Originally Posted by JK1957

I think that where E.J. Dionne is going (he is a devout Catholic, I understand) is that he thinks that the short-term trend in the U.S. will involve a reassertion of more traditional religious sectors - and less power and influence from the Evangelicals.

I agree. I'm a lay leader in training in the emergent church movement, also known as postmodern Christianity. Right now I'm reading Brian McLaren's "A Generous Orthodoxy." Any of his books are a good starting point for understanding this movement. Also refer to the writings of Publishers Weekly religion editor Phyllis Tickle.

Apropos of nothing? Perhaps. But Christianity is becoming a religion of the global South... and demographics are on the side of global Southern people-groups. Unless people outside of Europe and North America suddenly become more secular, or we suddenly lift most of the global South out of life conditions that might make religion less a factor in coping with daily life, the smart money's on the big world religions sticking around for a few more saeculae at least.

Originally Posted by Mr. Daniel Larison

Dionne makes a heroic effort to argue that 2008 will be another 1932 in terms of the character of the election, but the reasons he gives are less than persuasive. Issues related to religion and culture, he says, are fading into the background, and he argues that they always do when “great” crises occur. There are two major problems with Dionne’s analysis. One has to do with his assessment of the “long secular era from 1932 to 1980" and the other has to do with his description of the character of the current election cycle.

Of course, the most notable crisis moment of the last eight years in America was 9/11, and this yielded not a weakening or minimising of religious and cultural divides, but rather an amplification of them because of the role of religion in the conflict and through the association of different sets of cultural values with attitudes towards the administration’s response. An eruption of “new atheist” manifestoes and books warning about incipient theocracy have all been published in the last three or four years, and these tracts are feeding a growing demand for anti-religious nonsense. On their own, they may not be terribly significant, but they are symptoms of a widening chasm between secular and religious in America.

The culture wars are not only continuing, but they are arguably intensifying and the belligerents are become more hardened in their opposition. At this point Dionne will reply that this only represents the “extremes” and not the majority, but the “extremes” are where the energy and activism are. Milquetoast moderation does not mobilise very many.

Even Obama’s campaign and the movement building around the campaign are described all the time with religious language, whether half-jokingly, accusingly or out of admiration, and if his agenda is secular his progressivism nonetheless participates in the tradition of the Social Gospel of liberal Protestantism to which he personally belongs. Likewise, the harshest and most unfair attacks on Obama have been aimed exactly at two things, patriotism and religious faith, that ought not to be gaining any traction in an electorate that is less receptive to culture war politics.

Clearly, it has gained some purchase, or else the campaign would have felt no compulsion to combat the falsehoods being spread about the candidate. This election cycle is simply overflowing with issues of cultural symbolism, and Obama’s supporters have made no secret that they find his candidacy attractive because of its symbolism. We are using a very denuded definition of culture and religion if we think that these are not prominent in the current campaign, and it would be a major mistake to assume that these issues are not important in this contest simply because traditional “hot-button” questions have momentarily receded from the center of the debate.

Just a few months ago, it seemed that quite a few people were fretting that this election cycle had become all together too infused with religious rhetoric, imagery and quarrels. Obviously religion played some significant role in the Republican nominating contest, and it is wrong to conclude that McCain’s victory represents even a temporary decline of culture war politics. Let us recall that prior to Romney’s withdrawal McCain was routinely getting perhaps 33-36% of the vote, while the two rivals who were explicitly identifying themselves with more or less credibility as social and cultural conservatives received together almost twice as much support. The very existence of Mike Huckabee’s insurgent campaign is a testament to the enduring power of this kind of politics. A candidate so closely identified with evangelical Christianity has never come as far in a nominating contest in my lifetime, and I suspect that this is a sign of more things to come rather than a last hurrah. Obama and Clinton have started to make more use of religious rhetoric, but this does not herald an end to the culture wars, but instead represents a modest transformation of how people are expressing clashing cultural values.

The exact cultural issues that will be salient may not remain the same from cycle to cycle. Gay “marriage” was one of the flashpoints in 2004, but so were rehashed arguments over Vietnam and all the original late-’60s and ’70s culture war baggage these entailed. After all, contemporary and post facto arguments about Vietnam were never entirely about military involvement in Southeast Asia, but also concerned the definition of America and American-ness. Even to the extent that Obama frames his entire candidacy around abandoning these arguments, the proposal to stop the argument is itself still part of the same clash, and while Obama may offer the opportunity to move “beyond” the Boomers the election will nonetheless be decided largely by the Boomers and will be fought over the cultural baggage of the late ’70s and ’80s. To the extent that he is compared to or models himself on liberal heroes of ’60s myth, he represents the wish-fulfillment of liberal Boomers, and it is almost inevitable that the nomination of the first minority major party candidate for President will open or re-open divisions over race and affirmative action that existed in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.

As Ross has suggested more than once, the “long secular era” was the exception. It was related to the conditions of the country for the war generation, and to post-war economic expansion and a fairly high degree of cultural homogeneity during these decades. He was referring more specifically to post-war politics, but I think it applies to this entire period. Post-1965 immigration and cultural fragmentation that came out of the “age of abundance” are part of what created the conditions for the disputes of the last thirty years. We are still living in the world shaped by cultural radicalism and the reaction against beginning in the ’70s, and the legacies of both seem to be set on trajectories that take them ever farther away from each other. The “polarisation” so many people complain about is part of our social life and is based on, among other things, the significantly divergent interests of married and religious voters on one side and unmarried and secular voters on the other. Also, you cannot have ever-greater cultural fragmentation aided by consumer capitalism and increasingly specialised social networks geared towards connecting you to people who are mostly like you and have a new era of amity and collaboration at the same time.

An excess of cultural diversity in a republican or representative system ultimately means the crisis and breakdown of that system into either an authoritarian or monarchical regime of some sort or a crack-up of the polity into numerous, relatively more homogenous states. We are probably still quite a long way away from such a crisis, but until it comes political polarisation will keep increasing as citizens come to have less and less in common with one another.

Originally Posted by conradg on March 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm

Daniel,

I think you are largely right on this issue – the culture wars are not going away, but are intensifying, and things are heading for a greater crisis somewhere down the line.

I got the sense from Dione’s article that he was basing his ideas to some degree on the works of Strauss and Howe in “The Fourth Turning”, which I thought was a pretty good attempt to look at the generational cycles in American politics. If so, he’s mangled their ideas pretty badly. In brief, the “fourth turning” thesis is that there are four generational cycles of roughly 20 years in an 80 year “turning”, the each of which comes to a conclusion in a transformative crisis that completely changes the landscape, and begins a new cyclce of conflicts and resolutions. The last three ended with the American Revolution, the Civil War, and WWII. In their schemata, the conflicts of the 1960s represented the “defining” of the news set of conflicts we face in this cycle, which then were played out in the “Culture Wars” of the last 20 or more years. Their book was written in 1997, so they didn’t know when exactly the period of “culture wars” would end, and when the “millennial period” would begin, but they guessed a transition of about 2006. My sense is that Dione is to some degree speaking this language, and assuming that we are transitioning out of the culture wars and into a period of “millennial crisis”, in which he thinks the culture wars will take a back seat to more important issues.

I think that’s a misunderstanding of the “fourth turning” thesis, which does not suggest that the underlying conflicts of the culture wars will be swept aside by some greater issues, but precisely the opposite: that the conflicts of the culture wars will manifest themselves even more profoundly and intractably than before, at a level which virtually ensures an enormous transformative event of some kind that finally resolves those issues. And based on the history, that transformative event is usually a major war of some kind which so transforms our country, and the very definition of “who we are” as a people.

In other words, the conflicts leading up to the American Revolution did not get pushed aside by the revolution, the Revolution was the ultimate manifestation of those conflicts. Similarly, the conflicts of early American democracy did not get pushed aside, they led to the Civil War. And similarly, the conflicts within the newly federalized nation and big business economy of the post-civil War era did not get pushed aside by the Great Depression and WWII, they came to a head there. So the idea that the social and economic conflicts of the post-WWII era are somehow just going to go away because we are entering some kind of “millennial crisis” is sheer nonsense, or at least not supported by the theory, which points in exactly the opposite direction: that the millennial crisis we are entering into some time over the next 20 years is the result of our current conflicts reaching such a great pitch of disturbance that they cannot avoid all-out war of some kind. The only difference is that this conflict will so overshadow our recent “culture wars” as to make them seem petty in comparison.

So basically I think you are right that our culture wars are not going away, but are on the road to increasing so dramatically as to make a peaceful resolution impossible. On a host of issues I see this coming to a boiling point over the next 20 years. I can’t say how it will work out, but I don’t expect it to be pretty.

The Culture Wars Continue

Originally Posted by Mr. Rod Dreher

And it's not surprising that from this social and professional milieu develops a certain cosmopolitan way of seeing the world and one's place in it. I have it too, simply because of my own interests, education and experiences. Most readers of this blog probably have it to some extent. And look, it's not necessarily a bad thing, not all the time. But the professional-class worldview values different things than, say, your average working-class worldview, and as I told my friend last night, I don't think people in our class think nearly enough about the lives and worldviews of our working-class countrymen. Our loyalties naturally gravitate toward certain cultural ideals, practices and institutions that are not only not shared by many others of a different class, but which can operate against the interests of that class.

This is not something we talk about much in America, because class consciousness is supposed to be forbidden. But there it is. Of course we are defined by much more than social class. People are complex. Our social and professional class helps shape our opinions, as does our race/ethnicity, our sex, our religion, and so forth. We are, as Larison says, moving toward a society that is more heterogeneous, and in which we are encouraged by both the establishment and (more powerfully) the market to think of our differences, and identify with what makes us dissimilar more than what we share. I think, again, that the enthusiasm with which many people greet Obama's campaign is based in part on a deep sense that things are unraveling, and that Obama can hold us together. But this will fall apart once people stop projecting their hopes onto Obama, and start looking at his record, and what he stands for. He can't be all things to all people; no one can.

The larger point I want to make here, though, is that Larison is right: if you define the culture-war issue solely in terms of the "sex stuff" (gay marriage, abortion), then yes, the culture war looks to be receding. But immigration is a culture-war issue, not only because it involves a clash of cultures between immigrants and natives (and among cultures: blacks vs. Hispanics in the inner-city; immigrant Hispanics vs. whites in inner-ring suburbs, etc.), but also because it involves a clash between cosmopolitan/globalizing values of the professional class and those classes lower down the economic scale, whose lives large-scale immigration impacts in a different way. Race will continue to be a culture-war issue, as many working-class and middle-class whites will remain unconvinced that they should disadvantage themselves and their children in the name of affirmative action policies favored by professional-class whites who are more economically secure. And so forth.

The culture war isn't dead; it's just shifting fronts.

bold-Yo. Ob. Sv.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Religion of course can serve as a brake upon ultra-rational ideologies devoid of morality, including fascism, Marxism, and plutocracy. It's a fallback position when unintended consequences arise. Humanity keeps asking the same questions about the meaning of life -- questions that science can never answer for the simple reason that science is itself amoral, and especially that self-interest ad instant gratification can't answer.

It's possible that the opposition to the amoral policies and practices of Dubya and his cronies increase not so much as people reject religion as much as that they find those policies morally objectionable.

Religion contains much wisdom-of-the-ages. As such, one can often use it as a check on amoral behavior. At the same time, religion was also used to justify power to the ruling class. Marx wasn't entirely off with his 'opium of the masses' quote. The old traditional agricultural age systems are mixed bags at best.

Yes, concealing one's women behind bulky unattractive clothing does help deter the next horse clan over from kidnapping your women. Not eating pork does prevent the spread of certain diseases. Still, using argument from authority -- "I can read God's mind, and God says..." -- to establish permanent solutions takes reason out of the picture when the problem vanishes other solutions become available.

And, yes, I don't think science can set social or moral goals. It might help one achieve such. If one truly understands how humans behave -- individually, or in large groups -- one has a better chance of setting up a 'better' society than using a myth based approach.

But getting everyone to buy into what a 'better society' is doesn't seem to be a problem to be solved by observation and experiment. We are stuck with using God to justify our own values, even if said values might be worthy indeed...

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...

You won't hear the truth from our media, so take a look at the Uk's:

Wall Street fears for next Great Depression
By Margareta Pagano, Business Editor The Sunday Independent UK
Sunday, 16 March 2008

Wall Street is bracing itself for another week of roller-coaster trading after more than $300bn (£150bn) was wiped off the US equity markets on Friday following the emergency funding package put together by the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase to rescue Bear Stearns.


One UK economist warned that the world is now close to a 1930s-like Great Depression, while New York traders said they had never experienced such fear. The Fed's emergency funding procedure was first used in the Depression and has rarely been used since.

A Goldman Sachs trader in New York said: "Everyone is in a total state of shock, aghast at what is happening. No one wants to talk, let alone deal; we're just standing by waiting. Everyone is nervous about what is going to emerge when trading starts tomorrow."

In the UK, Michael Taylor, a senior market strategist at Lombard, the economics consultancy, said on Friday night: "We have all been talking about a 1970s-style crisis but as each day goes by this looks more like the 1930s. No one has any clue as to where this is going to end; it's a self-feeding disaster." Mr Taylor, who had been relatively optimistic, has turned bearish: "It really does look as though the UK is now heading for a recession. The credit-crunch means that even if the Bank of England cuts rates again, the banks are in such a bad way they are unlikely to pass cuts on."

Mr Taylor added that he expects a sharp downturn in the real UK economy as the public and companies stop borrowing. "We have never seen anything like this before. This is new territory for us. Liquidity is being pumped into the system but the banks are not taking any notice. This is all about confidence. The more the central banks do, the more the banks seem to ignore what's going on."

Mr Taylor added that the problems unravelling at Bear Stearns are just the beginning: "There will be more banks and hedge funds heading for collapse."

One of the problems facing the markets is that, despite the Fed's move last week to feed them another $200bn, the banks are still not lending to each other.

"This crisis is one of faith. We are going to see even more problems in the hedge funds as they face margin calls," said Mark O'Sullivan, director of dealing at Currencies Direct in London. "What we are waiting for now is for the Fed to cut interest rates again this week. But that's already been discounted by the market and is unlikely to help restore confidence."

Mr O'Sullivan added that the dollar's free-fall is set to continue and may need cuts in European interest rates to trim the euro's recent strength against the dollar. "But the ECB doesn't like cutting rates," he said.

On Europe, Mr Taylor said that while the German economy remains strong, others such as Italy's and Spain's are weakening. "You could see a scenario where the eurozone breaks up if economies continue to be so worried about inflation."

European financial markets were relatively unscathed by Wall Street's crisis but traders expect there to be a backlash when stock markets open tomorrow.

The Fed's plan will give 28 days of secured funding to Bear Stearns, which saw its value slashed over the week by more than a half to $3.7bn. JP Morgan will provide the funding, but the Fed will bear the risk if the loan is not repaid. Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, who pumped $200bn of loans to cash-strapped institutions last week, said more would be available to help others in distress.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai.../ccview117.xml

Originally Posted by cbailey

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai.../ccview117.xml

We are SOOOO fucked.

For some time I've had the habit of occasionally picking up "Fourth Turning," turning to "A Fourth Turning Prophecy", and checking to see how well it matches where we are or were. Not to mention giving myself a reminder of what it's prudent for a Silent to do in a late Unraveling. Until this last time, it's been a bit of a game.

Yesterday I was moved to play the game again and pick up the book, and then I set it down again. This did not read like a set of predictions against which to check what one might see; it read like fresh and recent history of the "well, everybody knows this" sort.

Don't take my word for it. Take the book off the shelf, start at page 274 (trade paper edition), and see if I'm crying "Wolf!" or not. As far as I can tell, it's not only "Wolf!" but the entire pack, alpha males, alpha bitch, and all, at our door.

WeB4T. Suggestions taken on when was the catalyst that passed unrecognized because we thought we had fixed the problem.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

For some time I've had the habit of occasionally picking up "Fourth Turning," turning to "A Fourth Turning Prophecy", and checking to see how well it matches where we are or were. Not to mention giving myself a reminder of what it's prudent for a Silent to do in a late Unraveling. Until this last time, it's been a bit of a game.

Yesterday I was moved to play the game again and pick up the book, and then I set it down again. This did not read like a set of predictions against which to check what one might see; it read like fresh and recent history of the "well, everybody knows this" sort.

Don't take my word for it. Take the book off the shelf, start at page 274 (trade paper edition), and see if I'm crying "Wolf!" or not. As far as I can tell, it's not only "Wolf!" but the entire pack, alpha males, alpha bitch, and all, at our door.

WeB4T. Suggestions taken on when was the catalyst that passed unrecognized because we thought we had fixed the problem.

You mean this one? It's on p. 273 of my hardcover version, purchased the first week the book came out:

"A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it possesses portable nuclear weapons. The United States and its allies launch a pre-emptive strike. The terrorists threaten to retaliate against an American city. Congress declares war and authorizes unlimited house-to-house searches. Opponents charge that the President has concocted the emergency for political purposes. A nationwide strike is declared. Foreign capital flees the U.S."

Geez. Aside from the portable nukes and the nationwide strike, it's practically play-by-play what actually happened in 2001-08. How's that for an American prophecy!

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

You mean this one? It's on p. 273 of my hardcover version, purchased the first week the book came out:

"A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it possesses portable nuclear weapons. The United States and its allies launch a pre-emptive strike. The terrorists threaten to retaliate against an American city. Congress declares war and authorizes unlimited house-to-house searches. Opponents charge that the President has concocted the emergency for political purposes. A nationwide strike is declared. Foreign capital flees the U.S."

Geez. Aside from the portable nukes and the nationwide strike, it's practically play-by-play what actually happened in 2001-08. How's that for an American prophecy!

Read the following 3 pages, too, pencil and calendar in hand. Absolutamente -
2001-1008 play by play in every way.

[b]Wooing the world[/url] , page 14

"...the bungled assertiveness of the Bush years may be replaced not by mushy mulilateralism but by grumpy isolationism. In the past America has often followed periods of intense involvement with periods of withdrawal-think of the aftermath of the first world war or the Vietnam war-and isolationist sentiment is clearly on the rise. Around 42% of Americans now believe that the country should 'mind its own business' and stop playing in other peoples' backyards. America has spent a fair amound of blood and treausure on bringing democracy to Iraq, the argument goes, and all it has got in return is a civil war and global opprobrium.

"This isolationist sentiment is particularly marked when it comes to free trade. Worry about globalization is deeper and broader than it has been for decades. It has spread from the working class to the middle class, thanks to the outsourcing of brain work, and from Democrats to Republicans....

"America has seen a bigger decline in support for free trade over the past five years than any of 35 countries studied by Pew; indeed, Americans now lead the world in hostility to free trade. The proportion of Americans who think that trade benefits their country has fallen from 78% in 2002 to 59% today. Attitudes to illegal immigration have hardened even more. Three-quarters of Americans now say that there should be more restrictions on people coming to live in the country.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

[b]Wooing the world[/url] , page 14

"...the bungled assertiveness of the Bush years may be replaced not by mushy mulilateralism but by grumpy isolationism. In the past America has often followed periods of intense involvement with periods of withdrawal-think of the aftermath of the first world war or the Vietnam war-and isolationist sentiment is clearly on the rise. Around 42% of Americans now believe that the country should 'mind its own business' and stop playing in other peoples' backyards. America has spent a fair amound of blood and treausure on bringing democracy to Iraq, the argument goes, and all it has got in return is a civil war and global opprobrium.

"This isolationist sentiment is particularly marked when it comes to free trade. Worry about globalization is deeper and broader than it has been for decades. It has spread from the working class to the middle class, thanks to the outsourcing of brain work, and from Democrats to Republicans....

"America has seen a bigger decline in support for free trade over the past five years than any of 35 countries studied by Pew; indeed, Americans now lead the world in hostility to free trade. The proportion of Americans who think that trade benefits their country has fallen from 78% in 2002 to 59% today. Attitudes to illegal immigration have hardened even more. Three-quarters of Americans now say that there should be more restrictions on people coming to live in the country.

I love the "grumpy isolationism" bit. Gen X turns Statler and Waldorf...

The Statler and Waldorf Doctrine.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

The Statler and Waldorf Doctrine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h15xIoVwWw

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

I love the "grumpy isolationism" bit. Gen X turns Statler and Waldorf...

the ones who live to see the next 2T that is... only by then, the theater will probably only give us the expensive balcony seats that they had, as a strategic move of sorts
What year did The Muppet Show debut? Could Statler and Waldorf have been Lost?!

Originally Posted by stab1969

the ones who live to see the next 2T that is... only by then, the theater will probably only give us the expensive balcony seats that they had, as a strategic move of sorts
What year did The Muppet Show debut? Could Statler and Waldorf have been Lost?!

1976. S&W are lost archetypes Henson knew well. My Lost grandparents lived till the mid-70's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Show

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statler_%26_Waldorf

I always assumed they were Losts. They are my role models for old age.

Just in case you forgot...08-17-2007

Originally Posted by HomerJS49

I read the 4th T like a bible. I have been wondering are we in it or not. Yesterday I came across 2 passages that to me anyway say yes.

1) From 'Gray Champions' chapter pg. 142:
"...few can conjure how an Unraveling-era mood can so swiftly transform into something that feels and is so fundamentally different. Americans have ALWAYS been blind to the next turning until after it FULLY ARRIVES.

2) From '4th Turnings in History' chapter pg. 267:
"A Crisis catalyst occurs shortly after the old Prophet archetype reaches its apex of societal leadership, when its inclinations are LEAST checked by others. A regeneracy comes as the Prophet abandons any idea of deferral or retreat and binds the society to a Crisis course. A climax occurs when the Prophet expends its last burst of passion, just before descending rapidly from power."

I submit that as cited in 1 we have been blind to the 4th T because it hasn't fully arrived. We have not reached the climax as of yet but it is looming ever larger.
Regarding 2, Obama is 13th. He and his generation are already knocking on the door for leadership. How much longer do you think the Prophets have left to lead let alone to reach their apex? We have had almost 16 years of Boomer leadership with perhaps another 4-8 at most. I would say that we've reached the apex.
After 9/11 the inclinations were LEAST checked. Until that point they weren't and haven't really been since that desperate time when everyone rushed to the Patriot Act and War.
The regeneracy came when we went into Iraq. All ideas of deferral or retreat were abandoned then and there. No matter what the argument was even from his own advisers Mr. Bush was determined to bind us to our crisis course. Iraq IS the crisis course. Who can deny that we are not bound to it for a long time to come. All further troubles will and do stem from it. We have sent our Nomads off to die just like The Civil War era.
The Idealist 'Project for a New American Century' is no different from Rush Limbaughs 'The Way Things Ought To Be'.

The Crisis is yet to come. Like many here I believe that it will be financial. The current Boomer Administration has plans to accomplish some kind of totalitarian state IMO. But, as the old saying goes, "Even the best layed plans..." I believe they've overlooked something and have already set their failure in motion. Once the money runs dry everything will come to a screeching halt. They're not perfect just mean.

I still believe it...

Originally Posted by TimWalker

[b]Wooing the world[/url] , page 14

"...the bungled assertiveness of the Bush years may be replaced not by mushy mulilateralism but by grumpy isolationism. In the past America has often followed periods of intense involvement with periods of withdrawal-think of the aftermath of the first world war or the Vietnam war-and isolationist sentiment is clearly on the rise. Around 42% of Americans now believe that the country should 'mind its own business' and stop playing in other peoples' backyards. America has spent a fair amound of blood and treausure on bringing democracy to Iraq, the argument goes, and all it has got in return is a civil war and global opprobrium.

"This isolationist sentiment is particularly marked when it comes to free trade. Worry about globalization is deeper and broader than it has been for decades. It has spread from the working class to the middle class, thanks to the outsourcing of brain work, and from Democrats to Republicans....

"America has seen a bigger decline in support for free trade over the past five years than any of 35 countries studied by Pew; indeed, Americans now lead the world in hostility to free trade. The proportion of Americans who think that trade benefits their country has fallen from 78% in 2002 to 59% today. Attitudes to illegal immigration have hardened even more. Three-quarters of Americans now say that there should be more restrictions on people coming to live in the country.

Being the Left-Liberal Internationalist that I am, the risk of "grumpy isolationism" is a huge concern of mine. I don't want China, the emergent authoritarian superpower, to be free from a Liberal Democratic counterweight in the form of the US and EU. IMO we need a foreign policy I call "Muscular Multilateralism," that is, he should to all we can to seek multilateral solutions, but if Russia and China use their vetoes to paralyze the UNSC in order to, say, protect Sudan, or to keep the UN from setting precedents that may empower separatist movements in, say, the Caucasus or in Tibet, We should be prepared to go in without UN approval.

Originally Posted by HomerJS49

Just in case you forgot...08-17-2007



I still believe it...

I have some quibbles... The last 7 years have been unchecked Boomerism. Like it or not, Boomers and Silents own these last 7 years of Bush, and most of Clinton's second term.

We are still fishing around for a regeneracy, and I think Obama has the potential to pull it off. I don't consider him an Xer, he's on the cusp but is enough Boomer to get the job done. Nobody said the Boomers who fix things need to be core cohorts, as opposed to cuspers. In fact, one could make the argument that it takes a Prophet/Nomad cusper to give the vision of the prophet some direction and pragmatism, so things actually start getting done in a crisis. Just a thought.

The Crisis may be bearing down on much of the world now. Just like the Depression/War were very different from the Civil War and the Revolution, this one is shaping up to be very different from the others on the surface.

To people living in the US in 1931 and 1932, with the Depression becoming severe, widespread, and global, the world was definitely at an "Eve of Destruction." Moreover, the beginning years of the Crisis must've seemed like a a nightmarish version of panics of the Missionary Awakening, up to the election of FDR.

While there are many similarities between the periods in 1931 and 1932 and today, it today feels kinda different than I would've expected. It kinda seems like the 1970s are returning, with its massive secular problems whose symptoms were relieved during the Reagan Era. We have rising energy and food costs, rising global turmoil, rising labor strife, and resource problems. The doomsayers of the 1970s are finally seeing their worries come true. We have inflation, rising energy costs, rising food prices, trouble in the Middle East, an unpopular war (up until 1975), and unpopular president, and a sense of darkness and gloom.

Of course, things are very different from the period between 1973 and 1980. What is happening now is exactly what one should expect going into Crisis. A major difference is that while the 1970s elevated the private sphere over the public sphere, this decade is doing the reverse. During the 1970s, there were many solutions to the coming ecological, energy, and food crises that were warned by youth activist and spiritualist movements, but the public was not in a mood to hear them, or give them much thought. The public was too captivated by the "vision" of apocalypse, resurgent evangelism, and the Aquarian Age. With the biggest defenders of rationalism and technological progress in Elderhood (people like Richard Feynman, Arthur C. Clarke, Ayn Rand, Apollo scientists/engineers/astronauts) and the biggest promoters of spiritualism and biggest critics against rationalism and technological progress in youth (Green Movement, New Age, Evangelists, etc), people believed that the elders and their rationalism, secularism, optimism, and technology were the cause of the problem itself. People believed that their solutions would only make things worse. Therefore, it was time to listen to someone else, and it was the younger champions of religion and spirituality. People started believing in the power of prayer, meditation, food fads, etc. instead.

In 2008, we are becoming fearful of national and global instability, a major recession/depression, climate change, environmental destruction, and a general resource crisis (food, energy, etc.) While these problems are familiar to Boomers and most Xers (and new to Millennials) the generation layering is producing major differences. The elders are now the defenders of spiritualism and those warning us of an apocalypse, and the youth are now the champions of affluence, rationalism, optimism, and technological progress. Obama is speaking to the younger generation who champions optimism and technological progress to fix these problems, as he champions a New Apollo Project for energy. In a Crisis, people become much less susceptible people advocating that the problems are insoluble or that we would have to permanently sacrifice our standards of living.

From a both a saecular and a Crisis Era vantage point, the problem is that the old civic order is obsolete. During the Depression and War years, the technological institutions and infrastructure grid that we totally take for granted were built. Many of the electrical power plants (i.e. TVA) were built during this era, as was the electrical grid spanning the nation, the machines that bring us potable running hot and cold water, the pre-Interstate highways that criss-crossed the nation, the industrial farms giving us food, the nationwide transportation network delivering necessities and luxuries, and the media institutional form and technological ecosystem based upon radio (and later television).

The problem is that our technological infrastructure was created in the 1930s and 1940s as a solution to problems that concerned society around the year 1900. By the time the Awakening hit, the technological infrastructure grid was already aging and headed for obsolescence. And in this Crisis, we are forced to build a new one. We are now in a situation in which we are still using a 386/486 computer with DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1, and we have to upgrade to a Pentium with Windows 95. Or, maybe the switch from Windows to Linux.

In communications and media, we are already making the upgrade. I expect to see a lot more upgrades to a blazingly fast broadband, new Internet protocols, a near-total absorption of radio and television, and pervasive Internet access. Tech-enhanced collaboration will replace the Manhattan Project model of public technological research. It is likely that there will be a project to erect solar farms in the US. Late in the Crisis or in the next High, these will likely be supplemented by orbiting or lunar solar panels. As for the food, indoor/vertical farms and mariculture could provide food to the masses, as could food printing. In a large-scale public works program comparable in scope to the New Deal, we will likely solve our daunting problems, leading to a global golden age by 2030.

Editorial: Food crisis new 'Eve of Destruction?'

John M. Crisp, Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

It's worth remembering that the world has often appeared to be on the point of a vast destruction.

In fact, in the 14th century, as the Black Death spread across China, India, and Europe and eventually killed about a third of the European population, some thought that all of civilization was coming to an end -- literally.
And many American citizens of a certain age grew up with a deeply ingrained sense of potential destruction that had its roots in the long nuclear standoff between the United States and the U.S.S.R. The threat of thermonuclear disaster became a part of the landscape: we talked about it in school, we heard about it on TV and in the movies, and nearly all of us knew someone who had built a fallout shelter.

But the apocalypse never happened, and even George Orwell's 1984 came and went.

The natural world appears to have plenty of endurance; it should keep chugging along for a long time, whether human beings are around to be a part of it, or not.

And, like the natural world, maybe civilization bears within it a preserving principle that keeps some semi-civilized version of human life going on earth, no matter how bad things might look.

On the other hand, in a recent New York Times opinion column, Princeton economist Paul Krugman describes the current "world food crisis," and it's rather a dark picture.

Even Americans are aware that food is costing more these days.

Krugman says that part of the blame for the increase in food prices can be attributed to factors that aren't necessarily anyone's fault. But a great deal of the blame belongs to long-term trends and policies interwoven with the very fabric of our civilization, especially our appetite for energy.

Food prices everywhere are being driven up by the burgeoning demand in China for meat, which is a relatively inefficient food; by the price of oil; and by ill-advised efforts to substitute ethanol for our diminishing oil supply.
All of these factors make a trip to the supermarket much more costly.

But in the same edition of my local paper that carried the Krugman column, a report says that the Egyptian government is trying to mollify angry rioters with bonuses after two days of protests sparked by high food prices. Forty percent of Egyptians already live in poverty.

An adjacent story reports that desperate Haitians stormed the presidential palace and had to be beaten back with rubber bullets and tear gas. Food prices in Haiti, already one of the world's poorest countries, have risen 40 percent during the last year, and Haitians aren't simply angry, they're hungry. Associated Press reporter Jonathan Katz says that some Haitians have resorted to "cookies" made of dirt, vegetable oil, and salt.

Egypt and Haiti aren't exceptional. The U.N. warns that many poor nations -- and there are plenty of them -- are vulnerable to chronic malnutrition and the kind of unrest that only hunger can arouse.

At present, we Americans are largely immune to this sort of disorder. I read Krugman's column in an IHOP, while enjoying the special: two eggs, two bacon, two sausages, two pancakes, and two French toast. But it's unrealistic to imagine that the consequences of this crisis won't affect us in ways more significant than higher prices at the supermarket.

And the food crisis is closely connected with other foreboding predicaments like energy depletion, climate change, pollution, and rising tensions over diminishing resources of all types.

Of course, the outlook for civilization has been grim before. Even the Black Death was overrated.

This time, however, looks and feels different. The roots and consequences of the current crises are truly global, and the disquieting part is that, even though disaster appears to be almost inevitable, very little is being done to prevent it.

Go Dr. Scientist Reed!!! Great explanation of what's going on now and no techno-utopionism this time. I especially liked how you linked it to the last Awakening but lessons are we supposed to take from it?

You know i'll bet you'll probably end up on one of those scientist teams that make bombs or making the next incarnation of the internet. Now, if only you could fix the drought of Millie girls on here.

The title of your post set off the soundtrack-in-my-head, so I did a 40-years-after reality check.

"The Eastern world, it is exploding......" check.
"Fires burning, and bullets loading....." check.
"You're old enough to kill, but not for voting".....yes, but I don't think anyone cares any more. Score one for the all-volunteer army.
"You don't believe in war...." Eh, sonny? What's that you say? Speak up, please .....the anti-war group will be meeting down at the Senior Center this evening...

Taking samples at 40 year intervals is fun. The only one that's held up is the Merrie Melody, which is still a fair summary of the evening news at any evening any time on any channel.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

"You're old enough to kill, but not for voting".....yes, but I don't think anyone cares any more. Score one for the all-volunteer army.

Yeah, soldiers can vote now, but many of them can't have a beer.

To change the subject: U.S. News & World Report's cover story this week is "BIG GOVERNMENT - It's back - no matter who wins. Americans want Uncle Sam to solve their problems."

Now - WHO said "The Era of Big Government is over" and when?

Not asking for a disquisition on the evils or benefits thereof, but just as a turning marker, it seems U.S. News may think (or have discovered that?) we're 4T.