Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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John
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Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

Post by John »

Post here to discuss the original Fourth Turning theory by
Neil Howe and William Strauss

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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Testing.

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Bob Butler
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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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I have been a regular poster on too many T4T sites. The last was on MyBB, and is dying of a missing moderator and excessive spam. This section of the Generational Dynamics Forum is intended in part to fill that lack.

I was described by John as a ‘troll’. That is to say we have had our disagreements. I suppose I should outline them here.

My own perspective for looking at history combines several things.

Turning Theory suggests a way that cultures change, primarily in a crisis a traumatic event happens which makes the old values no longer viable, and the newer values become dominant. This John seems to have borrowed decently well.

Ages of Civilization identify certain patterns which various cultures follow. The four I deal with are Hunter Gatherer, the Agricultural Age, the Industrial Age, and the currently beginning Information Age. The rule which I have proposed is that what you thought you knew by observing one age is questionable when you observe the others. You cannot count on something you thought you knew by examine one age and apply it without confirmation in the next.

A third element is Cultures. Such units of civilization are western, orthodox, Middle Eastern, etc…. What you think you know from observing one culture cannot be assumed to be true of another. Again, you had best confirm the pattern holds.

I have also been into evolutionary biology. During the long Hunter Gatherer period we evolved into having certain drives which still tend to surface today. If you know or guess what behaviors were habitual, you should to be surprised if they pop up in today’s cultures.

I have recently added a book, The WEIRDest people in the World, by Joseph Hendrich. His thesis is that learning to read causes basic changes in how the brain works. Man becomes better at working with ideas and abstracts, poorer at dealing with people.

WEIRD mixes in with my perspective. The Information Age, the roundhead side of the Cousins War which settled near New England, the WEIRD, the blue, all seem to be opposing the Industrial Age perspective, the cavalier culture that settled in the south, those that think tribally, that associate with some group, and the Information Age.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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** 24-Dec-2020 World View: Generational theory
Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 5:52 pm
> I have been a regular poster on too many T4T sites. The last was
> on MyBB, and is dying of a missing moderator and excessive
> spam. This section of the Generational Dynamics Forum is intended
> in part to fill that lack.

> I was described by John as a ‘troll’. That is to say we have had
> our disagreements. I suppose I should outline them here.
Your theory has nothing to do with generational theory or with
S-H Fourth Turning theory, and that's perfectly ok.

When I call you a troll, it's not because you have your own historical
perspective. It's because you can't handle facts, except by making
moronic personal criticisms of me and Generational Dynamics, about
which you know less than nothing.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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John wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 10:00 pm
Your theory has nothing to do with generational theory or with S-H Fourth Turning theory, and that's perfectly ok.
I do include Turnings in my theory, except where it is validly contradicted by Ages or the WEIRD perspective or one of the other ways of looking at history. For example, in an unraveling there is a major debate and stalemate between the older values and the new where it becomes increasingly clear that something has to give. The conservatives - whether it be about kings, slaves, dictators, the government regulating the economy, systematic racism or global warming - are reluctant to meet the new problem. As a result the problem in question gets worse. By the time the crisis comes along, the problem is in your face bad enough that the old values have to go, the crisis problems have to be dealt with. Government becomes for a time more powerful and focused, though this fades ever more in the next three turnings. This leaves the believers in the old values sort of out of luck. The rest of the country will move on.

Generational Dynamics doesn't see this pattern as repeating today. In that, I will call out Generational Dynamics as not picking up the obvious. It does not see that each crisis steps one further from the very class conscious Agricultural age. It is obsessed with violence and the patterns which were common in the Industrial Age but have since faded. There is a bias against blue or WEIRD thinking, where you belittle problems and critics. By not trying to honor or understand rivals, you are blind to the nature of the problems.
John wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 10:00 pm
When I call you a troll, it's not because you have your own historical perspective. It's because you can't handle facts, except by making moronic personal criticisms of me and Generational Dynamics, about which you know less than nothing.
See? It is you who cannot handle and ignore the facts and instead resort to personal criticisms. True, I have created a new slants on turnings, but they are not much different from S&H than you have gone. Nukes, proxy wars and insurgencies have an effect. It is I that go with facts, you that go with personal attacks and insults. Most of that seems t be that you cannot respond to the flaws of your thinking.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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JCP wrote:
Fri Dec 25, 2020 1:21 am
Bob Butler wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 6:01 pm
John wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 7:17 am
Are you sure? If the econonist has the right skin color, he could get a job in Biden's cabinet.
This is an example of your ideological bias. Biden has brought in experts in the field they are supposed to oversee, as opposed to Trump who appointed by nepotism and loyalty. If you don't make an honest attempt to understand the opposition, which generally has valid reasons why they believe as they do, you will convince only those who are already bought into your perspective.
Said the pot to the kettle...
Oh, I do have some understanding of the Republicans. They have always been the party of the elites. They switched from allying with the abolitions to the KKK, and from isolation to being strong on defense, but they have always been pro elite. However, there are not enough elites to vote and gain power, so they have to pick up populist issues to fill out their platform. There are valid reasons for many conservative ideas. People spread out have to learn to be more independent, while those living close together often cooperate and specialize. Problems are less in rural areas, so they are less inclined to solve them. Small government and low taxes is a perpetual and valid concern, even if they can be taken beyond a point of diminishing returns.

But this does not lessen the affinity for the elites and racists among them. In any given crisis, the conservatives are out to preserve an element of the very class conscious and militaristic Agricultural Age. The progressives, whether they are conscious of it or not, are pushing to remove those ideas from the culture.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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John wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:35 pm
As for nepotism, Trump's children went to the Mideast and negotiated
widely heralded peace agreements between Israel with UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Algeria. Biden's children went to Ukraine and China and
traded and used influence-peddling to pocket millions of dollars. Furthermore, Biden's son Hunter is deeply embroiled in a criminal investigation for influence peddling, money laundering and tax evasion. That's a big contrast with Trump's children.
We will see who is in court more after January 20th. I tend to agree the younger generation should rise on their merits rather than riding coat tails, but as long as no attempt is made to make nepotism illegal, what can you do?
John wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:35 pm
When Trump began running for president, I had no respect for him, and I criticized him and mocked him. Trump earned my respect. Biden has been cowering in his basement for a year and covering up his son's crimes. The only ideological bias is by people who give Biden a pass no matter how pathetic and incompetent he appears. Biden has not earned my respect. When he does, I'll let you know.
I guess you are not alone. During the primaries leading up to the 2016 election, a lot of Republicans said bad things about Trump. The difference was that once the Republican base was fixated on Trump, the establishment and many ideologues fell into line as enablers. I guess my hold on power (such as it laughingly is) doesn't depend on rural voters, so I could be critical straight through. His recent pardons of co conspirators and war criminals and his dragging his feet on transition of power have not made me change my opinion of him.

I did give Trump a year or so. to prove himself as president before I resumed dumping on him. The way you mischaracterize freely people with different worldview will make this hard.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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John wrote:
Fri Dec 25, 2020 8:57 am
Two posts, one of which claimed without evidence that Republicans are racist and the other of which was just a personal attack on me, have
been moved to the "Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions" thread, where they are more appropriate.

The purpose of this "Generational Dynamics World View News" thread is to discuss current events and history from the point of view of
Generational Dynamics. As always, I will be the final decider whether a particular post belongs in this thread or elsewhere. In particular, things like racism and violence will not be tolerated.
Republicans are unfortunately allied with the KKK and Neo Nazi. Racism is one of the crisis issues if you note the protests associated with Black Lives Matter this last summer, the congressional response of studying the problem but not doing anything about it. Police excessive violence and other structural racist acts are part of the crisis now. Racism is one of those unspoken populist issues which attracts voters to the Republican party, but it does not effect all members of the party. If you are unaware of it, you are unaware of an important part of the crisis, of moving the culture further away from the class oriented Agricultural Age.

If someone does launch a personal attack, why not act on the personal attack rather than the factual counter to it? The response should remain with that which provoked it.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

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** 25-Dec-2020 World View: Mocking the handicapped
pbrower2a wrote: > By the way -- I gave up completely on Donald Trump when he mocked
> the handicapped. I remember hearing jokes about the handicapped
> (except for moron jokes) from people my age when I was about ten
> years old. Most people outgrow such garbage (and it really is
> cruel) when they are about ten years old. Around that age, one
> either finds those repugnant or someone is able to explain why you
> don't do them (Dad tells you that the fellow in a wheelchair is a
> disabled veteran who served his country heroically, and there but
> for the Grace of God go you ten years from now if we get into a
> war with the Soviet Union. I may judge harshly people who hurt
> themselves through their own follies such as drugs, alcoholism,
> extreme obesity, and criminal behaviors.. but I fault nobody who
> did nothing to fault himself.

> I have a neurological disorder that makes me little more than my
> intellect. It has messed me up as can a drug or alcohol habit
> except to not put my life at risk. No, I'm not crazy; I simply
> can't enjoy what many other people enjoy. I could never attend a
> rock concert. Yes, it is genetic. I got a double dose, as my late
> parents both showed signs of being on the autistic spectrum, and
> it is probably a good thing that I never had children; they would
> be at a high risk of institutionalization.
Thank you for posting this. This explains why you hate Trump so much,
and perhaps also explains why you hate 74 million Tea Partiers and
Trump supporters, although that's a bit more tenuous.

Trump claims that he wasn't mocking the handicapped at all. His side
of the story is given in this Fox News story:

-- Did Trump really mock reporter's disability? Videos could back him up
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/did-tr ... ack-him-up
(Fox News, 14-Sep-2016)

For what it's worth, my opinion is that if Trump really did mock the
handicapped, then his doing so is wrong, and he should be condemned
for it.

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Re: Strauss-Howe Fourth Turning discussions

Post by Bob Butler »

Cool Breeze wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 5:50 pm
FullMoon wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 4:07 pm
I love Bob's blanket generalizations about how "we" readers whom he refers to as"reds" all think and act.
Really? Paints the picture of whacko.
Of course, you caught him again projecting what he does on other people. These people live in clown world.
Of course. Isn’t that what internet warriors do? You generalize about both what your group believes and the opposition, often demonizing the opposition.

I will say John seems to have no tolerance for racism. Even if the crowd he attracts is mostly red, if you do much promoting of racial prejudice you find yourself gone.

But there are a lot of Trump fans, and Trump echos the autocracy and oppression of minorities ethic which turned the crisis against the Republicans. The only way to ‘win’ this crisis is to assert a crisis which does not involve a crisis war does not exist. All triggers are martial. What was true of Agricultural Age and Industrial Age cultures remains true in the Information Age. Pardon me? Show me the evidence? I’ve asked around of three other turning related sites and finding other conclusions. We are currently viewed as in a crisis.

I have done a lot of digging about the difference between the red and blue cultures. On book is cultural, The Cousin’s War, by Kevin Phillips. It talks about the roundhead who settled near Boston and the cavaliers who settled in the south. It views the English Civil War, the US Revolution and the US Civil Wars as part to the same conflict between the urban industrial culture and the rural agricultural one. Well, that conflict didn’t end with the US Civil War. While the cavalier culture has contributed mightily to the United States, it occasionally bumps into the roundheads. When it does, the cavaliers tend to loose. The urban people see the problems confronting the culture first, and determine what changes must be made. Come the crisis, they are made.

The Weirdest People in the World, by Joseph Henrich, looks at things from a mental structure point of view. (WEIRD would be Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic.) If you do a lot of reading, your mind becomes oriented more towards abstract ideas such as democracy, human rights and equality. On the other hand, the world has more commonly been tribal in the past. These people are more aware of interactions between people, but their perspective is more on dividing between us and them and often emphasizing dominating them. You see this a lot around here, with the assumption that xenophobia dominates and conflicts between cultures are inevitable. This reflects a lack of awareness that much of the world has moved on, is no longer thinking that the aggressive way cultures have behaved in the past will continue.

I am currently working my way through anther book, The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt. This is from a moral psychologist’s point of view. People will handle moral problems quickly, emotionally, decisively. The rational part of the mind just justifies what the emotional part has already decided. He compares it to an emotional elephant with a rational rider… who can’t do a thing about what the elephant intuitively decides. My variation asserts the rational part of the mind will edit out any facts which oppose whatever decision the more emotional instinctive moral part of the mind has already decided. Thus, people will assert their moral indignation and as often as not let the facts get in their way.

You put these views together and the picture of the red - blue divide gets complex. Each book, and many others, contribute one facet of the problem. You can claim it unusual, and it is around here. You can’t say it is not well researched.

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