Originally Posted by ASB65

It seems to me that awakenings deal with whatever problems were not solved in the previous in the crisis. We gained our independence in the Revolutionary War saeculum, but freedom and equality was not given to all. The awakening in the next saeculum dealt with slavery and the beginnings of women's rights. The civil war gave the slaves their freedom but economic and social inequities as well the fragmented ineffective government was still a problem. The missionaries dealt with that during next saeculum. It wasn't until the our last awakening that women and civil rights were addressed and solved.

I think the next prophets will attack the problems that will go unsolved in this crisis period or they may try to undo some of the things that the boomers advocated for. The boomers moved away from traditional family values with "free love", cohabitation, and divorce. They also moved away from organized religion as new age thinking was explored. We think of prophets as liberal minded people because of our boomers, but whose to say that next prophets will be? They could determine that part of problems with our society could be caused by the breakdown of the family and want to get back to more traditional values.

There is always a clash between the prophets and the older generations. Whatever we find to be acceptable will be challenged by the next prophets. Think about the life style and values you advocate now and expect the next prophets do a 90 degree turn on them. They may not even like technology and want to get back to basics.

It's really hard to say and we won't know until see what problems are still go unaddressed after this crisis.

I wonder if they will be anti- technology and probably against the ideas behind things like facebook.

Originally Posted by millennialX

I wonder if they will be anti- technology and probably against the ideas behind things like facebook.

Possibly or "green movement" thinking that all types of technology causes global warming.

Originally Posted by ASB65

Possibly or "green movement" thinking that all types of technology causes global warming.

You know I'm just waiting for all of this information to come out about how bad and cancerous cell phones have been for us. Cell Phones to us is like cigarettes to the GI's.

Originally Posted by millennialX

You know I'm just waiting for all of this information to come out about how bad and cancerous cell phones have been for us. Cell Phones to us is like cigarettes to the GI's.

They are already doing studies linking it to brain tumors. However, I do think most of the results have been inconclusive and they haven't proven whether there is actually a link...But I will tell you this. Before every one had cell phones, car phones were the big thing. My sister was addicted to her car phone. As soon as she got in the car, she had to call someone. It was like she couldn't drive without being on the phone. She died of a brain tumor at age 33. When I heard about the study of the possible link between cell phones and brain tumors, it did give me pause.

Originally Posted by ASB65

They are already doing studies linking it to brain tumors. However, I do think most of the results have been inconclusive and they haven't proven whether there is actually a link...But I will tell you this. Before every one had cell phones, car phones were the big thing.

What's evil about cancer is that it always seems to just come out of nowhere.

I remember the car phone craze. Only the cool people had one. One moment we where encouraging people to talk while driving and now its illegal in some states.

Originally Posted by millennialX

What's evil about cancer is that it always seems to just come out of nowhere.

I remember the car phone craze. Only the cool people had one. One moment we where encouraging people to talk while driving and now its illegal in some states.

If there is a link between cellphone radiowave energy and cancer, it may be a blessing in disguise that it's now illegal to talk-and-drive. Quite frankly, it would not surprise me if there was. Wasn't there a study done showing a link between cancer and proximity to power transmission lines?

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Of course, the catch is...workability is exactly what we need to get through the Crisis.

Which may be why there seems to be no Gray Champion on the horizon. In the modern world, an effective Prophet leader may need to be of the "Engineer" subtype.

There’s a disturbing thought that I did not consider until you said that. China and Russia, as I’ve noted elsewhere, were both in the atonement cycle during our Great Power Cycle. This was key to the success of the Communist powers gaining control of those countries, as they seemed to champion the downtrodden. Currently, they both seem to be in the advancement cycle, promoting their economies more than catering to class envy. Germany, in contrast, appears to be in sync with our own cycle, which means that Hitler came to power during an advancement paradigm.

The reason this is disturbing is that Hitler was a nomad, which means that he was not an advancement gray champion, but a reactive substitute with atonement leanings. Perhaps he was elected by German “victims” wanting atonement along with their advancement. (It obviously was not a very good combination.) If we end up choosing nomad leadership in order to solve the problems of “workability,” it may not produce a Hitler, but it will be an anomaly outside of the manner in which the cycle is supposed to work.

Originally Posted by JDW

There’s a disturbing thought that I did not consider until you said that. China and Russia, as I’ve noted elsewhere, were both in the atonement cycle during our Great Power Cycle. This was key to the success of the Communist powers gaining control of those countries, as they seemed to champion the downtrodden. Currently, they both seem to be in the advancement cycle, promoting their economies more than catering to class envy. Germany, in contrast, appears to be in sync with our own cycle, which means that Hitler came to power during an advancement paradigm.

The reason this is disturbing is that Hitler was a nomad, which means that he was not an advancement gray champion, but a reactive substitute with atonement leanings. Perhaps he was elected by German “victims” wanting atonement along with their advancement. (It obviously was not a very good combination.) If we end up choosing nomad leadership in order to solve the problems of “workability,” it may not produce a Hitler, but it will be an anomaly outside of the manner in which the cycle is supposed to work.

We're doooomed, doooooomed, dooooomed....WHAHAHAHAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

Originally Posted by ASB65

It seems to me that awakenings deal with whatever problems were not solved in the previous in the crisis. We gained our independence in the Revolutionary War saeculum, but freedom and equality was not given to all. The awakening in the next saeculum dealt with slavery and the beginnings of women's rights. The civil war gave the slaves their freedom but economic and social inequities as well the fragmented ineffective government was still a problem. The missionaries dealt with that during next saeculum. It wasn't until the our last awakening that women and civil rights were addressed and solved.

Consider, though, the dynamic by which these things happened. Things that we loosely associate with the consciousness revolution, such as the civil rights movement, actually followed the advancement paradigm prior to the 1960s. For example, the key word in NAACP is advancement. (If founded today, it might well stand for “The National Association to Atone for Caucasian Prejudice.”) Its stated purpose was to work out problems, not to play upon “white guilt.” The same seemed basically true with MLK’s speeches.

Note that during the Great Power Cycle, there was a focus on the advancement of women, while now there seems to be a focus on leveling the playing field (atonement) on behalf of women. In other words, it’s not the agenda but the mood or style of the agenda.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

We're doooomed, doooooomed, dooooomed....WHAHAHAHAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

Hey, don't make fun of my hyperbole!

Originally Posted by JDW

Consider, though, the dynamic by which these things happened. Things that we loosely associate with the consciousness revolution, such as the civil rights movement, actually followed the advancement paradigm prior to the 1960s. For example, the key word in NAACP is advancement. (If founded today, it might well stand for “The National Association to Atone for Caucasian Prejudice.”) Its stated purpose was to work out problems, not to play upon “white guilt.” The same seemed basically true with MLK’s speeches.

Note that during the Great Power Cycle, there was a focus on the advancement of women, while now there seems to be a focus on leveling the playing field (atonement) on behalf of women. In other words, it’s not the agenda but the mood or style of the agenda.

Very interesting observation. I definitely fit into the atonement paradigm very well. When I get into an ideological rant it sounds like a secular version of an evangelist going "REPENT, SINNER!!!", and then turning my soul into knots over guilty feelings.

Originally Posted by JDW

Consider, though, the dynamic by which these things happened. Things that we loosely associate with the consciousness revolution, such as the civil rights movement, actually followed the advancement paradigm prior to the 1960s. For example, the key word in NAACP is advancement. (If founded today, it might well stand for “The National Association to Atone for Caucasian Prejudice.”) Its stated purpose was to work out problems, not to play upon “white guilt.” The same seemed basically true with MLK’s speeches.

Note that during the Great Power Cycle, there was a focus on the advancement of women, while now there seems to be a focus on leveling the playing field (atonement) on behalf of women. In other words, it’s not the agenda but the mood or style of the agenda.

Of course the issue is how long will we keep addressing issues like race and gender equality as it this were still the awakening? Being a white male is no more of a picnic these days than having any other ascribed characteristic. In one way or another if you're not in the top 2% wealth wise, you're getting screwed.

Originally Posted by JDW

If we end up choosing nomad leadership in order to solve the problems of “workability,” it may not produce a Hitler, but it will be an anomaly outside of the manner in which the cycle is supposed to work.

Pbrower2a posted descriptions of different archetypes as Crisis leaders.

I really think this thread is interesting, but I don't know enough about history to really understand whether it is actually right or wrong. What I do see as right is the idea of atonement during and after the awakening in the 60s and 70s. Another tid bit of evidence for this is that descendent's of slave owners giving reparations to African Americans. That said I really need to get ahold of a copy of "Generations". I read 4T because I couldn't get the ebook for generations. I'd also like to get the generation X ebook Neil Howe wrote, but no dice.

An interesting thread has popped up in one of my Dramaturgy classes. It comes from Nietzche and it looks at Theatre History as one which is constantly swinging between two extremes: The Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Apollonian is concerned with seeing how the world should be and presenting theatre which educates people to how the world should work, presenting an Ideal world. The theatre of the Apollonian forces would punish those who seek to disturb the social order in comedies, and seek to make tragic heros seem like they deserved what they got. The Apollonian often concerns itself with presenting and upholding ideals. The Dionysian is concerned with seeing how the world works as it is, presenting theatre which entertains and reaches for the truth of the world as it is. The Dionysian theatre seeks to have a common understanding for all man and to be able to relate and connect to a universal truth that holds true in real life for everyone. The Dionysian often concerns itself with using grand emotions.

The Apollonian of course refers to energies most often connected to the Greek god Apollo, while the Dionysian of course refers to energies most often connected to the Greek god Dionysus.

It marked me how you could split the differing types of Idealists and Saeculum along these lines:

Boomers - Consciousness Revolution - Dionysian
Missionaries - Third Great Awakening - Apollonian
Transcendentals - Second Great Awakening - Dionysian
Awakeners - First Great Awakening - Apollonian

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

An interesting thread has popped up in one of my Dramaturgy classes. It comes from Nietzche and it looks at Theatre History as one which is constantly swinging between two extremes: The Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Apollonian is concerned with seeing how the world should be and presenting theatre which educates people to how the world should work, presenting an Ideal world. The theatre of the Apollonian forces would punish those who seek to disturb the social order in comedies, and seek to make tragic heros seem like they deserved what they got. The Apollonian often concerns itself with presenting and upholding ideals. The Dionysian is concerned with seeing how the world works as it is, presenting theatre which entertains and reaches for the truth of the world as it is. The Dionysian theatre seeks to have a common understanding for all man and to be able to relate and connect to a universal truth that holds true in real life for everyone. The Dionysian often concerns itself with using grand emotions.

The Apollonian of course refers to energies most often connected to the Greek god Apollo, while the Dionysian of course refers to energies most often connected to the Greek god Dionysus.

It marked me how you could split the differing types of Idealists and Saeculum along these lines:

Boomers - Consciousness Revolution - Dionysian
Missionaries - Third Great Awakening - Apollonian
Transcendentals - Second Great Awakening - Dionysian
Awakeners - First Great Awakening - Apollonian

~Chas'88

I'm curious. I wonder how long the extremes last? I guess if the extremes land anywhere within an awakening it really confirms the idea of this thread. Really interesting.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

An interesting thread has popped up in one of my Dramaturgy classes. It comes from Nietzche and it looks at Theatre History as one which is constantly swinging between two extremes: The Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Apollonian is concerned with seeing how the world should be and presenting theatre which educates people to how the world should work, presenting an Ideal world. The theatre of the Apollonian forces would punish those who seek to disturb the social order in comedies, and seek to make tragic heros seem like they deserved what they got. The Apollonian often concerns itself with presenting and upholding ideals. The Dionysian is concerned with seeing how the world works as it is, presenting theatre which entertains and reaches for the truth of the world as it is. The Dionysian theatre seeks to have a common understanding for all man and to be able to relate and connect to a universal truth that holds true in real life for everyone. The Dionysian often concerns itself with using grand emotions.

The Apollonian of course refers to energies most often connected to the Greek god Apollo, while the Dionysian of course refers to energies most often connected to the Greek god Dionysus.

It marked me how you could split the differing types of Idealists and Saeculum along these lines:

Boomers - Consciousness Revolution - Dionysian
Missionaries - Third Great Awakening - Apollonian
Transcendentals - Second Great Awakening - Dionysian
Awakeners - First Great Awakening - Apollonian

~Chas'88

This is getting me interested in theater. Have you ever seen the Italian Realism movie, The Bicycle Thieves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thief

and the French New wave film, 400 Blows? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_400_Blows

In order to better understand what you are saying, do these films relate to Dionysian?

Also, are there alternating shifts with Civics?

Originally Posted by millennialX

This is getting me interested in theater. Have you ever seen the Italian Realism movie, The Bicycle Thieves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thief

and the French New wave film, 400 Blows? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_400_Blows

In order to better understand what you are saying, do these films relate to Dionysian?

Also, are there alternating shifts with Civics?

Actually I'd say that the Civics confirm and build upon what the Idealists do. Although there are always exceptions. GI Tennessee Williams should have been a power of Apollonian force, but instead was an early dissenter looking forward to the Dionysian backlash that was fast approaching. Arthur Miller is an example of a GI continuing on what the previous Idealists had established. So it depends, some Civics confirm what the prior Idealists put in place, and some look forward to what the next Idealists will bring to power. I'm sure there's a similar split between Idealists, with some looking back and some looking forward.

18th Century Sentimentalism, where the virtuous are rewarded, and the vicious are punished is an example of the Apollonian forces within theatre.

The 19th Century melodrama and Operas were pure Dionysian, going for the simple power of emotions, mixing genres (another thing Apollonian theatre folk hate), and trying to express reality as they saw it.

The Psychological realism that appeared later in the century was an Apollonian backlash, attempting to bring psychological ideals to the stage with a new set of ideals (as prescribed by Freud) and a return to the idea of the "well made play"; Psychological realists hated the fact that Shakespeare would mix genres, as George Bernard Shaw's rewriting of Cymbeline's final act gives an example of.

The heightened realism & absurdism that has since supplanted psychological realism heightens and exagerates "realism" so that it provokes strong emotional responses, absurdism parodies and tampers with the idea of the well-made play and goes about mixing genres, and thanks to the Sexual Revolution of this century, it has a focus on the power of sex in particular. Think of Beckett's Waiting for Godot & Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Nietzche noticed these two opposing forces in ancient Greek theatre (hence the names) when looking closely at the developments within Greek theatre. He said in the beginning Greek theatre contained both the Apollonian and the Dionysian and they had their equal parts: the main characters represented the Apollonian ideals of society, while the Choruses responded with Dionysian emotion. The early Greek tragedies by Aeschuylus which employs the energies of the Chorus as a responsive emotional aspect that responds with song and dance to what the characters do (and are powerless to do anything beyond emotionally responding) is an example of Dionysian theatre to its fullest. What upset Nietzche was that Euripides decided to start having the Chorus interact as characters with the main characters of the tragedies, thus beginning the trend of Apollonizing the Chorus and thus distancing the audience, until finally you get to the Comedies where the Choruses are really characters in their own right rather than characters who exist to provide emotional responses through which the audience can respond and thus connect to the Apollonian main characters.

In general here's the quick run down of what each extreme of theatre values:

Apollonian - Cornielle, Farquhar, Shaw, Strindberg, Ibsen
Educate the audience
Enforce a strict sense of genres
Good are rewarded, evil are punished
Present the World as it should be
Have a distinct sense of class & social structure - punish those who threaten to break the established social order
Well-made Play - one location, within 24 hours

Dionysian: Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Victor Hugo, Edward Albee
Represent the World as it is
Mix genres
Reward or express abnormalities to the social structure
Appeal and search for a higher more universal truth
Social order and class doesn't exist and reflect how people actually talk
Various and different Locations, large expanse of time, sometime spanning years...

That's what I can think off of the top of my head right now.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by TimWalker

One has to wonder if Millies will someday participate in a shadow turning.

Actually, Tim, I’m rethinking the notion of a shadow turning. In its place we can think of the archetypes along these lines:
Prophet – Strong Willed, Dominant
Nomad – Strong Willed, Recessive
Hero – Compliant, Dominant
Artist – Compliant, Recessive

During the most recent high, the dominant adult generation was GI (advancement paradigm).

During the awakening, the strong-willed boomers opposed that paradigm with the atonement paradigm.

During the unraveling the strong-willed Xers opposed the atonement paradigm (with the help of Reagan), keeping the advancement paradigm alive, though as loyal opposition.

During this crisis, the compliant millennials are affirming the paradigm of the dominant adult generation, which is the boomer atonement paradigm. (Xers, being recessive, are helpless to change this.)

The high will begin with the compliant homies affirming the paradigm of the two most recent dominant generations, squeezing the advancement paradigm completely out, for the moment.

By the way, nomads eventually do accept the paradigm of their next elders and juniors. They just never master it.

As I mentioned before, I sense that Cleveland and McKinley were members of a true hero archetype (spanning at least from 1837-1843), having atonement paradigm characteristics and serving as pretty good foils for the missionaries. The remaining Gilded (whom I prefer to think of as “Reconstructed”) were in some way robbed of their nomad gift of sacrifice, and it made for a very corrupt government. They were not true atoners, but they would often milk their war service for all they could in order to avoid criticism for their lack of ethics.

I think Strauss and Howe’s decision to treat the Gilded as heroes skewed their observation, so that all heroes (three in a row: Republican, Gilded, GI) appeared to be thinkers rather than feelers. This caused them to also conclude that all prophets were feelers. There are some obvious problems with this:

It linked personality characteristics together that do not necessarily go together. For example, we were to understand prophets as being inner driven non-conformists rebelling against heroes that are outer driven conformists. Yet, younger heroes later rebel against them through conformity! What’s up with that? Surely there have to be some outer driven nonconformists out there and some inner driven conformists.

Other than that, it's an awesome theory.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

One thing I keep coming back to-the need to craft a workable civic order in the 4T.

Given the lack of an overarching Prophet vision, what can be done?

Could the old order be patched up into something functional?

The 4T that seems most similar to this one is Land Reform and Constitutional Crisis listed by Kurt Horner.


Perhaps New Prophets wouldl react against a cobbled together improvision...in the MegaSaeculum thread it was suggested that the next saeculum may be a revolutionary saeculum.

Crises during atonement cycles, unfortunately tend to be somewhat apocalyptic. The end of society as we know it is okay, as long as the guilty (the other side) gets what’s coming to them.

Originally Posted by JDW

There’s a disturbing thought that I did not consider until you said that. China and Russia, as I’ve noted elsewhere, were both in the atonement cycle during our Great Power Cycle. This was key to the success of the Communist powers gaining control of those countries, as they seemed to champion the downtrodden. Currently, they both seem to be in the advancement cycle, promoting their economies more than catering to class envy. Germany, in contrast, appears to be in sync with our own cycle, which means that Hitler came to power during an advancement paradigm.

The reason this is disturbing is that Hitler was a nomad, which means that he was not an advancement gray champion, but a reactive substitute with atonement leanings. Perhaps he was elected by German “victims” wanting atonement along with their advancement. (It obviously was not a very good combination.) If we end up choosing nomad leadership in order to solve the problems of “workability,” it may not produce a Hitler, but it will be an anomaly outside of the manner in which the cycle is supposed to work.

Oh, I don't know. George Washington was a Nomad, as was Elizabeth I. The whole Gray Champion thing seems a bit of a stretch anyway, since Crisis leaders are sometimes Idealists and sometimes Nomads.

Apollonian:
Reason
Logic
Order

Dionysian:
Sublime - simultaneous appreciation of beauty and fear; on a ledge as a storm is brewing
Sturm und Drang
Emotions to the nth Degree
Singular Hero
Catharsis - cultural purging of emotion

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JDW

It’s time to take another stab of explaining APT: Instead of “Doctrinal” versus “Moral,” which many have interpreted to refer to religion alone, let’s try “Advancement” versus “Atonement.” Advancement has to do with making society more effective, while atonement has to do with the removal of society’s guilt.

In that case, I was born in the wrong Paradigm.

Originally Posted by Rose1992

In that case, I was born in the wrong Paradigm.

Thinking of it in the Apollonian and Dionysian terms I've been reading about in my Theatre class; Advancement would be Apollonian--reaching for new ideals. Atonement would be reaching for the ultimate catharsis in order to express and let go all that was done in the previous Advancement phase. Consider the Atonement phase as a typical human response to the previous Advancement phase--making what was achieved in the Advancement phase more liveable for people;

Both are needed in terms of human society. Without Atonement we'd continue to push development without concern for the cost to humanity--reaching for some ideal to shape the world, and devastating anything that gets in its path--imagine the Holocaust. Without Advancement we'd constantly be stuck in an Emo-like trance, trying to feel alive, and letting the world arround us collapse and be destroyed--imagine Rome burning.

In light of this, Boomers were never meant to build some grand ideal society--they were and are supposed to make what their parents built liveable, more humane, and reconcile whatever wrongs were comitted previously. Their job is to temper and atone for the misconduct done in pursuing the ideal society that was built in the last Advancement saeculum. Our Civil War could be said to be another such cathartic experience where we came to terms with the destruction of the previous more aristocratic way of life--as the Confederates came to symbolize.

So we've been judging the Boomers incorrectly. They're not here to lead us into some Brave New World--they're here possibly to reconcile the destruction of one way of life for another.

~Chas'88