helm of any generation. And the only time where you get a mix is when the balance of power is shifting. That's just how it works.