Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

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Bob Butler
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Unity at the Trigger

Post by Bob Butler »

John wrote:
Sun Aug 29, 2021 5:38 pm
The word "Regeneracy" refers to the regeneracy of civic unity. It can't just be some random political event and, indeed, there are many substantial political events that don't regenerate civic unity, or which even generate further political divisiveness, the opposite of civic unity. The death of George Floyd and the Covid pandemic may have been substantial political events, but they did not regenerate civic unity in any way that I'm aware of. In fact, they generated further political divisiveness. You cannot have a "Regeneracy" unless it regenerates civic unity, since that's what the word means. Therefore, they could not be regeneracy events (or regeneracy trigger events).
Interesting. A respectable concept. I’d say that a military trigger event is apt to amplify a belief set and worldview one already has though. Let’s look at a few such events.

Lexington and Concord: Much later, there were a large number of royalists who went to Canada. This reflects that America was not united. The need for one’s values to triumph was present, but unity of the country was certainly not.

Ft Sumpter: While the events around that time may have united the North and the South in different ways, they certainly did not unite America. Even in the north, Lincoln was behind in the presidential polling just before Atlanta fell. The unity was rather imposed by force, with the march to the sea and Lee’s surrender.

Pearl Harbor: If you read the early parts of the Four Freedoms state of the union speech, it has America already united in a non partisan rejection of the Axis and resolve to rearm. The coverage of the Battle of Britain had shifted US resolve long before Pearl. Pearl just galvanized something that had already happened.

OKC: Immediately after the blast, there was a bipartisan resolve that domestic terror should not be used to influence policy. Congressmen were running around in pairs, one Republican and one Democrat, pushing a common bipartisan message. That was well before a crisis alignment of generations, but still.

September 11: Not so early, but a little. Unity was created against terrorists especially early, but soon shifted to a vigorous debate between ‘stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’ The feeling was against terrorists, not against Iraq. The unity was certainly short lived. I see September 11th as resulting in a conservative attempt at a crisis and values change, but they targeted Iraq and the oil rather than terror. The unity dissolved in loyalty to one's values.

Covid Landfall: The gap between solving problems and small government not being responsible was split. One faction wanted to strive against Covid, the other did not. The two sets of values were amplified rather than unity achieved.

George Floyd’s Death: Again, one’s values were confirmed and exaggerated rather than unity achieved.

Unity and resolution only occurred with the conflict becoming resolved. This only occurred with the Yorktown resolution, Sherman reaching the sea, or breaching Germany’s borders. About then, the handwriting was on the wall. At those points the conservative factions finally admitted to themselves that they would have to abandon their values and give up colonial imperialism, slavery or conquest. The equivalent has clearly not happened yet. There are still some people a feeling that one should not cure Covid or reduce systematic racism. The questions are not clearly resolved.

So I would not look for unity at the start of the crisis heart, with the regeneracy. I would look for resolve. I would look for people to embrace their values on steroids. But in a crisis where there are multiple sets of values striving, I would not look for unity that early. You have to wait until the crisis is just about resolved. If the current Covid surge results in a widespread desire to get vaccinated, if the Big Lie is recognized widely as a big lie, if federal voting rights do pass, perhaps then the crisis would be resolved, over, and something like unity could happen. It would be the unity of the high, a unity of the consensus enforcing the crisis answers, of stepping on any attempt to revert to the old way of looking at things. Under the surface the conservatives would still stew, would still cling to the old values, but they’d recognize that they couldn’t do much about it.

I suppose it could go the other way. We could find evidence of massive fraud, decide that lives are not important, go with voter suppression and encourage police murder. I just consider it unlikely. The courts are disbarring lawyers that participated in the fraud claims. More people are responding to the recent Covid surge with vaccination. Police murders of minorities are down. It is looking more like past crises. The problems faced get solved.

So, no, I would not expect unity to be there in a crisis involving a clash of contesting worldviews.

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Re: Unity at the Trigger

Post by John »

** 30-Aug-2021 World View: 9/11/2001 and Regeneracy
Bob Butler wrote:
Sun Aug 29, 2021 10:30 pm
> September 11: Not so early, but a little. Unity was created
> against terrorists especially early, but soon shifted to a
> vigorous debate between ‘stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’ The
> feeling was against terrorists, not against Iraq. The unity was
> certainly short lived. I see September 11th as resulting in a
> conservative attempt at a crisis and values change, but they
> targeted Iraq and the oil rather than terror. The unity dissolved
> in loyalty to one's values.
You have many examples. I'll just respond to this one.

9/11/2001 did unite the country behind President Bush, at least
partially and temporarily, and there was widespread support for his
invasion of Afghanistan.

There was one minor anecdote that I've always remembered. It became
liberal orthodoxy that news reporters should never describe American
policy as "our" policy, since reporters should be indifferent to the
country. But after 9/11, I was startled to hear CNN's far-left
reporter Christiane Amanpour say something about what "we" were doing
in Afghanistan. I was really startled by her use of the word "we"
since I don't think I'd ever heard her use it before. But I remember
this as a sign of how united the Americans were at that time.

The point is that there was a lot of political division, with many
people contemptuous of president Bush. But after 9/11, there were a
lot more people united behind him.

But I don't see 9/11 "as resulting in a conservative attempt at a
crisis and values change," or if anyone tried, they were an idiot.
Values changes are bottom up, not top down. It's the people
who determine values, and the politicians who follow.

So 9/11 did result in some civic unity, and would qualify as what I
would call a "regeneracy event," but the civic unity fades as time
goes on, unless it's reinforced. In this case, the civic unity lasted
into the invasion of Iraq, but it really faded after it turned out
that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

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Generational Dynamics concept of Regeneracy

Post by John »

** 30-Aug-2021 World View: Generational Dynamics concept of Regeneracy

I've referred to the Regeneracy and to regeneracy events a number of
times as concepts in generational theory that describe events that
regenerate civic unity for the first time since the end of the
preceding crisis war. In this posting, I'm going to describe the
Generational Dynamics concept of regeneracy and how it was adapted
from the description the 1990s book the Fourth Turning, by Strauss and
Howe (S&H).

Some adaptation was required, since S&H's theory applies only to six
timelines in Anglo-Saxon history. Generational Dynamics corrects some
errors in the S&H theory and expands it to generational timelines at
all places and times in history.

The result is that the GD definition is considerably simpler than the
S&H definition, since it has to be far more general. So below is my
first attempt at a definitive Generational Dynamics description of
Regeneracy:
  • The generational Crisis era (Fourth Turning) begins 58 years
    after the crisis climax of the previous previous generational crisis
    war.
  • A "regeneracy event" is an event, usually occurring during the
    Crisis era, that is so shocking to the public that it results in at
    least partial civic unity. This means that political differences are
    discarded, and the different political factions unite behind the
    government.
  • This concept of civic unity is not monolithic. Some portions of
    the the population may unify behind the government, while others may
    ignore the shocking event and continue as before.
  • Also, the civic unity may wear off and be short-lived, unless a
    new regeneracy event reinforces it.
  • So the full Regeneracy requires a series of regeneracy events,
    eventually leading to a full-scale crisis war. Once the crisis war
    ends, there is maximal civic unity until the war's climax. (In the
    case of an internal ethnic civil war, the civic unity is split between
    the two sides.)
I believe that the above description is general enough to apply to all
the situations I've looked at.

However the key concept is that the regeneracy event cannot be some
random event, but must be something that regenerates civic unity, at
least for a while.

The S&H description is far more specific to the Anglo-American
timelime, and for that reason is more complex. I posted the full
description in the Long Texts thread:

viewtopic.php?p=63762#p63762

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Bob Butler
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Internal and External Crises

Post by Bob Butler »

There seem to be two distinct forms of crisis. Sometimes you get unity against a foreign power. Pearl Harbor and World War II would stand as an example. Sometimes the struggle is between two aspects of a culture. The US Civil War would be an example. While the north and south each may have become united by the trigger event, America certainly was not. The English Civil War, the Russian war between the red and white factions, the and the current mess in the Middle East would suggest America is not unique in having two or more cultures striving against one another. A system which cannot deal with a divided people would be problematic.

September 11? Bush 43 could have held his unity longer if he had focused on Bin Ladin and the Taliban. Alas, his cabinet was Neo Con and Big Oil. He had another agenda. It was not an idiotic agenda, but it was one quite divorced from September 11. When he diverged from what had united America, any hope for unity was lost.

Generational Dynamics with its focus on unity is oriented on the external crises. Recently, the focus is on some hypothetical future war rather than the very real culture clash involving Covid, systematic racism, the environment, infrastructure and other issues. I have the crisis heart well underway and the observed acceleration of events as reflecting that. Generational Dynamics seems to be missing the fact that a crisis is occurring. It is focused on external wars not internal culture clashes.

I also have the regeneracy as fairly short. It might have been FDR’s hundred days or the mobilization immediately after Fort Sumter. But the regeneracy in S&H is preceded by catalyst events, precursors that illustrated an issue but did not result in a total government commitment to solving the problem. The Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown’s Harper Ferry raid, the many World War II events before Pearl Harbor that did not directly effect the US might stand as examples.

I could agree that the unity can fade in a crisis. The long hard slog can result in second guessing whether it is worth it. But there is a distinction between will fading and a divided crisis with the culture fighting itself.

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Internal and External Crises

Post by Bob Butler »

As I have thought about it more, any revolution or civil war will involved two or more aspects of a culture. Revolutions generally try to get rid of a flawed elite class, sometime supported by a colonial imperialist power, but favored by folks who get ahead through the existing arrangement. Civil wars involve even more clearly two aspects of the culture striving against one another. One generally supports the existing power structure, the other wishes to become more competitive.

To the extent that Generational Dynamics focuses on crises that create unity it focuses on external threats and does not address internal struggles such as you see in any revolution or civil war. Such are hardly unique to the United States.

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World View: Civic unity in civil war

Post by John »

** 31-Aug-2021 World View: Civic unity in civil war
Bob Butler wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:35 pm
> As I have thought about it more, any revolution or civil war will
> involved two or more aspects of a culture. Revolutions generally
> try to get rid of a flawed elite class, sometime supported by a
> colonial imperialist power, but favored by folks who get ahead
> through the existing arrangement. Civil wars involve even more
> clearly two aspects of the culture striving against one another.
> One generally supports the existing power structure, the other
> wishes to become more competitive.

> To the extent that Generational Dynamics focuses on crises that
> create unity it focuses on external threats and does not address
> internal struggles such as you see in any revolution or civil war.
> Such are hardly unique to the United States.
In the case of an internal civil war, the civic unity is split between
the two sides. What I mean by that is that previously, the two ethnic
groups will typically live together on friendly terms, often
side-by-side. The Regeneracy leads to civic unity within each side,
so that each side in the civil war is united behind that side's
leader.

The image that has stuck in my mind is that in 1984 Rwanda, the plane
crash was the major regeneracy event, and the Hutu leader broadcast
"Cut the tall trees down," referring to the taller Tutsis. Then,
according to some reports, a man would pick up a machete, and walk
next door to the home of the person with which he had previously been
friendly. He would kill and dismember the husband and children. Then
he'd rape the wife, and then dismember and kill her.

So there was civic unity among the Hutus and civic unity among the
Tutsis, but obviously not together.

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Re: Long Texts

Post by Cool Breeze »

So where are we, John?

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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by John »

** 31-Aug-2021 World View: Where are we?
Cool Breeze wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:03 pm
> So where are we, John?
We're waiting expectantly for a regeneracy event.

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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by Cool Breeze »

John wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:46 pm
** 31-Aug-2021 World View: Where are we?
Cool Breeze wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:03 pm
> So where are we, John?
We're waiting expectantly for a regeneracy event.
Ok, thank you.

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Waiting...

Post by Bob Butler »

Cool Breeze wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 10:03 pm
John wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:46 pm
** 31-Aug-2021 World View: Where are we?
Cool Breeze wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:03 pm
> So where are we, John?
We're waiting expectantly for a regeneracy event.
Ok, thank you.
Mind you, if you are waiting for a machete that unites, you may be waiting for a while.
Last edited by Bob Butler on Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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