Originally Posted by MillieJim

I think it's more of a matter of we have a 3T media and government (at least factions of the government), and a 4T public. Bob Herbert is correct to note that the media has been out of touch and postseasonal by obsessing about Wright.

Poll after poll, anecdote after anecdote indicates the public's mood has been darker since Katrina, even Summer of '05. They are looking for solutions, not the gossip of the day.

IMO, the reality check is coming this November, one way or another. The party most ready to act like it really is a 4T will be the one to sweep into power. After that, there's no looking back; things are going to change one way or the other.

Right now, it's probably the Democrats, because the Republicans have all but collapsed. Their 3T dominance perhaps was a strategic blunder long term, because they are now associated with all of the excesses and all the bad things to come out of the recently-ended 3T (or at least things that are perceived as bad by a 4T public; they may not be perceived as bad by a 3T public). While I doubt that will change, there is always a chance I suppose. Now that the public is in a mood to accomplish a lot of change in a short period of time, they are on the outside looking in, instead of being in a position to finally crystallize their agenda into the fabric of national politics in the 4T.

The 3T media will die when it is forced to die, but until then, it'll do it's best to keep the party going. I suspect measures to end media consolidation would go a long way to help the tone of our newscasts.

I got a different impression from this article than you did.

What matters for me is not how the media may or may not respond to any given situation, but how the *people at large* view this response.

In this case, the frustration seemed to be aimed more at the voters (for paying more attention to Jeremiah Wright than to issues - or accepting the most 3T 'solution' imaginable to gasoline prices) than at the media.

It's pretty clear (to me at least) that Obama is running a 4T campaign while Hillary is running a 3T one (McCain seems to be somewhere in between).

I agree with you about the reality check due for November; an Obama landslide could very well convince me that 2008 (and even 2007) are/were 4T years!

On the other hand, if Hillary continues to run a divisive 3T campaign and manages to win, the signal sent will be very different...

This reminds me of the ABC candidate debate a few days ago. ABC ran a cross-interviewing of Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first whole hour was devoted purely to asking Obama about why he wasn't wearing a flag pin, and discussing flag pins on candidates. Then they managed to get in a bit about the Bosnian sniper.

or "BOOMERS SUCK (at Education)!"

Originally Posted by Mr. Charles Murray

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the educational romantics—and George W. Bush is the Percy Bysshe Shelley of educational romantics—knew that public school systems everywhere had become bureaucratically top-heavy and that many inner-city schools were no longer functional. They knew that the billions of federal money spent on upgrading education for disadvantaged children had produced no demonstrable improvements. But they thought they could fix the system. Bush’s glasnost was to implement accountability through measurement of results by test scores. Bush’s perestroika was a mishmash of performance standards and fragments of a market economy in schools, while retaining public funding of the schools and government control over the enforcement of the new standards. The reforms were based on premises about intellectual ability that were patently wrong.

Unlike the Soviet economy, American public schools are still in business, but scholarly analyses of the administration of No Child Left Behind are documenting a monumental mess. In the early years, I didn’t need the experts to tell me. I was watching the demoralized teachers in my children’s school, wearied by endless preparation for the exams and frustrated by demands from on high to concentrate on students who were at the cusp of being able to pass the state’s proficiency benchmark at the expense of everyone else. In subsequent years, the demoralization and frustration may have eased—not because No Child Left Behind got better, but because teachers, principals, and state departments of education have learned all the ways that the Act and its compliance requirements can be gamed.

Education as Eurasia (in need of Romantic Reform)

Originally Posted by Charles Murray

The good news is that educational romanticism is surely teetering on the edge of collapse. I am optimistic for three reasons. First, the data keep piling up. It takes a while for empiricism to discredit cherished beliefs, but No Child Left Behind may prove to have done us a favor by putting so much emphasis on test scores and thereby focusing attention on how hard it is to budge those scores. Second, we no longer live in a romantic age. Educational romanticism was born of forces that have lost most of their power, and façades collapse when the motives for maintaining those façades weaken. Third, hardly anybody really believes in educational romanticism even now. No one but the most starry-eyed denies in private the reality of differences in intellectual ability that we are powerless to change with K-12 education. People are unwilling to talk about those differences in public, but it is a classic emperor’s-clothes scenario waiting for someone to point out the obvious. Starting that process can be as simple as more articles like this one.

For the good of our children, educational romanticism needs to collapse, and quickly. Its effects play out in the lives of young people in devastating ways. The fourth-grader who has trouble sounding out simple words and his classmate who is reading A Tale of Two Cities for fun sit in the same classroom day after miserable day, the one so frustrated by tasks he cannot do and the other so bored that both are near tears. The eighth-grader who cannot make sense of algebra but has an almost mystical knack with machines is told to stick with the college prep track, because to be a success in life he must go to college and get a B.A. The senior with terrific SAT scores gets away with turning in rubbish on his term papers because to make special demands on the gifted would be elitist. They are all products of an educational system that cannot make itself talk openly about the implications of diverse educational limits.

There is much more to be said about these harms (and I have said it, in a book that will appear in a few months). For now, it is enough to recognize that educational romanticism asks too much from students at the bottom of the intellectual pile, asks the wrong things from those in the middle, and asks too little from those at the top. It short-changes all of them.

Romantic Reality Creators™
at home and abroad have run into that Version with its variety provided by Providence. I think No Child Let Alone may be another Progressive 100 or 1,000 Year Program, an internal Irak if you will. If we "withdraw", they "win". And, 'they' hate children, Progress, the Mobility, Our Romantic Way of Life, >>>----->'s,... . Byron abroad, Shelley at home.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

or "BOOMERS SUCK (at Education)!"



Education as Eurasia (in need of Romantic Reform)




Romantic Reality Creators™
at home and abroad have run into that Version with its variety provided by Providence. I think No Child Let Alone may be another Progressive 100 or 1,000 Year Program, an internal Irak if you will. If we "withdraw", they "win". And, 'they' hate children, Progress, the Mobility, Our Romantic Way of Life, >>>----->'s,... . Byron abroad, Shelley at home.

The key to educational reform is to be found in the restoration of the old canon of liberal arts as the norm at the undergraduate level in college. The liberal arts alone can teach one not only what is useful in a decent society (a grasp of literature and history to recognize the potential and horror of tragedy, philosophy to demonstrate the means of discerning truth from fluff and outright nonsense, some math and science to establish the mechanistic basis of the universe, composition to teach how to organize thought into something comprehensible, some music and art -- maybe to adapt to modernity, some film appreciation -- to demonstrate that there's more to life than economic gain) but also what must be taught. Such has not been the norm in undergraduate education since the 1960s. Sure, we need our accountants, conservation officers, engineers, nurses, and the like to be taught at the universities... but for general teaching we need teachers who know not only the basics but the purpose behind those basics. Sure, teachers need some basic courses in pedagogy so that they can manage a classroom effectively and to teach reading -- but the best teachers that I remember were the ones who could tie in to the glories of Western culture. Today we get nonsense, much (but not all) of it PC or post-modern.

We have lousy public education and a depraved society; such is the result of a flawed vision of university education seen solely as preparation for graduate and professional schools. NCLB focuses at best on educational methods and in-school discipline, neither of which or a combination of which suffices.

Coming from the perspective of the field of science and technology, with the rest of the world (India and China for example) rapidly developing and aggressively pursuing very high technological and highly advanced science goals, I don't think it is really the right time to pursue and emphasize the liberal arts as the cornerstone of education.

Granted, there is a significant value to such an education, such as giving well versed and thoughtful citizens, but that will not necessarily help the nation stay abreast and at the head of the latest developments that could just be as valuable to mankind.

I've observed over time the shifting of priorities in education that happened based on some sort of crisis or another. Much of it revolves around the overemphasis on standardized testing (which is only to impress the statisticians) and activities that connect the school to the community which usually consists mainly of athletics. So then other subjects get sacrificed due to either lack of public interest (like the arts) or the need to make sure students "excel" (like recess).

There always seems to be two camps when it comes to education and it almost always is drawn between the liberal arts/fine arts and the sciences. Personally, I am biased towards the sciences and I don't quite see the utility of having more class hours devoted towards general education when that should have been done far earlier in grade school. Drawing from my experience, I pretty much loathed most of the liberal arts classes not because I don't like to think but I don't like to have to jump intellectual hoops to come to the correct "conclusion". The only non-technical subject I ever enjoyed was music, since it presents itself mostly at face value.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The key to educational reform is to be found in the restoration of the old canon of liberal arts as the norm at the undergraduate level in college. The liberal arts alone can teach one not only what is useful in a decent society (a grasp of literature and history to recognize the potential and horror of tragedy, philosophy to demonstrate the means of discerning truth from fluff and outright nonsense, some math and science to establish the mechanistic basis of the universe, composition to teach how to organize thought into something comprehensible, some music and art -- maybe to adapt to modernity, some film appreciation -- to demonstrate that there's more to life than economic gain) but also what must be taught. Such has not been the norm in undergraduate education since the 1960s. Sure, we need our accountants, conservation officers, engineers, nurses, and the like to be taught at the universities... but for general teaching we need teachers who know not only the basics but the purpose behind those basics. Sure, teachers need some basic courses in pedagogy so that they can manage a classroom effectively and to teach reading -- but the best teachers that I remember were the ones who could tie in to the glories of Western culture. Today we get nonsense, much (but not all) of it PC or post-modern.

We have lousy public education and a depraved society; such is the result of a flawed vision of university education seen solely as preparation for graduate and professional schools. NCLB focuses at best on educational methods and in-school discipline, neither of which or a combination of which suffices.

Hear, hear! As a doctoral candidate in education, I agree with you 100%. But never fear. Xers right now are junior faculty at best. Once we rule the Ivory Tower, expect to see a sharp conservative turn. I am particularly concerned with the lack of attention to philosophy and literature that could establish a much-needed ethical foundation for the Information, Green, and Biotech ages we find ourselves in.

Originally Posted by XerTeacher

Hear, hear! As a doctoral candidate in education, I agree with you 100%. But never fear. Xers right now are junior faculty at best. Once we rule the Ivory Tower, expect to see a sharp conservative turn. I am particularly concerned with the lack of attention to philosophy and literature that could establish a much-needed ethical foundation for the Information, Green, and Biotech ages we find ourselves in.

The irony -- I consider myself a political and philosophical liberal -- and I vote that way. I see a strong connection between the depraved culture and the weakness of our public education.

You may not be so much a conservative as a traditionalist in education. Educational tradition underpinned excellence in education at all levels. Shakespeare is relevant; from Romeo and Juliet we learn of the ultimate horror of feuds whose basis nobody understands; from Macbeth we learn the danger of thuggish governance; from The Merchant of Venice we learn that revenge is fruitless. Languages are relevant; people who master a language other than their native language learn much about their own and become more masterful of "theirs".

I see a huge difference between Ronald Reagan, a right-wing anti-intellectual from the old school, and Dubya, a right-wing anti-intellectual and a survivor of the "Multiversity" (the latter says little). Even if Ronald Reagan didn't learn much from Plato, Locke, Freud, et al he probably encountered them. Dubya seems not to have met them in what passes as his schooling. Ethics? I see a huge difference. Ronald Reagan dotted the i's and crossed the t's before invading Grenada. Dubya dotted the t's and crossed the i's before invading Iraq.

Maybe the canon of the necessary has expanded some during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To cope with that, we need to introduce people to more of it even before they enter a college curriculum. Maybe Sartre is not so necessary as Freud -- but we need Freud.

New technology requires that people address the ethics of the application of those technologies. Because our political leadership about ten years ago accepted the default position of whatever was best for the moneyed classes (and for themselves as beneficiaries) was best for humanity as a whole, it decided that the best way to deal with information was that which maximized profits -- extending copyrights of extant works. Because of this extension, works will no longer go into the public domain until they are 95 years old -- and in all likelihood never as copyright extensions will almost certainly be established in law as works from 1923 and later are at risk of disappearing into the void of copyright protection. So that great-grandchildren of long-dead authors can receive royalties from comparatively few works still of value, lots of works will lose any possibility of access -- or discovery. Who knows what gems may be lost forever? The Internet could have been a marvelous method of preserving and even restoring old culture. (This is very different from enforcing copyright laws that protect artists from blatant violations of copyright in spirit, such as people streaming movies and music from recent times to others to avoid having to pay for a CD or DVD, behavior that I consider suspect at best).

(If I had my way I would have allowed copyright extensions solely as consumer protection; I would protect old characters as trademarks to prevent rip-offs from entering the market... one could protect Disney characters and Sherlock Holmes forever as trademarks even if copyrights expire).

"Profits first, culture and people -- never" is an ethos suitable to a value-free culture in which political, bureaucratic, and economic power dominate by default. Such used to be the norm when much of the leadership of business and politics were, as in the Gilded Age, of limited education and could operate on a rather low level of philosophical discretion. Such is true today when despite extensive terms of formal education, people have largely studied ephemera from which they learn only what is immediately "practical" at best.

Does anyone question that biotechnology raises ethical questions? Even the crudest applications of medicine -- like harvesting materials from cadavers -- implies huge questions. A few years ago some creep was busted for harvesting bones from cadavers; one of the cadavers was that of the late Alaister Cook, who died at an advanced age -- of cancer. Who would want material from a 90-year-old cancer victim in his body? There are people who would sell it if they could get away with it, as was shown in a criminal trial. Just imagine what happens when ethical issues arise from limited availability of some biotech miracle: does a powerful cancer treatment go to a 90-year-old "retired" mobster get it -- or does the 4-year-old daughter of a busboy and a a parking-lot attendant get it? That is an ethical question that people whose education might as well be the study of sports trivia cannot answer.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...,4779496.story

The economy is doing than predicted, this in spite of the credit crunch. I would say people are still in a mood to spend until their credit limits are reached.

Originally Posted by Tristan

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...,4779496.story

The economy is doing than predicted, this in spite of the credit crunch. I would say people are still in a mood to spend until their credit limits are reached.

I guess it depends on whether you think the crisis point occurred earlier this year and is slowly passing or whether you think that the first phase of the crisis is over and the second phase of the panic is creeping up in the next few months. I have read convincing analysis of both points of view.

Personally, I don't know if this 4T is going to be one involving the Second Great Depression. But times won't be good, or at least perceived as good. Even without the economy doing poorly, Americans still have the dark outlook and will continue to do so until things really start to change.

4Ts can be rocky economically- but not all are destined to be financial disasters like the last one. It may be that we are destined for a series of small panics over the next 5-10 years with the government putting out fires as they come up, rather than the general apocalypse some seem to hope for. Or perhaps a general malaise and slow overall growth, with few actual panics as the issues with our economy slowly start to get worked out over the course of the 4T.


That being said, I still think we be 4T- as I said, we had the mood even before the housing bubble burst, and it's something that seems to be occurring independent of the economic situation.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The irony -- I consider myself a political and philosophical liberal -- and I vote that way. I see a strong connection between the depraved culture and the weakness of our public education.

You may not be so much a conservative as a traditionalist in education. Educational tradition underpinned excellence in education at all levels. Shakespeare is relevant; from Romeo and Juliet we learn of the ultimate horror of feuds whose basis nobody understands; from Macbeth we learn the danger of thuggish governance; from The Merchant of Venice we learn that revenge is fruitless. Languages are relevant; people who master a language other than their native language learn much about their own and become more masterful of "theirs".

I see a huge difference between Ronald Reagan, a right-wing anti-intellectual from the old school, and Dubya, a right-wing anti-intellectual and a survivor of the "Multiversity" (the latter says little). Even if Ronald Reagan didn't learn much from Plato, Locke, Freud, et al he probably encountered them. Dubya seems not to have met them in what passes as his schooling. Ethics? I see a huge difference. Ronald Reagan dotted the i's and crossed the t's before invading Grenada. Dubya dotted the t's and crossed the i's before invading Iraq.

Maybe the canon of the necessary has expanded some during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To cope with that, we need to introduce people to more of it even before they enter a college curriculum. Maybe Sartre is not so necessary as Freud -- but we need Freud.

New technology requires that people address the ethics of the application of those technologies. Because our political leadership about ten years ago accepted the default position of whatever was best for the moneyed classes (and for themselves as beneficiaries) was best for humanity as a whole, it decided that the best way to deal with information was that which maximized profits -- extending copyrights of extant works. Because of this extension, works will no longer go into the public domain until they are 95 years old -- and in all likelihood never as copyright extensions will almost certainly be established in law as works from 1923 and later are at risk of disappearing into the void of copyright protection. So that great-grandchildren of long-dead authors can receive royalties from comparatively few works still of value, lots of works will lose any possibility of access -- or discovery. Who knows what gems may be lost forever? The Internet could have been a marvelous method of preserving and even restoring old culture. (This is very different from enforcing copyright laws that protect artists from blatant violations of copyright in spirit, such as people streaming movies and music from recent times to others to avoid having to pay for a CD or DVD, behavior that I consider suspect at best).

(If I had my way I would have allowed copyright extensions solely as consumer protection; I would protect old characters as trademarks to prevent rip-offs from entering the market... one could protect Disney characters and Sherlock Holmes forever as trademarks even if copyrights expire).

"Profits first, culture and people -- never" is an ethos suitable to a value-free culture in which political, bureaucratic, and economic power dominate by default. Such used to be the norm when much of the leadership of business and politics were, as in the Gilded Age, of limited education and could operate on a rather low level of philosophical discretion. Such is true today when despite extensive terms of formal education, people have largely studied ephemera from which they learn only what is immediately "practical" at best.

Does anyone question that biotechnology raises ethical questions? Even the crudest applications of medicine -- like harvesting materials from cadavers -- implies huge questions. A few years ago some creep was busted for harvesting bones from cadavers; one of the cadavers was that of the late Alaister Cook, who died at an advanced age -- of cancer. Who would want material from a 90-year-old cancer victim in his body? There are people who would sell it if they could get away with it, as was shown in a criminal trial. Just imagine what happens when ethical issues arise from limited availability of some biotech miracle: does a powerful cancer treatment go to a 90-year-old "retired" mobster get it -- or does the 4-year-old daughter of a busboy and a a parking-lot attendant get it? That is an ethical question that people whose education might as well be the study of sports trivia cannot answer.

I couldn't agree more. IMO philosophy and logic need to part of school curricula.

Great tits cope well with warming

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/20...304/764/512839

Beware, if you are easily offended don't click on the link, the author uses some... colorful language. I don't endorse all of the language used, but the general thrust of it seems apt. One person's view of the dark period of American politics that is 1980-2008 (otherwise known as the third turning of the Millennial Saeculum), when we spent all of our national money and got little in return.

FWIW, it mostly focuses on the explosion of the national debt during this time period and takes some well-deserved shots at those in the Reagan years that started the whole trend. But it seems apt, as we are either in the process of moving to the next turning or already well into the 4T, to look back at the dying/dead 3T. Some will do so with happiness; others bitterness.

It seems so clear now, but it didn't back then. I imagine this is how a lot of people felt after Black Tuesday. Kicking themselves, and kicking their leaders, for not seeing what was coming. But such is the way of 3Ts.

And it's not a one-party deal. Clinton slowed the trend, but didn't stop it. And his personal failings with Lewinsky was the ruin of any hope of real change during his time.

I think there is a significant segment of the under-40 crowd who thinks in this fashion. As they have driven, by and large, Obama to the point where he is today, it seems right to explore a bit of the bitterness at the last 20 years that, in part, seems to be driving it.

So we didn't do anything about our national debt. We didn't do anything about our use of gas and oil. We didn't improve our nation's infrastructure. We didn't do anything about education. Or when we did we allowed our leaders to fob off something monstrously deceptive and false as a solution.
When History is done with these people it's going to describe them as the ruin of a generation. My generation. My kids' generation. Anybody who has had to grow up between 1980 and 2008 will remember those days with bitterness, because people with even a flickering bit of intelligence could see that we had problems to solve. And that we had a time limit on how long we had to solve them. And instead of solving them we were told we could have our cake, and eat it too. By people who should have known better, if they were decent people at all. Which they weren't. Instead they frittered away our national treasure on shinies and nonsense and had a hell of a party. As I and my children are cleaning up this party, we'll be taking names. And making notes. And sending some bills.

I don't know that these are 4T crisis signs, but was in a restaurant today with one of the cable news stations going. The looping stories featured earthquakes in China, the typhoon clean up in Miramar, tornadoes rolling through the midwest, and the possibility of a strong Clinton showing in West Virginia.

Seems more like signs of Armageddon than a fourth turning...

Senate votes to limit the concentration of media ownership.

The Senate voted Thursday night to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that allows media companies to own a newspaper and a TV station in the same market.

The unusual "resolution of disapproval," sponsored by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and 24 other senators, was approved on a voice vote.

Republican FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin has described the agency's action as a "relatively minor loosening" of media ownership restrictions. The FCC approved the rule on a 3-2 vote in December with both Democrats dissenting.

The FCC decision allows one company to own a newspaper and a broadcast station in the nation's 20 largest metropolitan areas. The TV station may not be among the top four in the market and, post-transaction, at least eight independent media voices must remain. The rule replaced an outright ban on cross-ownership.

Dorgan said the FCC action opened a "gaping loophole for more mergers of newspapers and television stations across the country."

It looks as if the Democrats now have some guts. Controlled, corrupt, or cowed media are essential to a dictatorship. Even the "fifth" TV station, now typically a CW or MyTV outlet can have considerable influence upon news, and if its editorial content is dictated by some ideologues in the newspaper, that can lead to extreme bias.

By the way -- under this ruling, how can News Corporation (an oxymoron if there ever was one, as it owns the New York Daily News, a rag best suited to lining a birdcage or wrapping fish) also own WNYW-TV, the FoX affiliate in New York City? We know of course that cable TV is exempt, so the Propaganda Channel can keep pumping its stuff indefinitely.

Truthfully I find visiting here less entertaining now that (to me at least) it feels as if the turning is going on. You can see it happening. That doesn't mean anybody knows how it will turn out though.

Obama came out of seemingly nowhere, pulling record numbers to the polls, and completely caught Clinton and her ppl off guard - they were running a 3T campaign and the public mood shifted under them.

Economically, the housing crisis has already happened, and how the implications of that and any other structural problems are rippling through the economy now.

Energy is becoming a drain on ppl, and I don't see any reason to think that prices are going to ease significantly in the near future.

So the things I would look for at the the start of a turning are already happening.

Originally Posted by MillieJim

Personally, I don't know if this 4T is going to be one involving the Second Great Depression. But times won't be good, or at least perceived as good. Even without the economy doing poorly, Americans still have the dark outlook and will continue to do so until things really start to change.

4Ts can be rocky economically- but not all are destined to be financial disasters like the last one. It may be that we are destined for a series of small panics over the next 5-10 years with the government putting out fires as they come up, rather than the general apocalypse some seem to hope for. Or perhaps a general malaise and slow overall growth, with few actual panics as the issues with our economy slowly start to get worked out over the course of the 4T.

That being said, I still think we be 4T- as I said, we had the mood even before the housing bubble burst, and it's something that seems to be occurring independent of the economic situation.

I totally concur. Most Crises tend to be somewhat independent of the economic situation. Of course, they always contribute, but only during the prior one did the terrible economic condition take center stage.

In the Armada, Glorious Revolution, American Revolution, and Civil War Crises, there was definitely a strong undercurrent of economic turmoil and class warfare while other events took center stage. But the Depression was the opposite. During that decade, economic turmoil took center stage, while other issues (mainly the alarming growth in totalitarian regimes and warfare) were merely undercurrents through most of the decade.

I don't think it is likely that economic turmoil will take center stage this time around.

Originally Posted by Andy '85

Coming from the perspective of the field of science and technology, with the rest of the world (India and China for example) rapidly developing and aggressively pursuing very high technological and highly advanced science goals, I don't think it is really the right time to pursue and emphasize the liberal arts as the cornerstone of education.

Granted, there is a significant value to such an education, such as giving well versed and thoughtful citizens, but that will not necessarily help the nation stay abreast and at the head of the latest developments that could just be as valuable to mankind.

I've observed over time the shifting of priorities in education that happened based on some sort of crisis or another. Much of it revolves around the overemphasis on standardized testing (which is only to impress the statisticians) and activities that connect the school to the community which usually consists mainly of athletics. So then other subjects get sacrificed due to either lack of public interest (like the arts) or the need to make sure students "excel" (like recess).

There always seems to be two camps when it comes to education and it almost always is drawn between the liberal arts/fine arts and the sciences. Personally, I am biased towards the sciences and I don't quite see the utility of having more class hours devoted towards general education when that should have been done far earlier in grade school. Drawing from my experience, I pretty much loathed most of the liberal arts classes not because I don't like to think but I don't like to have to jump intellectual hoops to come to the correct "conclusion". The only non-technical subject I ever enjoyed was music, since it presents itself mostly at face value.

I don't think there is a real need to emphasize liberal arts either. In a Crisis Era, that will come anyway. Also, I think it is likely that what is taught in liberal arts classes will become obsolete not far into this Crisis. Imagine taking a "liberal arts" (whatever their equivalent was) in 1770, and then taking it later in 1785 (or 1790). Or, imagine how it changed between 1856 and 1868, or between 1924 and 1936 (or 1941).

I think a new "modernized" version of liberal arts will naturally emerge during this Crisis.

I think that science and technology education is crucial. It will be needed for a successful end to the Crisis. Also, just like all other Crises, these will help to inform the Crisis Era liberal arts programs.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I don't know that these are 4T crisis signs, but was in a restaurant today with one of the cable news stations going. The looping stories featured earthquakes in China, the typhoon clean up in Miramar, tornadoes rolling through the midwest, and the possibility of a strong Clinton showing in West Virginia.

Seems more like signs of Armageddon than a fourth turning...

There were disasters in other decades too. Looking back in history, the 1970s also seemed to be one for major disasters. The major quake that hit China that decade was much worse than the recent one. And there was at least one typhoon which were much deadlier than the recent one too. There was widespread climatological turmoil too. And then there were the severe winters of the late 1970s, which caused lots of ice age fears.

And then, don't forget about the events of the 1990s. Hurricane Andrew can't compare to Katrina in its impact, but Hurricane Mitch, which hit Central America in 1998, made Katrina look like child's play. And don't forget the El Nino years of the late 1990s, as well as Superstorm 93 and the 1996 Blizzard.

I think that the main difference is that we are in a different turning. It is likely that the traditional media networks (which, in this context, means Old Media) have figured out that "crisis porn" is what gets viewers in this era. During the 1970s, a largely self-absorbed society was more focused on inner-world events of the Woodstockian, New Age, evangelical, disco nature than the outer world events (particularly after Watergate). Even the then unprecedented public disasters of the late 1970s didn't seem to capture as much attention as they do today.

In the 1990s, disasters were avoided, mainly because of Silent expertise. But even so, major natural events (and even the Y2K fears) were unable to find as captive of an audience, who were no doubt more interested in the fast pace of daily life, and parties.

This decade, however, people are fully engaged in the outer world, rather than the inner world. People don't particularly care as much about the celebrity world. The pace of daily life seems (at least to me) considerably slower, more sober, etc.

It is worth noting that Crisis Eras do seem like Armageddons. That was definitely true during the 1930s (The Harvest of Armageddon, and The Dark Valley) and 1940s, during the Civil War, and during the Revolutionary Eras. Many people believed that World War II was the biblical prophecy of Armageddon.

Originally Posted by antichrist

Truthfully I find visiting here less entertaining now that (to me at least) it feels as if the turning is going on. You can see it happening. That doesn't mean anybody knows how it will turn out though.

Obama came out of seemingly nowhere, pulling record numbers to the polls, and completely caught Clinton and her ppl off guard - they were running a 3T campaign and the public mood shifted under them.

Economically, the housing crisis has already happened, and how the implications of that and any other structural problems are rippling through the economy now.

Energy is becoming a drain on ppl, and I don't see any reason to think that prices are going to ease significantly in the near future.

So the things I would look for at the the start of a turning are already happening.

Buy on the rumor, sell on the news. Or Clarke's Three Laws at work.

I think you had your own personal turning, and I'm glad it's working out for you. Good call. Academics are about to get a very nasty pasting.

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

I don't think there is a real need to emphasize liberal arts either. In a Crisis Era, that will come anyway. Also, I think it is likely that what is taught in liberal arts classes will become obsolete not far into this Crisis. Imagine taking a "liberal arts" (whatever their equivalent was) in 1770, and then taking it later in 1785 (or 1790). Or, imagine how it changed between 1856 and 1868, or between 1924 and 1936 (or 1941).

I don't think you could have gotten this more wrong. The liberal arts are timeless. Are Bach and Beethoven less great now than they were before modern atonal music was developed? Is Aristotle no longer valid since we have more modern philosophies? Shakespeare may be getting more difficult to understand at first reading because the language is changing, but his are still the most produced stage works in the English-speaking world. It is science that often sweeps the old away; this is rarely if ever true of art.

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

... I think a new "modernized" version of liberal arts will naturally emerge during this Crisis.

The liberal arts are additive. Abstract impressionism didn't require an abandonment of the earlier impressionist forms which did not push realism into some state of oblivion in its time. In fact, photo-realism represents a relatively new version of that older form. The concept of "modernization" is more one of what of the new deserves entre into the world of the already excellent.

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

... I think that science and technology education is crucial. It will be needed for a successful end to the Crisis. Also, just like all other Crises, these will help to inform the Crisis Era liberal arts programs.

The liberal arts are about understanding our humanness, for lack of a better word. Technology and science can't help bridge the gap between antagonistic tribes or factions, but art often can. It also helps to understand the human story as seen through the eyes of others.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I don't think you could have gotten this more wrong. The liberal arts are timeless. Are Bach and Beethoven less great now than they were before modern atonal music was developed? Is Aristotle no longer valid since we have more modern philosophies? Shakespeare may be getting more difficult to understand at first reading because the language is changing, but his are still the most produced stage works in the English-speaking world. It is science that often sweeps the old away; this is rarely if ever true of art.

I could quibble this. I remember a moment in a role playing game. My modern character was speaking with an elf bard from a Rivendell style of culture, trying to explain punk rock music to one who had grown up in a tradition of idyllic dreams. Music reflects the world view of the culture that creates it. Bach's pretty abstract patterns and the romantic power of Beethoven reflect the cultures of their times. The elf could not understand the music of the punk rockers because she had never comprehended the life style that the people who follow punk rock endure.

No, Bach and Beethoven are not less great nor their music less profound when a culture transforms through a crisis era, but the underlying values of the culture might well drift further from the values of Bach and Beethoven. I should not be surprised if such music is played less and appreciate less.

Similarly, both the content of and role of philosophy is changing. When I started college, I thought to pursue an unofficial philosophy major. My elective was always philosophy. I bought into the idea that the world could be understood through first principle and logic. The more I studied philosophy, the more I came to understand that the so called 'first premises' are generally not anchored in observation or any absolute truth, but are in fact cultural biases. One could learn more about a given philosopher's home culture from examining his first principles than one learned about first principles.

Thus, my electives shifted. I started studying history and cultures rather than philosophers. I started getting into the role of biological emotional drives in shaping culture, things like dominance, aggression, territory and group bonding. I became convinced that philosophy was the study of subjects where the philosophers have not figured out how to word premises in such a way as they can be tested through observation and experiment. Thus, the object of the philosopher ought to be to state hypotheses rather than first principles. The difference is that hypotheses can be tested through observation and experiment. Thus, one might turn a field of philosophy into a field of science.

Which in time led me into cycle theory. I see philosophy as deriving 'truths' from cultural biases. Cycle theory provides a framework by which one can see how cultural biases are shaped and changed. Values shift when they can no longer solve the problems confronting a society, thus resulting in a crisis which tests and forges new values. Values -- memes -- evolve.

To some extent current liberal arts courses might teach appreciation of the cultures and values studied. To that extent, the mind might be opened and expanded. Still, when values shift, the content of courses about values must also shift. Yes, liberal arts courses that once upon a time attempted to justify the divine right of kings would have shifted after the Revolution. Value courses taught in Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China needed to be rewritten. Liberal arts courses teach cultural truths, and often justify and glorify the status quo as much as they expand and open minds.

Never more so than Philosophy. The courses work and theory being taught and developed are growing ever further from popular culture. In Revolutionary times, it was appropriate to study the works of the recent wave of Enlightenment philosophers. Said philosophers spoke to the flaws of the culture. Modern philosophy does not. Modern philosophers are saying little to nothing of value as to how to solve the upcoming crisis.

To a great extent, this is because the major current value systems are anchored in dated philosophical systems. The Red values mix Christian religious values with social darwinism. The Blue values borrow more from the Enlightenment.

I guess the ideas I'd like to see brought forward are centered on biological imperatives and memes. Humans are not logic machines. Our genes lean us towards aggression, territory, sex, and violence. We evolved for a hunter gatherer environment which encouraged or demanded the use of violence to guarantee sufficient resources to breed. While we are evolving slowly at a genetic level, at a cultural or meme level we are evolving at a much faster rate. Improving technology effectively recreates the environment. There is a constant need for values, cultures and memes to evolve and adjust to new realities. There is a need to understand human culture as a mechanism for adapting to change rather than as a set of first premises which remain fixed and immutable.

Which doesn't seem to be how modern liberal arts are taught. I anticipate the memes will have to evolve.

The Royal Malchick Nozh & Britva Society

Originally Posted by The Observer

...One in three young people living in cities thinks it is acceptable to carry a knife in self-defence because violence is so rife, according to research revealed today. Teenagers and twenty-somethings have lost faith in politicians, the police or schools to protect them and increasingly believe they need to be armed to defend themselves against people of their own age. Nearly half said they knew someone who had been a victim of knife crime.
...

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said the £1m campaign would 'challenge the fear, glamour and peer pressure that can drive youngsters to knife crime', alongside recent moves to double the maximum sentence for carrying a knife to four years.

However, Enver Solomon of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College said there was little research on what worked in deterring knife carrying. He said the unit had been told by senior Met officers that the most pragmatic response would be to train teenagers in first aid in the hope that more stabbing victims could be kept alive until emergency help reached them.

He said stop and search campaigns similar to a police exercise in London last week were of limited use, since seizing knives did not take them out of circulation when a teenager could easily take another one from the kitchen: 'It is a losing battle trying to confiscate them.'

"We're here from The Elderly Lady of German Heritage's Government and we're here to help." UK be 3T!

For the first time I saw a true 4T indicator in California; a news piece was talking about how, with the current economy, people were 'tired' of playing the lottery.

A 3T response might have been to irrationally continue playing the lottery, especially as one gets poorer, but for people to behave sensibly and make do with what little they have instead of 'investing' in wild dreams of wealth?

Originally Posted by antichrist

Truthfully I find visiting here less entertaining now that (to me at least) it feels as if the turning is going on. You can see it happening. That doesn't mean anybody knows how it will turn out though.

The time of thought may becoming the time of action. Some of us have found stereotypical 3T actions objectionable and have dithered. Those who think before they act generally act bigger and better when the opportunity arises.

Obama came out of seemingly nowhere, pulling record numbers to the polls, and completely caught Clinton and her ppl off guard - they were running a 3T campaign and the public mood shifted under them.

Much of the support for Hillary looks like nostalgia for a better time within a convenient memory. America was far kinder and gentler when her husband was President. But nostalgia isn't going to bring back 20th-century energy prices any more than it's going to bring back the Twin Towers and those who died in them. In my opinion, Dubya has done so much damage that a political effort to return to the best times of a 3T are futility. Dubya has forced the arrow of history in a strange and perverse direction.

Economically, the housing crisis has already happened, and how the implications of that and any other structural problems are rippling through the economy now.

We have yet to see all the consequences.

Energy is becoming a drain on ppl, and I don't see any reason to think that prices are going to ease significantly in the near future.

It seems as if the energy cartel has found a way in which it can take all of the benefits of the Industrial Revolution for itself. That itself suggests a major reduction of living standards for the vast majority of people in every country. Such pauperization creates political stresses that demagogues, Left and Right, exploit for the institution of extremist regimes. I can also imagine elites turning to crude forms of repression to enforce the order that indulges them.

It all looks like a market-cornering scheme, something possible only when the most powerful leadership is itself amenable to such schemes. It looks so -- but this time it could be genuine. Oil is now the perfect commodity for monopolization. It is the currency of human existence.

Question: can enterprise and work counteract the need for petroleum? Should those fail, we could be back to a new Dark Age... fast. But in the meantime, we're going to modify much in life so that we can protect the fruits of the wealth of earlier times, let alone create any thing in the near-future. The alternative is that rapacious elites can transform workers into peons, serfs, or slaves, and enforce a degrading system through methods that have no limits for destructiveness and cruelty.

The old feudal order depended upon some relationship between lord and serf; populations were small enough that the serf likely knew a blood tie to the lord of the manor. In the post-modern nightmare possible, the only bond will be the methods of torture and murder. The ruling class could be gangsters and all others victims.

So the things I would look for at the the start of a turning are already happening.

Including credible fear of an apocalypse that can result in a new and Golden Age or an unspeakable and eternal nightmare?