THE FOURTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION

[traelin0]

The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. - The Fourth Turning - Strauss & Howe -1997

The mass murder in Tucson is another brick in the wall of this Fourth Turning Crisis. The importance of this tragic event is not what happened in that Safeway parking lot, but the reaction in the aftermath of the shooting. Turnings are not about specific events, but how generations react to the events based on their stages of life. A turning is an era with a characteristic social mood, a new twist on how people feel about themselves and their nation. It results from the aging of the generational constellation. A society enters a turning once every twenty years or so, when all living generations begin to enter their next phases of life. We entered this Fourth Turning between 2005 and 2008, with the collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial system implosion.

We have crossed the threshold into a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime will propel the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. The Silent Generation (1925-1942) is dying off, Baby Boomers (1943-1960) are entering elder hood, Generation X is entering midlife, Millenials are entering young adulthood—and a new generation of child Artists are being born. Strauss & Howe have documented that a long human life of 80 to 100 years makes up a social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and rebirth) known as a Saeculum. Within each cycle, four generations proceed through their four stages of life. Every 15 to 25 years a new Turning surprises those who only think of history in a linear way. Strauss & Howe are historians who have been able to document this generational cycle going back to the 1400s.

www.theburningplatform.com/?p=9728

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

...interesting read... and timely, too, since we watched a TV show tonight, "Last Days of Earth," that discussed the estimated arrival of an asteroid the size of Texas to enter Earth's orbit in 2029... what kind of turning could that bring us?


...but asteroids aside, I also thought about some of the other threats to humanity this show covered... one of which was disease... maybe even man-made contagions that may turn out to be "the" superbug... and how once a pandemic, there is essentially no chance to arrest the development and spread of the infection...
...I pondered about other "contagions" that, once pandemic, can't be reversed... ideologies came to mind... such as socialism or communism or one-world-order-ism... and how I've heard countless complaints about helplessness and restlessness concerning our growing nanny state here... and while I hear this locally, I see evidence of this in the sluggish recovery... and it sure seems to illustrate the point made within the OP: <<< Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. >>>

...so, yes... an interesting read...