Originally Posted by pizal81

Theory aside what Kaiser's is saying is likely to happen if Obama is re elected and the economy gets better. I don't see the crisis mood last past the duration of the great recession + negative backlash. The minor depression or whatever you want to call it.

I think there are more shoes to drop so to speak with our current 4T, which I still believe began with 9/11. If Terrorism and "Great Recession" were the only issues of the 4T (if it gets better from here) The current 4T would be a very mild crisis era indeed.

Other issues which could blow up include: Huge debts, Europe's debt issues, Iran, North Korea and the "Arab Spring" turning into a nightmare. Im fully confident we have more crisis to manage before we hit 1T. IMO we wont see 1T until at least 2020. I still havent seen an issue that galvanizes the millies to fulfil their "hero" roles. Where is their D-Day?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

You'll have to forgive me, but I don't find astrology to be a persuasive authority on this. Nor do I think most other people here do.

I forgive you, but the facts show that I made correct predictions. That's the point. You say liberals like me think that 9-11 is not the Crisis beginning, because we don't agree with the policies instituted by Bush afterward. But at least in my case, I predicted such a war, even though I didn't want one. And it happened. Whether I used astrology or not is irrelevant to that point. Many people here of many different political persuasions observed 9-11, but didn't jump to the conclusion that a 4T had begun. Strauss and Howe predicted 2005 as the start of the 4T. When 9-11 happened, they did not revise their date. That was not because they agreed or disagreed with the wars that followed 9-11; but because a 2001 date could not have fit the theory, and because they observed no change in the social mood in 2001 to that of a 4T.

It is YOU that wants 9-11 to be the catalyst of the 4T, because you agreed with the Bush policies, and don't understand like many of us do that Bush was not only our worst president ever, but entirely 3T in style and policy. You don't want to face the fact that the 2008 meltdown proves convincingly that the trickle-down, free market Reagan/Bush ideology has failed. You don't want to look at the results of your policies, which have led to a situation where a major shift away from Reaganomics will be made during this 4T, leading back to a situation in which taxes on the wealthy and government intervention in the economy will increase again.

Finally, it does not matter if you or others do not accept astrology as an authority. What is an authority or not is entirely irrelevant. My predictions frequently come true, as facts have demonstrated; especially since every prediction I have made here has come true. So they need to be posted here. I'm not claiming every prediction I ever make has, or will come true. Astrology often works, however, and so there is no need to take it as an "authority." It's just there. You can pay attention to it, or not.

Originally Posted by pizal81

Theory aside what Kaiser's is saying is likely to happen if Obama is re elected and the economy gets better. I don't see the crisis mood last past the duration of the great recession + negative backlash. The minor depression or whatever you want to call it.

But that was exactly what happened in the 1850s. The economy got better after the meltdowns of the late 1840s, but the Crisis got worse anyway. That was because the Crisis was not only an economic one. We all know that; and neither is this one. This 4T is combining aspects of the last one, and the one before that.

I agree that Bush was probably one of the worst presidents we've ever had. Still, hearing there was "no change in the social mood in 2001," specifically in regards to the concept of "crisis," sounds pretty silly to me. For four years, Bush's agenda advanced at a pace that was unhindered by 3T-style partisanship. If four years of intense change and a two-front war without question is not long enough, please explain how our four years in WW2 were any different.

11 years later: We are still occupying Afghanistan; Our relationship with the world has changed dramatically; The structure of the federal government has been significantly re-arranged with DHS as the priority; and our interpretation of fundamental constitutional rights has been rewritten with public consent.

Oh, and of course: DATA!



In 3T, the value of speculative paper goes up relative to the value of real things. In a 4T, the true value of said financial paper is revealed to be lacking against scarce resources.

In 2001, the value of US paper (both dollar and equity) began a significant decline that has not yet reversed. The major differences between 2001 and 1929 is that our current bubble is actually much bigger, but as we've headed in to a mega-unraveling we are even more willing & able to pretend it isn't happening. Other things one might expect from a mega-unraveling include persistence of stupid culture war battles that should have died long ago, national influence in general decline, a healthy dose of denial, and stubborn belief that the roaring 90s are right around the corner.

The right wants to take us back to Reagan, and the left wants to take us back to Clinton. Solutions that see beyond 3T nostalgia are simply not under consideration.

Originally Posted by pizal81

Theory aside what Kaiser's is saying is likely to happen if Obama is re elected and the economy gets better. I don't see the crisis mood last past the duration of the great recession + negative backlash. The minor depression or whatever you want to call it.

As I said, if that happens, then the theory will be disproven and anything goes. We might as well preserve all this stuff as no more than a curiosity. Which, of course, it already is to some.

We have a great many issues on our plate and if anything the Great Recession was a diversion. We face peak oil, global warming, an unregulatable global economy, an overextended American Empire, and global war and peace issues that sidestep the old formats of regular armies and governments. Even if we were to restore the New Deal completely, which I don't see happening in the near future, we would still be facing Crisis-scale issues. Nor are the Millennials showing any sign of tiring of the struggle at this point. We will not enter a High era before the late 2020s, maybe even the early 2030s although it won't wait any longer than that -- unless the theory is wrong, that is.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I recommend getting a copy of The Fourth Turning and reading the last chapter.

I recommend you quit dodging and answer my question in your own words. I remind you that S&H had no more knowledge of the events following 9/11 than anyone else did when they wrote that book, and it is those events I was asking about.

Originally Posted by B Butler

I don't generally agree with JPT, but I'm still with him that the 'cut and run' v 'stay the course' debate of the Bush 43 era was an essential resolution of the Red / Blue divide. The Republicans thought using military force to expand their military zone of influence would be easy. The Democrats anticipated quagmire. Neither were entirely correct, but neither were entirely wrong. We did not end up putting troops near the oil. Our new grand embassy in Iraq is not the new capitol of the Middle East. However, we did significantly change Iraq for the better. Yet, it is not so much better that the cost in blood and treasure might be considered cheap. I don't think anyone would be eager to occupy another country the size of Iraq, oil or no oil.

I doubt the Iraqis agree we changed it for the better. Hundreds of thousands of them were killed, and it is still a deadly-dangerous place to live. The new government we put there is shaky at best. Iraq was stable under Saddam, even though he was a tyrant. But now the people are terrorized on the streets all the time. It was completely wrong for the USA to invade another country for no reason other than that we wanted to do so. That was simply wrong; there is no middle ground there. No divide has been bridged at all. The blue side opposes the militarism of the red side. If another Republican gets into office and starts another war, the divide will be back as strongly as ever. And the Republicans have not given up their militarism at all. The Democrats were entirely right that Iraq was a quagmire; what else could you call it?

Because as neither side can clearly say "I'm right, you're wrong" neither side is ready to admit that a major policy shift has taken place, that practical experience in the field has triumphed over ideology. Bush 43's late 2nd term Middle East policies and Obama's are too similar. A deeply decisive clash of world views has been resolved by conflict in the field. Nobody is going to be expecting to be greeted as liberators anymore. No one will claim that cultures cannot be changed at gunpoint, but they now know the cost in treasure and blood of such projects. It can be done, but it isn't worth it.

Though I understand your point that Iraq was "changed at gunpoint" (and maybe it was, or maybe it wasn't), I don't agree that people have changed their minds about it. Republicans still think the militarism of Iraq was worth it, and Democrats don't. Just listen to the Republican candidates; they are ready and eager for the next war, and none of them (except Ron Paul) have renounced the Bush 43 wars. Afghanistan has not yet shown that their culture can be changed by the war either. Facts have no bearing on the Republican ideology. If Romney, Santorum or Gingrich wins, the Bush 43 policy will be back as if no blood had been spilled at all. They simply don't care about that. The Republicans and all of us have, as you pointed out, plenty of indication about what modern wars do. The Republicans loudly resisted the lessons of Vietnam, and learned nothing. They have learned nothing from Iraq either. They didn't even want us to pull out. We had to leave because the Iraqis did not want us there. They never did.

Of course, it wasn't a conflict of the scale of prior 4Ts. ....

None of that means the post-9/11 wars were 4T wars. They were not pursued in a 4T way, whatever their scale was. They were not waged with a determination or commitment to win; Bush even got distracted from one war in order to wage another one. And that second one was waged with the idea that all we had to do was march to Baghdad and liberation would be finished. Men and resources dedicated to either war were grossly inadequate. Neither war had anything whatever to do with our national security either, and so they did not occupy the peoples' attention or priorities. They were out of sight and out of mind for most Americans. Therefore they were not "Phase I of the crisis."

Phase II of the crisis ought not to be undoing the Reagan Republican's grand social experiment ....

There are basic ecological and economic forces in play deeper than that. Colonial imperialism left the planet divided between 'have not' former colonies and 'have' former mother countries. Jobs shall be exported until balance is achieved. Lack of resources and climate shift cannot be ignored. Peak oil, peak water, peak fish and perhaps peak human population can't be resolved by closing one's eyes, blocking one's ears, and loudly pronouncing 'I don't want to listen!'

Yet, I don't see any serious movement to do more than undo Reagan's excesses. I don't believe that will be enough.

No indeed, and there are deeper problems, but the Reagan philosophy needs to be defeated before anything can be done about all the other problems too, because government is needed to deal with them, and Reagan said "government is the problem." The Reagan ideology precludes ANY recognition or effort to deal with ANY of these other concerns (especially climate change and peaks in resources). That is the "excess" that needs to be undone; Republican extremism must be defeated. JPT's point of view must be utterly defeated and humiliated. The Reagan "excess" is the ideology itself, and the excessive, fanatical adherence to it by the red side. The ideology, by the way, also includes the militarism that caused the post-9/11 wars, and the religious right culture wars too. The "movement" needs to undo that whole ideology, and defeat it, and then and only then can it move forward on all the other great concerns; none of which will go away during this 4T, or until they are dealt with.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As I said, if that happens, then the theory will be disproven and anything goes. We might as well preserve all this stuff as no more than a curiosity. Which, of course, it already is to some.

We have a great many issues on our plate and if anything the Great Recession was a diversion. We face peak oil, global warming, an unregulatable global economy, an overextended American Empire, and global war and peace issues that sidestep the old formats of regular armies and governments. Even if we were to restore the New Deal completely, which I don't see happening in the near future, we would still be facing Crisis-scale issues. Nor are the Millennials showing any sign of tiring of the struggle at this point. We will not enter a High era before the late 2020s, maybe even the early 2030s although it won't wait any longer than that -- unless the theory is wrong, that is.

Sorry Brian, but I think your interpretation here is the only thing that is blatantly wrong.

In 1792, the oldest nomads were 68.
In 1860, they were 48.
In 1946, it was 62.
And In 2032, an "acceptable" 1T start date to you, they would be 72!

Why is that amount of give and take acceptable to you, but only in one direction?


Oh, and stop trying to hold the theory hostage. It is just silly and childish - like the kind of child who threatens to destroy a toy when asked to share.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

I agree that Bush was probably one of the worst presidents we've ever had. Still, hearing there was "[COLOR=#333333]no change in the social mood in 2001," specifically in regards to the concept of "crisis," sounds pretty silly to me. For four years, Bush's agenda advanced at a pace that was unhindered by 3T-style partisanship. If four years of intense change and a two-front war without question is not long enough, please explain how our four years in WW2 were any different.

OK. The years 2001-2005 were not years of "intense change" at all. The Bush policy was BUSINESS AS USUAL. It was the military-industrial complex doing what it does, as it did in Vietnam and Korea and in the proxy Reagan wars and the Gulf War. No other "change" happened under Bush; he accomplished nothing except tax cuts. In a 4T we would likely understand that there is a need for action and that it needs to be paid for, like we understood in WWII. Taxes were raised to pay for it.

There was plenty of partisanship in 2001-2005. WWII united America; Iraq divided it. What there wasn't was any mood of involvement in the wars; they were out of sight and out of mind to most Americans. There was no Crisis; it was business as usual for the military-industrial complex. It can't operate without a constant, low-level threat. Terrorism merely replaced Communism.

11 years later: We are still occupying Afghanistan; Our relationship with the world has changed dramatically; The structure of the federal government has been significantly re-arranged with DHS as the priority; and our interpretation of constitutional rights has been rewritten with public consent.

I have no idea what you mean by "DHS." Our relationship with the world did not change, except that America was very unpopular because people hated America's preemptive war policy. The change with Obama is that we no longer pursue that policy, we are withdrawing gradually from Bush's wars, we pursued correct policies in Libya, and America is more popular again. You may be right about our loss of rights; we need to get them back again. There was never any need to curtail them though, so they weren't a response to a Crisis, but a power grab by Bush and Cheney. Presidents don't easily give up powers once granted them.

The right wants to take us back to Reagan, and the left wants to take us back to Clinton. Solutions that see beyond 3T nostalgia are simply not under consideration.

Sorry, I don't understand your data. The Left wants to move forward, and that direction is still the same, because it has been blocked for 32 years by Reaganism. Today America only gets one or two years out of every 16 to move forward an inch or two. It is not "nostalgia" to think we ought to move forward more quickly than that. We have problems, and there are solutions. Our government is blocked by the right-wing from handling them. It's a simple as that. The Right needs no "nostalgia" for Reagan, because Reaganism is still current policy. It's not a matter of nostalgia. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As I said, if that happens, then the theory will be disproven and anything goes. We might as well preserve all this stuff as no more than a curiosity. Which, of course, it already is to some.

We have a great many issues on our plate and if anything the Great Recession was a diversion. We face peak oil, global warming, an unregulatable global economy, an overextended American Empire, and global war and peace issues that sidestep the old formats of regular armies and governments. Even if we were to restore the New Deal completely, which I don't see happening in the near future, we would still be facing Crisis-scale issues. Nor are the Millennials showing any sign of tiring of the struggle at this point. We will not enter a High era before the late 2020s, maybe even the early 2030s although it won't wait any longer than that -- unless the theory is wrong, that is.

What you said. Excellent!

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Sorry Brian, but I think your interpretation here is the only thing that is blatantly wrong.

In 1792, the oldest nomads were 68.
In 1860, they were 48.
In 1946, it was 62.
And In 2032, an "acceptable" 1T start date to you, they would be 72!

The Revolution Crisis ended in 1794. That's 70.

The Civil War Crisis ended in 1865; that's only 43. But since the anomaly means that the nomads might also have been civics, you can't use it as an example of how old nomads are when a 1T starts or a 4T ends.

The World War II & Depression Crisis ended in 1946, but the oldest nomad was 63.

The likely end date for the current 4T is the late 2020s, if it lasts the average length of a turning, and it started in 2008. Brian only mentioned the early 2030s as a possibility if things drag on.
In 2028, the oldest nomad will be 67. That's the average between 63 and 70 from the other two examples.

You can't just look at nomads and 4Ts, but the average age of all generations at the start or end of all turnings.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

OK. The years 2001-2005 were not years of "intense change" at all. The Bush policy was BUSINESS AS USUAL. It was the military-industrial complex doing what it does, as it did in Vietnam and Korea and in the proxy Reagan wars and the Gulf War.

The Iraq war MIGHT be comparable to Vietnam, but there are always parallels between awakenings & crises. It is a very poor comparison to Korea, where many South Koreans are still grateful for America's help (even if they don't like much of what we've done since then!)

The Iraq War is also a poor comparison to Operation Desert Storm. But, the relative scale difference between Desert Storm & Iraqi Freedom (3t / 4t) matches with the relative scale of interventions we've also seen in Libya, Liberia and Somalia during the 3 and 4T. "Problems" that were identified but largely ignored in the 3T are approached again with much more decisive action after 9-11.

No other "change" happened under Bush; he accomplished nothing except tax cuts. In a 4T we would likely understand that there is a need for action and that it needs to be paid for, like we understood in WWII. Taxes were raised to pay for it.

That kind of thinking might be the most dangerous thing about Bush's legacy. Since Bush didn't change our national policies on spying, torture, summary assasination, and indefinite detention, then there's nothing for Obama to "fix," huh?

The tax vs borrowing thing is virtually irrelevant. Government borrowing as a percentage of GDP peaked in the 1940s, so there's nothing that says a government can't borrow in a 4T. Using tax rates as a guide is a shallow parallel at best, because 20th century income tax rates have no meaningful correlation to taxation in prior saeculae.

There was plenty of partisanship in 2001-2005. Partisan Democrats resisted the Iraq War from 2003 tooth and nail; they just didn't quite have the votes. But there was huge participation on both sides in the 2004 election, and no election could have been more partisan. What there wasn't was any mood of involvement in the wars; they were out of sight and out of mind to most Americans. There was no Crisis; it was business as usual for the military-industrial complex. It can't operate without a constant, low-level threat. Terrorism merely replaced Communism.

Tooth and nail? You are practically rewriting history here! The Iraq Resolution went from draft to approval, by supermajorities in both houses, in just nine days. There was more buyer's remorse from the left than there was initial opposition.

I have no idea what you mean by "DHS." Our relationship with the world did not change, except that America was very unpopular because people hated American's preemptive war policy. The change with Obama is that we no longer pursue that policy, we are withdrawing gradually from Bush's wars, we pursued correct policies in Libya, and America is more popular again. You may be right about our loss of rights; we need to get them back again. There was never any need to curtail them though, so they weren't a response to a Crisis, but a power grab by Bush and Cheney. Presidents don't easily give up powers once granted them.

The entire federal bureaucracy has another powerful layer added on top. Treasury? Transportation? Immigration? FEMA? Coast Guard? All hidden behind the incredibly secretive DHS.

Sorry, I don't understand your data.

Like I said, the value of speculative paper goes up in a 3T. In a 4T, it comes back down to reality against real resources. So in 1928, a very little bit of paper (stocks, securities, cash) can buy a lot of gold (or oil, or pork bellies, or whatever) and by 1942 you would need a whole lot more paper to buy the same amount of "stuff."

The same thing happened in 2001. Before 9-11 we were at a new peak of how much stuff you could get for paper. If you don't like gold, you can chart that same data with some other commodity, or even see the same pattern play out with PE ratios:

The Left wants to move forward, and that direction is still the same, because it has been blocked for 32 years by Reaganism. Today America only gets one or two years out of every 16 to move forward an inch or two. It is not "nostalgia" to think we ought to move forward more quickly than that. We have problems, and there are solutions. Our government is blocked by the right-wing from handling them. It's a simple as that. The Right needs no "nostalgia" for Reagan, because Reaganism is still current policy. It's not a matter of nostalgia. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it.

Where's the program? Where's the alternative? How many decades do you need to put it together, and can you sell it as a sound byte that doesn't include references to Clintonian tax rates or deficit reduction?

I don't mean to pick on Eric here because he's hardly the only or even the worst offender, but there is a huge tendency among boomers here to believe, "The theory means things have to turn out the way I want them to!" But it doesn't. Even the calm Bob Butler is guilty of this, in effect--he isn't satisfied with what has happened so far, and he wouldn't even be satisfied with undoing Reaganism. Neither am I, but Reaganism will not be undone any time soon. Eric thinks Bush I was "business as usual" because he dislikes imperialism and this was just more imperialism. But it was a qualitatively different change both in ends and means and it soaked up resources (financial) on a scale undreamed of since Vietnam. And add that to two or three rounds of tax cuts, and you've changed the US for many decades.

Gang, we just aren't capable of much of a 4T any more. Personal satisfaction is in, organization and sacrifice are out. More importantly, using rational thought to improve our society is out--it gets in the way of profit.

Lastly there's this issue of ages. I didn't buy the theory because of numerology. I bought it because it made sense of history I already knew in a new way. I believe in data. Who's getting ready for a big crusade right now? The only crusaders (and they are significant, although I don't expect them to prevail) are crusading for less government and less civic spirit. I also agree with M & L that we face a huge economic problem that no one has a handle on.

It is nice to see many of the younger folk slowly coming around.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I have no idea what you mean by "DHS."

I'll take a stab at it. Department of Homeland Security. You gotta be in DC to know this stuff.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The Revolution Crisis ended in 1794. That's 70.

The Civil War Crisis ended in 1865; that's only 53. But since the anomaly means that the nomads might also have been civics, you can't use it as an example of how old nomads are when a 1T starts or a 4T ends.

The World War II & Depression Crisis ended in 1946, but the oldest nomad was 63.

The likely end date for the current 4T is the late 2020s, if it lasts the average length of a turning, and it started in 2008. Brian only mentioned the early 2030s as a possibility if things drag on.
In 2028, the oldest nomad will be 67. That's the average between 63 and 70 from the other two examples.

You can't just look at nomads and 4Ts, but the average age of all generations at the start or end of all turnings.

I corrected your typo. Of course, some have postulated that the Civil War Crisis didn't end until 1877. That would put the oldest Nomads at 65.

p.s. If you can just grasp that this crisis has been about a war on government, a lot of things fall into place.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

The issue is even deeper than you described, because there will soon be very few jobs to reassign anywhere for any reason. The pace of technological change is making humans redundant, and there is no political fix for that inside the capitalist system ... at least not in its current form. Very low cost production is of little use if there are no consumers to buy what's made. Thomas Edsall wrote a nice OpEd for the NY Times that covered the topic well, if not in depth. Here it is. It may be depressing, but I can't think of a better time to address something like this than the middle of a 4T.

Wow, I can't believe how much our thinking is coalescing.

I see the MMT solution as only a means to getting at the deeper problem that is even less recognized than the ignorance of how a fiat currency works. That deeper problem is the automating away of jobs for humans - it is even currently barely recognized by those in MMT world.

Another leg on the stool that barely gets discussed beyond interested techies and snide remarks from the rest of us is the increasing degree that people are living in virtual world and not spending at activities that, from a macro-economic perspective, add significantly to aggregate demand.

Outside of energy, global supply is outstripping global demand (actual, not potential) at a faster and faster pace. Once the geopolitics settles down, I believe it will happen to energy as well (e.g. a collapse of oil prices at least as eye-popping as the 1980s).

Stories abound with how the human race will get to the point of mostly leisure and little time actually working. No one has given much thought of the way stations along that route and how utterly devastatingly and insurmountably destructive that they might turn out to be for our social economic structures… and, how soon that challenge might actually be upon us.

It is being mitigated right now by federal deficit spending, but it is out there and it is growing unabated if not outright ignored or even ridiculed. It’s only a question of time.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

I corrected your typo. Of course, some have postulated that the Civil War Crisis didn't end until 1877. That would put the oldest Nomads at 65.

No, Eric was right--no typo. The first Gilded cohorts were 43 in 1865. The Gilded, according to S&H that is, began in 1822--not 1812!

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

We will not enter a High era before the late 2020s, maybe even the early 2030s although it won't wait any longer than that -- unless the theory is wrong, that is.

2026 at the absolute latest. 2023 or 2024 is more likely IMO.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

The right wants to take us back to Reagan, and the left wants to take us back to Clinton. Solutions that see beyond 3T nostalgia are simply not under consideration.

We're agreeing on S&H here, if not politics, but I think there is more to this than you're seeing.

The "red/blue" thing is central to the entire saeculum. It's not a 3T phenomenon. It has caused the Crisis, not through direct effect, but by rendering the country inoperable to the point where problems are not dealt with until they become crises. A resolution of it is what's required to solve the problems facing us. So the question is, what is the "red/blue" divide really?

It's something that a Millenial would not understand, and something that many others have lost sight of. The "red/blue" divide manifested itself right from the start of the 2T. It was an internal proxy for the Cold War. The Soviet Union fell in 1989, and since then it's been all but forgotten (not entirely by accident -- the left wants to pretend it never existed, and they don't teach Millenials much truth about it in school). But communism and the Cold War were the central issues of the current saeculum, and the residue of that conflict is still with us in the form of "red/blue" Boomers.

This is what happened in the 2T:

On one side ("red", never a worse misnomer), you had this: Ronald Reagan 1964, "A Time for Choosing"

Calling Reagan a 3T figure is completely wrong. He was a major public figure from the start of the 2T through the end of it. The term "conservative movement" is a new term that emerged in this saeculum, and Ronald Reagan was at the forefront of it. He grew up a New Deal Democrat and became president of the SAG union in Hollywood, but after seeing up close what the Left was really about, he ended up dedicating his life to fighting socialism and communism, at home and abroad. The above speech is virtually indistinguishable from what we've heard at Tea Party rallies in the last few years. The stasis of the High broke in two, and this stuff was one half of what emerged from it.

On the other side ("blue") you had the emergence of the New Left and the SDS around the same time, at the start of (or just before) the 2T. These were Marxist groups that spearheaded, organized and instigated the 1960s "counter culture" movement, primarily on college campuses, where young Boomers were seized upon, converted and indoctrinated.

The 2T was set off by a Democrat president being assassinated by a communist.

Millenials have been barraged with an avalanche of 1960s New Left dogma about the evils of America, but they have no clue that's what it is.

This is the fundamental story of this entire saeculum, starting immediately after the end of WWII. The Soviet Union was defeated, but the internal conflict, embodied by and deeply ingrained in the Baby Boom generation, has never ended.

I've said many times that if you take the two sides above and add them together, allowing some of their qualities to cancel out and others to be doubled, what you end up with is something that looks a lot like libertarianism. Which is why the attempts of Bush and Obama to go back to the policies of the last 4T have been derailed.

Reagan's diagnosis of the problems facing the New Deal superstructure is more true today than when he said it in 1964, and those are the issues we now face domestically. We have a government that our economy cannot sustain, and it's responding by getting even farther out of control. The external conflict is something different, but not entirely divorced from the issues above. Radical Islam is in many ways the Middle Eastern version of the Weather Underground.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

In 1792, the oldest nomads were 68.
In 1860, they were 48.

1792 was the end of a Crisis era. 1860 was the beginning of one, which makes 48 just about right for the Gilded. If that Crisis ended in 1877, as I believe, then at that time the oldest Gilded were 65 -- right on target.

And In 2032, an "acceptable" 1T start date to you, they would be 72!

Correct, which is why I consider that an unlikely outlier but mentioned it anyway. If we go by oldest Xers at 66, oldest Millennials at 44, and oldest New Adaptives at 22, then we come up with 2026/2026/2027, making the late 2020s more likely than the early '30s. An early '20s end to the Crisis is about as likely as an early '30s one -- not impossible but we shouldn't expect it. An end in the mid to late 2010s, however, is absurd.

Oh, and stop trying to hold the theory hostage.

That's not what I'm doing. I'm just saying that theory means something, and is true only if its conditions are met. Some people here seem to think of Turnings as driven by politics, or by something other than generations. If the theory is true, then the Crisis cannot end merely because a national election goes one way instead of another. If the Crisis CAN end merely because an election goes one way instead of another, then the theory is NOT true.

It's really not possible to have it both ways.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

That's not what I'm doing. I'm just saying that theory means something, and is true only if its conditions are met.

You admit you don't even have the book. Your characterization of the theory and the numbers is off. If you're going to present yourself as an arbiter of what does or does not fit into it, you should probably go re-read the book.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

In 1792, the oldest nomads were 68.
In 1860, they were 48.
In 1946, it was 62.

As much as I like arguing against S&H dates, I try to keep in mind their original dates.

1794 - End of the Revolutionary Crisis with the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion; The oldest member of the Liberty Generation was 70, the youngest was 53.

1865 - End of the Civil War Crisis with the assassination of Lincoln; The oldest member of the Gilded Generation was 43, the youngest was 23.

1946 - End of the Great Depression & WWII Crisis with Demobilization; The oldest member of the Lost Generation was 63, the youngest was 46.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

You admit you don't even have the book.

What I do not admit is that I have no memory, nor any understanding of what I read.

Probably because you are an evangelical Christian and so have developed this habit in Bible study, I see you as taking a "chapter and verse" approach to S&H's writing that is entirely inappropriate. That is to say, you pick words out of context and present them as if they were a complete argument in themselves, just as many Christians do with passages from the Bible.

But specific nitpicking about phrases and words is not as important as understanding the main significance of the theory itself, which is: generations drive Turnings, and Turnings drive generations. And that means, first, that a Turning should not be able to come to an end until the generations are entering their next phases of life; and second, that the Turning phenomenon itself is one of mass psychology, not politics or economics, even though Turnings have consequences for politics and economics.

I have read all of the authors' books and I understand what they were getting at. If I have forgotten anything, it involves minutiae, dates and figures, most of which are available online on their website anyway.

You have no legitimate critique here.

Whoa, Nellie! Here's a take on Santorum that might put a chill down your spine.

Believe It or Not, Santorum's Surge Is Scary

Because Mr. Romney has residual appeal with independents, Democrats would rather Mr. Obama faced someone with more extremist views -- someone like Rick Santorum. I understand the logic. I just don't buy it.I think it is irresponsible to underestimate the appeal of a demagogue when so many Americans are suffering and the public mood is so mercurial. All it would take would be a few weeks of $5 a gallon gas and a Democratic electorate demoralized because of some administration misstep to put even the strangest protest candidacy into play.

Mr. Santorum is a principled culture warrior who doesn't believe in evolution, man-made global warming, sex for purposes other than having children, separation of church and state, tax-financed public education (except by Penn Hills of his home-schooled kids), a Constitutional right to privacy, contraception, some forms of prenatal testing, or freedom of conscience if it contradicts his church's edicts or his party platform.

Mr. Santorum would like to see doctors who perform abortions criminally prosecuted. He has said that war with Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions is in America's best interests, despite the painful lessons of the past decade and the skepticism of our own generals.

If he is elected president, women should expect an administration openly hostile to their interests on a number of fronts. As for "blah people" -- union members and academics -- well, they can just forget it.

The former senator's comments about Mr. Obama's "theology" over the weekend make it clear that his version of environmental stewardship is more about exploiting the earth than respecting it. It is a mentality closer to that of a 19th-century robber baron than someone informed by modern science or concerns about environmental integrity.

So, how did Mr. Santorum make it this far?

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