The difference between a micro-Crisis; a micro-High; and a micro-Awakening:
micro-Crisis - death of the old culture, vast changes occurring on the heels of one another, a seeming sweeping momentous movement of change that everyone is caught up in--a shift where both Turning cultures exist--one dying and the other being born
micro-High - stasis, no change, all attempts to make any change to the newly born Turning culture are met unfavorably, people all accept the new Turning culture--very little question it; those that do are seen as part of the "dead" order & are considered to be "out-of-touch" jokes; we're concerned about existing in a "place"
micro-Awakening - a spark ignites the urge to make changes once again, but they aren't ever completely implemented, the unified stasis of the previous "calm period" splits into two or more factions warring for control, new ideas are created that challenge the Turning culture, but aren't seen as very great threats... there is a
purity to action & intent, people actually mean what they say; Compromise is no solution--purists will have their way or no way at all
micro-Unraveling - further fragmentation of the Turning culture occurs, no longer do people feel so attached to it, but they don't see how they could possibly do anything to make things any different (after all, you could lop off the head of the snake, & the system will still survive), a large questioning of meaning--"impurity" in the larger Turning culture & in language begins to crop up as no one really believes the memes of the Turning culture anymore; Time seems to speed up quite rapidly
micro-Crisis - no one believes the meme of the Turning anymore & thus to prevent the "system" from collapsing in on itself, grand sweeping changes are implemented to "re-invent" our culture into a new Turning with a new meme in order to perpetuate society, because the only other choice is for everything to fall apart...
That's what lead me to these dates:
1978 - 1984 - Awakening-Crisis - The "Crisis of Confidence" kicks this off, the Iran hostage situation doesn't make things any better; Miracle on Ice resparks a sense of Patriotism; Reagan gets elected & begins enacting sweeping changes, Reagan's attempted assassination, Lennon's assassination, early Reagan jitters over a stagnating economy, Air Traffic Controllers Strike (it's equivalent to the 1902 Coal Miner's Strike), fear over nuclear annihilation rises to a new high--
that the Republicans take advantage over, changes in parenting attitudes occur over these years, where kids go from being rather petulant & irritating at times (Kramer vs. Kramer) to rather cute & worthy of protection (think of Drew Barrymore in E.T.)--for the most part they're still rather on their own as their now "Boomer" parents are still "finding themselves" or are just unaware of the world around them (Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Poltergeist; E.T.)
1984 - 1989 - Unraveling-High - The economy turns around, we become concerned with "place" once again as it's now
"Morning in America" and now America as depicted on TV becomes
this rosy place to live where families safely live in exurban homes & people industriously working--it takes the early tremblings of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" Patriotism to a new level culturally, problems with the Soviets now can be solved or negotiated--they're still the "Evil Empire", but they now have Gorbachov in there and we can come to an agreement of some kind; the economy is turning around, positive energy is abound, what is considered 1980s fashion establishes itself in 1985, and the "dark days" of worrying about everything are behind us. 1984 - Steve Jobs releases the first personal computer with a graphic interface for the user: the MacIntosh; which completely changes the face of computers and sets the tone for the rest of the Unraveling (similar to how in 1908 Henry Ford released his Model-T Ford). 1987 - Gordon Gekko establishes what's on everyone's mind: "Greed is Good".
George H.W. Bush gets elected on the tail end of this micro-High"feel good" feeling of wanting to "continue" things the way they should be run. Nuclear De-armament is now the focus & no one is really worried about the SU & America going at it as much (after all George Bush, "led the way" in that arena)
1989 - 1995 - Unraveling-Awakening - The fall of the Berlin Wall changes everything; suddenly America is the lone superpower & it's time to let loose & "party"--as well as help those poor former Communist states establish some form of economic & political reform; at home the Religious Right revive themselves in the election of 1992 (after falling dormant in the late 1980s due to some scandals) which most definitely was a micro-Awakening election (as was the 1994 election which brought Newt Gingrich to power) & the action of shutting down the Government was also a very micro-Awakening thing to do--no compromising allowed. Oklahoma City explodes!
1995 - 2000 - Unraveling-Unraveling - people reacted negatively to the shutdown of the government--now they want their government to Compromise & just "work together", the true dark days of the Unraveling started popping up; the Internet became widely available through AOL mailed CDs, Computers even cheaper than they were in the 1980s & began to develop at ever increasing speeds; the real dregs of the Unraveling occur here: Monica Lewinsky, US Embassy Bombings Y2K scares began to pop up...
2000 - 2005 - Unraveling-Crisis - a bad election left no doubt in anyone's mind that things had to change, but 9/11 told them how things had to change & suddenly we were all swept up in an environment of ever changing & shifting values--the old Unraveling dying a long, prolonged & slow death--enough that the 2004 election reeked of the Unraveling & Culture Wars
2005 - 2010 - Crisis-High - after Katrina, Bush was discredited & anything he did to try and ; it was like the "engine" of change ran out of gas... there was a new norm that people were aware of in this post-9/11 world that no one--even those skeptical of it--questioned. America had become a quasi-police state--and no one dared question the role of the police-state in their lives, for it would compromise our "safety". 2008 began early tremblings of fear--an early attempt to spark the Crisis-Awakening--that didn't go anywhere as Bush & then Obama used Unraveling "solutions" to try and fix the problem (Obama pulling plays out of the Clinton playbook & continuing on with Democratic plans that had been in place since the Unraveling to get a national healthcare system in place) however his insistence on using old Unraveling tactics & ideas began upsetting people & a division amongst the populace was sparked after the passage of the Bill that completely destroyed the "stasis" we'd been existing in.
2010 - 20?? - Upset at using out of date techniques to solve the issues of today people long for something new--and they organize around pillars that seem to be opposing--without any room for compromise. Compromise is a dirty word--from Tea Partiers to Occupiers--their methods & tactics have to be done their way in order for them to be satisfied (Occupiers insisting on wide-scale vision of "pure" Democracy--while Tea Partiers insist on a wide-scale vision of "pure" Capitalism).
~Chas'88
P.S. Will edit with links to demonstrate what I'm talking about.
Originally Posted by Chas'88
That was a good one!
