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Thread: Official 'Map Project' Thread - Page 8







Post#176 at 06-24-2007 01:35 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Continuing on South America

1990, I will continue on South America today. How's the country study going?







Post#177 at 06-24-2007 01:49 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59 View Post
Dear Distinguished Authors,

I also thank you for rejoining the Fourth Turning discussion. My one burning question is this: With America someplace on the 3T/4T cusp, where on the Saeculum do the other nations of the world lie?

I have long maintained that World War 2 was a synchronizing event. That so powerful was its historic impact upon the entire planet, the Second World War pre-empted the various saecular cycles that other countries may have previously been on, and forced most of them onto, or closer to, ours. In other words, the greater part of the world is now somewhere between mid-3T and mid-4T, no more than a half-turning ahead of, or behind, the United States.
This makes no sense. World War Two was just bigger (since a large portion of the world was in sync), and not overly *special.* Generationally speaking, why would it alter country's saeculum and generational cycle, like Turkey? Or Iran? Or Vietnam? Or wherever?

As examples, Western Europe's High likely began a few years after ours, sometime between 1946 and '50, as the Continent slowly recovered from the massive infrastructure damage brought on by the War. Israel's High would have begun upon the creation of the Jewish State in 1948... as likely would that of their Arab neighbors. And Eastern Europe/Russia would have begun their 1T Austerity period somewhere between 1949, following the final partion of Germany and the Berlin Airlift, and 1955 with the formation of the Warsaw Pact.
I'd disagree with these dates with the exception of Israel. Russia, especially, had its Crisis end in the 1920s. However, most these countries had their previous Crisis around the time of the U.S. Civil War, so there was no bizarre alteration.

However, other posters have differing opinions. There is a small but growing group here that believes world saeculae are not closely in synch, but are in fact all over the map. Many believe that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the Climax of a recent Soviet 4T, and that Russia today is at the peak of a High. While I don't believe this to be the case, one such poster actually lives in St. Pete, and thus cannot simply be blown off.

What is the opinion of the Authors on the issue of saecular "timelines" in different parts of the world? And how might their synchronization, or lack thereof, affect the current/approaching Fourth Turning here in the United States?
I agree that most of the modern World is in or approaching a 4T, but a continent like Africa is all over the place, which explains why they have so many horrible wars.
For reference:

My map:
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7409/worldmapyc2.png

1990's map:
http://generationaldynamics.com/gdgr...0in%202015.GIF

Odin's http://bp3.blogger.com/_ie7p3vWqRkI/.../world+map.bmp

Clearly some similarities throughout, clearly some differences. 1990s and mine are nearly identical, but everyone uses a different methodology.







Post#178 at 06-24-2007 02:10 PM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
1990, I will continue on South America today. How's the country study going?
Fine but slowly. My once-vast vocabulary is falling short. I don't want to be monotonous and am running out of synonyms. Will resume it next week.
My Turning-based Map of the World

Thanks, John Xenakis, for hosting my map

Myers-Briggs Type: INFJ







Post#179 at 06-24-2007 02:11 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by 1990 View Post
Fine but slowly. My once-vast vocabulary is falling short. I don't want to be monotonous and am running out of synonyms. Will resume it next week.
Identify word, right click







Post#180 at 06-24-2007 02:24 PM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
Identify word, right click
I know, but I'm still running out of synonyms. My Writing score on the SAT was 800, and I'm running out of synonyms. Bah.
My Turning-based Map of the World

Thanks, John Xenakis, for hosting my map

Myers-Briggs Type: INFJ







Post#181 at 06-25-2007 10:45 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Brazil is 2T

^^

I'm a little more confident now that I've studied South America a little more. All signs point to:
http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...postcount=2171

!!!Map Updated!!! We're approaching the Finish Line! Of course, then we go IN DEPTH.
Last edited by Matt1989; 06-25-2007 at 10:57 PM.







Post#182 at 06-26-2007 01:11 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
!!!Map Updated!!! We're approaching the Finish Line! Of course, then we go IN DEPTH.
Except you've still got big chunks of Asia mis-marked...

But good effort nevertheless.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#183 at 06-26-2007 09:55 AM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
Except you've still got big chunks of Asia mis-marked...

But good effort nevertheless.
Well I assume it's Central and North Asia you're talking about. Perhaps 1990's map is more attuned to your saecular needs. They are basically identical, except that problem.







Post#184 at 06-27-2007 10:37 AM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
^^

I'm a little more confident now that I've studied South America a little more. All signs point to:
http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...postcount=2171

!!!Map Updated!!! We're approaching the Finish Line! Of course, then we go IN DEPTH.
Check out Uruguay. I am still decently confident about Argentina being 2T, but Uruguay I need confirmation on.

As an aside, why do you still have Indonesia 2T? I thought we agreed that the last Indonesian Crisis was ~1945-1966, with the National Revolution (independence struggle) catalyzing and a climax then resolution with Suharto's coup and the brief civil war of 1965-1966. The 2T then hits around ~1984-2002, with Suharto's power eroding and a growing student movement in the 1980s, a climax with the revolution of 1998, and a move to 3T around the time democracy stabilized and the economy started prospering.

I am in Atlanta right now, but will be back on Sunday. At that point I will be updating my map and resuming the writing project.
My Turning-based Map of the World

Thanks, John Xenakis, for hosting my map

Myers-Briggs Type: INFJ







Post#185 at 06-27-2007 12:25 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by 1990 View Post
Check out Uruguay. I am still decently confident about Argentina being 2T, but Uruguay I need confirmation on.
I have been looking into Uruguay since yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish today.

As an aside, why do you still have Indonesia 2T? I thought we agreed that the last Indonesian Crisis was ~1945-1966, with the National Revolution (independence struggle) catalyzing and a climax then resolution with Suharto's coup and the brief civil war of 1965-1966. The 2T then hits around ~1984-2002, with Suharto's power eroding and a growing student movement in the 1980s, a climax with the revolution of 1998, and a move to 3T around the time democracy stabilized and the economy started prospering.
Good point! Will change.

I am in Atlanta right now, but will be back on Sunday. At that point I will be updating my map and resuming the writing project.
Great! What are you doing in Atlanta?
Last edited by Matt1989; 06-27-2007 at 12:27 PM.







Post#186 at 06-27-2007 12:37 PM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
I have been looking into Uruguay since yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish today.



Good point! Will change.



Great! What are you doing in Atlanta?
Visiting friends. Suddenly everybody has moved to the South, so we drove down to visit people. I actually liked Nashville a lot - Tennessee is phenomenally beautiful - though wherever we stopped in North Georgia was uncomfortably like the movie Deliverance.

Anyway, thanks for keepin' goin' on the map project. This is so important long-term, and two heads are better than one. Maybe someday we should put this all together in a book or something. In the meantime, I have to resume writing (I think in the United States I got stuck with describing the last 1T, the American High, because as I said I got so sick of synonyms and wanted to avoid redundancy at all costs. I will continue ASAP, of course, and actually writing for Mexico was remarkably easy.)
My Turning-based Map of the World

Thanks, John Xenakis, for hosting my map

Myers-Briggs Type: INFJ







Post#187 at 06-27-2007 02:42 PM by catfishncod [at The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS joined Apr 2005 #posts 984]
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Thumbs up

Quote Originally Posted by 1990 View Post
Visiting friends. Suddenly everybody has moved to the South, so we drove down to visit people. I actually liked Nashville a lot - Tennessee is phenomenally beautiful - though wherever we stopped in North Georgia was uncomfortably like the movie Deliverance.
South Georgia is worse. And the Smokies are much prettier than even Nashville, at least if you avoid the horrors of the Dollywood-Pigeon Forge-Gatlinburg tourist-trap-o-plex. Even Memphis has rejoined civilization recently.

-- Catfish N. "It shouldn't be cooler at home than in Boston!" Cod
'81, 30/70 X/Millie, trying to live in both Red and Blue America... "Catfish 'n Cod"







Post#188 at 06-27-2007 03:17 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
I have been looking into Uruguay since yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish today.
Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay underwent military rule that has since been completely discredited for brutality and social failure. Even if Pinochet 'only' caused the deaths of 2000 people through "disappearances", infant mortality among the poor skyrocketed. Sure, a beast like Pinochet created order -- a soul-crushing order that forced people to shut up while foreign multinationals were raping them. The dictatorships all died within about five years of each other. That was about the same time as the downfall of Communism in the Soviet bloc.

Several of the characteristics of those pluto-pretorian regimes look like attempts to restore 1Ts... bad 1Ts. Think of Joseph McCarthy as President of the United States instead of the mellow Dwight Eisenhower, and an Inquisitorial system of suppressing dissent. Anything evil would be associated with a commie conspiracy against the Nation. The egalitarian and communitarian qualities of life would be destroyed in favor of a feudal style of economic management -- in a sick parody of Marx' "from each according to his abilities, to all according to his needs"... the rulers decided that the needs of the many were slight, and the needs of the ruling class were everything that they wanted.

Chile was the most crushing, Argentina was the more murderous, and Brazil was the most inequitable... Uruguay wasn't so prominent. Chilean and Argentine culture looked a lot like that of a western-majority 2T before military coups -- and the dictatorships drove the 2Ts into the grave, underground, or into exile... something like the reality in most of the Soviet bloc, except that the dictatorships served large landowners and multinational firms instead of serving (supposedly) the masses. I met Chilean and Argentine exiles in the late 1970s... and the ones that I met were clearly 2T persons.

It's easy to say that any hard times are 4Ts... but 1Ts, 2Ts, and 3Ts can also be bad times if the positive tendencies of those times are crushed or perverted. There can be a sort of 'nuclear winter' in the generational cycle; if such a winter arrived in late May (Northern Hemisphere) then the sequence might be

winter-spring-winter-winter-(really-hard) winter-(delayed)spring-(weak)summer

instead of

winter-spring-summer-autumn-winter-spring-summer


that the normal cycle of the seasons (astronomically dictated under ordinary circumstances) would dictate.

I still tend to believe that most Latin-American countries were forced into the generational pattern of the US, Europe, Russia, India, Oceania, China, and Japan, and that the disappearance of dictatorships in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile simply allowed those countries to revert to the generational trajectory that they would have been in except for the dictatorships. 2Ts were suppressed, and 3T rot for all but the few went on.







Post#189 at 06-27-2007 04:33 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay underwent military rule that has since been completely discredited for brutality and social failure. Even if Pinochet 'only' caused the deaths of 2000 people through "disappearances", infant mortality among the poor skyrocketed. Sure, a beast like Pinochet created order -- a soul-crushing order that forced people to shut up while foreign multinationals were raping them. The dictatorships all died within about five years of each other. That was about the same time as the downfall of Communism in the Soviet bloc.

Several of the characteristics of those pluto-pretorian regimes look like attempts to restore 1Ts... bad 1Ts. Think of Joseph McCarthy as President of the United States instead of the mellow Dwight Eisenhower, and an Inquisitorial system of suppressing dissent. Anything evil would be associated with a commie conspiracy against the Nation. The egalitarian and communitarian qualities of life would be destroyed in favor of a feudal style of economic management -- in a sick parody of Marx' "from each according to his abilities, to all according to his needs"... the rulers decided that the needs of the many were slight, and the needs of the ruling class were everything that they wanted.

Chile was the most crushing, Argentina was the more murderous, and Brazil was the most inequitable... Uruguay wasn't so prominent. Chilean and Argentine culture looked a lot like that of a western-majority 2T before military coups -- and the dictatorships drove the 2Ts into the grave, underground, or into exile... something like the reality in most of the Soviet bloc, except that the dictatorships served large landowners and multinational firms instead of serving (supposedly) the masses. I met Chilean and Argentine exiles in the late 1970s... and the ones that I met were clearly 2T persons.
Err, the 19th century Crisis for Chile was the War of the Pacific. Nothing else comes close.

It's easy to say that any hard times are 4Ts... but 1Ts, 2Ts, and 3Ts can also be bad times if the positive tendencies of those times are crushed or perverted. There can be a sort of 'nuclear winter' in the generational cycle; if such a winter arrived in late May (Northern Hemisphere) then the sequence might be

winter-spring-winter-winter-(really-hard) winter-(delayed)spring-(weak)summer

instead of

winter-spring-summer-autumn-winter-spring-summer


that the normal cycle of the seasons (astronomically dictated under ordinary circumstances) would dictate.
That's the most confusing thing I've ever seen. But, I'm well aware that 'bad times' can happen in any turning. My methodology doesn't go, "OMG dictatorship/ people died, its gotta be the 4T!" In fact, dictatorships usually aren't 4Ts by themselves. There is a major generational component to this and that's why it is necessary that I look a couple of saeculums back.

I still tend to believe that most Latin-American countries were forced into the generational pattern of the US, Europe, Russia, India, Oceania, China, and Japan, and that the disappearance of dictatorships in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile simply allowed those countries to revert to the generational trajectory that they would have been in except for the dictatorships. 2Ts were suppressed, and 3T rot for all but the few went on.
That sure would make our life easy. Unfortunately, as it goes, each country's (or ethnic group's) history has to be analyzed individually. Waving the magic wand my seem nice and easy, but it doesn't make much sense when you peel away the surface.

Secondly, countries aren't magically forced into the generational patterns of the "dominant" continents. There's no generational explanation for such a phenomenon, and for good reason too.
Last edited by Matt1989; 06-27-2007 at 07:20 PM.







Post#190 at 06-27-2007 07:02 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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My Methodology in Evaluating the Turning

As the visual section of the ‘Map Project’ heads toward a close, we’re already beginning the in-depth analysis ‘Country Studies’ part. While the forums are flooded with our notes and conclusions (especially in this thread and ‘Objections to Generational Dynamics), little effort goes into actually explaining how we got there. Of course, this naturally leads to skepticism among most Fourth Turning members. This is a good thing, as it allows us to reevaluate our conclusions, either strengthening or weakening our resolve. Either way, we should get closer to the truth. Hopefully, the ‘Country Studies’ part of the ‘Map Project’ will clear up our thinking and provide enough support so as to be believable.

I think now would be a good time to explain my methodology in evaluating the current turning of a country. Perhaps some readers will critique aspects of it, and this will only help me make it stronger. I know some share completely different methods, and that’s OK, but I don’t believe it satisfies our needs. I think 1990 shares a similar one, and this is substantiated by our nearly identical maps.

My main concern deals with the question, “Does it work?” I think this is the most important factor in establishing a universal set of rules. When I first read The Fourth Turning, I was interested in how the theory works in other areas of the world. I came to the conclusion that it must work in all civilized countries, since the generational aspects would not differ. The ‘Map Project,’ which is 1990’s brainchild, gave me the excuse to evaluate these different areas. John J. Xenakis has also done a great job with this, incorporating the Fourth Turning theory to Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, as well as other areas. So far, the theory seems robust, enough so that I have no doubt with regard to its validity. For overkill, we have delved into other regions, and the parallels throughout all of history are constantly present.

We all know the basic Fourth Turning premise as established by Strauss and Howe. Unfortunately, only six saeculums were visited (and one of them has an anomaly), which is hardly enough to set all the rules in stone. So we walked into this project with an open mind. Of course, the basic structure remains. It’s the details we’re tinkering with. First off is the establishment of a Fifth Turning. If no Fifth Turning exists, then there can only be two possibilities: 1) Every country has had at least an segment of a Crisis in any ~70 year period (I’m allowing for a deviation of 10 years) 2) and if there are some that don’t fit for option number one, they have not had a Crisis for a period of ~130 years (still a deviation of 10 years). The first possibility deals with a strict adherence to the ‘First through Fourth Turning’ method while the second implies that if some countries went through the Generational Crisis period without an actual Crisis (thereby progressing through the 20 years before going into a High). So they must not have had another Crisis for the 60 year mid-cycle period. [80 (full saeculum) +60 (mid-cycle)=140 (apx. Number of years without actual Crisis)]

Option one is certainly untrue by our observations. There are plenty of countries that don’t have anything resembling a Crisis for a 70 year period. And we have not found a single case where option two applies. However, there are plenty of cases where a mid-cycle period has been 70-100 years, so there must be an optional Fifth Turning. Here’s a table John J. Xenakis came up with based on his research:

Code:
    LENGTH OF INTER-CRISIS PERIOD
             Fraction
    # years  of total  Turning
    -------  --------  ------------------
      0- 40      0%    1T, 2T
     41- 49     11%    first half of 3T
     50- 59     33%    second half of 3T
     60- 69     25%    first half of 4T
     70- 79     16%    second half of 4T
     80- 89      4%    fifth turning
     90- 99      6%
    100-117      5%
I haven’t done a statistical analysis of the countries I have studied, but this would be pretty much correct, although the ‘41-49 group’ would have to be cut in half.

When the information is available to me, I generally dive right into the thick of it, and try to immerse myself in the country’s history. For many places, the information only scratches the surface, so I can only make inferences. Events are certainly important to turning analysis, but they are far from the determining factor. For example, a nation may be forced into a horrible war by an invasion from an outside power that causes mass destruction and death, but this does not make it a Crisis. External, unpredictable factors played a role that didn’t necessarily have much to do (generationally speaking) with the country to be analyzed. Events can be anomalous and more often misleading. Rather, I choose to focus on the mood of a culture. This has proven to be a much more stable analytic method. Does the nation experience paranoia, anger, calmness, apathy, etc.? When taken in conjunction with events that indicate a trend, this produces a beautiful generational panorama. That’s what I think our maps are all about.

The Crisis is usually the most identifiable turning, especially in countries with only a little bit of information. It’s the focus of a history, almost always manifested in a Crisis War (there are exceptions however, see http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...ostcount=2345). Crises don’t need to be 20 years, and rarely are. The climax can come one year in, or 25 years in. It depends on an innumerable amount of things. I plan on working out an evaluation of the many types of crises, but that will be completed far into the future. So I start out by identifying a few possible Crises. I string a few together (in other words, find those that would reap a mid-cycle period of 60 years), and this turns in to ~2-5 possible saecular scenarios. I then evaluate the Crises in more depth, and then proceed to look at the following three turnings. For those countries that are colored in, we were able to narrow it down to only one possibility.

I often get frustrated with those who apply their understanding of the theory when they haven’t evaluated their own conclusions in several different areas and time periods. If you apply your universal set of rules into objecting to my conclusions, you have to make sure with enough certainty that your universal set of rules is universal! If you think that all Crises must be 20 years long, take a look at the Madagascaran Crisis in the late 1940s. If you think that there is no such thing as a Fifth Turning, then look at the two possibilities I laid out above.

I’d like to make a couple of notes:

1. Strict Dictatorships are not always a Recovery. You have to examine the masses, not the leaders. Recoveries are not always ‘Highs.’
2. Here’s what I wrote a few weeks ago: Religious revivals are often stated to be a clear 2T marker. It's not so simple. How does the 2T manifest itself? Through a generational split? Violence? Unity? Division? Waving the magic hand isn't sufficient for a thorough analysis. In Iran, it was an emotional roller coaster ride, beginning with Revolution before turning into violent, genocidal Crisis War with human wave attacks. I'm laughing right now just thinking about the USA pulling that shit off in the 1960s! Ha!
3. Unravelings are typically the hardest to identify. I think it’s because of the ‘lack of’ something. Evaluating a negative is always harder than evaluating a positive.
4. Each country must be evaluated individually. Looking at a region is nowhere near sufficient. I see it as a pure and simple copout. You always have to account for the possibility that one country may be on a completely different timeline than its neighbor.

I hope this clears up some misconceptions and answers some questions. I know I left some things out that I wanted to say, and when they come back to me, I’ll address them later.

Matt







Post#191 at 06-27-2007 11:24 PM by herbal tee [at joined Dec 2005 #posts 7,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by 1990 View Post
Visiting friends. Suddenly everybody has moved to the South, so we drove down to visit people. I actually liked Nashville a lot - Tennessee is phenomenally beautiful - though wherever we stopped in North Georgia was uncomfortably like the movie Deliverance.
Tennessee is a lovely state. The highlands of western Carolina are also worth seeing.

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
South Georgia is worse. And the Smokies are much prettier than even Nashville, at least if you avoid the horrors of the Dollywood-Pigeon Forge-Gatlinburg tourist-trap-o-plex. Even Memphis has rejoined civilization recently.
I agree completely.
Last edited by herbal tee; 06-27-2007 at 11:26 PM.







Post#192 at 06-28-2007 05:54 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
As the visual section of the ‘Map Project’ heads toward a close, we’re already beginning the in-depth analysis ‘Country Studies’ part. While the forums are flooded with our notes and conclusions (especially in this thread and ‘Objections to Generational Dynamics), little effort goes into actually explaining how we got there. Of course, this naturally leads to skepticism among most Fourth Turning members. This is a good thing, as it allows us to reevaluate our conclusions, either strengthening or weakening our resolve. Either way, we should get closer to the truth. Hopefully, the ‘Country Studies’ part of the ‘Map Project’ will clear up our thinking and provide enough support so as to be believable.

....

Option one is certainly untrue by our observations. There are plenty of countries that don’t have anything resembling a Crisis for a 70 year period. And we have not found a single case where option two applies. However, there are plenty of cases where a mid-cycle period has been 70-100 years, so there must be an optional Fifth Turning. Here’s a table John J. Xenakis came up with based on his research:

Code:
    LENGTH OF INTER-CRISIS PERIOD
             Fraction
    # years  of total  Turning
    -------  --------  ------------------
      0- 40      0%    1T, 2T
     41- 49     11%    first half of 3T
     50- 59     33%    second half of 3T
     60- 69     25%    first half of 4T
     70- 79     16%    second half of 4T
     80- 89      4%    fifth turning
     90- 99      6%
    100-117      5%
I haven’t done a statistical analysis of the countries I have studied, but this would be pretty much correct, although the ‘41-49 group’ would have to be cut in half.

When the information is available to me, I generally dive right into the thick of it, and try to immerse myself in the country’s history. For many places, the information only scratches the surface, so I can only make inferences. Events are certainly important to turning analysis, but they are far from the determining factor. For example, a nation may be forced into a horrible war by an invasion from an outside power that causes mass destruction and death, but this does not make it a Crisis. External, unpredictable factors played a role that didn’t necessarily have much to do (generationally speaking) with the country to be analyzed. Events can be anomalous and more often misleading. Rather, I choose to focus on the mood of a culture. This has proven to be a much more stable analytic method. Does the nation experience paranoia, anger, calmness, apathy, etc.? When taken in conjunction with events that indicate a trend, this produces a beautiful generational panorama. That’s what I think our maps are all about.

The Crisis is usually the most identifiable turning, especially in countries with only a little bit of information. It’s the focus of a history, almost always manifested in a Crisis War (there are exceptions however, see http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...ostcount=2345). Crises don’t need to be 20 years, and rarely are. The climax can come one year in, or 25 years in. It depends on an innumerable amount of things. I plan on working out an evaluation of the many types of crises, but that will be completed far into the future. So I start out by identifying a few possible Crises. I string a few together (in other words, find those that would reap a mid-cycle period of 60 years), and this turns in to ~2-5 possible saecular scenarios. I then evaluate the Crises in more depth, and then proceed to look at the following three turnings. For those countries that are colored in, we were able to narrow it down to only one possibility.

I often get frustrated with those who apply their understanding of the theory when they haven’t evaluated their own conclusions in several different areas and time periods. If you apply your universal set of rules into objecting to my conclusions, you have to make sure with enough certainty that your universal set of rules is universal! If you think that all Crises must be 20 years long, take a look at the Madagascaran Crisis in the late 1940s. If you think that there is no such thing as a Fifth Turning, then look at the two possibilities I laid out above.

I’d like to make a couple of notes:

1. Strict Dictatorships are not always a Recovery. You have to examine the masses, not the leaders. Recoveries are not always ‘Highs.’
2. Here’s what I wrote a few weeks ago: Religious revivals are often stated to be a clear 2T marker. It's not so simple. How does the 2T manifest itself? Through a generational split? Violence? Unity? Division? Waving the magic hand isn't sufficient for a thorough analysis. In Iran, it was an emotional roller coaster ride, beginning with Revolution before turning into violent, genocidal Crisis War with human wave attacks. I'm laughing right now just thinking about the USA pulling that shit off in the 1960s! Ha!
3. Unravelings are typically the hardest to identify. I think it’s because of the ‘lack of’ something. Evaluating a negative is always harder than evaluating a positive.
4. Each country must be evaluated individually. Looking at a region is nowhere near sufficient. I see it as a pure and simple copout. You always have to account for the possibility that one country may be on a completely different timeline than its neighbor.

I hope this clears up some misconceptions and answers some questions. I know I left some things out that I wanted to say, and when they come back to me, I’ll address them later.

Matt
First, some countries have been so unfortunate to have had very short intra-crisis eras. I think of Belgium, for which World Wars I and II, however different, must be considered Crises. Both Crises were imposed from outside, the first after a very long time between Crises: the establishment of Belgium as an independent kingdom in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The last battle of 1815 was at Waterloo.

Another is Ethiopia. The Italian invasion of Ethiopia ended in 1940... and the coup that toppled the monarchy and established a commie dictatorship in the mid-'70s look like Crises somewhat less separated than the forty years.

Consider Bangladesh. For that country (when part of the British Empire in India was on the front line between the Japanese Empire and a major Allied Power. World War II was clearly a Crisis War, complete with a famine in 1944; as part of what would become "East Pakistan" its Crisis era didn't end until 1947 with the partition of India. Bangladesh had a nasty war of independence against Pakistan (1971) less than a quarter century after the end of the previous Crisis ended.

I don't have a map... but surely we can visualize some countries.

Spain's last Crisis ended in Franco's establishment of a dictatorship at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.

For Japan, the United States, Britain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Thailand, Belgium, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of the former Soviet Union the Crisis ends on either V-E Day or V-J Day, whichever came later and is relevant. There were no further questions of sovereignity in the countries in question. I'd say Albania because of the prompt commie takeovers. Philippines? For it, World War II was clearly a Crisis War; its independence came without violence, independence being a foregone conclusion. The Huk Revolution was a local insurrection.

The last reasonable depiction of a Crisis for either Syria, Morocco, or Tunisia -- or most of the former French colonial empire in Africa -- is 1943, when Vichy fascist rule was overthrown. In Tunisia and Morocco independence from France went seamlessly -- contrast Algeria and Vietnam.
For Germany the Crisis Era ends in 1948 with the Berlin Crisis and the establishment of a separate Bundesrepublik and a commie DDR. Much the same applies to Finland (aborted commie coup in 1948); Poland, Czechoslovakia (both parts of the former Czechoslovakia are on the same timeline), Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria because of commie takeovers and consolidations between 1946 and 1949. Greece is assigned '1949' because of the defeat of the commies in the Greek Civil War. I would have given Yugoslavia as a whole '1948' because of Tito's risky split with the Soviet Union. Soviet tanks could have rolled quickly over Yugoslavia -- but didn't. Of course, the dissolution of most of Yugoslavia (Slovenia excepted) gives a much later date. I assign '1948' to Slovenia because of the non-violent split with Yugoslavia.

(Note that I consider almost every Communist coup or revolution as a Crisis because the consolidation of commie power is usually a violent affair, or that retribution against an attempted commie coup is violent, whether war or repression).

Indonesia? 1945 -- violent independence after WW II.

India? 1947 -- independence. There was little violence against the departing British, but the violence around the partition suggests a Civil War. Burma, Sri Lanka -- much the same.

Israel? 1948 -- independence within a war. Many Israeli settlers were survivors of the Holocaust, a national Crisis against a people without a nation if there ever was one. It's a small country, but one that many think important.

China -- mostly 1949 with the Mao's takeover of most of the Mainland. Note, though, that the Chinese desert Far West (Xinjiang or Eastern Turkestan) wasn't consolidated into the PRC until 1950; Tibet was formally annexed into China in 1951 but lost most of its autonomy in 1959 -- the last Crisis ends in Tibet in 1959. Hong Kong and Macao are assigned 1945 because they were incorporated into the PRC without violence. Taiwan is assigned 1949 as a stable rump of the Republic.

South Africa? 1949 or 1950 -- consolidation of Apartheid as a political order. The methods were similar to those of commies consolidating power.

Vietnam? The Crisis seemed to end in 1951 (Dien Bien Phu) in the North -- but the South had a Crisis ending in 1975. Go figure.

Korea? The Korean War is a Crisis War for Korea if there ever was a Crisis War. The 1953 Armistice consolidated both the commie North and the non-commie South behind defensible borders. Sure, the so-called DMZ in Korea has been a flashpoint for over five decades and it could be the point of the start of the next Crisis War for several countries... but there have been no major troop movements across the DMZ. Such movements would imply a new Crisis Era for any participant.

Egypt? 1956 -- Suez Crisis.

Algeria? 1962 -- violent war for independence.

Bangladesh? 1975 -- bloody war of independence, despotic rule of its founder leading to his assassination. Former Portuguese colonies in Africa -- 1975 or slightly later.

Iran? 1990 -- end of the horrific Iran-Iraq War.

Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan are now in Crisis mode.







Post#193 at 06-28-2007 09:52 AM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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pbrower2a,

Have you read TFT? What you write is impossible. You are confusing Crisis with crisis.

All Crises are crises, but not all crises are Crises.

The generational structure for a Recovery era or an Awakening doesn't allow for a Crisis, no matter what the destruction is. You are focusing on events, not moods.

If you are suggesting a turn to 1T following the crisis, I could see that working out, but I never have seen in.







Post#194 at 06-28-2007 10:09 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Finished!!

OK. I worked today to clean up a few loose ends, frustratingly assigned a 2T to Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, and then

(cue music)

Viola!



Okay.. there is still some gray. But I just can't figure those out. And there still are a few revisions that have to be done and constantly will be done. But the focus is going to turn away from this section of the project onto the far more detailed country studies part, where we will do an in-depth analysis that actually explains the map.

This will take much longer. We will start out with large countries and major powers before moving on into the smaller regional powers and so on and so forth. At the very least, hopefully relatively quickly (a few months), I will put a list of the Crises for each country so those who are ambitious or "don't have a life" can challenge our conclusions or at least enter in some input. Anyone who wants to contribute is more than welcome to.

I detailed some of my methodology and my thoughts on the map project a couple posts above. It's long and doesn't have many replies, so I guess I'm experiencing Bob Butler syndrome (although he does get replies).

Right now, while 1990 works on the USA and Mexico Country Studies, I will try to categorize each of the Crises I found.







Post#195 at 06-28-2007 11:53 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
pbrower2a,

Have you read TFT? What you write is impossible. You are confusing Crisis with crisis.

All Crises are crises, but not all crises are Crises.

The generational structure for a Recovery era or an Awakening doesn't allow for a Crisis, no matter what the destruction is. You are focusing on events, not moods.

If you are suggesting a turn to 1T following the crisis, I could see that working out, but I never have seen in.
Some Crises result from the generational cycle; it's quite clear that the United States has had its Crises on roughly an eighty-year cycle because such reflects the patterns of child-rearing, mass culture, religious activity, and economic life. Big events in America during the next fifteen or so years are likely to be Crisis events, if not the triggers of a Crisis as they would not have been twenty years ago.

Some result clearly from the madness of a leader. Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein represent that in what might have been 3Ts or even 2Ts. To be sure the generational cycle might accentuate some episodes of political madness (examples: Stalin's forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture or Hitler's Holocaust). 4Ts are infamous for religious persecutions, massacres, witch hunts, civil wars, and revolutions of unusual violence. I accept that Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, Adolf Hitler, and Josef Stalin rode a whirlwind and made it all the more destructive with their moral pathologies. That said, I recognize Churchill, FDR, and Mohandas Gandhi as stereotypical Grey Champions, and that without them the almost-worldwide
Crisis would have been far worse for all concerned.

Some Crises can be imposed from outside through an invasion or diplomatic bullying. Whatever the generational constellation in Afghanistan was in 1979 was did not matter once the Soviet Union invaded that country and initiated a civil war between Red secularists and Green fundamentalists. "Green", in that case, is not a reference to environmentalism. I don't know how realistic the Independence Day (movie) scenario is... but if such a scenario arrived on Earth, whatever generational phase a society might be in would not matter: the situation would be a Crisis anywhere that the alien aggressors struck. So would a comet collision, a new equivalent of the Black Death, or a supervolcano eruption. Any of those might happen in any of the four turnings.

Sketchy as is the knowledge of anyone of pre-Columbian history in the Americans, nobody can tell you what the generational constellations were in the Aztec and Inca empires around 1520 (that would be very good for a discussion in its own right). The Conquistadores gave the peoples of Mexico and Peru little chance to resist them effectively; their weapons were simply too good.

Of course what might be a Crisis War in one country (Korean War) might be a non-Crisis elsewhere, even among participants.

Without question, many of the characteristics of a 4T have appeared in most of the West. Leaders tend to underestimate the dangers of both aggression and appeasement. Compromises that proved workable in prior times fail. Opinions polarize on competing systems of 'values'. The class struggle that might have been dormant intensifies. Rhetoric coarsens. Political life becomes gridlock or lockstep -- or alternates between them. Alliances fragment. Democratic institutions weaken and even fail.

I'm not going to predict what happens next in America. All sorts of triggers can exist. I look at Latin America and I see endemic chaos in Haiti, an anti-American (or at least anti-Dubya) government in Venezuela, and the impending demise of an octogenarian Fidel Castro. Those who hate Fidel Castro and seek to take advantage of the fall of his Commie regime might end up warring against each other in Cuba... and could make political life nasty in America as our Congress is compelled to take sides. Someone who claims that Cuba's last Crisis ended in 1962 with the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis and that Cuba is inherently 3T ignores that the United States can impose a 4T upon Cuba within days... by accident.







Post#196 at 06-29-2007 12:14 AM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Some Crises result from the generational cycle; it's quite clear that the United States has had its Crises on roughly an eighty-year cycle because such reflects the patterns of child-rearing, mass culture, religious activity, and economic life. Big events in America during the next fifteen or so years are likely to be Crisis events, if not the triggers of a Crisis as they would not have been twenty years ago.
OK

Some result clearly from the madness of a leader. Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein represent that in what might have been 3Ts or even 2Ts. To be sure the generational cycle might accentuate some episodes of political madness (examples: Stalin's forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture or Hitler's Holocaust). 4Ts are infamous for religious persecutions, massacres, witch hunts, civil wars, and revolutions of unusual violence. I accept that Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, Adolf Hitler, and Josef Stalin rode a whirlwind and made it all the more destructive with their moral pathologies. That said, I recognize Churchill, FDR, and Mohandas Gandhi as stereotypical Grey Champions, and that without them the almost-worldwide
Crisis would have been far worse for all concerned.
The Crisis is inherently generational, so there is no way getting around that. The Recovery must follow, or else it is not a Crisis.

Secondly, religious persecutions happen all the time, as do massacres, witch hunts, civil wars, and revolutions of unusual. True, there is an attraction towards these events occurring in a Crisis era, but a massacre, or a Civil War does not make it automatically a 4T. Why do you insist on the generational structure disappearing when hardship sets in?

Some Crises can be imposed from outside through an invasion or diplomatic bullying. Whatever the generational constellation in Afghanistan was in 1979 was did not matter once the Soviet Union invaded that country and initiated a civil war between Red secularists and Green fundamentalists. "Green", in that case, is not a reference to environmentalism. I don't know how realistic the Independence Day (movie) scenario is... but if such a scenario arrived on Earth, whatever generational phase a society might be in would not matter: the situation would be a Crisis anywhere that the alien aggressors struck. So would a comet collision, a new equivalent of the Black Death, or a supervolcano eruption. Any of those might happen in any of the four turnings.

Sketchy as is the knowledge of anyone of pre-Columbian history in the Americans, nobody can tell you what the generational constellations were in the Aztec and Inca empires around 1520 (that would be very good for a discussion in its own right). The Conquistadores gave the peoples of Mexico and Peru little chance to resist them effectively; their weapons were simply too good.

Of course what might be a Crisis War in one country (Korean War) might be a non-Crisis elsewhere, even among participants.

Without question, many of the characteristics of a 4T have appeared in most of the West. Leaders tend to underestimate the dangers of both aggression and appeasement. Compromises that proved workable in prior times fail. Opinions polarize on competing systems of 'values'. The class struggle that might have been dormant intensifies. Rhetoric coarsens. Political life becomes gridlock or lockstep -- or alternates between them. Alliances fragment. Democratic institutions weaken and even fail.

I'm not going to predict what happens next in America. All sorts of triggers can exist. I look at Latin America and I see endemic chaos in Haiti, an anti-American (or at least anti-Dubya) government in Venezuela, and the impending demise of an octogenarian Fidel Castro. Those who hate Fidel Castro and seek to take advantage of the fall of his Commie regime might end up warring against each other in Cuba... and could make political life nasty in America as our Congress is compelled to take sides. Someone who claims that Cuba's last Crisis ended in 1962 with the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis and that Cuba is inherently 3T ignores that the United States can impose a 4T upon Cuba within days... by accident.
Show me a single example where a country in a 1T or a 2T has been forced back into a 1T, years later, following the Crisis. Then provide a very brief generational history and identify the next Crisis. What you say seems mostly contrary to generational theory, but I would assume you have some evidence to support your assertion.

And no Puritan flip!







Post#197 at 06-29-2007 09:51 AM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
OK. I worked today to clean up a few loose ends, frustratingly assigned a 2T to Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, and then

(cue music)

Viola!



Okay.. there is still some gray. But I just can't figure those out. And there still are a few revisions that have to be done and constantly will be done. But the focus is going to turn away from this section of the project onto the far more detailed country studies part, where we will do an in-depth analysis that actually explains the map.

This will take much longer. We will start out with large countries and major powers before moving on into the smaller regional powers and so on and so forth. At the very least, hopefully relatively quickly (a few months), I will put a list of the Crises for each country so those who are ambitious or "don't have a life" can challenge our conclusions or at least enter in some input. Anyone who wants to contribute is more than welcome to.

I detailed some of my methodology and my thoughts on the map project a couple posts above. It's long and doesn't have many replies, so I guess I'm experiencing Bob Butler syndrome (although he does get replies).

Right now, while 1990 works on the USA and Mexico Country Studies, I will try to categorize each of the Crises I found.
Mahvelous! What discoveries did you make about the D.R. to put it in red? I could never figure that country out. And as for Somalia being in blue, when does your map take place? If yours is taking place ~2010-2012, and mine is ~2015, we need to settle on a date since this project is a joint effort. Somalia was 4T as late as 1993, but not 1995. So we'll need to decide which future date we're projecting for.

I suppose Latin America is now complete. And only a little is left in Africa. Still glaring gray all throughout the Pacific and Caribbean island countries (but of course, those are so small that no one will notice ).

Because we've been working together from the start, I would like to find a way to fuse our maps and our opinions so we can come up with a consensus report, or paper, or book, or whatever. There are a few things we will need to figure out:

1. As noted above with the Somalia issue, when are we setting our maps? Yours seems to be a few years closer to the present than mine.

2. The former USSR must be dealt with. Unless we are to publish two different maps, which are essentially only different in this region, we need to come to an agreement. We can only do this by really sitting down and figuring out whether the collapse of the Soviet Union was a sufficient 4T the way Egypt's revolution, Brazil's military takeover, Ireland's potato famine, etc. were. If we don't come to an agreement, we will have two maps that differ essentially only in one region. Then again, maybe that's not so bad, as it might spark debate and interest in the project.

3. Countries that are overdue for Crisis I have (as you know) in maroon to show that they are being delayed. You have them in red like all on-schedule 4T countries. But I think it might be helpful to delineate the difference, as 5T (and certainly 6T) countries can often have much, much uglier Crises than merely 4T countries. Compare the 24 years (and counting) of bloodshed and disaster in Sudan, which has killed many hundreds of thousands and displaced MILLIONS, to the on-schedule genocide in the Balkans which, while bloody, did not kill or displace nearly as many, and in the end has led to a half-decent 1T.

4. And speaking of Sudan, you have Sudan in red. I would argue that Sudan has been 4T since 1983 (when the civil war began in the South), and that while the 4T may have ended in Southern Sudan, it is going with a vengeance in Darfur and the North. Do you expect that by ~2012 (or whenever your map is set) Darfur will still be 4T while the South will be well into a 1T? If so, I might need to put my Sudan in maroon again.

That's about it. You've done a great job, and I wish I could have kept up these last couple weeks, but things have been crazy. I will resume the Country Studies when I return to the Industrial North (if I had a nickel for every Confederate flag around here...), and hopefully complete either the US or Mexico by mid-next week.
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Post#198 at 06-29-2007 10:11 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
OK



The Crisis is inherently generational, so there is no way getting around that. The Recovery must follow, or else it is not a Crisis.

Secondly, religious persecutions happen all the time, as do massacres, witch hunts, civil wars, and revolutions of unusual. True, there is an attraction towards these events occurring in a Crisis era, but a massacre, or a Civil War does not make it automatically a 4T. Why do you insist on the generational structure disappearing when hardship sets in?
It isn't hardship itself that implies a Crisis. The generational cycle seems to operate despite emancipation of minorities, economic growth, universal education, technological change, and greater sophistication about human nature. Instead the wars of extreme destructiveness, wholesale slaughters, class warfare, systematic persecutions of minorities, and the like that force 'resets'.

I expect, if anything, a reset. It could be awkward; young adults could be pushed into generational roles for which they are ill-suited in view of their early upbringing. If a Crisis is imposed at some time other than the usual time -- most likely from abroad or under a tyrannical ruler who chooses to impose a Crisis -- then the effects upon living generations will be awkward. Young adults at the time of the Crisis might be pushed into Hero/Civic roles that they perform badly in the ensuing 1T; children of the Crisis are certain to act much like Adaptive/Artists in response to the usual overprotection. Such happened at the end of the American Civil War, after which the Gilded took on much of the Hero role in midlife -- but not very well because they lacked the preparation in childhood that one associates with Hero/Civic generations. H&S describe that very well.

... I think that almost everyone recognizes that most of Europe, east Asia, and south Asia, and North America are on roughly the timeline having been forged in the cauldron of World War II. Countries fortunate enough to have avoided World War II -- Ireland, Switzerland, Portugal, and Sweden -- have been forced into a sort of cultural assimilation by being in proximity of greater cultural powers. Countries that experienced very different results of World War II (formal victory or defeat, greater or lesser military carnage or destruction of infrastructures) seem to have generational cycles essentially in line. 2Ts might have been perverted (China -- the "Cultural Revolution"), repressed or driven underground in most Communist states and other dictatorships (Portugal until 1974, Spain until 1975, Greece under the Colonels)... but history seems to have acted as if 2Ts happened.

In the rest of the world -- largely the Third World. Some of the colonial struggles were more violent than others; contrast Angola to Botswana. Where does one put Vietnam? The political order that existed in the North crystallized soon after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu (1951)... but the South had no such crystallization of order until 1975 when the commies conquered the South. Blow-ups can happen at any time; I attribute the Crisis-like time in Ethiopia in part to the Sahelian famine of the 1970s that overwhelmed what had the most traditional social order in the world.

Are some of the "dirty wars" and drug-fueled conflicts of Latin America Crises? That's a matter of opinion -- and interpretation. The abolition of Apartheid in South Africa? Some say so -- I say not.


Show me a single example where a country in a 1T or a 2T has been forced back into a 1T, years later, following the Crisis. Then provide a very brief generational history and identify the next Crisis. What you say seems mostly contrary to generational theory, but I would assume you have some evidence to support your assertion.

And no Puritan flip!
Ethiopia. Italy attempted to conquer Ethiopia in the 1890s, and Ethiopia successfully resisted the effort. In the aftermath of the defeat of the early Italian effort to incorporate Ethiopia into its empire, Ethiopia was able to establish many of the trappings of a modern political structure and assert the distinctness of centuries of civilization.

In 1936 Benito Mussolini imposed a Crisis upon Ethiopia with an invasion. British forces and the Ethiopian "Gideon Force" liberated the country in 1940. The former Italian colony of Eritrea (which Ethiopia had long claimed) was grafted onto Ethiopia.

In the 1970s, the Sahel drought hit Ethiopia particularly hard; the traditional order failed to meet the menace of mass starvation. A coup overthrew the elderly Haile Selassie and within a few years a full-blown commie regime appeared with the usual attempt to establish a "socialist paradise" as a shortcut to prosperity and national unity. Neither prosperity nor national unity arose; Ethiopia rifted in regional secessions.

I am not fully aware of Ethiopian cultural trends -- literature, music, art, and the like -- but I can surely see three Crises within a century.







Post#199 at 06-29-2007 10:35 AM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Ethiopia. Italy attempted to conquer Ethiopia in the 1890s, and Ethiopia successfully resisted the effort. In the aftermath of the defeat of the early Italian effort to incorporate Ethiopia into its empire, Ethiopia was able to establish many of the trappings of a modern political structure and assert the distinctness of centuries of civilization.

In 1936 Benito Mussolini imposed a Crisis upon Ethiopia with an invasion. British forces and the Ethiopian "Gideon Force" liberated the country in 1940. The former Italian colony of Eritrea (which Ethiopia had long claimed) was grafted onto Ethiopia.

In the 1970s, the Sahel drought hit Ethiopia particularly hard; the traditional order failed to meet the menace of mass starvation. A coup overthrew the elderly Haile Selassie and within a few years a full-blown commie regime appeared with the usual attempt to establish a "socialist paradise" as a shortcut to prosperity and national unity. Neither prosperity nor national unity arose; Ethiopia rifted in regional secessions.

I am not fully aware of Ethiopian cultural trends -- literature, music, art, and the like -- but I can surely see three Crises within a century.
Or another explanation is that Ethiopia follows the saeculum perfectly:
  • 1890s = 4T. Nearly the entirety of Africa was 4T at this time. Ethiopia successfully repelled the invasion in a 2T climax, and what followed was a 1T, and a great one at that. Pretty simple.
  • 1930s = 2T. In a rematch of the last 4T, this time the rebels lost. This to me is the clear difference between an Awakening and a Crisis. In a Crisis, the sides are clearly defined and organized, and one side wins. In an Awakening, the opposition doesn't organize or "get its act together" enough to massively change the political structure (though it does massively change the culture). The left is often said to have "won" the Consciousness Revolution, but upon deeper inspection that is not true. Sure, Nixon resigned, but in the end Reagan won, and the legacy of the 1967-1974 period died, or was at least made dormant. (It might come back in this 4T) As with Tiananmen, Tlatelolco, and all those other great 2T moments, the establishment temporarily quashed the rebels. Few 2Ts go the other way. The only one that presently comes to mind is Indonesia in 1998.
  • 1970s = 4T again. The period of 1974-1991 in Ethiopia (often dubbed the Ethiopian Civil War) was one of the world's ugliest 4Ts since World War II. I know several people whose families fled and/or died in the Red Terror or from famine. Ethiopia spent most of the 1990s trying to clean up its act, with moderate success.
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Post#200 at 06-29-2007 02:34 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by 1990 View Post
Mahvelous! What discoveries did you make about the D.R. to put it in red? I could never figure that country out. And as for Somalia being in blue, when does your map take place? If yours is taking place ~2010-2012, and mine is ~2015, we need to settle on a date since this project is a joint effort. Somalia was 4T as late as 1993, but not 1995. So we'll need to decide which future date we're projecting for.
See below.

I suppose Latin America is now complete. And only a little is left in Africa. Still glaring gray all throughout the Pacific and Caribbean island countries (but of course, those are so small that no one will notice ).
I think they are all 4T but I don't care much.

Because we've been working together from the start, I would like to find a way to fuse our maps and our opinions so we can come up with a consensus report, or paper, or book, or whatever. There are a few things we will need to figure out:
We'll work on that.

1. As noted above with the Somalia issue, when are we setting our maps? Yours seems to be a few years closer to the present than mine.
I haven't given an exact date for various reasons. For example, I find the 2015 date to be too restrictive. Why not 2010? or 2020? 2015 should be the middle of the Crisis but why not the beginning? Or the end? We need something that is most relevant to the time today. Not 2015.

By that, we need accuracy, but we can play with some of the details. For example, China is clearly at the tail end of the 3T, almost certainly heading for a complete meltdown in the coming months or years. It would paint the wrong picture to put them in 3T, because it doesn't display the scope of what is to come. Similarly, I'm almost positive that Egypt is going to have their 4T come early and be in sync with the Red parts of the middle east.

So I think the best thing to do is to keep it present or maybe a year or two in advance. This would paint the best picture.

2. The former USSR must be dealt with. Unless we are to publish two different maps, which are essentially only different in this region, we need to come to an agreement. We can only do this by really sitting down and figuring out whether the collapse of the Soviet Union was a sufficient 4T the way Egypt's revolution, Brazil's military takeover, Ireland's potato famine, etc. were. If we don't come to an agreement, we will have two maps that differ essentially only in one region. Then again, maybe that's not so bad, as it might spark debate and interest in the project.
Yes, I agree. I'm currently categorizing all the crises I can find since the American Revolution. This will take some time to compile, but my categories so far are:

Internal Crisis War (ethnic) -- Major war among ethnic groups.
Internal Crisis War (political) -- Major war along political lines in a country.
External Crisis War -- Pretty Straightforward. Nations fighting other nations.
Rebellion -- Perhaps a war, but not a Crisis War. Just a major rebellion.
High Instability -- Not really a full rebellion, nor just a coup. But lots of crap.
Coup -- Perhaps riots and some violence, but its a coup first.
Reform -- A major period of reform without much of the above.
Miscellaneous -- Stuff that doesn't fit. Economics and others.

The order is intentional (although External Crisis War could be moved to the number 1 spot) and one should go down the list for evaluation. For example, if there is a Civil War between two different political parties (option 3), but the parties are exclusively made up of two different ethnic groups, then it would be option 1. Or if there is a full-blown rebellion that is capped off by a coup, then it fits under a rebellion, since rebellion indicates a higher level of Crisis energy.

Some countries may have to have two categories such as China's most recent Crisis and the American Revolution, which involved both an internal and external war.

3. Countries that are overdue for Crisis I have (as you know) in maroon to show that they are being delayed. You have them in red like all on-schedule 4T countries. But I think it might be helpful to delineate the difference, as 5T (and certainly 6T) countries can often have much, much uglier Crises than merely 4T countries. Compare the 24 years (and counting) of bloodshed and disaster in Sudan, which has killed many hundreds of thousands and displaced MILLIONS, to the on-schedule genocide in the Balkans which, while bloody, did not kill or displace nearly as many, and in the end has led to a half-decent 1T.
I thought about this, and I almost pulled the trigger on that. First of all, what you write appears to be almost unpredictable. We'd need more examples. So right now I'm willing to play the 'I don't know' card and leave them all the same. Anyone interested in the history of the nation can find it for themselves.

4. And speaking of Sudan, you have Sudan in red. I would argue that Sudan has been 4T since 1983 (when the civil war began in the South), and that while the 4T may have ended in Southern Sudan, it is going with a vengeance in Darfur and the North. Do you expect that by ~2012 (or whenever your map is set) Darfur will still be 4T while the South will be well into a 1T? If so, I might need to put my Sudan in maroon again.
I have no idea. The climax is coming soon but I think it gives the wrong impression to a viewer to have Sudan in the Recovery era.

That's about it. You've done a great job, and I wish I could have kept up these last couple weeks, but things have been crazy. I will resume the Country Studies when I return to the Industrial North (if I had a nickel for every Confederate flag around here...), and hopefully complete either the US or Mexico by mid-next week.
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