A few random thoughts on 3T/4T, WWI or WWII, Harper's Ferry or Gettysburg, just where does 911 fall on the scale?

If we think of current and historical events: Declaration of Independence, Bombing of Pearl Harbor, doughboy Lost coming home from WWI - it's very easy to determine which turning those events were in. WWI -- very clearly 3T, even though it had an expansive scope. Similarly, Desert Storm, even though it was over in six months.
I think the reason we're having such a hard time determining what 911 is (and some of us are having a harder time than others, given the very strong opinions one way or the other :smile: ), is because 911 is truly one of these events. That is, it's definitely a capital E-event of its' type, whatever type that is.

I'm not doing this idea justice, but this might help: Few debate whether or not Pearl Harbor is actually the (then) modern personification of Lincoln's election, of the Declaration of Independence, or even if it was WWI repeated. I believe this is becuase these Events are very solid, well-fleshed examples of something that truly has no prototype.

In T4T, S&H predict the 3T might continue through 2006 or so, albiet more 'jittery' than previous years. This is a possiblity. This may also prove to be the catalyst that evokes the next 4T. At this point I can't say which, **not** because the event itself is inscrutable, but simply becuase we aren't reliving history to the degree that we can successfully 'pin' Harper's Ferry or the Spanish Armada onto modern examples of T events.

That said, 911 isn't truly any of the previous Events. I think it's more than a little-e event, and is elevated to Event status, but precisely where it measures against other calendars, I can't say.

I think that future historians will remember 911, and this will be an event that achieves the same kind of national stature that other Events have. (This is over and above the ghastly personal toll, and the unprecedented attack on U.S. soil). This is the legacy. If it ultimately turns out to be a 3T event, it will be viewed as a harbinger or omen to the 4T that I think we all see coming. If it is ultimately a 4T event (and I shy away from saying "viewed as a 4T Event, becuase once history has turned I don't feel the labels are open to much debate), it may cough and sputter, or roar into life.

Future historians (I hope I'm around for those discussions) will no doubt view their own future with dread and wonder "Is a 911 coming? Was that 'our' 911?"

I view looking at a Saecular calendar, not with dates, but maybe just blank spots marking the days. But, we see a cluster of activity around what appears to be fall, and another at what appears to be winter. This new dot (911) isn't right next to the other dots, but it isn't that far away either. We're getting good at predicting the seasons, and in the years to come we'll add more dots to our seasonal change to mark the passing of the sun ... and have a clearer picture of things. But that's then, and this is now, and things aren't as clear.

(I did see a post last week that suggested this was a 3T event merely becuase the 911 label was sticking. I do agree that 911 is a very Xer label, and likely a 3T label, and I agree it's sticking, but I'll stop my speculation there).

PS: I see a nice revival in Nike's "just do it" phrase. Could come in handy.

On 2001-09-24 16:19, Neisha '67 wrote in response to Angeli:
I thing the one thing we all need to keep in mind is that this 4T will not be WWII and the Great Depression and the next 1T will not be the Eisenhower Era. Boomers are not Missionaries and will not set the stage for anything that comparatively repressive.

Good point. One of the hallmarks of turn-of-the-century America was its World Fairs with their paternalistically racist (live) "exhibits" of "primitive" peoples: Filipinos, Eskimos, Pygmies, etc. This easy categorization of humans, presented as educational and scientific, must have played a role in Calfornia Governor Earl Warren's willingness to put so many Japanese-Americans into camps.

If there is a certain amount of repression in the coming 4T -- and I think there will be some -- I wonder what form it will take? What issues are Boomers willing to forego?

On 2001-09-24 16:19, Neisha '67 wrote:
Boomers are not Missionaries and will not set the stage for anything that comparatively repressive.

now perhaps you were only speaking of "setting the stage", but missionaries didn't run the "really repressive part", the lost did. and speaking as a member of the next reactive gen, i'll be pushing for more repression.

because i'm evil.

bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!


TK

(Matthew said)
"I have a question about the terrorist attacks of last week.

What do we know for sure about the identity of the people responsible?

I mean, everybody's talking about bin Laden and the Taliban and so on, but what do we know for sure?"

I don't think we do. I think all anyone will committ to is that bin Laden is the #1 suspect.

This has bothered me for days. Thanks.

TrollKing, you really are joking, right? I fear for my artist kid! :wink:

From Mr Strauss: "In my view, Bill's comment, about how we might look at the relationship between the Taliban and Islam in the context of Nazi Germany and Christianity, is well within the range of ideas that are worth discussion on this forum."

True but it would be helpful however to have even a minor knowledge of 19th and early 20th century German intellectural and cultural history.
So briefly:

19th Century Germany was characterized by a general deChristianizing of the German intellectual elites and common people. It began with a series of "biographies of Christ" that transformed the understanding of Christ from that of devine universal redeemer to good moral character with no devine characteristics. The most popular book of the century was David Friedrich Strauss's "Life of Christ" which was published in various editions that contended in some editions that Christ was a heroic commoner who was willingly misinterpreted by his followers as a devine being. In other editions when Strauss was more angry, Christ is defined as a shyster in league with a fraud. (btw "Live of Christ"s English translator was Mary Ann Evans aka George Eliot and thus the influence in English literature). This trend culminated in the purely materialistic philosphy of Hegel"s "historicism", which begat left and right wings that proved both foundations for Nazi and Communist philosophy. Consequently, the Germany that entered the 20th century was composed of Christian churches that had defined-out a devine Christ (much like current mainline American Protestant denominations) and an aggressive atheism. In this arid spritual atmosphere, various forms of spiritualism and occultism also flourished.

Nazis were not Christians and the nation they inherited was not very Christian. Hitler considered Christianity too passive to be a foundation for his Reich and was an occultist and pagan. He saw Christianity as a form of Judaism that had infected the arian race.

He accepted that stomping out Christianity would interfere with his plans so he allowed the practice of a "National Church" that was beholden to him and that he hoped would die out. He closed all religous schools and made Sunday morning participation in "Hitler youth" programs mandatory to keep children away from Christian influences.

I have one new comment, something I don't think anyone has mentioned. If indeed we are in the 4T, as I think we are, the last Millennial has been born. The new Artist generation is alive and well. And actually, it won't take more than one more terrorist act, if that, to turn American parents into the most overprotective types we've ever seen. As I've said before, look for the new Shirley Temple to emerge by 2005.

My second comment claims a little bit of a privilege of age. I've now lived through three whole turnings. (The early crisis does give me an excellent chance of making it into the next high, and a remote chance--still not a good one--of making it to the new Awakening--sigh. . .) Folks, they take a LONG time. They also include many changes within them. Elections will still take place. Meanwhile, we will still have to live. In this one, the Thirteeners, it seems, will have the job of keeping daily life (particularly family life) on some sort of an even keel. We need to be patient with everyone.

Now on to the immediate future: the consensus in my workplace is that Bin Laden is planning his next spectacular for AFTER we make our first series of strikes. What, does everyone suppose, will be the reaction of the country then?

On 2001-09-24 16:58, Neisha '67 wrote:
TrollKing, you really are joking, right? I fear for my artist kid! :wink:

yes, i kid. i'm a kidder.

but i do have to say that i'm pretty damn disenchanted with the choices people seem to have a habit of making when left to their own wits. i look forward (at least a little) to a time when folks practice a little more self-repression, if indeed it ever comes.


TK

Wow -- Susan B. just dropped a bombshell with her analysis of arts -- how mass arts (I assume music, movies, tv, even novels) wane in a 4T/1T environment, wheras visual arts (painting, sculpture) move forward.

I completely agree with the conclusion, here are some more thoughts on why:

(And before I start I was just spending some time thinking specifically about Jackson Pollock in particular ... I thought he must be a Silent, but he just didn't *feel* like a Silent - is he on the cusp? -- at some points of course sociology gives way to psychology and this analysis breaks down).

- I don't think the reason visual arts peak in 4T/1T has to do wiht the 'building' nature of the work. Instead, I think it has to do with the ideas and the art itself.

- In a 2T and even a 3T society is awash in ideas -- I think this is why painting in particular is just so absolutely strange in our time. Painting, I believe, needs two things to move as an artistic force: discipline, and community. One lone artist (jackson pollock) incrementally building on the work of previous expressionists is beyond powerful, but one lone visual artist (take Dana Thater, even, who I think does stand out but works with projectors rather than paint) in a sea of thousands of other lone visual artists really loses it's steam. Consider:

Headline 1: New York's art galleries are shocked by the bold paintings of Jackson Pollock, whose smears and splatters of paint seem amateurish in comparisons to others, but who is packing galleries nonetheless. The master elders of the art world distance themselves from his work. (note - I have no idea if that's actually what happened to Pollock -- it just sounds like the prototypical story of the painter in the U.S. twentieth century)

Move forward 40 years, to 1991. Headline #2 - Mapplethorp creates minor controversy with self-portrait involving a whip, Guliani removes the elephant-dung encrusted painting of the Madonna (I realize it's s sign of respect - rob). It's like Jane's Addiction says "nothing's shocking." Move over to mass entertainment, and you get Korn, Marylin Manson genuinely shocking at least some people.

- As I mentioned, I think painting takes far more discipline than music, for example. Here's what I mean: music and even moviemaking can lend themselves over to a 'stream of conciousness' approach than painting. Pollock's work may have been actually *painted* stream-of-conciousness (DeKooning's certainly was, right?) but their APPROACH was not. Pollock, Picasso and even Dali all show a very deliberate, concieved notion of where they wanted to be.

- Painting is far more tolerant than music to deliberate 'forcing of the muse' (for lack of a better description). Typically when a rock band thinks long and hard about their next project, it really ends up as a dud. Most bands are at their best when they aren't over-analyzing what they do. (Radiohead is the only recent exception in memory, and I can't figure out if that's becuase I just like the mellow sounds as a change to most Alterna-rock, or if it really is good). Most bands, if given the opportunity (and most are right after their first album), create an overambitious pile of crap? they'd be embarrased to release if they listened to it with clear heads (This phenom is known as the dreaded "sophomore jinx").

- Painting, at least painting in an era of free-flow ideas, suffers from this lack of deliberation. The panintings themselves suffer. Leroy Neiman is the last major painter to change things, and that was 2T business.

- You might find wonderful paintings, or paint/photographs (kelly povo's are outstanding) but they aren't a social force, as they're not part of a cohesive 'scene' the way the painting world was even in the 1960s. Would Warhol (i known, lithographs, not paint) have made such a splash if pop-art wasn't in such stark contrast to the rest of the art world? (I suspect he wouldn't, but I have enough respect for Warhol to suggest he'd do something completely different in a 3T, and he'd still be famous.

-- Some of the most end .... oh forget it-the single highest time, most artistic time this nation has ever had for home design, appliance design, even generic machine design was in the 1930s. Several years ago I had the pleasure of walking by (on my way to work) a display of irons, blenders and just household cruft from the deco era of the 1930s. The streamlined locomotives of the era hold up as well, as does the first diesel electric train of the era.

Is this the 4t? Maybe --- but once it comes, I think part of it is going to be fun. I'll just stop watching for the next musical trend and start visiting galleries more. (btw - there is an excellent gallery in uptown Minneapolis that has a display of a lamp made to look a bit like an iron, that reminded me very much of deco-era art without being derivative.

-- final thought -- mass appeal art like movies, music, etc. may be easier to flower in an inner-driven era (and awakening) becuase they require time and effort on the part of the partron, less so on the artist. Graphical arts are the oppostite.

Robocooper, thanks for your fascinating reply. You make some great points.

FWIW, Jackson Pollock was born in 1912. His wife, Lee Krasner, another abstract expressionist painter, was born several years later. If you haven't already, you should rent the movie "Pollock" starring Ed Harris in the title role.

Barbara,

1. I personally could care less what your grandson does. I was simply pointing out that according to S&H during a 4th turning voices of dissent are not well received.

2. If this peace movement fizzels out quickly I believe that does proviede evidence that we are in a fourth turning.

3. Falwells coflicts did not further his movements cause.

4. To the best of my knowledge S&H have never said whether this is a fourth turning.

How do I indent quotes?

Bob Cooperman wrote:

The only slight amplification on his remarks, would be that in 1979, there was a feeling that he perceives as a Third Turning, but that I had perceived as that of a Fourth Turning. I remember growing up hearing about the national mood after Pearl Harbor, and thought I saw some of that mood at the end of 1979.

At that time, there were the US hostages held by the government of Iran, which was accompanied by people flying the flag, a generally patriotic mood, and by formerly apolitical Gen-X'ers drawing anti-Iranian graffitti. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , which soon followed reinforced that mood, of the nation being close to a war.

--- end quote

In 1979, I didn't pay much attention to the hostage crisis. I liked Carter as much as any 15-year old could, but to me the whole hostage crisis spoke of the generic, numbing malaise more than anything. I was more interested in John Anderson at the time, but the pollsters wouldn't let me in to even read the political literature. Cads. I remember everyone hating the Shah, some good jokes on the radio, some morons from my class harassing Iranian refugees. It wasn't from patriotism, though, they were just thugs.

For me 1979 was way to close to the bizarre bazaar that was 1976 to fly any flags without irony. (Danger! Random thought ahead!) For a great sendup of the 70s, please go rent "The Sprit of '76" starring perennial alterna-rock gods, Redd Kross. (/End Random Thought)

BTW -- Bob Cooperman from 1964 is very eerie to read for a Rob Cooper from '64. I noticed in your post you saw this as well ..... is your middle initial a J also?

You go to the post you want to quote from, click on the "quote" icon that appears at the bottom of the post, a window will automatically appear containing the quoted material. Then just delete what you don't want and add your own thoughts.

Someone suggested that Boomers weren't Missionaries. I'd just like to point out that, around the 1900s and somewhat after, the "Prophets" of that time were known as missionaries because of their connection with the Student Volunteer Mission. The big goal of the time was to evangelize the world by AD 1900 or shortly thereafter. Now, people on this forum may not be aware of it, but many Boomers have been involved in a recent campaign to do the same thing. Both the 1900 and 2000 campaigns were spectacular failures - a lot of people evangelized but not the whole world! - but they were both massive campaigns that dominated the attention of the evangelical world. And they were accomplished by Boomers and, to some extent, GI's...

Also, someone said: "The right to privacy might short term come under siege. Right now I?m not in such a mood to throw a tantrum if it starts to happen." I would just comment that the "trigger" of a 4T puts us in a mood that is accepting of cultural change that would not happen in any other Turning. Perhaps that is one of the surest signs that the 4T is upon us.

-> I would expect a public school voucher system might go through. Simplification and making things work, and security issues. Parents will want their kids to go to schools where they are safe, and any perceived non-safe schools will receive a backlash.

-> I received a form today for our condo association to fill out "in case of disaster or a need to evacuate." Hmm....

-> I would expect potential censorship of the news.

-> I would expect a massive privacy crunch if there are any more terrorist attacks. (One might spark the idea, but repeated attacks will enforce it.)

-> I would expect a tightening of our borders.

-> I would expect some severe conflicts over the ethnic "minorities" in our midst. Racial problems may flash quite high.

-> I would expect at least one or two more terrorist attacks.

-> I would expect severe problems from the south and midwest from evangelicals who are concerned about privacy issues - just try putting together an identity card, and see what you get when readers of the "Left Behind" series start connecting the dots in their own mental scenarios of the future.

-> I wonder how Americans will feel when American missionaries overseas are martyred in the midst of this? We haven't heard much on the news at all about the 8 Western aid workers and 50+ Afghanis held in jail on the charge of preaching the gospel.

Just some additonal thoughts on what lies ahead.

Here's someone who senses a new Turning.

The Western Petroleum Marketers Assoc. included this
in their weekly newsletter. I'm not sure who the
author is, but it really puts everything into
perspective. I have sent this to almost everyone in my
address book so some of you will probably be getting
this from several other sources.
......................................
ON MONDAY.....
On Monday there were people fighting against praying
in schools.
On Tuesday you would have been hard pressed to find a
school where someone was not praying.

On Monday there were people trying to separate each
other by race, sex, color and creed.
On Tuesday they were all holding hands.

On Monday we thought that we were secure.
On Tuesday we learned better.

On Monday we were talking about heroes as being
athletes.
On Tuesday we relearned what hero meant.

On Monday people went to work at the world trade
centers as usual.
On Tuesday they died.

On Monday people were fighting the 10 commandments on
government property.
On Tuesday the same people all said 'God help us all'
while thinking 'Thou shall not kill'.

On Monday people argued with their kids about picking
up their room.
On Tuesday the same people could not get home fast
enough to hug their kids.

On Monday people picked up McDonalds for dinner.
On Tuesday they stayed home.

On Monday people were upset that their dry cleaning
was not ready on time.
On Tuesday they were lining up to give blood for the
dying.

On Monday politicians argued about budget surpluses.
On Tuesday grief stricken they sang 'God Bless
America'.

On Monday we worried about the traffic and getting to
work late.
On Tuesday we worried about a plane crashing into
your house or place of business.

On Monday we were irritated that our rebate checks
had not arrived.
On Tuesday we saw people celebrating people dying in
the USA.

On Monday some children had solid families.
On Tuesday they were orphans.

On Monday the president was going to Florida to read
to children.
On Tuesday he returned to Washington to protect our
children.

On Monday we emailed jokes.
On Tuesday we did not.

Hopefully the lessons learned in these past two
weeks, the things we have taken for granted, the
things that have been forgotten or overlooked, never
will be again.

Somewhere back there... caught between a "robocooper" and a "TrollKing," a young woman bore her heart, "Lest this sound post-seasonal and cynical of me, I'd like to say that for me, personally, the Crisis started in Prague two years ago, with the bombing of Kosovo and the bomb threats on Americans and the neo-Nazis chasing me all over the place, and everything getting very weird over there."

Reminds me of the hero of Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, who caught the mood: 'All my beautiful lovely safe world blew itself up here [on the Somme] with a great gust of high-explosive love.'

Thank you, ms angeli.

Besides using the "quote" button in a post to be quoted, there's another way, too. Type the word "quote" inside brackets ([]) to begin the indent, and type "/quote" inside brackets to end it. Works like any other HTML code.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Brian Rush on 2001-09-24 20:35 ]</font>

Also, someone said: "The right to privacy might short term come under siege. Right now I?m not in such a mood to throw a tantrum if it starts to happen." I would just comment that the "trigger" of a 4T puts us in a mood that is accepting of cultural change that would not happen in any other Turning. Perhaps that is one of the surest signs that the 4T is upon us.

...and so it begins

"Ashcroft Seeks Sweeping New Powers"

http://www.msnbc.com/news/632335.asp?pne=msn

-> I would expect severe problems from the south and midwest from evangelicals who are concerned about privacy issues - just try putting together an identity card, and see what you get when readers of the "Left Behind" series start connecting the dots in their own mental scenarios of the future.

I was wondering if anyone else would comment on this!

By the way, even if this is not a literal fulfillment of prophecy, the RR are quite correct to be suspicious of the idea of a national identity card. This is something that has been pushed and pushed and pushed for years by a group I tend to think of as "the usual suspects", when I think of danger to our freedom.

Just as I feared, they are using the 911 attack as an attempt to put this idea (and some other very bad ideas) into practice.

Incidentally, the head of Oracle Software, a man by the name of Larry Ellison, has offered, out of the goodness of his giving heart, to supply the software to make such an identity card work free of charge.

See the following story:

http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/ne...llsn092301.htm

The card idea is apparently already ready to go into effect in the UK, see this story:

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P2S2.shtml

All I have to say is _terrific_! (That was Xer sarcasm, in case you didn't know!)

Susan, those are really excellent points about visual arts florishing during a high. I thing the one thing we all need to keep in mind is that this 4T will not be WWII and the Great Depression and the next 1T will not be the Eisenhower Era. Boomers are not Missionaries and will not set the stage for anything that comparatively repressive. Besides, the really repressive part of the 1950's only lasted until Kennedy's election. It was a short-lived reaction to horror and upheaval and could not be sustained.

It's too soon to tell if this 4T will be anything like World War II. In 1929, which is the general date set for the onset of the last 4T, World War II (and Hitler for that matter) were not even visible on the scope!

As for Boomers, they've got their own repressive instincts, which the last few years have abundantly shown. I can easily imagine a 1T where universal surveillance and individual profiling is taken for granted as normal, where people are expected to 'show need' before they buy items that might _possibly_ be used as weapons, or that racism (as defined by whoever is in power) is a punishable offense.

It doesn't _have_ to be that way, but it most certainly could be!

Bear in mind what this 3T (the 'Roaring 90's?) has already seen: people have been fired for making racist _comments_. Not actions, just comments, or for comments that were simply deemed insensitive.

We've seen a town in Florida install surveillance cameras to watch the public streets, and compare faces to records. It wasn't two weeks into the activity before the first mistaken identity got taken in by police on charges of failing to pay child support and alimony (I believe those were the charges. In any case the poor sap turned out to be innocent).

We've seen the feminist movement call for what they call 'comparable worth', in which an external authority would set the relative value of wildly different jobs, so as to assign 'fair' pay and benefits, without any regard to market reality.

(Want to take a guess who gets to be the most important job in this system?)

We've seen the careers of military officers destroyed for the offense of disagreeing with gender integration in the military. Not refusing to obey orders about it, merely for expressing doubts.

In the sixties, we saw student activists who behaved as if they thought that if they just burned down _enough_ university buildings, and yelled _enough_ obscenities at returning soldiers, Utopia would arrive!

(I do not tar all Boomers with this brush, but for a few it fits.)

We've seen fringe Religious Righ types shoot abortionists in the name of the sanctity of human life, and we've seen fringe environmental activitis and anti-tech types planting bombs and spiking trees, turning them into traps for lumber workers.

I could go on. The Boomers are like most generations, with lots of good and bad people, and lots in the middle, but let's not pretend that they are _inherently_ less repressive than the other Idealist generations.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/ne...llsn092301.htm
Larry Ellison (Oracle) proposes national ID card system; polls
indicate Americans strongly support such a system

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_...00/1559245.stm
British Home Secretary considering compulsory identity cards
despite growing opposition to them

I quoted about the same matter you did, I didn't see your post in time!

On 2001-09-24 20:34, Brian Rush wrote:
Besides using the "quote" button in a post to be quoted, there's another way, too. Type the word "quote" inside brackets ([]) to begin the indent, and type "/quote" inside brackets to end it. Works like any other HTML code.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Brian Rush on 2001-09-24 20:35 ]</font>

A word of caution, though: be careful when you nest quotes, it's easy to overlook a tag and end up with a confusing-looking post. (I know, I've done it!)

On 2001-09-24 09:28, Brian Rush wrote:
I do think it's common to understate the contribution of GIs to the Awakening, and not just as a foil for Boomers. In addition to the names already mentioned, add Dr. Benjamin Spock, frequent war protester; science fiction writers Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land) and Frank Herbert (Dune) for early foreshadowing of Awakening themes; and many others. And finally, never forget that what Boomers are is what GIs raised us to be. They may not have understood or approved of all the weird ramifications, but they saw the need for change in society early on, being a generation that in its own time fomented a lot of it. The "generation gap" was not a simple thing.

Now here is something I think we agree on, Brian!

Are you familiar with Heinlein's 'juvenile' short stories, part of his 'Past Through Tomorrow' future history? The contrast between those stories, such as Blowups Happen and The Man Who Sold The Moon, and Stranger In A Strange Land, or Time Enough For Love, is truly astounding. It's almost a microcosm of the 1T/2T transition.

How does _Dune_ foreshadow the Awakening, though? I'm not sure I follow you here.

The fact that one faction of America sees a fault in their own country that an enemy also sees proves one of two things:

1. The faction is actually aligned with the enemy.

2. The fault really exists, and is visible to both.

Or, 3. Both parties perceive as fault what is actually a values disagreement between themselves and the society in question, and both parties share essentially the same values.

But they _don't_ share the same values, except in so far as they both condemn such things as adultery and murder.

The Taliban _expressly_ seeks a literal theocracy. Their version of clergy, in their ideal state, would not just have greater power than the government, they would _be_ the government.

The American RR, in spite of all the propaganda the media spin out, _don't_ wish that! They would, admittedly, prefer that their faith spread, but that's true of all religions. Seeking to proselytize does not constitute subversion or an attempt to dominate the nation.

There is no reason to believe that the American Christian right and the Muslim fundamentalists are actually in cahoots. There is just a similarity about them that causes them to see things in a similar way. American evangelicals might think the country got what was coming to them, but they are not unaware that it's their country, too. They are not going to side with the enemy.

More than that. Even in the badly-timed words of Falwell and Robertson, the fear is based on a love of country in their own way.
The RR fears that the nation is on a collision course with disaster as a result of the beliefs of its current culture. They may well be wrong, but they are not driven by a hostility to America, but a desire rather to warn of what they believe is a real danger.

One does not have to agree with them to recognize that they are driven, in their own way, by a love of country.

What I mean by a "complex mythos" is one that can encompass more than one religious tradition, that in fact embraces a rich diversity of religious traditions, and that does not exalt one narrow tradition over all others. It is a mythos that recognizes the uncertainty of knowledge and the impossibility of recording the being of God or the will of God for all humanity in a book. It is a mythos that recognizes that each person finds God in the small voice within, not in the loud voice without.

That's the common Boomer/Prohet/Idealist outlook, if Strauss and Howe are accurate in their analysis. We'll just have to agree to disagree here, because on this issue I agree with the RR that God is external to humans.

The Taliban make the hardcore evengelicals look like the mainstream methodists in terms of their ideal society.

Yes, but they also make most Muslim fundies look just as permissive. I think Iran under Khomeini might provide a closer match.

Iran is still a theocracy, with a clergyman is 'supreme leader' of the Revolution (I think that is their terminology). The RR is not seeking this (except for a handful of true extremists who even the RR consider half-mad), and in fact many of the evangelicals are agressively local, disliking even the idea of a central church authority within their own sects.

I suspect that the Taliban/Bin Laden, if they were grading societies on the basis of how secular they were, would assign current Iran a B-, Saudi Arabia a C, an RR dominated America a D-, and secular America an F.




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2001-09-24 22:17 ]</font>

On 2001-09-24 13:55, Barbara wrote:
It sometimes seems to me that the Bush Admin reacts as if 911 had been a personal, private assualt on Bush himself. And, in light of Bush the Elder's complicity through his CIA association and leadership in creating these current-day Arab demons, aka Saddam and Ussama, I'm not ruling that possibility out, in a ironic gallows humor sort of way. While I am NOT predisposed AT ALL to suggesting that Bush caused by ordering or ignoring knowledge of the attacks, sometimes I do possess a nagging thought that the attacks were not so much a message to America as a message to him, or that it was both.

I remember hearing on NPR during the campaign (I forget the correspondent--I may also have read it in Jeff Greenfield's book on E2K) that loyalty is considered a very important virtue by the Bushes--and that Bush Jr. was the person in the White House charged with maintaining and monitoring loyalty among subordinates. Remember that the two wars fought by Bush Sr. were both against former US clients (Noriega and S. Hussein) who strayed and eventually turned against us. Bush Sr. wouldn't put up with it and punished them both. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Bush Jr. took this a bit personally for the same reason.

Additionally, I also would feel more trusting of the surface facts were things not to be SO MUCH in Bush the Younger's political favor NOW. Coincidence? And a coincidence that Bush the Elder played the same bet during his term? Before the 911 attack, Bush the Younger was vascillating and floating in the political wind, as we may recall, and our economy was already cracking at the seams. No matter how one feels about partisan politics or the particular politicians, is this a way to gain the advantage? I look at the Republican Party's behavior up to now, and that is not encouraging.

Bush Sr. won the war, but lost the election. The same could happen to W if the economy doesn't recover. Even worse would be if we suffer the equivalent of a Dunkirk and W flubs the war (not likely, but possible)!

Leaving the Third Turning?

MTV's CEO Tom Freston says the end of narcissistic entertainment is near.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/632693.asp