Those words by Bush struck me hard as well.

My conclusion is that this kind of "war" is right up a "nomadic" generation's alley.

Unlike WWI, which forced the Lost generation "adventures" into trenches and stalemate "conventional" warfare, we my be witnessing a true-life Xer "adventure" unfold against the "Evil One."

Craig, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that what you are, my young friend, is a curmudgeon. It's rare to find a curmudgeon at age 17, but you're it.

The entire blue zone? Sorry but these things DO matter...they're a question of right or wrong no matter what turning your in

OK, OK. Sheesh. Can you understand the difference between a surrender and a strategic peace? We're not going to gain any significant ground on gay rights or any of the other culture-wars issues in the immediate future. Only the other side could hope to gain by continued struggle at this point in time. As HopefulCynic said, peace means we substantially win. And we have, but under these circumstances we're not going to win a heck of a lot more for a while.

This is not to say that the issues will completely disappear, or never return. They will, surely in your lifetime if not mine. Even in a Crisis era, some progress on cultural issues is possible. There were (minor) gains for both blacks and women in the last 4T, but nothing like what was achieved in the following Awakening. And that, I think, is what we should anticipate this time around as well.

Now, I do think there's some prospect of ending the war on drugs in this 4T, and if you want to call that a culture-wars issue then it's an exception. But I contend that it's an exception only because it's also a civic-order issue, one of the distorting factors in our foreign policy that gets us into situations like this war.

One other thing. You argued on another thread that Boomers have no vision compared to your generation at this point. I wish to make it known here and now that, so far, you have articulated not one single vision that was not a Boomer vision long before you ever heard of it. We may have done a lousy job of living up to our own ideals, but they are our ideals nonetheless, and you can't claim them except by right of inheritance.

Barbara:

I don't know if this fits in the Red Zone or not, but the Blue Zone hasn't a prayer politically in the immediate future, anyway. The Republican (well, the Bush) agenda has a clear runway. Anyone objecting too honestly will get the "Berkeley/Barbara Lee" treatment.

I think that's overstating the case, except with respect to the war itself. Bush's energy policy is still DOA, and he isn't going to get his missile shield, either. (And he's not a Culture Warrior anyway.)

On 2001-10-13 06:29, Marc Lamb wrote:
I guess my real point was; would
you even want to live to see the next gray champ, Barb?

Think about it... You're a Silent. Do you really wish to live to see a bunch of Boomers stuff all those things back into the bottle that your generation let out of the bottle back during the Awakening?

That's not going to happen. The Crisis will institutionalize big changes that started during the Awakening (women having careers, full inclusion of Blacks and other races and ethnicities into our culture, intermarriage, etc...) just like in the past Crisis, big changes people fought for during the previous Awakening (like the standard of a high school education for boys AND girls, women's suffrage, sensible clothes for women, municipal sanitation standards, and the like) were solidified during the Crisis.

So yeah, Barbara, of course you'll want to see it happen.

On 2001-10-13 08:30, Marc Lamb wrote:
Those words by Bush struck me hard as well.

My conclusion is that this kind of "war" is right up a "nomadic" generation's alley.

Unlike WWI, which forced the Lost generation "adventures" into trenches and stalemate "conventional" warfare, we my be witnessing a true-life Xer "adventure" unfold against the "Evil One."

Marc, this nomad does not see any "adventure" as this administration has made it clear that it is determined to wage this war in such a way that we can neither see it nor monitor its progress. In other words, just trust them. Wrong answer.

Here is a very interesting take on this war. Don't know what to make of it but it is something to consider:

www.copvcia.com/stories/oct_2001/heroin.html

Ms. Genser writes, "That's not going to happen. The Crisis will institutionalize big changes that started during the Awakening (women having careers, full inclusion of Blacks and other races and ethnicities into our culture, intermarriage, etc...) just like in the past Crisis, big changes people fought for during the previous Awakening (like the standard of a high school education for boys AND girls, women's suffrage, sensible clothes for women, municipal sanitation standards, and the like) were solidified during the Crisis."

One might consider some of the 'stuff' that went 'back into the bottle' during the last fourth turn:

Consider:
WILL HAYS stamps out smut A Brief History of the Legion of Decency

Consider:
J EDGAR HOOVER steps on Civil Liberties in The CIA Goes Primetime: Is History Repeating Itself?

Consider:
DONNA LUCEY stops at 1920 in her new book I Dwell in Possibility Women Build a Nation: 1600 to 1920

Consider:
PEGGY NOONAN today, swooning Welcome Back, Duke
From the ashes of Sept. 11 arise the manly virtues.

While some 'stuff' of which Ms. Genser refers will no doubt 'institutionalize' during the next fourth turn. I wonder which it will be in the 'light of history.'

The Fourth Turning page 257
"Each of these sparks is linked to a specific threat about which society had been fully informed but against which it had left itself poorly protected. Afterword, the fact that these sparks were *foreseeable* but poorly *foreseen* gives rise to a new sense of urgency about institutional dysfunction and civic vulnerability. This marks the beginning of the vertiginous spiral of Crisis."
Plain Dealer Saturday October 13, 2001 page A7:
EXPERTS SCOLD U.S. FOR IGNORING DEADLY THREAT WARNINGS
Terrorism experts scolded the federal government yesterday for ignoring past warnings of deadly threats to America, and urged lawmakers to give more power to the new director of homeland security...

Marc Lamb asks:

While some 'stuff' of which Ms. Genser refers will no doubt 'institutionalize' during the next fourth turn. I wonder which it will be in the 'light of history.'

Good question. Let's consider it, then, in light of history. But let's make sure we look at each saeculum's progress in its own context. That is: specific changes that occurred in the Great Power Saeculum do not necessarily bear on specific changes to be expected in this one, in any one-for-one fashion. But we should expect the relationship between the Awakening issues and Crisis developments to remain fairly constant from one saeculum to the next.

What were the Awakening issues of the Missionary Awakening? First and foremost, the rights of workers -- to form unions, to decent working conditions, to reasonable workdays, to a living wage. Secondly, the right of women to vote. Third, a challenge to puritanism and Victorianism, a loosening of sexual morality and styles of dress.

There were backlashes against all of these in the Unraveling. Marc has referenced every one of those backlashes at one time or another. But by the end of the Crisis, every one of them had been institutionalized.

What were the issues of the Boom Awakening? What kinds of backlash have occurred during the Unraveling? And what may we conclude are likely to be institutionalized cultural changes by the end of the Crisis?

I'll leave those details to others for now.

Mr. Patton writes, "Marc, this nomad does not see any "adventure" as this administration has made it clear that it is determined to wage this war in such a way that we can neither see it nor monitor its progress."

While I may think this a good and proper way of doing things in "this" kind of conflict, I was referring to the S&H archetype wherein, "We remember Nomads best for their rising-adult years of hell-raising (Paxton Boys, Missouri Raiders, rumrunners) As alienated NOMADS replace Prophets in young adulthood during an Unraveling, they become brazen free agents, lending their pragmatism and independence to an era of growing social turmoil."

Which seems to me well suited to this present conflict.

But then again, if one believes this is a fourth turn then I, Marc Lamb, am all wet.

Slish splash! :smile:

Brian, as to Missionary-gen Awakening issues, one other very important one was child labor, which you may have been alluding to but which I feel needs to be separately noted. For all intents and purposes, child labor and the resulting abuses last felt critically by the Lost, was effectively wiped off the boards, thus resulting in a whole new way of considering, raising, and appreciating our young.

Some may say for better, some may say for worse, but it was a very big deal, and was not backlashed against effectively (and there were people who fought the progress). Life for everyone posting on this board would have been much different, to say the least, had that not occurred!

[ This Message was edited by: Barbara on 2001-10-13 13:25 ]

What were the issues of the Boom Awakening?

I'll start this off, as I suppose it is my generation's cross to bear. , but may I add another generation ran off and made them their own, as is the nature and fate of the Cycle: :grin: :wink:

recognition of the fact that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness entails a healthy respect for and preservation of the land, air and resources of the earth we share (formerly known as the American Indian philosophy, hitherto becoming the Ecology movement)
recognition of the fact that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness applies to all human beings regardless of race, creed, or gender/orientation (thereby begetting civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, and multiculteralism).
recognition of the libertarian belief that people should respect the rights of others to "do your own thing", "follow the beat of a different drummer", "free to be, you and me", and "I'm okay, you're okay", without shame or retribution from not conforming to the previous societal/cultural models. (Expectations of lifestyle, career, marriage, divorce, and parenting choices included here).
similarly, recognition of the idea (libertarian, again, in root?) that human beings be able to express themselves sexually in non-traditional ways as well as tradional ways without shame or retribution from not conforming to the previous societal/cultural models. (cross-referencing gay rights here)
recognition of the idea of a more egalitarian "consumerist" process of participation in politics and government, evolving such from the backrooms and boardrooms to a more open participatory concensus, often with government protection of said participation.
recognition that in our particular time and with our particular scientific advancements (ie, nuclear bomb), that peace-mongering be as important, if not more important, than war-mongering, as alternatives to a situation.
recognition that spiritual beliefs can take many forms, even non-belief, and that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness neccesitates tolerance of individual choices over conforming traditions.

That's a start.....

(Disclaimer: Don't assume that I, personally, believe in any or all of these, please..... okay????) :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: Barbara on 2001-10-13 14:07 ]

On 2001-10-13 12:35, Marc Lamb wrote:

"We remember Nomads best for their rising-adult years of hell-raising (Paxton Boys, Missouri Raiders, rumrunners) As alienated NOMADS replace Prophets in young adulthood during an Unraveling, they become brazen free agents, lending their pragmatism and independence to an era of growing social turmoil."

Which seems to me well suited to this present conflict.

But then again, if one believes this is a fourth turn then I, Marc Lamb, am all wet.

Slish splash! :smile:

Marc, that is a good description of the Nomad in a 3T. But I have the sense that all that social turmoil, which I am interpreting to be the Culture Wars, bit the dust on 11 September. That rot now barely registers a pianissimo french horn interlude in the auditorium of public discourse and I am not anticipating a crescendo at any point in the foreseeable future.

As I look at my copy of TFT, I see that you parsed two separate descriptions and merged them in your quote unless you have a modified newer edition. So let me parse and merge the corresponding 4T Nomad descriptions I have in my book so as to keep to form:

"We remember Nomads best...for their midlife years of hands-on, get-it-done leadership (Francis Marion, Stonewall Jackson, George Patton). As pragmatic Nomads replace Prophets in mid-life, they apply toughness and resolution to defend society while safeguarding the interests of the young."

This Nomad is in 4T mood and ready to get the job done if only the administration would get the hell out of the way. Let me continue with S&H's description:

"Their principle endowments are in the domain of liberty, survival, and honor. Their best-known leaders include Nathaniel Bacon and William Stoughton, George Washington and John Adams, Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. These have been cunning, hard-to-fool realists -- taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one on one. They include the only two presidents who had earlier hanged a man (Washington and Cleveland), one governor who hanged witches (Stoughton), and several leaders who had earlier led troops into battle (Bacon, Washington, Grant, Truman, and Eisenhower)."

Yep, that's me. And it's time to slap leather and hang 'em high. It would seem now that society needs defending so it is time that the administration gets out of the way -- and above all gets its damn hands off our liberty -- so that we can get the job done as quickly, as efficiently, as completely, as honorably, and as honestly as possible. But I'm not holding my breath for this administration to ever find its moral compass.

So you still think we are in a 3T, Marc? Ten more years?

It's a beautiful day outside. What are y'all doing by your computers?

I took a walk for an hour or so, between Confession and Church. What are *you* doing by your computer? :smile:

Hey! I am outside, lounging beside the pool and soaking up a little sun, and using my laptop.

:grin:

On 2001-10-13 16:01, jcarson71 wrote:
It's a beautiful day outside. What are y'all doing by your computers?

It's raining and windy here. I'm doing battle with incipient flu and drinking hot tea while I lurk here and read the latest posts. (Not in much of a writing mood today, anyway).

Get better soon, Susan! :smile:

[quote]
On 2001-10-12 20:19, sv81 wrote:

On 2001-10-12 20:01, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

The Culture War (or more precisely the Cultural Divide) is on the back burner, but it is not gone. I have said before that I think our current unity is more fragile than it appears, and I fear it could be pushed too far, even if this is an early-stage 4T.

Don't forget the huge contribution to unity caused by terrorisn. What is happening to us is decentralized war, from people that won't much longer even have a country to fight out of. They will turn our country into the battlefield, and the cultural divide will be strictly back burner. Remember the crisis is for SURVIVAL. It hasn't touched every citizen yet, but it will - both coasts, mountain states, etc.

This war may yet become a struggle for survival on the part of the West, but it's not there yet. Even if Al Quaida has access to a nuclear weapon, that alone would not give it the power to destroy the U.S., let alone the West.

Likewise, though terrorism COULD reach the scale you describe, it's nowhere close at this point in time. Terrorism by itself rarely brings down established governments or corporate bodies, and many nations have lived with ongoing terrorist problems for decades.

Barb, our favorite mom from Pleasantville, firmly wacks here student upon the knuckles (with words, not a ruler :smile: ), "O, M - A - R - C dear! Don't write me off that quickly now. I'm aiming confidently for 100 years of age, and so even by your turning timetable, I'll still be alive and kicking for the GC, young man!"

Well, I just spent the evening with one of your 1931 cohorts, Barb. A rather amazing gentleman, the father of a close friend born the same year as I.

A group of us got together from down here in "suden Ohiah," and drove up to Columbus for wine, dinner, and a song or two. And a chance to meet my friend's father, your cohort. Wow.

At 70 years of age this man (and his second wife), have just bought a new home. His daughter wanted us to stop by and see it. Its a big home, about 4800 square feet. Its a Spanish hacienda-style home, complete with the red tiled roof, splendid fountain in the middle of the driveway and a garden with a massive pool fountain and all the tacky sculptures gathered round. What a place!

Only one problem though. The place is a sh*thole. Run down as a slum. He bought it for a song and dance... and a lot of sweat and blood to come.

The fact that he has about six months into it, so far, was tremendously revealing. This man has the chutzpuh of an ox. Good lord! What wonders he has already done. Like rebuilding a 20 foot mahogany staircase, then via a pulley system he rigged, fitting in place all by himself! The thing had to have weighed a ton.

Of course that is the short of it. Funny, I asked about the history of the place. It was built is 1929... auctioned off in 1931, the year he was born, for a mere $28,000.

He paid $350,000 for it in 2001. He figures he'll put about another $225,000 plus a lot of blood sweat and tears, into it. Which should value the little hacienda at about one mil sometime around his 73rd birthday.

Go figure, Barb, huh?

p.s. I know this post has no business being posted here in this thread. But it just seemed to fit, IMHO. :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-10-14 14:56 ]

From the Sunday [i] Washington Post [/], for educational purposes (FYI, it quotes Strauss):

Hinges of Opportunity
When the World Moves, The Important Thing to Figure Out Is What's Being Born
(By David Suter - The Washington Post)

By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 14, 2001; Page F01

Hinges in history -- 1914, 1929, 1945, 1963, 1981, and maybe the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

These are pivots on which our lives move from one world to another.

After we swing past them, it's hard to remember what the previous world felt like, or what sense it made. (Why did '50s fraternity boys compete to see how many people they could stuff into a telephone booth? What was a telephone booth?)

Reasonable people differ on when these cultural revolutions have burst through. Some point to the start of World War II or the fall of the Berlin Wall as hinges, rather than peaks in an ongoing narrative. Such debates fuel the history book industry.

Can people living through such a hinge know what's hitting them? Some doubt it.

"You can't possibly tell whether it is a hinge until you have two historical periods to connect it to, one before and one afterwards," says Freeman Dyson, the renowned Princeton quantum physicist and futurist. "It makes no sense to attempt historical judgment about an event that happened only two weeks ago."

However, few deny that hinges in history do exist. Especially if they've survived one. They know how it feels. The way magazine covers from before the hinge seem so quaint. (Who was Gary Condit?) Fewer people in restaurants. More people in churches. The adult sense of determination and decency. The way detachment makes you sound like a sociopath.

"This is about as obvious and mighty a hinge as any that we are likely to experience in our lifetimes," says Michael Marien, editor of the World Future Society's "Future Survey."

All the more reason to learn that the lessons from past hinges are about opportunities.

The Moment of Impact

Hinge moments don't appear out of nowhere. Forces build, like water behind a weakening dam. Telltale signs appear. Then comes the cusp, the straw that breaks the camel's back. History swings open to a new world. The personal computer arrives in 1981, breaking open the Information Age. A Serbian terrorist shoots Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, and ushers in World War I. (On Aug. 3, British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey saw the hinge. He famously said: "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.")

The spectacular changes are small parts of complex dynamic systems. A day at the beach teaches us about these. We build a sand mound, letting the grains stream between our pursed fingers. Up and up the mound builds. Suddenly one grain of sand adds more weight than the accumulated structure can bear. The sand mound collapses. A new reality is born.

It's impossible to predict which grain will finally cause the great disruption, because that is a function of the total history of the entire pile. But we remember watching it happen.

Comparably, everyone of a certain age remembers where they were when they heard about the end of World War II in 1945, or the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Maybe they'll remember where they were when they heard about the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. There's no way to tell yet.

Big headlines aren't the same as hinges: MEN WALK ON MOON, for example. Somehow they don't evoke vast and irreversible changes. Natural disasters -- the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, Hurricane Andrew -- rarely correlate with major social change, although the 1755 Lisbon earthquake caused philosophers to doubt their notion that we were living in "the best of all possible worlds."

Nor do most massacres -- the 1978 Kool-Aid suicides of Jonestown, Guyana, or the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo gas attack in Tokyo. But then, there is the Holocaust.

Economists are endlessly puzzled by financial bubbles. They wonder what causes them to inflate, and what makes them suddenly collapse. "Market psychology," they say, as if that explains anything. But such hinges have real effect. Ask those who enjoyed the rocketing stock market of the 1920s if the crash of 1929 made a difference. By the second half of 1930, a contemporary economist said, people felt "the ground give way beneath their feet." Two years later, 24 percent of the workforce was unemployed.

A New Tale

What changes after a hinge is our stories of ourselves. Who we are, how we got that way, where we're headed, and what makes us tick. The lesson is that any cultural revolution represents a grand new alignment of great forces -- technological, economic, environmental and spiritual. These shape the tales we tell to make sense of our new world.

The period 1880-1914, according to Robert Hughes in "The Shock of the New," was "about the blossoming of a sense of modernity in European culture . . . in which the myth of the Future was born in the atmosphere of millenarian optimism that surrounded the high machine age."

This belle ?poque was marked by ebullience, idealism, confidence. Giants walked the earth, from Edison, Ford and the Wright Brothers to Picasso and Cezanne and Duchamp. There were few uncertainties about the new machines -- the phonograph, the automobile, the electric light. They were seen as unqualifiedly good, strong, obedient servants. Change equaled progress.

In 1910, five young Italian painters issued "The Manifesto of the Futurists." It said: "Comrades, we tell you now that the triumphant progress of science makes profound changes in humanity inevitable, changes which are hacking an abyss between those docile slaves of past tradition and us free moderns, who are confident in the radiant splendor of our future."

How antique. They sound like the dot-commers of -- could it be? -- only two years ago.

During the gruesome and pointless years of World War I, with its machine guns and poison gas, "machinery was turned on its inventors and their children," wrote Hughes. "After forty years of continuous peace in Europe, the worst war in history canceled the faith in good technology, the benevolent machine. The myth of the Future went into shock, and European art moved into its years of irony, disgust and protest." Construction became destruction. The future became the past.

Those who study human perception have a useful description of such a shift. Stare at a certain drawing. At the center is a white figure that looks like a vase, a chalice. Suddenly all you can see is the black part of the same drawing, the part at the edges that looks like two faces staring at each other. Psychologists call this a "figure/ground" reversal. The drawing hasn't changed. It's just the way we see it. Yet the shift is no less real for that. What had been central suddenly has become peripheral. What had been ignorable has suddenly become central.

Carole Horn, a Washington internist, tells the story of a woman who called for a sleeping pill prescription because recent events were keeping her up at night. "I'm sorry to bother you," the patient said. "I'm sure I must be the five hundredth person to call like this."

"Actually, that's not true," the internist later said. "She was the first. All the other calls were for anthrax and smallpox medicine."

What's Being Born

Whenever there is a sharp departure from the norm, the easiest thing to see is the dark side. It's child's play to imagine how plans might fall apart tomorrow, say professional scenario writers. What's harder and more important, they say, is to see long-view opportunities for shaping the new world that is being created.

The potential for hinges of history can be great.

"Brushes with death cut the crap," says W. Brian Arthur, the Santa Fe Institute economist who was one of the pioneers of the new science of complexity. "If we are not frightened, they tighten us up. As a result the mood in the country is suddenly adult and serious -- and, for the most part, in the best traditions of the United States. It is a mood of determination and decency. Of work ahead. Of generosity and a love for freedom. It remains to be seen if this mood prevails. But it brings us into a fine-pointed sense of purpose."

At the 1945 hinge, at the end of World War II, pessimism was rampant. Half the world was in ashes, Roosevelt was in his grave, his replacement was a little-known former haberdasher, and millions of veterans would soon be home looking for work. By far the number one issue on people's minds, according to Gallup, was jobs. A return to the Depression seemed all too likely. The most strike-ridden year in American history was 1946. Meat shortages were widespread. In 1947, America's GNP hit its lowest level since 1942, adjusted for inflation. The pessimists' worst fears seem confirmed.

The rest -- as the saying goes -- is history.

After 1948, America's gross national product, adjusted for inflation, grew at an average rate of more than 4 percent a year for 20 years. That kind of sustained boom was without precedent. America was changed forever.

During the hinge of the early '80s, major corporations made mind-bogglingly small-minded bet-the-company mistakes about what was being born. In 1980, IBM projected that the total U.S. market for personal computers for the next five years would be 241,000 machines. The actual number was almost exactly 100 times that. Soon after, AT&T decided cell phones wouldn't amount to much.

At our 2001 hinge in history, the optimistic scenarios have already described reality better than have the early disaster scripts. Consider the ubiquitous op-ed panics of last month that have not materialized. The president has not gone off half-cocked with indiscriminate military strikes that turned the world against us. Neither has the U.S. naively stigmatized all of Islam. The emphasis has been on multinational, multilateral cooperation. Those early fears of failure kept columnists frenzied only four weeks ago.

Instead, several aspects of the optimistic scenarios have materialized. It's hard to recall such global agreement on any subject. Even the French are on board. Outpourings of altruism are rampant. For the first time in 30 years, two-thirds of all Americans tell pollsters they trust their government to do the right thing. No one has revoked the iron law underpinning the health of our economy -- that computer innovation is still doubling every 18 months.

Of course, any of this could go wrong tomorrow. That's what the instability of a hinge feels like. But at this moment, the disaster scenarios have not been a reliable guide to the future.

William Strauss and Neil Howe noted in their prescient 1997 book, "The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy":

"As in a blizzard, simple but fundamental verities will reemerge. These are the familiar elements of legend and myth that have endured over time simply because they are required in times of peril. Classic virtues that didn't necessarily pay off in an Unraveling (like loyalty, reliability, patience, perseverance, thrift, and selflessness) will become hard currency in Crisis. Were history not seasonal, these virtues would have long since atrophied, vanished from memory as useless to humanity. They remain in our tradition because, once every saeculum [era] they are reaffirmed in full glory, rewarding those who embrace them and penalizing those who do not."

The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.

The Long-Ago Yesterday

To take the long view of the hinge we're going through now, you have to start at least with the narrative of the 1981-2001 world we just left.

On the dark side, the '80s felt different from the '60s and '70s in part because of AIDS, which was first so named in 1982. No longer would casual sex seem so cost-free. A time when sex rarely involved considerations of death now seems so antique. Will we someday see carefree air travel in the same light?

Far more significantly, however, 1981 was marked by what for most Americans was the real launch of the Information Age. The first IBM personal computer would lead to the popularization of the Internet, and then the World Wide Web. Sadly, of course, today cheap, ubiquitous e-mail means that small shadowy networks of partisans can coordinate their activities with a precision that used to demand bureaucratic hierarchies.

The Net has cultural implications. Part of its promise was that it would make ideas impervious to totalitarian blocking. That's a threat to traditional societies. Everything from pornography to dangerous books with ideas about gender equality and independence would be instantly accessible everywhere.

Osama bin Laden and his like believe that with such ideas, the West is destroying ancient cultures. In this they may be correct. Young people worldwide are growing up surrounded by ideas and values that have nothing to do with those of their elders. Every Lakers cap in Islamabad, every Britney Spears T-shirt in Jakarta tells the tale.

Conventional wisdom today holds that we have nothing that traditionalists want. Actually, the problem is the reverse -- we have a great deal desired globally by the young. And we have developed the technology to deliver it. We are now paying the price.

This technological upheaval has also changed us. The great myth of the Information Age has been that of the brilliant lone cowboy changing the world. That's our Bill Gates myth. It began with William Hewlett and David Packard starting their corporate behemoth in a Silicon Valley garage that now has a historical plaque on it. Did it end with the dot-com stock-market collapse? With the World Trade Center destruction?

Francis Fukuyama, author of "The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order," says that now "people suddenly realize they aren't these independent, self-sufficient individuals that they thought they were. They are weak and vulnerable and need help from other people, and that's why communities exist. All of a sudden you realize that you do live in a country and you are attacked because you are an American and you're going to be defended only by other Americans."

Fukuyama wonders if this cultural revolution will alter class divisions. "Over the last 20-30 years, the gap between one of the investment bankers working in the World Trade Center and the fireman who was coming to rescue him just went like this," he says, spreading his hands wide apart. But now he points to the symbolism of having a firefighter ring the bell to reopen the stock exchange. "All these stockbrokers giving them a standing ovation, saying these are our heroes. It was very moving, and I think the symbolism is important."

He wonders if the children of investment bankers might consider other kinds of careers. "Public service might come back. People would actually be proud to serve in the federal government."

A New Life

No one knows whether we have indeed entered a new cultural revolution. There are a lot of guesses around.

"We're coming out of a period in which change was the hero," says Lawrence Wilkinson, a co-founder of Global Business Network, a scenario planning firm that helps organizations think about the very long-term future. "Now change is the enemy, but it is still a main character. We're going to have to work through that until things settle."

Wilkinson sees long waves of economic, corporate and social disruptions in history followed by periods of "lock-in," in which change is digested and normalized. He thinks we may be heading into a period of lock-in.

During the disruptive phases, "innovation outruns the ability of control mechanisms to rein it in. We're socially less cohesive. There's usually a pretty serious redistribution of wealth and power. Fortune 50 companies disappear. Everything about the world our parents knew comes unglued. Everything they took for granted about standards of living and careers began to go away. There's tons of change, and a lot of wealth creation. But it takes some adjusting to. There is a fatigue with change. People end up saying, 'Thank you very much, but we've had enough new stuff now.'

"If 2001 is the marker of the Internet bubble bursting, and the nonexistent New World Order unraveling, that could be a pivot that moves us toward a substantially different kind of life," says Wilkinson. "It could be more unified, more settled down. There will be competition, but by the rules and among players we know. It's not that there is no innovation, but it's more stately. One whole family of triggers" to this transition is "shocks to the system. Things like war. Might be ecological change."

A former president of the Institute for the Future, Roy Amara, memorably pointed out that the impact of revolutionary change is overestimated in the short run and underestimated in the long run.

Right now, at an apparent hinge, the temptation is toward overestimation.

Which is why history is a human story to be listened to.

It may be as Albert Camus put it generations ago:

"To be born to create, to love, to win at games, is to be born to live in times of peace. But war teaches us to lose everything and become what we were not. It all becomes a question of style."

? 2001 The Washington Post Company

Jenny, thanks for posting this article, I read it last night on the washpost website but I'm fumblefingered about putting in Urls.
An idea which has been developing in my head lately is that whether or not 911 was "the" catalyst, this time afterwards is at least as important in creating a change both in American society and in our individual minds.
If all that happened was the WTC attacks, which were in themselves horrifying, but without anything else occurring, it would ultimately have all of the catalytic effect [which is to say none or very little] of a major natural disaster on the culture at large. A hurricane or earthquake, unless you're there in the middle of it, doesn't make you re-evaluate your life and all your values, its just something on the news in the "ain't it awful" category.
It's this time afterwards which I think is at least as important in gestating the society that we're going to be living in for probably the rest of our lives.
Carefree and frivolous are not words that will be used by historians to describe our brave new world. Worry and vigilance will more likely be among the qualities that will define this next span of time.
This is not how most of us have been living prior to 911. Now you turn on the radio and hear endless discussions on anthrax and antibiotics and safe rooms and keeping two weeks of food and water on hand. People are scared [at least I know that I am]. I've read too much about epidemics in history to feel a "what me, worry" attitude towards bioterrorism.
And....this is just what we're worrying about this particular week or two. Who knows what crazy thing will be in our faces next?
This is real, no fooling around fear, 24/7,and it will change people's lives, their values and their relationships in their communities.
Its these months ahead which will give the heft [can't think of a better word] to this hinge moment and will produce the meaningful changes in individual people which will be the foundation of "what comes next".
One last little aside, these forums are tremendously helpful , at least for me, in getting a grip on things in these weird weird times.

Marc Lamb Posted: 2001-09-26 12:27

"In all seriousness, 911 was a vicious attack upon Free Market Capitalism, the very economic engine of Freedom and Liberty of our Republican form of Democracy by idiot anarchists.

The very same thing happened in America eighty years ago.

Though this be lost on everyone else at fourthturning.com, this is not lost on me.

We will rebuild those symbolic towers. They will be even better than the previous towers, with even more symbolic significance than before: Free Market Captialism will rise to this challenge, even as we deepen into the unraveling, just we did eighty years ago."

Seems many things that happened all over the world 'eighty years ago,' are being recalled at this 'time in history.'

Scars of colonialism are not quick to fade
Tensions: European empire building after World War I left a legacy of turmoil in the Islamic world that is still felt today.

Quote:
WHEN THE GAUNT, bearded face of Osama bin Laden appeared on American television screens only minutes after the bombardment of Afghanistan began last Sunday, he justified the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against America with a reference to the history of his region.

"What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted," he said. "Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated."

Only 80 years? Usually the Islamic complaint against the West goes back at least 1,000 years to the Crusaders. But it was 84 years ago almost to the day that Alfred Balfour, then British foreign secretary, declared a policy in which the most powerful empire of the day supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The declaration became a modern pillar of Zionism's claim to Palestine.

And precisely 80 years ago, the British and French victors of World War I were redrawing the map of the Middle East. Balfour's declaration was only one of the many wartime agreements that had to be taken into consideration, but it was still a steadfast part of British foreign policy, even though Balfour's successor despised it.

"The Balfour declaration, for good or ill, clearly did complicate matters," says David Fromkin, a professor at Boston University.

By Michael Hill
Sun Staff
Originally published October 14, 2001

Here's a little ditty I wrote two weeks or so ago while riding on the Metro at 6:30 a.m. (copyright pending). Part of my own personal healing process--if you can't ridicule the Taliban, whom can you ridicule?--not that I don't take the current situation of the world VERY seriously...

The Taliban Song
(Sing it to the tune of the Banana Boat Song, with apologies to Harry Belafonte)

Pray-o, me say pray-e-e-o
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Lady only be my spouse
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones
Gotta stay inside de house
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

One inch, two inch, three inch, thump!
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Lady never go to school
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones
Do that make me look de fool?
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Hey, Mr. Taliban, me rally roun' Osama
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Hindu Kush de big rock maze-a
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones
Hide de crazy al Qaeda
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

One inch, two inch, three inch, thump!
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Evidence say 'Sama guilty
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones
Pakistan no longer help me
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Hey Mr. Taliban, me rally roun' Osama
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

So Great Satan may surprise me
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones
Tomahawk may pulverize me
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones

Pray, me say pray, me say pray, me say pray, me say pray, better pray-e-e-o
Ankle show an' me wan' throw stones.

_________________
In wildness is the preservation of the world. -- Thoreau

[ This Message was edited by: Ted Hudson '47 on 2001-10-14 19:35 ]

Terrorism by itself rarely brings down established governments or corporate bodies, and many nations have lived with ongoing terrorist problems for decades.

True, but the society can be transformed by weeks of terrorism, that turn to months of terrorism and finally years of terrorism.

I suggest we tickle file how our free and open society changes by a reasonable period of time to change opinion, say next Summer.

I've talked to alot of aviators and they all say that the public has a short attention span, people forget quickly. And that may be so. But what if we have one incident after another, sort of like Northern Ireland. Part of society gradually accepts the terrorism as the new normality, and part rejects it. All wish it was like the good old days. That alone isn't a turning. But decentralized terror, where anybody, even those in rural settings fear for survival, that will be the turning.

Let me give you an example. Broadcasters dismiss the anthrax scare as something that isn't a weapon of mass destruction. "Unlikely to infect a huge number at a time, and thus we shouldn't let it change how we live". Wrong. Because anthrax can be a targeted poison, it will have a greater threat for terrorism than hijacking any plane for flying into a building. The terrorists will first target the people that they most want to destroy, those who profit by the U.S. system, Government, media, politicians and entertainers. NYC, DC, Hollywood, perhaps in that order. Then, they will target lesser known people, to spread decentralized terror, probably to smaller, less populated areas of the country. That will be the most effective terror since the tide of public sentiment to stop terrorism is tied to what the man in the street deems as survival, and until it hits Mr. Average, the war won't hit home.

I predict that by the time the fear of being killed touches everybody, we will be fully into the call to respond to the fourth turning crisis. The call is for survival. That will involve several things: national ID, (which I dread), closed borders, an isolationist mentality arising from the rank and file, a wholesale critique of our foreign policy (which I have been urging), and finally, a 'kill them where they sleep' change of heart.

Terror might not change government or business, but terror does change society, and with that, all of our institutions.

The day I got online in this forum, I predicted that from now on, we would be seeing guys with fatigues and guns in every airport (like Europe for 30 years). That came true.

I also suggested that the media is a major target for these groups, and we have seen that unfold.

My prediction now: Hollywood, is next.

On 2001-10-12 19:57, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2001-10-12 19:08, Susan Brombacher wrote:

The entire blue zone? Sorry but these things DO matter...they're a question of right or wrong no matter what turning your in...just because it's the 4T or the 1T or whatever T I'm not going to give them up to the other side. Sure, there are terrorists out there, but issues like these need to be dealt with. If you were Mumia Abu-Jamal would you stop worrying about the capital punishment question? And forgive and forget about gay rights because "we're all in this together"? I won't rest until the last sodomy law goes down in flames. -Craig

Sorry to disappoint you Craig '84, but this last post absolutely convinced me you are not a 1984-cohort Xer, as you seem to wish you were.

But you're not a Millennial either.

Seriously, don't make the mistake of assumning that Xers are indifferent to principles. We just approach them differently than Boomers do.

Not only that, but even Xers care about their nation. Even they are now patriotic.

On 2001-10-14 17:09, Marc Lamb wrote:
Marc Lamb Posted: 2001-09-26 12:27

"In all seriousness, 911 was a vicious attack upon Free Market Capitalism, the very economic engine of Freedom and Liberty of our Republican form of Democracy by idiot anarchists."

I disagree. 911 was an attack on the post-WWII order. The global economic and political institutions, especially those connected with oil, were attacked.