Thanks for bringing up "The Fourth Turning" today, Thom, and again for your bringing the Strauss & Howe book to my attention several years ago. I've read it three times...and took a deep dive into it. So I'm going to try to offer a slightly different take on what you are calling "The Great Forgetting." I have a slightly darker view of …
Thanks for bringing up "The Fourth Turning" today, Thom, and again for your bringing the Strauss & Howe book to my attention several years ago. I've read it three times...and took a deep dive into it. So I'm going to try to offer a slightly different take on what you are calling "The Great Forgetting." I have a slightly darker view of this 4th Turning that has regularly occurred every 80 or so years since the War of the Roses in England in the 1400's. The key factor that caught my attention when studying this book was the fact that our generation, Thom, the Boomers--called generically by the authors the "Prophet Generation"--was for some reason the catalyzing group in their later years that caused the 4th Turning to occur. This generation starts out as "prophets" but ends up causing a cataclysmic mess--for reasons I'll get into shortly. But first, just consider who has been the leader of our recent surge in facism--Donald J. Trump, a Boomer. And what generation do Putin, Erdogan, & other autocrats around the world belong to? Who went BIG for Trump in 2016 & 2020 & 2022? Our generation--the Boomers ! Our generation !
No, we did NOT FORGET what happened in the Great Republican Depression nor WWII--our knowledge and adherence to the facts were OVERRIDDEN by the personal interests of our Boomer generation--unleashed big time by Ronald Reagan's "Greed is Good" mantra in the 1980's...eh? And here is where I'm puzzled why Strauss & Howe did not delve into the dichotomous forces at play throughout all six of their Fourth Turnings--and clearly point out that these crises come around every 80 years or so due to the dueling forces in the human psyche of authoritarian vs. egalitarian sentiments. As I view it now, the small-self-centered, immature, violent-oriented part of our human nature comes to the fore during the 4th Turning and causes the egalitarian part of our society--the youth--to fight back. Also missing from their book, the authors failed to make the huge point that the outcomes of all 6 of those 4th Turnings have been a score of 6 for the egalitarians and 0 for the authoritarians. Wow! Really Great ! Eh? Of course, the authors also pointed out that future outcomes--like an investment in the stock market--are not guaranteed to be the same. But like you, I'm encouraged that Gen Z is engaging in this struggle and really helping to tip the balance toward the egalitarian side. I tip my hat to AOC for her spot-on highlighting this fact--and the possibility of a brighter future of sharing & caring....vs. dividing & killing....if all of us fight for it together.
" ... due to the dueling forces in the human psyche of authoritarian vs. egalitarian sentiments." - Glen Brunner. Thanks for sharing such a concise and thought-provoking analysis.
Human nature is infinitely complex and expanding exponentially, much like the universe itself -- staggering proportions, astonishingly violent, forever unknowable, opposing forces of gravity and energy that somehow have produced the most delicate yet tenacious of all things: life! Our very existence is the deepest (and most wonderful) of mysteries.
...And death, our constant companion, the flip side. But when we're alive, why not just give in to it fully, the energy flowing all around us, the "brighter future" that's here right now, this instant, if we would only pull back the curtain in our minds, individually and collectively? The possibilities are endless.
Maybe it just takes about eighty years for Homo sapiens to come to the big forks in the long road of evolution: psychologically, to either follow the path of death or take a chance with life, a risky gamble to say the least. But really, that choice is also our constant companion.
One of my favorite bumper stickers is an image of Buddha that says, "Let that shit go." Another one is, "I'm going to hell in every religion." (The latter has nothing to do with anything -- just thought it was funny }:--))
Thanks for bringing up "The Fourth Turning" today, Thom, and again for your bringing the Strauss & Howe book to my attention several years ago. I've read it three times...and took a deep dive into it. So I'm going to try to offer a slightly different take on what you are calling "The Great Forgetting." I have a slightly darker view of this 4th Turning that has regularly occurred every 80 or so years since the War of the Roses in England in the 1400's. The key factor that caught my attention when studying this book was the fact that our generation, Thom, the Boomers--called generically by the authors the "Prophet Generation"--was for some reason the catalyzing group in their later years that caused the 4th Turning to occur. This generation starts out as "prophets" but ends up causing a cataclysmic mess--for reasons I'll get into shortly. But first, just consider who has been the leader of our recent surge in facism--Donald J. Trump, a Boomer. And what generation do Putin, Erdogan, & other autocrats around the world belong to? Who went BIG for Trump in 2016 & 2020 & 2022? Our generation--the Boomers ! Our generation !
No, we did NOT FORGET what happened in the Great Republican Depression nor WWII--our knowledge and adherence to the facts were OVERRIDDEN by the personal interests of our Boomer generation--unleashed big time by Ronald Reagan's "Greed is Good" mantra in the 1980's...eh? And here is where I'm puzzled why Strauss & Howe did not delve into the dichotomous forces at play throughout all six of their Fourth Turnings--and clearly point out that these crises come around every 80 years or so due to the dueling forces in the human psyche of authoritarian vs. egalitarian sentiments. As I view it now, the small-self-centered, immature, violent-oriented part of our human nature comes to the fore during the 4th Turning and causes the egalitarian part of our society--the youth--to fight back. Also missing from their book, the authors failed to make the huge point that the outcomes of all 6 of those 4th Turnings have been a score of 6 for the egalitarians and 0 for the authoritarians. Wow! Really Great ! Eh? Of course, the authors also pointed out that future outcomes--like an investment in the stock market--are not guaranteed to be the same. But like you, I'm encouraged that Gen Z is engaging in this struggle and really helping to tip the balance toward the egalitarian side. I tip my hat to AOC for her spot-on highlighting this fact--and the possibility of a brighter future of sharing & caring....vs. dividing & killing....if all of us fight for it together.
" ... due to the dueling forces in the human psyche of authoritarian vs. egalitarian sentiments." - Glen Brunner. Thanks for sharing such a concise and thought-provoking analysis.
Human nature is infinitely complex and expanding exponentially, much like the universe itself -- staggering proportions, astonishingly violent, forever unknowable, opposing forces of gravity and energy that somehow have produced the most delicate yet tenacious of all things: life! Our very existence is the deepest (and most wonderful) of mysteries.
...And death, our constant companion, the flip side. But when we're alive, why not just give in to it fully, the energy flowing all around us, the "brighter future" that's here right now, this instant, if we would only pull back the curtain in our minds, individually and collectively? The possibilities are endless.
Maybe it just takes about eighty years for Homo sapiens to come to the big forks in the long road of evolution: psychologically, to either follow the path of death or take a chance with life, a risky gamble to say the least. But really, that choice is also our constant companion.
One of my favorite bumper stickers is an image of Buddha that says, "Let that shit go." Another one is, "I'm going to hell in every religion." (The latter has nothing to do with anything -- just thought it was funny }:--))