Boston and Fifth Turnings…and maybe even Sixth Turnings....
Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 10:52 am
John X.’s academically-famous city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its nearby city of Boston, have obviously been paramount in the news recently due to a terrorism spree. And, as most know here (at the time that I type and post this), the key suspects involve two brothers from a Russian province called Dagestan, located near Chechnya. One of the suspects did state on a Russian social website that he identifies with Islam. (This is not to perpetuate a stereotype of Islam being inherently violent and bad; please read on.)
As John has pointed out, World War II was not a Crisis War for the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this arguably caused a rare “First Turning reset” for Russia, the key constituent of the old Soviet Union. If it didn’t, then Russia would likely be in a Fifth Turning — John’s theorized supplemental Turning for countries which don’t have a Crisis War during a Fourth Turning. (The Soviet Union would have actually been in an Awakening era during World War II, despite the severe suffering at the hands of both Hitler and Stalin.)
However, Dagestan, from what I conjecture, is in a Fifth Turning: the dissolution of the Soviet Union was less likely to have really “shaken up” Dagestani society as opposed to the much more industrialized, globally-connected Russia. John further theorized that suicide bombings are characteristic of Fifth Turnings. If so — and this seems credible to me — then our two Boston-bombing suspects very well were in an alienated “Fifth Turning mode” despite their immigrating to America during a Third Turning, and who were quite likely feeling that their parents were suffering from things such as xenophobia. To avenge this, the Boston terrorists may well have been motivated to go on the rampage that they went on.
I have further wondered just what the characteristics are of kids who do grow up in a Fifth Turning. I may change this, but I will theorize that, due to parents tending to produce opposite types in the children that they raise, that there is an idealistic streak within these children — but that it is in muted form due to personal dissolution, and is complemented by the other generational archetypes. This muted idealism is complemented, I conjecture, by sensitivity due to highly protective parenting; also by nihilism due to a “this-world-is-the-pits” attitude; and by a sense of being a “foundational builder” due to this generation being raised by parents and schools as “the upcoming generation who we hope can save the kingdom.” Put all this together with our Dagestani-American terrorists, and we can envision two youths who envisioned being part of a relatively simple visionary crusade — but it was fortified and toxified by nihilistic pain and sensitivity due to parental and personal suffering at the hands of xenophobia, coupled with practical, civic “builder know-how” cultivated at home and in school from parents and teachers who needed them to be “the generation who will re-build the kingdom.”
As some last words, I have wondered if it is possible for a society to actually enter a Sixth Turning due to a Fifth Turning that doesn’t end in a Crisis War. In today’s modern society, I think that it would be remotely possible, but not too likely. It could possibly happen if you have a country such as Mexico or Saudi Arabia (which are both, it seems, in Fifth Turnings) who can somehow keep “the pressure cooker from exploding” due to outside pressures. These pressures would likely be apt to be both positive (such as in the form of very significant monetary assistance as well as additional assistance that could range from ample cheap food brought into the country and massive tuition subsidies from outsiders) as well as negative (such as some powerful country, such as China, threatening to “contain” a country in a way similar to how China might “contain” North Korea if it gets too volatile with its military actions).
Kids growing up in a Sixth Turning, if it is possible to produce such a thing, may well be a kind of “über-Nomad” archetype due to a “slow-motion sense of societal degradation that seems to never want to end,” coupled with elements of sensitivity (due to their suffering) and elements of “civic builder-ism” due to their also being raised as “the generation that will hopefully save the kingdom.” Finally, there is apt to be, I feel, a slight sense of idealism in them, but it is a very simple vision: the vision of a better, stable society that quite simply dispenses with all the dysfunctional elements of political decay.
The characteristics of Sixth Turnings, if they can exist, may well consist of “infrastructural de-couplings” such as via many people in the country using alternative currency systems, setting up alternative businesses which readily accept them, and even building some elements of regional alternative transportation and energy systems. In other words, channeling deep dissolution into turning visions into societal structures “that work.” Coexisting with this may well be attacks by many “common people” against the official infrastructure, which may not necessarily be violent (i.e., many people being lax in paying taxes; or taking over parks and vacant houses, Occupy-style, for housing needs). The endgame of this could be a fracturing of a nation, or a civil war with those supporting the official government fighting those who have a deeply withering sense of patriotism towards it. The über-nihilism of the child generation during a Sixth Turning, I feel, would practically guarantee that there must be a First Turning following it — or, if not, the start of a non-cyclical “Dark Age” that will last for awhile.
Comments, if anyone has any, are welcome. —Regards, Marc
As John has pointed out, World War II was not a Crisis War for the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this arguably caused a rare “First Turning reset” for Russia, the key constituent of the old Soviet Union. If it didn’t, then Russia would likely be in a Fifth Turning — John’s theorized supplemental Turning for countries which don’t have a Crisis War during a Fourth Turning. (The Soviet Union would have actually been in an Awakening era during World War II, despite the severe suffering at the hands of both Hitler and Stalin.)
However, Dagestan, from what I conjecture, is in a Fifth Turning: the dissolution of the Soviet Union was less likely to have really “shaken up” Dagestani society as opposed to the much more industrialized, globally-connected Russia. John further theorized that suicide bombings are characteristic of Fifth Turnings. If so — and this seems credible to me — then our two Boston-bombing suspects very well were in an alienated “Fifth Turning mode” despite their immigrating to America during a Third Turning, and who were quite likely feeling that their parents were suffering from things such as xenophobia. To avenge this, the Boston terrorists may well have been motivated to go on the rampage that they went on.
I have further wondered just what the characteristics are of kids who do grow up in a Fifth Turning. I may change this, but I will theorize that, due to parents tending to produce opposite types in the children that they raise, that there is an idealistic streak within these children — but that it is in muted form due to personal dissolution, and is complemented by the other generational archetypes. This muted idealism is complemented, I conjecture, by sensitivity due to highly protective parenting; also by nihilism due to a “this-world-is-the-pits” attitude; and by a sense of being a “foundational builder” due to this generation being raised by parents and schools as “the upcoming generation who we hope can save the kingdom.” Put all this together with our Dagestani-American terrorists, and we can envision two youths who envisioned being part of a relatively simple visionary crusade — but it was fortified and toxified by nihilistic pain and sensitivity due to parental and personal suffering at the hands of xenophobia, coupled with practical, civic “builder know-how” cultivated at home and in school from parents and teachers who needed them to be “the generation who will re-build the kingdom.”
As some last words, I have wondered if it is possible for a society to actually enter a Sixth Turning due to a Fifth Turning that doesn’t end in a Crisis War. In today’s modern society, I think that it would be remotely possible, but not too likely. It could possibly happen if you have a country such as Mexico or Saudi Arabia (which are both, it seems, in Fifth Turnings) who can somehow keep “the pressure cooker from exploding” due to outside pressures. These pressures would likely be apt to be both positive (such as in the form of very significant monetary assistance as well as additional assistance that could range from ample cheap food brought into the country and massive tuition subsidies from outsiders) as well as negative (such as some powerful country, such as China, threatening to “contain” a country in a way similar to how China might “contain” North Korea if it gets too volatile with its military actions).
Kids growing up in a Sixth Turning, if it is possible to produce such a thing, may well be a kind of “über-Nomad” archetype due to a “slow-motion sense of societal degradation that seems to never want to end,” coupled with elements of sensitivity (due to their suffering) and elements of “civic builder-ism” due to their also being raised as “the generation that will hopefully save the kingdom.” Finally, there is apt to be, I feel, a slight sense of idealism in them, but it is a very simple vision: the vision of a better, stable society that quite simply dispenses with all the dysfunctional elements of political decay.
The characteristics of Sixth Turnings, if they can exist, may well consist of “infrastructural de-couplings” such as via many people in the country using alternative currency systems, setting up alternative businesses which readily accept them, and even building some elements of regional alternative transportation and energy systems. In other words, channeling deep dissolution into turning visions into societal structures “that work.” Coexisting with this may well be attacks by many “common people” against the official infrastructure, which may not necessarily be violent (i.e., many people being lax in paying taxes; or taking over parks and vacant houses, Occupy-style, for housing needs). The endgame of this could be a fracturing of a nation, or a civil war with those supporting the official government fighting those who have a deeply withering sense of patriotism towards it. The über-nihilism of the child generation during a Sixth Turning, I feel, would practically guarantee that there must be a First Turning following it — or, if not, the start of a non-cyclical “Dark Age” that will last for awhile.
Comments, if anyone has any, are welcome. —Regards, Marc