Dear Jack,
Jack Edwards wrote:
> I greatly enjoy your website and have for months, along with your
> e-books. Like many people, I usually read opinions and articles
> that tend to affirm things that I already believed. You’re
> articles have caused me to look at things completely differently –
> and often as not – disagree with pundits I used to agree with.
> Thanks for opening my eyes to a different perspective.
> If you’re wondering what to write about, here are some thoughts:
> Further explain a statement in one of your articles
> “In a Crisis era, like Iran in 1979 and in the 1980s, civic unity
> is regenerated, and political bickering decreases and tapers off.
> In an Awakening era, like Iran today, civic unity deteriorates,
> and political bickering increases.”
> Is the United States in a Crisis era yet – or just quickly
> approaching one? It doesn’t seem to me that civic unity is being
> regenerated right now and political bickering is as bad or worse
> than it’s been in a while.
> Does civic unity regenerate because the society recognizes that if
> it doesn’t put aside its differences and come together that the
> whole society can fall apart?
The "regeneracy" occurs because some event frightens everyone. We've
actually already seen this after 9/11. Do you remember when
President Bush hugged the Democratic majority leader (whose name
escapes me at the moment)?
Jack Edwards wrote:
> What causes the political bickering to taper off? I imagine the
> same political leanings are still there, do the opposing sides
> just agree to disagree?
No, but everyone is too frightened to disagree.
Here's how Strauss and Howe described it:
Strauss and Howe wrote:
> Every Fourth Turning starts with a catalyst event that
> terminates the mood of Unraveling and unleashes one of Crisis.
> Chapter 4 explained how sparks of history -- sudden and startling
> events -- can arise in any turning. Some sparks ignite nothing.
> Some flare briefly and then extinguish. Some have important
> effects but leave the underlying problems unresolved. Others
> ignite epic conflagrations. Which ones ignite? Studying the
> sparks of history themselves won't help answer this
> question, because what they are is far less important than how a
> society reacts to them. That reaction is substantially determined
> by the season of the saeculum -- in other words, by the turning in
> which they are located. Sparks in a High tend to reinforce
> feelings of security; in an Awakening, argument; in an Unraveling,
> anxiety. Come the Fourth Turning, sparks of history trigger a
> fierce new dynamic of public synergy.
> The catalyst can be one spark or, more commonly, a series of
> sparks that self-ignite like the firecrackers traditionally used
> by the Chinese to mark their own breaks in the circle of time.
> Each of these sparks is linked to a specific threat about which
> the society had been fully informed but against which it had left
> itself poorly protected. Afterward, the fact that these sparks
> were foreseeable but poorly foreseen gives rise to a
> new sense of urgency about institutional dysfunction and civic
> vulnerablity. This marks the beginning of the vertiginous spiral
> of Crisis.
> Once this new mood is fully catalyzed, a society begins a process
> of regeneracy, a drawing together into whatever definition
> of community is available at the time. Out of the debris of the
> Unraveling, a new civic ethos arises. One set of post-Awakening
> ideals prevails over the others. People stop tolerating the
> weakening of institutions, splintering of the culture, and the
> individualizing of daily behavior. Spiritual curiosity abates,
> manners traditionalize, and the culture is harnessed as
> propanganda for the purpose of overtly reinforcing good conduct.
> History teaches that, roughly one to three years after the initial
> catalyst, people begin acknowledging this new synergy in community
> life and begin deputizing government to enforce it. Collective
> action is now seen as vital to solving the society's most
> fundamental problems.
Jack Edwards wrote:
> Bills being rushed through
> It seems like we’re having a flurry of activity in Congress and
> the Senate right now, from TARP, Stimulus, Cap and Trade, Health
> Care. It happened at the end of Bush’s tenure and the Obama
> administration. It seems incredible to me that bills with this
> amount of influence and cost are being rushed through with out any
> time to actually read and digest what’s in them.
> Is this in any way related to the present Crisis era we’re
> entering? Is this generational in anyway? Has it always been like
> this? Or is this something new?
This is still the frenetic activity characterized by an Unraveling or
post-unraveling era -- before the regeneracy has occurred. All of
this stuff is crazy. None of this stuff -- TARP, Stimulus, Cap and
Trade, Health Care -- has a snowflake's chance in hell of working.
It's all nonsense.
Jack Edwards wrote:
> Honduras
> Do coups happen more often during certain eras? Since coups are
> militarily driven, do they have anything to do with generational
> attitudes?
During a crisis civil war, you may get a military coup. During an
Awakening era, you get a "velvet revolution" or some kind of
Awakening era climax that establishes a political victory of either
the younger or older generation. Even in America, you can think of
the resignation of President Nixon as a kind of coup.
Jack Edwards wrote:
> Natural Disasters
> Can having a really large natural disaster (like a Tsunami that
> kills 200,000 people) take the place of a crisis war or financial
> collapse in changing a generational era?
No, I don't believe so. A tsunami, for example, occurs in a period
of 24-48 hours, but there's no "regeneracy." A true regeneracy event
must threaten the existence of a society or its way of life.
Jack Edwards wrote:
> The role of age distribution of young men and a nation’s
> propensity to go to war
> It would seem to me that nations that have excess young males or a
> high concentration of young men (like the Palestinians) have a
> higher propensity to go to war than those populations with few
> young men. Before finding your site, I had always assumed that war
> with Russia simply wouldn’t happen because they lacked enough
> young men to really support a large war. It also seems to me that
> mothers with only one male child would be extremely anti-war. But
> does it really work that way or are my musings off-base?
Speaking in generalities, a crisis war tends to kill off more men
than women, leaving a preponderance of women. However, standard
peace time birth rates are generally 51-49% male to female, so by the
end of the Awakening era, there are more young men than young women.
Saying that women are more anti-war than men is feminist nonsense.
Jack Edwards wrote:
> The importance of individual rights and group rights through
> different eras
> It seems that I read somewhere on this site that during crisis
> periods the rights of groups take precedence over the rights of
> individuals and that as we move away from crisis periods that the
> rights of individuals take more and more precedence. I’ve gone
> back and looked, but haven’t found where that was stated – am I
> remembering this concept incorrectly? If this is correct, what
> kind of individual rights will be sacrificed during the upcoming
> crisis period.
During a crisis era, individual rights are subordinated to the
survival of the society and its way of life. During the Awakening
era, the riots and demonstrations of the new Prophet generation cause
the pendulum to swing back, and individual rights to be restored.
** 'It's going to be the 1950s all over again'
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 11#e041011
Jack Edwards wrote:
> Just go to a movie
> Julles recommendation above is probably the best though. We’re
> just in a temporary lull right now. Sure as anything in a short
> period of time there will be too much to write about and little of
> it good. Take the quiet time to enjoy some scenery or do a
> favorite activity of some kind.
> Thanks for all you do John,
You're welcome.
Sincerely,
John