David (KaiserD2), thanks for your comment on the situation in entertainment. We had been about to launch a seminar series on the future of entertainment, strongly influenced by S & H generational theory. Check http://indiespace.com/foe for details. We're still having them, but I feel our recommendations will carry a lot more weight now!

SV81, you've hit it right on the head about our super-connected society. The Wired vision of reality has been shown to be quite brittle -- and by extension, the tech future. Ditto for "the long boom" and Dent's wave theories, though they may be telling us that the economic impact will be less than expected. Whatever the case, the steady advance of technopia has been challenged.

I feel the dates to watch are around Sept. 27-29. If I am (unfortunately) correct, we may see the extreme anarchist fringe of the anti-globalization movement come out in full support of 9/11. This is especially likely if the US retaliates before this time.

These groups must be overjoyed at the attack on the heart of US-driven world capitalism, and see it as a guide to future actions. In the past, terrorist acts were attention-getting mechanisms. 9/11 shows that they can do physical and economic damage to a technocratic society.

The mood was already turning ugly at Genoa. It was disheartening to see the concerns about the power and reach of multinationals, WTO, etc. hijacked by radicals who got their first martyr. I suspect they're waiting a little for the shock to die before deconstructing 9/11 as a great victory.

Ditto for the extreme fringe of the environmental movement. The bleeding edge of deep ecologists believe that humanity must return to a simpler state of existence or the earth will be destroyed. Ted K. must be celebrating in his cell. Halting trade, humbling the US, and calling our hi-tech society into question is a good step in this direction. I remember the old Earth First movement had people advocating a massive 'population reduction' through global plague to save the planet. Different religion, same radical stance. Since practically everyone believes that we do have an environmental problem, the pressure to go radical will become greater.

A similar situation exists for the activist fringe of the animal rights/vegan communities, though most, I'm sure, are as sickened as the rest of us.

The anti-globalization rallies planned for the end of this month may introduce us to additional foes, and to the start of a scary, three-way alliance of groups dedicated to the end of a globalized, westernized world.

The IMF/WB meetings will most likely be cancelled. Even if they are not, the turnout will probably be low.

This is my first post. Let me make this one brief in case I err with the formatting. I want to respond to part of Neil Howe's and William Strauss' initial post:

>> This leads, finally, to the issue of timing. It is still early for a Fourth Turning. In terms of the age of the next civic
generation, we are only at 1920 (the House of Morgan bombing, again!) on the G.I. Generation calendar or at 1761
(when colonists were still celebrating Britain's triumph over French Canada) on the Republican Generation calendar. <<

The linkage of today to 1920 surprised me. It has been a few years since I read the books (Generations and TFT) so I may be a little rusty. But in the interim I have been assessing contemporary events against the backdrop of this cyclical theory. And my impression has been that we are now at about 1930, not 1920.

Perhaps if we confine ourselves exclusively to the lengths of intervals in earlier cycles, we arrive at the 1920 date for today. But it seems to me that the zeitgeist is more important and substantively we clearly recaptured the spirit of the 1920s in the 1990s. We experienced the very same scandals, booming economy, and wheeling and dealing on Wall Street. Bill Clinton does not equal Warren G. Harding in every way, but
their respective administrations exuded the same aroma. In fact Clinton's administration arguably also resembled Franklin Pierce's with all its plots. Link Bill Clinton with Warren G. Harding and Franklin Pierce, and you have consistent placement in a waning Unraveling.

Following along, George W. Bush, to my mind, is a clear match with Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan before him. All three are either in over their heads or are in some other way incapable of dealing with the challenges before them. But it strikes me that George W. Bush is probably far more dependent upon his advisors than was either Hoover or Buchanan. So W's passivity may allow "Team Bush" to bail his butt out of the fire in a manner not available to Hoover and Buchanan as both were more in control of their administrations -- and more directly responsible for the failures of same.

>> We're only two years beyond the Progressive calendar with the Civil War. Yet, as we wrote, the Civil War crisis began
ahead of schedule, leaving the Transcendentals--a very Boomerlike generation--unchecked by younger generations. <<

I believe you nailed it right here. As with the Civil War, this Fourth Turning is probably coming too soon. And I suspect this is because it is being forced by a political establishment which is now all-powerful when compared, for example, to 1920 in its infancy when it lacked sufficient strength to force passage of the League of Nations. My suspicion is that the forces behind George W. Bush look at the demographics and conclude that the Republican Party is finished unless they can quickly co-opt the various elements of the Democratic coalition. They recognize that a crisis era is a necessary catalyst to political realignment on a par with 1932 and 1860. And thus they are working overtime to artificially induce one, i.e. a Fourth Turning. If they fail, George W. Bush will be remembered as a modern Herbert Hoover. If they succeed, he will be remembered as a modern FDR -- or Lincoln.

Can the guys pulling the strings sucessfully morph today's Herbert Hoover into FDR? Only time will tell. But there is no doubt in my mind that either the WTC destruction or an impending second or third wave involving release of biological agents will be remembered as the Fourth Turning.

More thoughts:

I read a post in this topic which mentioned a book by Harry S. Dent, Jr. called "The Roaring 2000's" which was published in 1998. It basically was about how the Internet was going to create a true revoultion in the way we conduct our lives economically and socially, allowing people to choose where they want to live based on the fact that they would no longer be required to travel extensively to go to their places of employment, and how the Internet and communications in general would create a new network paradigm in the workplace, replacing the current pyramid hierarchical structure of top-level executives, mid-level managers and directors, and bottom-level employees (a/k/a, entry-level workers). Granted, this was written in the heady days of the dot-com bubble, but there are a lot of parallels between Harry Dent's hypothesis and S&H.

In T4T, S&H stated how Boomers in elderhood would change the scope of retirement from hip maturity (ala Silent generation) to an almost mystical quality. S&H noted that Boomers will bring the same spirit they exhibited in the late 1960's and 1970's into their twilight years, with most Boomers moving to small communities out in the country, most likely in the western United States. Harry Dent noted in the Roaring 2000's of people being free to move to exurban communities and resort towns, particularly those close to nature sites, to live a slower pace of life and to take advantage of the lower cost of living. This would appear to make a lot of sense, since S&H state that may Boomers will not have saved enough money for retirement and could end up quite poor. Moving to an exurban resort town could allow those with meager savings to still live a semblance of the lifestyle they are used to living.

The other point Harry Dent made was about the "network revolution" or how the structure of business would change from being hierachical to nuclear. Instead of having employees of the bottom of the pyramid doing work on a need-to-know basis and reporting only to their supervisors, who in return report to managers, who in turn report to the top-level executives, these same entry-level employees would work as nodes of the outer web of a nuclear organization, with much interconnection between other employees on the outer rings and a limited connection to those in the inner rings but still connected and allowed to exchange information as part of teams. The theory is based on the fact that the top-level executives would be more dependent on the actions of his smaller teams or nodes in order for their business to succeed.

It was with this theory in mind that I thought about what happened in the 911 attack and what strategies we need to respond. We have traditionally prepared to fight bloody wars against kingdoms, empires and nations, but the enemies of this war are part a global network, and if this is truly the first major war of the information age, we need to fundamentally alter our strategies against a far-flung, spread-out enemy. This requires a radical overhaul of human intelligence. We have marvelled at our use of technology in fighting the Gulf War and Kosovo, but that was still based on fighting nations instead of networks. We must remember that technology is only a tool, and that we still need intelligent people to use these tools wisely. Fighting a network of evil by attcking nations will not be totally effctive in trying to win war, because other parts of the network can assemble and take the place of those groups eliminated. If you need an example of the futility of fighting networks with old strategies, consider RIAA's attempts to shut down Napster and how other sites sprouted up to take its place. What we must do in this upcoming war is to assemble our own human intelligence network, and use all of the military, technological and human capital available to disrupt the network of evil to its very core. This requires a viral attack strategy, which will take a long time to implement. However, this is where the cunning and pragmatic skills of Gen-X and the gung-ho spirit of the Millies could be put to its most effective use, since both groups are technologically proficient.

I listened to Bush's radio address today on CSPAN. He is instantly calling for a lasting military campaign, one that he wants to last for years. It's quite a shift from the Bill Clinton school of measured response. Fire some missiles and forget about it. Very stupid in retrospect.

WIRED proclaimed at the peak of the third turning wildness "open:good, closed:bad". While the fourth turning reverses this trend in terms of our outlook, I still do not believe that this spells the end for globalism.

I thought THE NEW REPUBLC summed it up well. "Globalism" is not so much openness as it is the proliferation of everything American throughout the world. Namely, free markets and representative democracy.

The Fourth turning is stacking up precisely the way I thought it would. The forces of modernism vs. those who are resisting it. Remember Jihad vs. McWorld? We're living it.

Please look at http://www.msnbc.com
Click on "retaliation options".
Among other things, it *seriously*
discusses "tactical nuclear weapons"!

That last post was VERY interesting. Quite possibly the manipulation of technology--especially communications technology--will be much more important to putting an end to terrorism than traditional military power. But I am quite sure we are going to try traditional military power first. In fact, it's probably after an intervention or two fails to stop attacks that we will have to begin thinking creatively.
Two other points. First, we didn't pick when this crisis would begin. It actually is the result of some one else's crisis, an Arab crisis.
The last three Crises have been Atlantic. In the 18th-century the US picked democracy and Europe turned away from it. In the 19th century the US (Lincoln) made democracy prevail and Europe followed suit. The twentieth century crisis created welfare state democracy on both sides of the Atlantic. The 21st, I am confident, will also be an Atlantic one, but now the Europeans are behind us. (Interesting that the new British Tory leader is anti-EU.)
Remember, in the Revolutionary crisis, we had to fight the war, then remake the government.

P. S. After watching an old movie this evening (a 4T screwball comedy, actually), I just read Bush's last statement. I'm afraid it looks like the view that he's at sea in foreign affairs is true. This is not going to be a country possum hunt, which is what he makes it sound like. And he needs more than patience from the American people.

There has been a lot of discussion on this board regarding whether or not the events of this week are the crisis catalyst, and whether we will slip back into a 3T mode for a while. I would argue that the nature of our nation's response to the attack, and it's consequences, may trump all other factors on this issue. While I see no alternative to a vigorous (and hopefully well thought out) response against our enemies, there is great potential for this to develop quickly into an unambiguous Crisis. I found the following analysis of Bin Laden's motivations and strategy to be particularly chilling.

----------------------------

Subject: A view from Afghanistan

A sobering essay forwarded by a UC Berkeley professor:

Dear Friends,

The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T.

Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:

I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."

And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.

But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.

Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.

New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time

So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.

And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?

Tamim Ansary

On 2001-09-15 20:22, KaiserD2 wrote:
...Bush's last statement. I'm afraid it looks like the view that he's at sea in foreign affairs is true. This is not going to be a country possum hunt, which is what he makes it sound like.

Has Mr. Kaiser or has anyone here actually been on a possum hunt? I fear this may be more of a snipe hunt than anything else...after which you come home with an empty gamebag and the knowledge the snipe are still about.

I am new to this website, but I am a fan. First of all, I think that some of the Xers (I hate that term) that post here, I noticed, are not typical Xers (or 13ers). The reason being that most of us don't visit sites like this because we fear that it will be just full of loud mouth Boomers, which we have had enough of in our life, thank you.
The reason I think that the authors are more that just loud mouth boomers is I was so impressed by their descprition of a 13er in Generations. They wrote about me as if they new me personally! I must be the text book case. As a text book case, I want to say that the only comfort that I get out of this horror of the last few days if that I feel that at last the era of the 3T (as you call it) may have been mortally wounded. Please understand that I take no joy in the sufferings of all those poor people. I do hope that if any good can come from this, it will be the point where we mark the end of the silly, superficial boomer crap that has marked most of my life. It's time to get real, folks!

After reading the remarks by Tamim Ansary I now firmly believe that the center of the crisis will be religious in nature. At its onset we have a President supported by a fundamentalist "religious right" literally foaming at the mouth to rid the world of Islamic fundamentalists. In order to pressure Pakistan into "helping" us we will court fundamentalist radicals in India. Meanwhile that same religious right that supports the Presedent, in its hatered of "Godless Communism", argues for religious freedom for the fundamentalist Falun Gong cult in China. To mix a metaphore, I believe that we are about to stick our foot into more than we can chew. DMMcG

Tom1971, I think that you will like this site. We like Xers here. And to your enjoyment, we participate in Boomer bashing more than bashing all other generations combined. :wink:

Welcome, Tom 1971.

Well, I can understand how you might assume this site would be full of loudmouth Boomers, but you'll find that most of us really aren't so bad!

As a last wave Boomer myself, I possess a few Nomad traits and have never been one of those people who thinks all Xers are "bad." They have a lot to offer the world, and seem to be assuming a very Heroic role in their search-and-rescue efforts, even risking their lives in doing so. As the Crisis has come early, many Xers have and will have to take on a Hero role for a while.

I think most of the people on this site (boomers included) recognize and admire your generation's many strong points, and realize how good you really are. It's espceially impressive how you are beginning to fulfill your midlife roles as parents, teachers, etc. who really do *care.*

I think the main reason Xers seemed to others to not care about anything is because there was never anything in previous turnings for you to become passionate about. Boredom and general disillusionment with the adult world that didn't seem to care much about *you* led to "outrageous" (but always interesting) behavior during the 3T, but I feel this Crisis is something that finally moves you as a generation, something you feel you can actually *do* something about, however small. Practical action, not proselytizing, is your forte, and while it may not be that glamorous, it is good, necessary, and very much appreciated. In your own way, you are Heroes too.

As far as "the most hated generation," it doesn't appear to be Xers, at least not on this board--it seems to be Boomers. We take a lot of abuse here! :smile:

But that's okay.

Heh. Just saw Robert's post. I guess he was reading my mind again!

He doesn't really hate Boomers though. His boomer-bashing is all in fun (i think!)

Greetings, all. I have been a fan of S&H's books for years, but only visited the forum today. I am very impressed with the thoughtfulness and civility of this forum, and I wish I had visited earlier.

I apologize in advance if my post seems off-topic of the question "is this the 4T Crisis", but honestly the reason I have read the forum is to get some insight to help me decide if "we" are going to win this war.

The way I phrased the last sentence essentially "outs" me as a person who thinks that this is the 4T Crisis. And I qualified "we" because I am thinking of Western Civilization, not specifically America. I agree with Brian Rush and Donna Sherman that the present crisis is a global crisis, and that therefore a theory that accounts for other cultures will be necessary to understand what will happen.

Simultaneously with reading the forum, I am reading Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order". Summarized drastically, Huntington says:
---
1) The configuration of international politics has evolved into an interaction between distinct civilizations: Western, Latin America, African, Japan, Orthodox (e.g., Russia), Hindu, Islamic, and Sinic (China).

2) The primary drivers of crises during this configuration are Western arrogance and presumed decline, Islamic resentment and resurgence, and Chinese assertiveness.

3) The Islamic civilization is involved in a majority of conflicts in the world today (a variety of statistics are presented to back this up). Demographics are part of the answer (e.g., an Islamic "pig in the python", incongruous as that expression seems, of 20%), but not the entire answer. A trend toward fundamentalism, and even of "indiginization" of Western-educated elites are also a cause.

4) Part of the resentment of Western civilization is based on the observation that while formerly the West were repressive, imperialistic infidels but nonetheless "people of the book", now they have simply become godless decadents, which in the eyes of observant Muslims is worse. Much is made of Europe having become essentially a "post-Christian civilization".
---

Except for the inconvenient fact that I can't simply extrapolate the S&H analysis to other civilizations, or even to other Western countries (does anyone know of work similar to S&H for different societies? As of the time _Generations_ was published, apparently there was none), the comparison of civilization dynamics to generation dynamics might give some interesting results.

For example:

The culture wars that have been much discussed in this forum could easily be misinterpreted by another culture as a sign of decadence. If they also took this as a sign of weakness, it would make them more likely to be aggressive. But if the culture wars are related to the turnings, the timing of the culture wares and of the turnings are critical to who wins!

The civilizations most in conflict with Western civilization are Islamic and Sinic. It is conceivable that the conflict with Islamic civilization, because its current form is with proxy organizations and not nations, could be the dress rehearsal for a genuine Crisis with China in 2005-2010 (which would not be "too early").

Perhaps the beginning of a generational history for other cultures would include Huntington's observation that often a first-generation elite is Western-educated and in fact utterly Western-assimilated. They then go home and start analogous institutions of higher learning, policy, etc. The next generation, going through those institutions but without the immersion in Western culture that going abroad would have provided, absorb the education but "indiginize" it. Western assumptions that certain features such as "democracy" are universal and a consequence of sufficient prosperity and education, are not valid.

This post lasted longer than I thought it would. If it should go to another forum, please feel free to send me over there. But: these Crises don't happen in a vacuum, and the relationship between the West and Islam may ultimately time the Crisis more than whether Hillary, Rudy, or Dubya is the GC.

Thanks for listening!

There were a couple of posts a while back, from Pindiespace and Michael Eliason, that I felt expressed a serious misconception about the nature of this Crisis (or at least about two-thirds of the issues involved, recognizing only one of them). And so I would like once more to state the three issues as I see them developing -- the three flaws of the global civic order that threaten its survival. Those flaws are as follows:


1. The imbalances in the global economy, in the form of extremes of wealth and poverty (on a global scale) that leave the economy dependent on an inadequate consumer base, much as existed on a national scale prior to, and leading to, the Great Depression. Or, along another vector, but basically the same issue, the imbalance between corporate and governmental power, in that multinational corporations have expanded beyond the ability of any national government to regulate them.


2. The impending collision of our exponential growth in consumption of natural resources, with natural limits on that consumption and on the use of environmental sinks. An ecological and resource shortage Crisis, in other words.


3. The breakdown of the global peacekeeping system that prevailed in most of the Millennial Saeculum, which consisted of the Cold War polarity and the system of alliances and recognized spheres of influence that buttressed it. The system worked in the days when it was the West agains the Communists, or the U.S. against the Soviets. It has ceased to work well since 1991, when it became the U.S. against the whole rest of the world.


It is that last issue, of course, which has been recognized first -- or which has forcefully thrust itself into recognition first. But the others are at least as important, and all three are interconnected. At some time during the two decades or thereabouts of the Fourth Turning, we will have to confront and rectify all three flaws. Unless we do, our society cannot survive to reach the First Turning of the next saeculum. It will continue to spiral in crisis down into ruin.


Which brings me to the statements by Pindiespace and Michael.


Pindiespace said this:


If I am (unfortunately) correct, we may see the extreme anarchist fringe of the anti-globalization movement come out in full support of 9/11. This is especially likely if the US retaliates before this time.


Well, I can't speak for the "extreme anarchist fringe" of the misnamed "antiglobalization movement" (which is really a social justice movement plus an environmental movement, a protest not against globalization per se but only against a certain kind of globalization), but I can say that they are anathema to 99% of the participants in that movement. I seriously doubt that even the "extreme anarchist fringe" is going to have much sympathy for Muslim fundamentalists who want to impose an ultra-puritanical tyranny on the world; that would be out of character. But I can say with great confidence that the bulk of the movement will have no sympathy for them whatsoever. Even less, really, than they do for the extremists to which you refer.


And it is extremely dangerous to create an artificial alliance in our minds between Osama bin Laden and the protesters against the developing global corporate republic. Dangerous not only because the idea is nonsensical, but also because it can lead to nonaction on the other two issues of the Crisis -- either of which can be just as fatal to us as the one with which we're currently engaged. It can lead to the false assumption that, because the corporate republic was a target of evil men, it is itself blameless and pure.


Michael Eliason said this:


"Globalism" is not so much openness as it is the proliferation of everything American throughout the world. Namely, free markets and representative democracy.


The Fourth turning is stacking up precisely the way I thought it would. The forces of modernism vs. those who are resisting it. Remember Jihad vs. McWorld? We're living it.


Here again, that artificial alliance is erected as a straw man. This argument employs the False Duality fallacy: the presentation of two options and a forced choice between the two, closing out the possibility of a third.


Michael, neither Jihad nor McWorld is an acceptable course. The one is an utterly unworkable reversal of literal centuries of social progress, and the other a surrender of all hope of social justice or a sustainable society to corporate greed.


You are premature in saying that this Crisis is shaping up just as you thought it would. This war is not the whole Crisis. It is only the first act. Muslim extremist terrorism is not nearly as dangerous a foe as our economic imbalance, which in turn is less dangerous than our ecological imbalance. We are dealing with the easiest and least dangerous enemy first.


Perhaps that's the way it should be. We need some practice at Fourth Turning organization and civic virtue. So maybe we should strike the (relatively) easy target first. But let's not forget that the others are out there, too. And let's not assume that, just because we must condemn those who destroyed the World Trade Center, there was no evil worked within its walls. There was. That did not justify the destruction and slaughter we have witnessed. But it remains so nonetheless.


If the only enemy we defeat is the one outside our borders and not the ones within ourselves, we will lose the greater struggle.

On 2001-09-15 20:51, Tom Black '58 wrote:
...
I found the following analysis of Bin Laden's motivations and strategy to be particularly chilling.
...
----------------------------

Subject: A view from Afghanistan

A sobering essay forwarded by a UC Berkeley professor:

Dear Friends,

The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T.
...
Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
...
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
...
Tamim Ansary

Definitely words to ponder. I wonder what the chances are of effecting and succeeding with a United Nations peacekeeping force as the ground troops, including Pakistanis. Then it wouldn't be the U.S. having to defeat Pakistan, but the world having to persuade Pakistan to join them in a united purpose. My hesitation here is that this would be taking an ineffective 3T institution and trying to turn it into a 4T powerhouse capable of united purpose, risk sharing, and the resolve to see it all through to the end, with the U.S. taking the lead role. This has really been the dream since 1989 of a "new world order" peacekeeping force. It didn't work too well in the 90's, but that doesn't mean it couldn't ever work. The problem is, as Mr. Saari call them, the "Euro-weasels" who make the (non-)decisions. Also, the danger is there that this would splinter off into a West vs. Islam battle, if agreement cannot be reached. Still, if it could be done, I think I favor a declaration of war by the United Nations against the Taliban, and the dispatching of international troops to win that war and then stabilize Afghanistan.

But is the rest of the world ready to join that fight? What if the battle is won, but the war then shifts to the next Islamic country harboring terrorists, who in the meantime may have struck at targets around the world as well as in the U.S.?

I fully recognize my lack of expertise and lack of sufficient pondering over the years, and expect that there are many flaws with such an approach, which I'm sure many of you will be able to point out. But it just seems like a way to avert the U.S. plunging headlong into something for which it's not yet ready, and instead to stay the course of globalism, rather than alienating ourselves from most of the world.

Believe me, I'm not partial to the Silent mentality in times of crisis, when decisions need to be made, but that doesn't mean I don't want to exhibit caution and good sense in choosing the necessary action in response to an unacceptable violation and continued threat to national security. If all roads lead to all-out war, then war it shall be. But first let's think of the best thing to try. I have made one suggestion above. I don't know if it's the best one that can be made.

Dead-on post concerning networks, 728huey. I also suggest Michael Lewis' "Next: The Revolution Just Happened". He does a good job of describing how new generations embrace new technology, as opposed to their elders. A downer, but Lewis' goal is to convince his largely boomer audience that their kids aren't "mini-me" hippies. Also look at Tom Standage's "The Victorian Internet". He makes a great case for the telegraph/pneumatic tube system of the 1870s mirroring the Internet far more than the telephone system that replaced it.

On 2001-09-15 22:48, Neal wrote:
...
1) The configuration of international politics has evolved into an interaction between distinct civilizations: Western, Latin America, African, Japan, Orthodox (e.g., Russia), Hindu, Islamic, and Sinic (China).

2) The primary drivers of crises during this configuration are Western arrogance and presumed decline, Islamic resentment and resurgence, and Chinese assertiveness.

3) The Islamic civilization is involved in a majority of conflicts in the world today (a variety of statistics are presented to back this up). Demographics are part of the answer (e.g., an Islamic "pig in the python", incongruous as that expression seems, of 20%), but not the entire answer. A trend toward fundamentalism, and even of "indiginization" of Western-educated elites are also a cause.

4) Part of the resentment of Western civilization is based on the observation that while formerly the West were repressive, imperialistic infidels but nonetheless "people of the book", now they have simply become godless decadents, which in the eyes of observant Muslims is worse. Much is made of Europe having become essentially a "post-Christian civilization".

Thanks for posting, Neal.

My comment here is that the resentment is not so much religious in origin as it is a case of the age-old "have nots" resenting the "haves". This ties in with the view of arrogant and godless decadents you mention. I have never really accepted "Western arrogance" as valid. I would change it to "perceived arrogance", since arrogance is in the eyes of the beholder (the "have nots"). "Have-nots" need the pie-in-the-sky, opiate-of-the-masses religious faith to hang their hopes on. Religion = hope. Perceiving the arrogant and godless decadents = demonization. Demons are evil, and must be defeated. The Great Satan must be destroyed.

In reality, I would argue that America is neither godless, decadent, nor arrogant. Before 90% of you jump to refute this, I understand the perceptions, and that many Americans of differing viewpoints accept these characterizations of this country, but in reality America is simply made up of people who live in a society. A society exists to solve life's problems. We have solved problems of survival, by whatever means, noble or not, during our history, and have reached a standard of living that allows us to concentrate on the next set of less basic problems, which are more trivial-seeming to those still struggling with the basics (i.e. the Third World). This doesn't make individuals or the American society as a whole decadent or arrogant or godless. We're just "at a different place", dealing with things that don't apply to the Third World. (Why they don't apply is a separate consideration.)

Even the "haves vs. have-nots" element would not lead to such hatred if not for the fact that the "haves" lifestyle is being accepted and without military force would completely infest the "have-nots" culture which has been built around "not having". The West is only a threat to Islam because citizens of Islam choose, when allowed to freely choose, to adopt aspects of Western culture. Contrary to what might be said, we're not forcing our culture on anyone who doesn't want it.

So, I think the struggle is not Islam vs. the West, at least not at the true root of the matter, but simply the Third World vs. the West. That Islamic countries are largely Third World is important only in that it unifies them.

As a devoted agnostic, I can only hope right now that the hijackers have come face to face with God, and realize that they have made an eternal mistake.

I've probably left myself open to counterarguments, as I feel I haven't done a good job of presenting my thoughts in this post. Oh, well.

make that "... a _devout_ agnostic..."

On 2001-09-15 22:02, madscientist wrote:
Tom1971, I think that you will like this site. We like Xers here. And to your enjoyment, we participate in Boomer bashing more than bashing all other generations combined.

Indeed, we're so heavily into Boomer-bashing here that some of us who are conventionally thought of as Boomers insist that we are not! If you would like to know what I mean, check out this Web site:

http://www.babybusters.org

The past week has caused two particular 3T behaviors, flamewars and trolling on USENET, to subside. I just visited rec.sport.football.college. That newsgroup is notorious for trolling other newsgroups during the offseason. Since there were no Div. IA football games, one of the regulars decided to troll the British soccer newsgroups. Some of the other regulars, instead of joining in the troll, as they would have even a week ago, told the UK soccer fans to ignore the troll. I never thought I'd see that! The endemic flamewars on rec.arts.marching.drumcorps have died down, too. Of course, that's cut way down on the number of posts there...

One newsgroup that is relatively unaffected is alt.tv.survivor. They're still posting links to Jerri's Playboy photos, discussing Big Brother and other reality shows, and talking about the Fall TV lineup. How 3T! Someone did post what Noam Chomsky had to say about 911 though. Hmm...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vince Lamb '59 on 2001-09-16 02:52 ]</font>

Brian, I sincerely hope that we will see a positive future in which ideas like those proposed by David Korten ("The Post-Corporate World") have a chance.

However, I feel that the lure to heroic violence will be strong for some within these movements. It will only hinder changes that need to be made for a successful end to the crisis.

To Neal: (the new Neal):

Check the forum Beyond America. Under Western Europe there are more than 1000 posts (you may have to link to the old forum) seeking to apply the forum to various countries over the last few centuries. We have had some success. To summarize my own views, Russa and Mexico are ahead of us (in 4T), Western Europe and China are behind us (they both have HUGE Silent generations.) Israel and Palestine are also ahead of us--their last crisis was about 1920-48. As for Saudi Arabia, AFghanistan, etc., I don't think anyone has even speculated, but it's interesting that Iraq and Saudi Arabia got their independence in 1920 or so.
Michael E: about those missile strikes--sily in retrospect, maybe, but they fit our overall perception of the threat and level of caring. If we were perfectly rational we wouldn't have turning.