Category: The Fourth Turning

Sissification Of A Generation

Previously at the LoL
CLICKY: No madder than…

I’d been thinking about writing again on The Fourth Turning when Thoughtful Man sent me a video yesterday morning via Arse-about-Face Book. It showed one Millennial dissecting the views of another…

The Millennial Generation (Hero, born 1982–2004) first arrived amid “Babies on Board” signs, when abortion and divorce rates ebbed, the popular culture recast babies as special, and hands-off parental styles were replaced by Lamaze and attachment-parenting obsessiveness. Child abuse and child safety became hot topics, while books teaching virtues, values, and team-playing citizenship became best-sellers.

Perhaps that explains…

Virtue Signalling

signal (n.) late 14c., “visible sign, indication,” from Old French signal, seignal “seal, imprint, sign, mark,” from Medieval Latin signale “a signal,” from Late Latin signalis (adj.) “used as a signal, pertaining to a sign,” from Latin signum “identifying mark, sign” (see sign (n.)). Restricted sense “agreed-upon sign” (to commence or desist, etc.) is from 1590s. Meaning “modulation of an electric current” is from 1855.

When I think of the previous Hero generation (born 1901 – 1924) that came of age during the last Fourth/Winter/Crisis Turning (1929 – 1945)…

*Hmm… anything on ‘values from 80 years ago, Clicky?*

*Interesting. How about child safety?*

*Ha!*

As Millennials began reaching their teens in the late 1990s, youth volunteering and community service surged—while teen rates of drinking, smoking, and violent crime declined steeply.

Appeasement didn’t work before, it’s doubtful it will work any better this time and I have to wonder what effect the hyperbolic Health education campaigns started the 1980s to protect ‘the children’ by ‘denormalising‘ smoking has had to the Heroes of today and their ability to accurately assess risk…

Sissy

Enough of cowards for tonight, Dear Reader. Have a Song…

Meeting Midnight

twelve

*Clicky? …/shakes head and places finger on lips…*

legs-suggests-a-theme-to-roob
CLICKY: Have a Song

meeting (n.) “action of coming together,” Old English gemeting, verbal noun from meet (v.). Meaning “gathering of people for discussion, etc.” is from 1510s. In 17c., it was applied generally to worship assemblies of nonconformists, but this now is retained mostly by Quakers

As it happened, Dear Reader, I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon pondering a devastatingly good blog post by Anna Raccoon…

https://twitter.com/AnnaRaccoon1/status/799281443683737600

Please, use Clicky and read it for yourself… I dare you not to be touched by this wonderful woman’s words. Take your time; I’ll wait…

owl-2

*******

I spent this morning in the Blue Universe…

With first Brexit, and now Trump, I have the sense that a spirit of revolt is spreading across the West. I’m looking forward to seeing a bushfire of similar revolts spreading across Europe. Revolts against authority, revolts against top-down control, revolts against social engineering, revolts against the entrenched political elites. These things are catching: when people see other people doing something, they’re inclined to think that they could do it too. It gives them ideas.

Well, we are at Le Crunch point in regards to the ‘Crisis’ Winter season, the Fourth Turning…

*Excellent timing, Clicky! New in from The Rev?… Sparkling stuff! …/thinks… Why don’t you give Dear Reader a Song, whilst I go an indulge myself. There’s a good Clicky… /pats snout…*

A horse, I’m hoarse… */cough…*

Dear Reader, Apols! Butt I am laid a little low, with a bug, brought in off the street by a Healthy visitor…

*Clicky, that’s watt everyone says to me… /coughs into fist… ‘Scuse, me for that, Click… /wipes hand on trouser leg…*

*/lights fag… Don’t look at me like that… smoking helps… /small hack… helps to get the shit up and off…*

*******

First remembrance of a horse… I was five and our class went on a visit to the local Nick… and there were stables, and this horse… It was the biggest, whitest thing I’d ever seen… and a policeman picked me up from the straw-covered floor, and on put me on it’s back… Magnificent horsey stood placidly, with gentle snorts and tail-flicks whilst a wiggling, giggling slip of a girl stroked its velvety neck, and burying her face deep in it’s silky mane… All the other kids played with batons and badges, but I stayed in the stable… And I cried when it was time to leave, to go home…

*******

“Like Shadowfax?” Kit-Kat said with a cocky grin. We were standing in the Kit Chinwag room of the house (the place of food). He was damp and ruddy-faced from the rain-sodden walk home from school.

I stopped and looked up at Thing 2, who now towers over me “Who?”

He stripped off his school tie from around his neck and looked at me with a faint look of disgust. “Gandalf’s horse? Shadowfax… Oh do come on Mater!”

*If you like, Clicky… though I doubt Gandalf was employed as a Brixton Bobby in 1972…/small cough with side order of squint… What you trying to suggest?*

*Oh course I’m fucking decent? What sort of question is that?!*

*Ah… yeah… I don’t actually want to hang the Righteous fuckers… I just fink they’re a bit… /taps temple… mentally ill-like… ‘cos of their phobia toward smoke… /drags some more… Nuffin’ wrong with letting them accumulate rope, though… We’ve knot had much luck in stopping ’em with that particular pursuit…*

*******

Other best remembrance of a horse… In Barbados on holiday in the early 90s. Thoughtful Man and I decided to explore the Highlands… on horseback, as you doo, even though neither of us had ridden a horse before… I was on this big chestnut-coloured creature, with a shaggy, blond mane… sitting ram-rod with fear at the sheer power of the muscles quivering beneath my legs… No crash-helmets provided but worn, leather reins to grip… We set off, follow the leader… he seemed to know where he was going… Well it was his turf, so I just let him do his thing… And then, once in sight of the final destination, he opened up and galloped… And I squealed with delight at the rush, and lost my headband, whipped away by the cool but oh so warm air streaming over me…

*******

“We also went horse-riding in Antigua,” Thoughtful Man reminded me. “But that was shit though because of all the rubbish on the beach.”

“Yeah that wasn’t as good,” I replied, “And then in Arizona, but that was just too hot and cactussy to go any faster.”

Thoughtful Man agreed and turned back to his PC. He was putting Clicky through his paces tending to his Arse-about-Facebook ‘Kingdom’; his favourite game, all neat and full of surprises.

“And don’t forget we owned shares in a horse once,” he said. “That was fun.”

*My first ring-tone, Clicky… I loved that phone, it opened up, like wings, for the qwerty keyboard… /clears throat… I need a sweetie, Clicky… /hold up hand… No, I’ll get ’em… you stay there and… /gets up… Have a Song…*

*/jumps about… Ore that other one, Clicky… Both are good…*

 

CLICK5 Special: Wanna Dance?

clicky-says-hello

Extract from ‘A Family History for Ruth and Julia (Gawd ‘Elp Us!)’, a.k.a. ‘The Ma Papers’ by Judith Eileen Newton (formerly Shewan, née Packer)

The worse part of being a girl was that if your mate was prettier than you she would be asked to dance and this would leave you on your own if you weren’t. You felt embarrassed and even though you both agreed at the beginning of the evening that one would not dance and leave the other alone, when the crunch came ‘all’s fair in love and war’.

It was on one of these memorable occasions when Daddy ambled up to me and it all started. Margaret and I were dancing when the boys came upstairs and I saw these two blokes eyeing us up. I said to Margaret, “There are two boys coming over. Say No.” Terry asked Margaret to dance and she said, “Yes”. Daddy asked me and I said “No.” Margaret waltzed off with Terry and Daddy said to me, “I have just walked the whole length of this dance floor to ask you to dance. Don’t make me look like a fool now.” I danced and your lives began.

v-for-victory

Can I recommend a book to you, Margo? It might explain this period in time to you. It did for me:

http://www.fourthturning.com/

Basically, during the Crisis (Winter) Season, i.e. now, a Gray Champion arises from the masses, to galvanize the younger generation, generally to war. FDR was the last one. However, in this digital, electronic age we live in (h/tip Marshal McLuhan), it’s not just one ‘Gray Champion’ but the collective ‘gray people’, i.e. Old Uns.

And in the case of this particular blog: Stop behaving like Nazis and let us enjoy our pint in the pub with a smoke. We’re the Allies. We’re not the call to go to war this time, we’re actually the Voice of Reason.

I’ve written some posts about it:

https://roobeedoo2.wordpress.com/?s=the+fourth+turning

rbd2

*/smokes whilst waiting…*

shining-twins

*/sparks up and offers light to others…*

tobacco-control-science

*/keeps on smoking and waiting…*

roob-x-kubrix

*/mental facepalm with rolling eyes…FFS, Clicky go give yourself a Song…*

Cnuts Like Cox

Enormous chair
CLICKY: The Tyranny of Experts

 

*Whoa! That’s very bright, Clicky… /dons sunglasses… Er, what’s the plaster for?*

 

*’The Snowflake Generation’? Thank you, Clicky! I’ve been wondering how to start this post ever since I mentioned it to Leggy on Friday night…*

 

Roob and Legs DMing
CLICKY: Frank’s ‘Public Cynicism Towards Experts’

Professor Brian Cox (born 3rd March 1968, so Generation X/Nomad – see previous LoL post) has a new TV series starting tonight:

 

Way back to the cave

‘Forces of Nature’ was inspired by a 1611 book, De Nive Sexangula, written by the German astronomist Johannes Kepler, who noticed one winter’s night that although every snowflake falling around him was different, every single one was six-sided. “So he started asking himself why. And he thought that this symmetry must be telling him something about the underlying laws and constituents that make them. It’s genius for someone in 1610 to say that; it’s how a 21st-century physicist would operate. Often, with my TV series, you start with a big question – but that’s a very television way of doing things. Actually, science is about paying attention to tiny things, and that’s how you end up uncovering the fundamental laws of nature.”

I’m pretty sure the EU wasn’t around in 1611, funding Kepler’s discoveries…

*Or indeed Plato in his teaching, Clicky*

I have a different reason to Legs for not liking Professor Cox. It’s a tiny thing really, a bit silly… It’s a Song…

In the 1980s Cox was keyboard player with the rock band Dare.[26] He studied physics at the University of Manchester, where he joined D:Ream,[27] a group that had several hits in the UK charts, including the number one, “Things Can Only Get Better“,[28] later used as a New Labour election anthem.

I dunno… /shrugs… maybe it’s also that toothy grin, easy charm… that utter self-belief…

blair-front-pages-chilcot

 

*Yeah, him as well, Clicky.*

If, as I’ve wondered, the Fourth (Crisis) Turning was born in 2000 with the dot.com crash, or 2001 with 9/11, then the years leading up to it from 1997 were it’s New Labour…

leaving the cave

*/wince… Baby leaves it’s cave, Clicky?*

In the months following Labour’s 1997 election victory, referendums were held in Scotland and Wales regarding devolution.

Oh look, they held referendums. I don’t remember there being a clamor to re-run or ignore the results because some objected to the result… Have a Song 😉

 

 

 

 

Re: Generation – No madder than..?

Previosly at the LoL
CLICKY: To turn, turn, turn…

It appears some Millennials are feeling frustrated at the rest of us for turning up to vote on the 23rd June, and have organised a foot-stamping event to protest.

Millennial Hyperbole
CLICKY: Who?

*Millennials, Clicky, the ‘Hero’ archetype… I was born in 1967, making me a Gen Xer of the ‘Nomad’ persuasion…*

No sir all 13

The Fourth Turning Archetype Characteristics
CLICKY: By the book

 

*/rolls eyes…*

So how is my generation described in The Fourth Turning?

‘Generation X (Nomad, born 1961–1981) survived a “hurried” childhood of divorce, latch keys, open classrooms, devil-child movies, and a shift from G to R ratings.’

‘They came of age hearing themselves denounced as so wild and stupid as to put The Nation At Risk. As young adults, maneuvering through a sexual battlescape of AIDS and blighted courtship rituals—they have dated and married cautiously.’

‘In jobs, they embraced risk and preferred free agency overloyal corporatism. From grunge to hip-hop, their splintered culture revealed a hardened edge. Politically, they have leaned toward pragmatism and nonaffiliation, and would rather volunteer than vote.’

Unless, of course, the vote actually means something 😉

‘Today, entering midlife battered by economic hardship, they ascend into political and corporate leadership roles feeling less like hailed winners than like resilient survivors, seeking out safe harbors for the sake of themselves and their families.’

*******

 

I’ve been pondering when exactly this Fourth (Crisis) Turning began because my boys were born in 2001 – What archetype are they: Millennial or Homeland?

A Crisis year begins with a catalyst – a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood.

Was it the 2008 Financial Crash or spectacular 9/11 in 2001 that heralded ‘The War on Terror’? Perhaps it started just before, in the period immediately following the publishing of the book.

The dot-com bubble was a historic speculative bubble covering roughly 1997–2000 (with a climax on March 10, 2000, with the NASDAQ peaking at 5,132.52[1] in intraday trading before closing at 5,048.62) during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the Internet sector and related fields.

diary

*Okay, if you’re now slipping into River, Clicky, it’s probably time to finish with a Song*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn, Turn, Turn…

Sun and planets in motion

Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quattro…

Well fancy that! Project Fear failed.

3449
CLICKY: Bow-ties are cool

*Indeed they are, Clicky. But ‘bow‘ is one of those homo-thingies – you’re mixing up the meaning and pronunciation…*

tee shirts

*Okkaay… /puffs out cheeks …shall I get on with it, Clicky?*

silence

*Thank you. A bit creepy, but thank you.*

*******

In the summer of 2012, I read a book called ‘The Fourth Turning‘ and it changed the way I looked at, not only history, but the current state of world affairs.

The Fourth Turning
CLICKY: To turn over…

It was published in 1997 and, in it, a couple of Yanks postulate that human history is a series of cycles, roughly lasting 80 – 100 years. Each cycle (saeculum) can be broken up into four distinct seasons (Turnings): Spring (High), Summer (Awakening), Autumn (Unraveling) and Winter (Crisis), and the cycle is powered along by four generational archetypes moving through the life stages of childhood, young adulthood, mid-life and elderhood.

The authors had looked back at Anglo-American history and had identified 7 cycles:

Late Medieval (1435 – 1487)

Reformation (1487 – 1594)

New World (1594 – 1704)

Revolutionary (1704 – 1794)

Civil War (1794 – 1865)

Great Power (1865 – 1946)

Millennial (1946 – 2026?)

1997, the time of publishing, fell within the Autumn (Unraveling) season of the Millennial Cycle. The next turning would be the fourth (Winter/Crisis) of the saeculum and the authors predicted:

Sometime around the year 2005, perhaps a few years before or after, America will enter the Fourth Turning.

By the time I read the book in 2012, the Fourth Turning was already underway.

A Crisis year begins with a catalyst – a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood.

Two incidents, either side of 2005, could be considered catalysts – the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre…

911 2001

and the Financial Crash in 2008…

Financial Crash 2008

*/squints… Clicky, is there a reason you’re using anti-tobacco imagery to illustrate my points?*

CapShrug
CLICKY: 2007 smoking ban..?

*Ah… /nods sagely …and it also reminds me to mention the Fourth Turning’s ‘Gray Champion‘*

Anyhoo, back to the book. It’s very US-centric but that, I suppose, was it’s target audience. However, yesterday I was interested to read mention of it in regards to Brexit at The Burning Platform, via Zero Hedge.

Burning Platform Brexit and the Fourth Turning

And the stormy weather featured in Blue Universe Frank’s Brexit post today…

Blue Frank The Divine Wind

And he specifically mentions the Spanish Armada – The Armada Crisis is the Fourth Turning (Crisis) season of the Reformation saeculum:

This won’t have been the first time Britain has been saved by a storm. On the 4th of August 1588, the Spanish Armada, which was about to land an army on England’s south coast, began to experience an adverse wind (much like yesterday’s storm wind) that blew it east along the coast, all the way to Calais, and then all the way round Britain and back to Spain.

Bananas
CLICKY: My fair lady

*No and a bit rude, my fair Clicky. The Armada Crisis was a strictly Anglo Fourth Turning*

The Armada Crisis (Fourth Turning, 1569–1594) began when the powerful Duke of Norfolk was linked to a Spanish plot against the English throne, a discovery which galvanized newly-Protestant England against the global threat of the Catholic Hapsburgs. A crescendo of surrogate wars and privateering culminated in England’s miraculous victory over the Spanish Armada invasion (in 1588). The mood of emergency relaxed after the successful resistance of Holland and the breaking of Spanish control over France.

Interestingly Frank also posted a video of US Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, talking about Brexit on his arrival at Turnberry golf course yesterday. I dunno, he does look rather more gray than orange 😉

888

*******

*/Yawn and stretch… That’s enough for now, Clicky. Time for a Song?*