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Thread: Why 2005 did start the 4T - Page 7







Post#151 at 02-06-2007 11:00 AM by Pink Splice [at St. Louis MO (They Built An Entire Country Around Us) joined Apr 2005 #posts 5,439]
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Quote Originally Posted by Child of Socrates View Post
Seems like a lot of us here graduated young. I did fourth and fifth grades in the same year and graduated at the age of 17 years, 3 months, and 27 days. Had my first master's degree before I turned twenty-three.
We are all geeks here. Suprise.







Post#152 at 02-06-2007 11:07 AM by Bob Butler 54 [at Cove Hold, Carver, MA joined Jul 2001 #posts 6,431]
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Geeks

Quote Originally Posted by Pink Splice View Post
We are all geeks here. Suprise.
Shush. Some of us are trying not to advertise the fact too openly.







Post#153 at 02-06-2007 11:08 AM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by Pink Splice View Post
We are all geeks here. Suprise.
I suppose that goes with the territory, but hey, I'm a geek.
My Turning-based Map of the World

Thanks, John Xenakis, for hosting my map

Myers-Briggs Type: INFJ







Post#154 at 02-06-2007 11:58 PM by Roadbldr '59 [at Vancouver, Washington joined Jul 2001 #posts 8,275]
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Quote Originally Posted by Pink Splice View Post
We are all geeks here. Suprise.
Yeah, but I backslid a bit.

After HS we moved to California, where I took a year off to work and qualify for in-state college fees ($62 per qtr, no tuition). So I started California State University, Los Angeles four weeks shy of my 18th birthday as a Physics major. At 20 I decided I wanted to have a life more than a PhD. So I reduced my course load by half and ramped up my work hours, while I decided what I really wanted to be when I grew up. A year later I settled on Civil Engineering and graduated in '83 with a B.S. ... at the ripe old age of twenty-four.
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King







Post#155 at 02-09-2007 05:22 AM by albatross '82 [at Portland, OR joined Sep 2005 #posts 248]
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Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
OK, well, "The Princess Bride" was on Bravo last night, so I recorded it and
watched it. I guess I must be in the wrong generation or something,
because I found it to be sweet but tedious. But now at least I've met
the requirement, and that's what counts.

John
I think it must be, because when I saw it for the first time a few years back, I thought the same thing! I enjoyed certain parts, but I just didn't feel like I "got" it. But it might also be one of those movies you have to see as a child to get it--like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or something. I was 18 or 19, and it failed to grab me.







Post#156 at 02-09-2007 12:21 PM by catfishncod [at The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS joined Apr 2005 #posts 984]
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Quote Originally Posted by albatross '82 View Post
I think it must be, because when I saw it for the first time a few years back, I thought the same thing! I enjoyed certain parts, but I just didn't feel like I "got" it. But it might also be one of those movies you have to see as a child to get it--like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or something. I was 18 or 19, and it failed to grab me.
Well, it is a fairy tale, and despite all the jokes it's ultimately told straight. Once the rosy glow fades, though, the snappy one-liners remain. Vizzini the Sicilian in particular reminds me of our current leadership...

Quote Originally Posted by The Princess Bride
"You sure no one's following us?"
"That would totally, completely, and in all other ways inconceivable!"
(after the stern-chasing boat is pointed out)
"Probably some fisherman on a pleasure cruise at night.... through... eel-infested waters...."
Reality is only something that can intrude or be forced on Vizzini; he never recognizes it himself.

"I've hired you to start a war. It's a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition."
'81, 30/70 X/Millie, trying to live in both Red and Blue America... "Catfish 'n Cod"







Post#157 at 02-10-2007 12:45 AM by Zarathustra [at Where the Northwest meets the Southwest joined Mar 2003 #posts 9,198]
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Quote Originally Posted by 1990 View Post
There is a lot of argument over what makes a Fourth Turning a Fourth Turning -- what makes it a Crisis and not an Unraveling, Awakening, or High? Is it full-scale war? An economic depression? Just a mood shift away from 3T denial? I don't agree with the notion that any one of these is requisite for a true Crisis. The Swiss had a 4T during WWII without actually taking sides in the war. The Russians had a 4T (in my opinion) during the '90s without participating in the nearby Balkans Wars. The Brazilians (and most other Latin Americans) had a 4T during the '60s, '70s, and '80s without any sort of traditional war. These were all still Crises, though.

So again, what makes a Crisis a Crisis? I think the answer is simpler than one would think. It is simply an era when all the chickens that have been postponed and ignored come home to roost. Sometimes this does lead to a war and a depression, just one or the other, or even neither. But what it always is about is a period when the society affected is forced to solemnly consider its priorities and create a new order. And what is the catalyst? If you think the catalyst is always hyper-dramatic and hyper-patriotic, you probably say 9/11 catalyzed the 4T of our time. But this is not always the case. In fact, it is almost never the case.

America was founded in a 4T. Most societies are. In our case, we had a Revolution, a War of Independence. But what catalyzed it? Not an attack on our soil. Not a recession. Actually, what catalyzed it, according to S&H at least, was a few guys throwing tea into the ocean. And what started the Civil War? An election. And the Depression? It was catalyzed by Wall Street having a really bad day.

In none of these cases did the populace immediately rally behind the President and unify in some grand way. As the Revolution began, a large proportion of Americans still backed the British, and considered the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams treasonous. And indeed it was 3 years after the Tea Party that the Declaration of Independence was signed and our heroic Revolution began. The Civil War never had its heroic moment of unity. And World War II, the ultimate "heroic war", did not begin for us until 12 years into the 4T.

If we put aside our assumption that something like Pearl Harbor has to begin a 4T (after all, Pearl Harbor didn't begin a 4T), then the answer to "Be we 3T or 4T?" seems a lot clearer. I am beginning to join the camp that contends that Hurricane Katrina and the surrounding government meltdown in 2005 was the catalyst. While 9/11 was a tragic event, it did not have the effect of permanently throwing people into 4T mode. Well, it did...prematurely, for about five days. And that could not have been a real 4T catalyst because we were temporarily united in patriotism. We were not questioning ourselves, we were all angry at our enemy. This mood, if long-term and not a brief mood, is characteristic of late in a 4T, not the beginning of one.

For that reason, the Culture Wars returned with a vengeance, and so did 3T decadence, economic bubbles, indulgence, and apathy.

Just compare the 2004 election with the 2006 election. In 2004, gay marriage bans probably won the election for George W. Bush, in Ohio at least. The three-tiered division was growing sharper by the day: between people who thought Bush was our Next Great Leader, people who thought Bush was evil, and people who were disillusioned by both sides. In 2006, there was one unified message from the voters. No, it wasn't "Democrats rock!" Actually, it was a lot simpler: NO MORE.

2005 was a year of transition. At the beginning of the year Bush was being sworn in for a 2nd term, causing half the country to cheer and half the country to cry. His approval rating was about 52-55%. At the end of the year Bush's approval was 35-40%, an entire region of the country was destroyed, and the public mood was darker than it had been in any of our lifetimes.

This extreme pessimism has not subsided. While Unravelings are characterized by fragmentation and controversy, Crises begin with a profound malaise coming over society. Russia's last Crisis did not begin with an event like 9/11, it began with an event like Katrina. Or as Katrina is spelled in Russian, Chernobyl. The Chernobyl disaster symbolized the crumbling of the old order created after the Bolshevik Revolution. Public confidence was extremely low and the mood was highly pessimistic for the next 5 years. As the USSR collapsed in 1991, Boris Yeltsin gave the Russians hope of a new order. Thus began their Regeneracy.

As I said, a Crisis is about the old order finally decaying to a point in which everybody agrees something must be done. If this point can be catalyzed by a tea party, an election, or a bad day on Wall Street, why can't it be caused by the destruction of a city?
Outside of my disagreement with your appraisal of Russia's saecular position, I not only agree with your analysis above, I think it is very well put. You hit the nail right on the head, and hit it hard.
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.







Post#158 at 02-10-2007 03:19 AM by Finch [at In the belly of the Beast joined Feb 2004 #posts 1,734]
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Quote Originally Posted by Zarathustra View Post
Outside of my disagreement with your appraisal of Russia's saecular position, I not only agree with your analysis above, I think it is very well put. You hit the nail right on the head, and hit it hard.
Hey Sean!

So where do you think Russia is exactly in the cycle? (I'm one of those who puts them in 1T: see here.)
Yes we did!







Post#159 at 02-10-2007 11:41 AM by Zarathustra [at Where the Northwest meets the Southwest joined Mar 2003 #posts 9,198]
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Quote Originally Posted by Finch View Post
Hey Sean!

So where do you think Russia is exactly in the cycle? (I'm one of those who puts them in 1T: see here.)
I am one of those who believes that their 4T did not end until 1945 after a very long ride (possibly from 1917) -- which made for a very long and overbearing Hero gen. I suspect perestroika (1985) marked entry into the core 3T.

The wave of democratization and it's accompanying economic wildness that occurred in the 1991-1997 period seems intensely 3T to me, not unlike Weimar Germany. However, I get the impression that with the Crash of 1998 and the blatant obviousness of Yeltin's corruption such wildness became more miserable than exciting.

Therefore the intensity of the Perestroika 3T may have led Russia into a 4T earlier than the West. If so, that would make Putin's rise to power a regeneracy. As a result, the world is dealing with a Russia that is experiencing a refoundation of it's institutional order and one that may have considerable organic solidity in the near-to-medium term future (think of America's reaction to Pearl Harbor).

That's my guess, anyway.
Last edited by Zarathustra; 02-10-2007 at 11:42 AM. Reason: Typo corrected
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.







Post#160 at 04-20-2007 01:52 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68 View Post
It depends in part on what we refer to when we use the word. Even on this forum, those of us familiar with S&H's theory use the terms somewhat (IMHO) sloppily. In the S&H sense, the 'Crisis' (capital C) is a psychological state, a collective set of responses and actions.

The defining characteristic of the Fourth is the effective asbence of the Adaptives in adult life.

This defines all the Turnings, in fact. At any given time, in the S&H theory, one of the four Generational Archetypes is in childhood, and thus has effectively no influence on society as a whole. In fact, it is this experience tha initially shapes the Gen into their archetype.

To quote from Generations:



Even since the start of the 3T, the Silent have dominated our national discourse, not just by their own words and actions and lack thereof, but by their selections of which words and actions of their juniors would be allowed to matter and which would not. Thus those chocies and impulses from younger Gens that are 'Adaptive-ish' get acted upon, those that are not tend to get smothered.

(The same phenomenon is true of any Turning, the Elder Gen sets the tone for the whole.)

Today the Silent influence is fading rapidly in America, more slowly in Europe. The Crisis will arrive when that influence becomes too weak to maintain the status quo.



But that can happen (and does happen) at any time in any Turning.

It probably is true that the Adaptive Elders have a greater tendency, compared to the other three, to 'defer' intractable disputes and problems that seem to have no acceptable solution, in hopes that things will change or something will think of something new. Often it works, but it also tends to accumulate the worst of the intractables in an ever-growing mass.

Something else that I suspect marks the Crisis is that youngers, who are used from ~20 years of experience to having the Adaptive Elders there to stop any action from 'going too far' come to depend on it, and to thus be caught by surprise when they race for deadman's curve for the nth time and this time nobody hits the brakes.

Right now, I think we're seeing the last desperate effort of the Silent to 'put the lid on' again, here and overseas, in matters military and civilian, economic and cultural, pretty much everything. If I'm right this is the last gasp of the 3T.
But there's a generational monkey wrench thrown into the machine. People are living longer and staying active longer. The Silent seem to be following the elder behavior of GIs very closely, which includes holding onto political power as long as they are competent. We still have some GI Senators and a Supreme Court Justice.

I'm going to take a dare by saying that the slow departure of GIs from the political scene may have extended (but not muted) the 3T until Millennials started changing the way the small things are done. So one effect of the 3T was that it began with the Civic/Hero archetype in "late middle age" and ending up in early adulthood. What is to say that the Silent won't do much the same?

Except, of course, that there are far fewer Silent, especially from the early-to-middle 1930s. But those still around are active. They are very different from the Lost who went quickly from retirement to either the nursing home or the grave in their late 60s and early 70s (probably the last generation to be so treated). But that said, there don't need to be lots of Silent adults to stop some of the rash behavior likely among younger generations.

Influence of a generation usually ended as its youngest members reached their mid-to-late 70s. Even that won't apply to the Silent until the late 2010s, and in view of the potential influence of active adults in their early 80s I can imagine the last Silent leaving social prominence about as the first of the new Artist/Adaptive generation enters early adulthood.

I have some certainty that the 3T is about to end, and the 4T is about to begin. But this one will be muted because we will have more Adaptive/Artist influence this time.







Post#161 at 04-20-2007 11:49 AM by Brian Beecher [at Downers Grove, IL joined Sep 2001 #posts 2,937]
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Staying in the Loop

The previous message seemed to indicate that the aging Silent gen is staying in the loop longer than expected. Part of this may be due to some of the brainwashing that has been going on for several years. It has been drilled into our heads over the past 20 years or so that so many Americans will not be able to afford the kind of leisure-driven retirement lifestyle that much of the GI gen enjoyed. There has been much fear-mongering over the stability and even future availability of social security, to which many responded by choosing to stay in the workforce longer.

What will be interesting to see is how the Boomers handle their golden years. The gospel according to S & H says that the first Boomers will turn 65 in 2008, next year, while the more widely accepted mode says that the first Boomer-65ers will arrive in 2011. Either way, it's going to be interesting to see if they revolutionize the golden years the same way they have revolutionized other life phases they have passed through. This is a very active generation, and I can't picture them becoming suddenly passive, but strange(r) things have happened. I was surprised when the eschewed the hedonism of their youth and turn to cocooning and workaholism, in many ways becoming so much like those they had earlier ridiculed.







Post#162 at 04-20-2007 06:18 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by Brian Beecher View Post
The previous message seemed to indicate that the aging Silent gen is staying in the loop longer than expected. Part of this may be due to some of the brainwashing that has been going on for several years. It has been drilled into our heads over the past 20 years or so that so many Americans will not be able to afford the kind of leisure-driven retirement lifestyle that much of the GI gen enjoyed. There has been much fear-mongering over the stability and even future availability of social security, to which many responded by choosing to stay in the workforce longer.

What will be interesting to see is how the Boomers handle their golden years. The gospel according to S & H says that the first Boomers will turn 65 in 2008, next year, while the more widely accepted mode says that the first Boomer-65ers will arrive in 2011. Either way, it's going to be interesting to see if they revolutionize the golden years the same way they have revolutionized other life phases they have passed through. This is a very active generation, and I can't picture them becoming suddenly passive, but strange(r) things have happened. I was surprised when the eschewed the hedonism of their youth and turn to cocooning and workaholism, in many ways becoming so much like those they had earlier ridiculed.
The Golden Years of elderly Boomers will be great for elderly Boomers who have the gold. The rest? I can't show much optimism.

Boomers have presided over the intensification of economic disparities as few generations have. The bureaucratic elite in business is almost entirely Boomers (aged 46-64 now) now, and one looks at the incredible salaries for Boomer executives combined with tax cuts entirely in the service of the rich and budget cuts that leave the non-rich behind as well as the offshoring of jobs. Rich Boomers are highly visible... but the non-rich among them are far more common. The non-rich are going to have nothing but Social Security on which to rely. Because of declining real wages the non-rich among them have been unable to save more than a pittance.

Many Boomers will have to work until they drop -- so they had better like their work, and they had better take care of themselves. I predict a harsh old age for most Boomers unless they have been part of the elite or have well prepared their children to support them.







Post#163 at 04-21-2007 05:36 PM by Brian Beecher [at Downers Grove, IL joined Sep 2001 #posts 2,937]
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Work Oriented

Let's not forget that Bommers have, by and large, been a very work oriented generation once they exited their free love years. Many have been known for working on their days off, through their lunch breaks, and even on their so-called vacations, all of which ended up making liars out of futurists who had almost unanimously predicted that new technology would make us an increasingly leisure focused society. Not only do most aim to do a satisfying job, they are even happy to take on more. They are always looking for new ways for supplementing their income and taking on extra responsibility. And haven't some demographic studies portrayed them as a bunch who preferred leisure to work? Would have to give a "bah humbug" to that one.
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