Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I don't think it works that way. You are not a mystery to us; but we are a mystery to you.

Network was 12 years after the Awakening started. It's an Awakening movie, to be sure. But it only scratches the surface of what went on.

The culture war was triggered when new social and cultural movements were met with a reaction by those who felt threatened by them. The reactionaries largely drove the war, although the movements pushed forward. The movements and the reaction to them arrived simultaneously, in 1964-66. The reaction became dominant in the late 1970s with the rise of the moral majority and election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

There was another movie I was shown by a historian. Called Getting Straight. It made me wonder if the GIs were going too far with certain ideas and it was some of the progressive boomers who violently reacted and that is what started the culture war/awakening. I wonder if the right wing kind of is more like what GIs were like. Of course, only some. They seem to stand for some things that seem so old hat.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It sounds like taramarie is talking dualism here, not me. Spiritualism is not dualism.

To identify both you need to separate it, but both are entwined.

Originally Posted by Taramarie

To identify both you need to separate it, but both are entwined.

Well then, it seems you understand a bit of this stuff. It's not so hard to go from there to what I'm saying.

Originally Posted by Taramarie

There was another movie I was shown by a historian. Called Getting Straight. It made me wonder if the GIs were going too far with certain ideas and it was some of the progressive boomers who violently reacted and that is what started the culture war/awakening. I wonder if the right wing kind of is more like what GIs were like. Of course, only some. They seem to stand for some things that seem so old hat.

The GIs were a mixed bag, same as boomers and millennials are. Some GIs were very progressive about worldly issues, although blind to spiritual ones. Some were much more reactionary. Still others also joined in the spirit of the awakening and had spiritual experiences, especially the later cohorts. Some were even leaders in the counterculture and the new age.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Well then, it seems you understand a bit of this stuff. It's not so hard to go from there to what I'm saying.

Yeah if I can compare the inner and outer world like they do in the 4T theory yes I can. Just have to figure it out from my perspective as I do think differently naturally.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The GIs were a mixed bag, same as boomers and millennials are. Some GIs were very progressive about worldly issues, although blind to spiritual ones. Some were much more reactionary. Still others also joined in the spirit of the awakening and had spiritual experiences, especially the later cohorts. Some were even leaders in the counterculture and the new age.

I totally understand the GIs regarding being blind to spiritual issues.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The GIs were a mixed bag, same as boomers and millennials are. Some GIs were very progressive about worldly issues, although blind to spiritual ones. Some were much more reactionary. Still others also joined in the spirit of the awakening and had spiritual experiences, especially the later cohorts. Some were even leaders in the counterculture and the new age.

So, hmm still does not really answer what really triggered the need for an awakening. People fed up with the conservatives perhaps. I guess because the era I was born and raised in I do not see the point for one.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The GIs were a mixed bag, same as boomers and millennials are. Some GIs were very progressive about worldly issues, although blind to spiritual ones. Some were much more reactionary. Still others also joined in the spirit of the awakening and had spiritual experiences, especially the later cohorts. Some were even leaders in the counterculture and the new age.

That historian who is showing me the awakening through movies showed me the docco on woodstock. Oh yeah, I saw where they were getting that spiritual awakening from. Loads of drugs. But also they were doing yoga and saying they could get a high from that. Yoga at a concert lol! Plus the music may have done it i dunno. I was shocked they were stripping off and washing in the river naked publically and i saw some having sex in public too. What a different era. That same generation would lock us millies up we did anything like that. I am often baffled at how different they were back then and how they have changed.

Originally Posted by Taramarie

That historian who is showing me the awakening through movies showed me the docco on woodstock. Oh yeah, I saw where they were getting that spiritual awakening from. Loads of drugs. But also they were doing yoga and saying they could get a high from that. Yoga at a concert lol! Plus the music may have done it i dunno. I was shocked they were stripping off and washing in the river naked publically and i saw some having sex in public too. What a different era. That same generation would lock us millies up we did anything like that. I am often baffled at how different they were back then and how they have changed.

You and me both. Older boomers have become hypocrites, although I suspect some of them don't trust millies to do what boomers themselves did and yet stay out of trouble, or are trying to save them from troubles that they went through. Other boomers I know, not here on T4T, but in my metro area, are still almost as hip as they used to be; no problem and no hypocrisy. Some of them are not parents though. So, one's social role also affects your behavior.

But now you're getting closer to the heart of the Awakening. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. But sometimes at a higher plane too. Spiritual and psychological movements, spiritual and consciousness-expanding music, and openings of the heart. New ways of personal liberation and improving ourselves through awakening, and alternative methods to the medical and robotic models. Going beyond the stiff and formal alienated and regimented ways of the older generation. Getting concerned about an industrial rat-race lifestyle that brings war and environmental destruction. Seeking fulfillment instead of mere survival and confomity. Fantastic and sudden liberation for those in the closet and discriminated against.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You and me both. Older boomers have become hypocrites, although I suspect some of them don't trust millies to do what boomers themselves did and yet stay out of trouble, or are trying to save them from troubles that they went through. Other boomers I know, not here on T4T, but in my metro area, are still almost as hip as they used to be; no problem and no hypocrisy. Some of them are not parents though. So, one's social role also affects your behavior.

But now you're getting closer to the heart of the Awakening. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. But sometimes at a higher plane too. Spiritual and psychological movements, spiritual and consciousness-expanding music, and openings of the heart. New ways of personal liberation and improving ourselves through awakening, and alternative methods to the medical and robotic models. Going beyond the stiff and formal alienated and regimented ways of the older generation. Getting concerned about an industrial rat-race lifestyle that brings war and environmental destruction. Seeking fulfillment instead of mere survival and confomity. Fantastic and sudden liberation for those in the closet and discriminated against.

So, essentially freedom from the conformity of the GI world. Ah that I can understand, yes even as a robotic millennial lol. But as an artist yes I can very much understand that. Now it makes sense. While watching that docco I just about spat out my drink when they were mentioning P and taking it and it is ok it is not poisoned. I can understand though why they would take it if trying to get away from what the world was like. They were rebelling and not wanting to live the way their parents wanted to live. That too I can understand. I dont want to be like boomers and I dont want to mess up my future by doing those things as we know it is illegal and well, I have been taught by boomers that it is wrong. Which you have perfectly answered why they banned it. Because they wanted better for us I take it. Protecting us. All my life I heard, dont have sex, drugs, dont smoke, dont drink. Lots of donts so it was shocking to see that same generation doing those donts'. Maybe they learned through all of that experimentation and when some of them saw the result of such experimentation and crime going up they thought the world was a dangerous place and it was heightened when they had kids they cracked down on it and kept us safe from it. That is what i assume anyway to try understand why such a transformation.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You and me both. Older boomers have become hypocrites, although I suspect some of them don't trust millies to do what boomers themselves did and yet stay out of trouble, or are trying to save them from troubles that they went through. Other boomers I know, not here on T4T, but in my metro area, are still almost as hip as they used to be; no problem and no hypocrisy. Some of them are not parents though. So, one's social role also affects your behavior.

But now you're getting closer to the heart of the Awakening. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. But sometimes at a higher plane too. Spiritual and psychological movements, spiritual and consciousness-expanding music, and openings of the heart. New ways of personal liberation and improving ourselves through awakening, and alternative methods to the medical and robotic models. Going beyond the stiff and formal alienated and regimented ways of the older generation. Getting concerned about an industrial rat-race lifestyle that brings war and environmental destruction. Seeking fulfillment instead of mere survival and confomity. Fantastic and sudden liberation for those in the closet and discriminated against.

I have felt that too as a millie. That boomers do not trust us. They fuss and fret and worry. My mother often thought i had done this and that although i never did. I was not the perfect child but i did not do any of the things boomers told me not to do. In that regard I behaved. It hurt every time my mother showed she did not trust me as i did try my best to make her and other boomers proud.

Originally Posted by Taramarie

I totally understand the GIs regarding being blind to spiritual issues.

Okay, now I think this needs a bit of straightening out. Like you guys, the GIs were a Civic generation. Overhauling the moral consensus, and achieving spiritual insight, was not their job as a generation. (Each individual, different story, as always.) The economic system was a mess and needed to be fixed, and that required an instinct for politics and collective thinking. The Missionaries were too obsessed with their values debate, too fixated on ideas without regard to whether they worked, and the Lost were too individualistic to see what society needed, as opposed to what each of them needed to survive and prosper. (Sound familiar?) They brought the weight of that instinct, as voters and also as rebels (like the sit-down strikers who achieved unionization of the manufacturing force), that allowed change to happen.

That was in the Crisis. Afterwards, in the High and Awakening, they continued to push for progressive change and they got it, enacting a lot of measures that made our society more humane, fairer, and more true to the ideals that the Missionaries had articulated. I would not say they went too far. I think they did a hell of a job.

But during that time, we had major changes in our material circumstances partly created by their efforts and partly by advancing technology. We had women increasingly in the work force. We had emerging dangers to the natural world. We had nuclear weapons. We had laws (by the Awakening's beginning) that forbade racial segregation. But we still had cultural values that said women should be in the home, nature was there to be fought and exploited, loyalty to the nation should be unquestioning, and white people were superior. Those values were out of step with the world the GIs had built.

That's not their fault. Hell, that's to theircredit. But overhauling that values regime was our job, not theirs. It needed more focus on individual vision and insight, and on what was right and wrong rather than how things worked. If you're like most Millies, you take gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, and environmentalism for granted. But none of those things could be taken for granted when we were your age.

And those values work for the world we live in now, but our institutions don't properly reflect them. It's a two-step process, with assists from the other two archetypes.

The GIs were who they were: good at what they were good at, not so good at what they weren't.

Thought I'd share this here. It's a passage from my urban fantasy novel in progress, A Portion of Truth. The fantasy element in this series involves occultists who have familiar spirits called Luminous who give their adepts fantastic powers in a particular range, and call on them to serve a Purpose. These adepts are called the Illuminated. A Portion of Truth is the second book of the series.

The main character is Rose Tillith, a mentat. Her Luminous, Djehuti, gives her Sherlock Holmes-like powers of perception and super-high intelligence, plus a few other bells and whistles. She was an important character in the first book, but it was told from the viewpoint of her boyfriend. I decided to make this one from her POV, and to write each book in the series from a different perspective. Anyway, here's Rose saying something relevant to this thread:

Every Illuminated has a Purpose given us by our Luminous. For me and other mentats, the Purpose can be summed up in one word: Truth. I’m to pursue it dispassionately, even ruthlessly. That’s already about as morally neutral as it gets. In what sense does Djehuti even have a dark side or a light?


Talking about Truth brings up Pilate’s question: what is truth? It’s not nearly as simple as many people think. The word has multiple meanings.


There’s telling the truth as opposed to lying. There’s objective or scientific truth: factual statements about observable phenomena that are confirmed by what we see. There’s truth of a sort in art, where the artist’s work is true to his vision or aesthetic sense. There’s moral truth, formed from the assertion of compassionate will.


Ultimately, in the depths of spiritual awareness and union with the cosmos, truth is what can’t be told in words, for which evidence and reason are irrelevant.


Perspective makes a big difference. Free will is true from one perspective and random behavior is true from another. From one viewpoint, we are individuals. From another, we have a collective identity as a tribe or society or species, and from yet another the universe is One. From another viewpoint still, each cell in our bodies is an individual and it’s the whole organism that’s the collective. Which of these is true? All of them and none. There’s no such thing as absolute truth. Shift your perspective and what was true becomes false, what was false, true.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Okay, now I think this needs a bit of straightening out. Like you guys, the GIs were a Civic generation. Overhauling the moral consensus, and achieving spiritual insight, was not their job as a generation. (Each individual, different story, as always.) The economic system was a mess and needed to be fixed, and that required an instinct for politics and collective thinking. The Missionaries were too obsessed with their values debate, too fixated on ideas without regard to whether they worked, and the Lost were too individualistic to see what society needed, as opposed to what each of them needed to survive and prosper. (Sound familiar?) They brought the weight of that instinct, as voters and also as rebels (like the sit-down strikers who achieved unionization of the manufacturing force), that allowed change to happen.

That was in the Crisis. Afterwards, in the High and Awakening, they continued to push for progressive change and they got it, enacting a lot of measures that made our society more humane, fairer, and more true to the ideals that the Missionaries had articulated. I would not say they went too far. I think they did a hell of a job.

But during that time, we had major changes in our material circumstances partly created by their efforts and partly by advancing technology. We had women increasingly in the work force. We had emerging dangers to the natural world. We had nuclear weapons. We had laws (by the Awakening's beginning) that forbade racial segregation. But we still had cultural values that said women should be in the home, nature was there to be fought and exploited, loyalty to the nation should be unquestioning, and white people were superior. Those values were out of step with the world the GIs had built.

That's not their fault. Hell, that's to theircredit. But overhauling that values regime was our job, not theirs. It needed more focus on individual vision and insight, and on what was right and wrong rather than how things worked. If you're like most Millies, you take gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, and environmentalism for granted. But none of those things could be taken for granted when we were your age.

And those values work for the world we live in now, but our institutions don't properly reflect them. It's a two-step process, with assists from the other two archetypes.

The GIs were who they were: good at what they were good at, not so good at what they weren't.

Why am I getting a sermon on this? I already know all of this.....

I've been cogitating on something from this thread (one of my favorites, incidentally!).

What if our (human's) strong tendency to engage in confirmation bias, has led us to insist on a cause/effect nature of the cosmos?

That is, in our everyday, mundane lives, we CONSTANTLY are faced with cause phenomena followed by the expected effect. Being thus inundated, we find it almost impossible to contemplate a cosmos that wasn't "begun" somehow and furthermore wasn't "created" somehow by "something" or "someone."

What if ... the cosmos, the universe, or universe(s) are ever-present, eternal. Have always been around, have never been created, and will never come to an end?

It strikes me that this makes a lot more sense than us having to invent this mythological "god" that somehow "creates" the universe(s) somehow, out of whole cloth. It's just always been around. Period. Different forms, sure. Big Bangs? Sure, maybe that's just one of the many events that take place from time to time (If time has much meaning, even!).

We evolve from all this? Sure, why not. Maybe that's just the way it works. Every now and then something like this pops up. Why must there be a proximal cause of us? Or of anything, if it's always been there anyway? Stuff just occurs from time to time based on an infinity of interlocked probabilities.

That's true, I agree, and it is made plain to us just by contemplating the fact that whatever "time" we think it is, we are always in the present moment, eternally.

"We need more welders and less philosophers"-- Marco Rubio.

I take it Tim and Bob and Copperfield and Galen agree; how about it folks?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

"We need more welders and less philosophers"-- Marco Rubio.

I take it Tim and Bob and Copperfield and Galen agree; how about it folks?

depends what the philosophers are talking about. There is a time for everything, some things are more needed and/or desired in certain eras than others.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

"We need more welders and less philosophers"-- Marco Rubio.

I take it Tim and Bob and Copperfield and Galen agree; how about it folks?

This Tim agrees. This is a 4T. Outer driven world, which needs fixing.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

"We need more welders and less philosophers"-- Marco Rubio.

I take it Tim and Bob and Copperfield and Galen agree; how about it folks?

As my grandmother used to say "even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then". So too with Marco Rubio. Given that we in a 4T it makes sense we would need more welders and less philosophers of course that condition is also true in 2Ts as well. Welders are just simply more economically necessary.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

This Tim agrees. This is a 4T. Outer driven world, which needs fixing.

I'm sure the other Tim agrees too. But I say au contraire, without philosophers, we don't know what to fix, or how to fix it.

Marco Rubio would just love a world without philosophers. Then he could get away with his pernicious, misguided ideas.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I'm sure the other Tim agrees too. But I say au contraire, without philosophers, we don't know what to fix, or how to fix it.

Marco Rubio would just love a world without philosophers. Then he could get away with his pernicious, misguided ideas.

I agree. We do need them for the guidance to know what to fix and for the vision to build something better. But they also need to be in tune with what the community needs and desires. Be a leader for the people and speak for them. That is why I said it depends what they are philosophical about.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

"We need more welders and less philosophers"-- Marco Rubio.

I don't know about the number of welders but we could certainly use a lot fewer tax-feeders.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

As my grandmother used to say "even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then". So too with Marco Rubio. Given that we in a 4T it makes sense we would need more welders and less philosophers of course that condition is also true in 2Ts as well. Welders are just simply more economically necessary.

You atheist/materialist guys would say the same thing in a 2T, just as you did here. Just as my parents and their generation said in the 2T. So it's not about the turning in that respect; we need both welders and philosophers in all turnings. It's just a difference in emphasis, and application.

No, Marco Rubio is still wrong. Especially about this. Is he right about anything? No, just charming and smooth.

Of course, to some extent, it IS about generations. Idealists generally like some philosophers to be around; civics and nomads generally don't, and prefer welders. Of course, as I also said, the idealists here during the 4T are also not very philosophical. But a lot of Boomers are probably still idealists like me. Just not on this forum; not anymore; not since 2008.

But, I apologize if my generational generalizations are too tightly-drawn

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You atheist/materialist guys would say the same thing in a 2T, just as you did here. Just as my parents and their generation said in the 2T. So it's not about the turning in that respect; we need both welders and philosophers in all turnings. It's just a difference in emphasis, and application.

No, Marco Rubio is still wrong. Especially about this. Is he right about anything? No, just charming and smooth.

Of course, to some extent, it IS about generations. Idealists generally like some philosophers to be around; civics and nomads generally don't, and prefer welders. Of course, as I also said, the idealists here during the 4T are also not very philosophical. But a lot of Boomers are probably still idealists like me. Just not on this forum; not anymore; not since 2008.

But, I apologize if my generational generalizations are too tightly-drawn

But I am an atheist and i dont know about materialist as i dont really know exactly what you mean by that but even I can understand what you are saying and agree with you. Yes even a civic can agree we need both.