[P2P-F] Fwd: Christo

Michel Bauwens michel at p2pfoundation.net
Mon Feb 27 11:49:22 CET 2017


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christopher M. Quigley <cmqesquire at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 5:36 PM
Subject: Fwd: Christo
To: Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>


Michel,

For your review.

Kind regards,

Christopher

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Worldview Explains The Path Ahead
[image: Tyler Durden's picture]
<http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden>
by Tyler Durden <http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden>
Feb 26, 2017 12:55 PM
362
SHARES
Twitter <http://www.zerohedge.com/#twitter>Facebook
<http://www.zerohedge.com/#facebook>Reddit
<http://www.zerohedge.com/#reddit>
<http://www.zerohedge.com/printmail/588985>
<http://www.zerohedge.com/print/588985>

*"Where did Steve Bannon get his worldview?* From my book..."

* * * *by Neil Howe via WaPo,
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/where-did-steve-bannon-get-his-worldview-from-my-book/2017/02/24/16937f38-f84a-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html?utm_term=.6162cb778969>*

*Neil Howe is the author, along with William Strauss, of “Generations
<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0688119123?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=0688119123>,”
“The Fourth Turning
<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767900464?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=0767900464>”
and “Millennials Rising
<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375707190?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=0375707190>.”*

*The headlines this month have been alarming. “Steve Bannon’s obsession
with a dark theory of history should be worrisome” (Business Insider
<http://www.businessinsider.com/book-steve-bannon-is-obsessed-with-the-fourth-turning-2017-2>).
“Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable” (the
Huffington Post
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-apocalypse_us_5898f02ee4b040613138a951>).
“Steve Bannon Wants To Start World War III” (the Nation
<https://www.thenation.com/article/steve-bannon-wants-to-start-world-war-iii/>).
A
common thread in these media reports is that President Trump’s chief
strategist is an avid reader and that the book that most inspires his
worldview is “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy
<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767900464?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=0767900464>.”*

*I wrote that book with William Strauss back in 1997 <1997>.* It is true
that Bannon is enthralled by it. In 2010, he released a documentary,
“Generation
Zero
<https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003LV2W3S?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=B003LV2W3S>,”
that is structured around our theory that history in America (and by
extension, most other modern societies) unfolds in a recurring cycle of
four-generation-long eras. While this cycle does include a time of civic
and political crisis — a Fourth Turning, in our parlance — the reporting on
the book has been absurdly apocalyptic.
[image: Inline image 1]
<https://beap.gemini.yahoo.com/mbclk?bv=1.0.0&es=EkqyPzcGIS_AD37mNzZdp6FN_LaOR1hZUpN8sERSeSKUGHbedlAeV1T1xftRUBeKWz0KmEkhdPw7Mcq6xCZtsH6kRl14OCSTg0fsEeVvM8EtUoe2R.CD5O.sL6.ZOnKPjm1Pdd59Qf2LAejVsFEEf8.E4KQzaz8xMJbW_9d_lWxrlPGovQrFtsoV5Q0suMAn3rupmVn2CSGQjbuJT873yVMf95D9L9fXCYvMluuzzTZTjUN5w8mq.vAGBman0uco65p3JbeuwmPxnuDw77h8eDvc1fvBsThKjMwYmPZLKhz9rrgbB.9sgv899XqI1U28xMztHrQmUQOwdsnTgeBt_cTQspt3Sbdz3InCeEyJAVZdvobbgD.dUWC.B6aPGQLuBucBy2v4NS2vQpSk1eSzdbPHFjBHlFZVlYeENC74WrR95GXVURrucAE8EvCtlkvysGa_rtq3QU0u0VzJR4ttFOElEBwZJkcMygvVQLCSP04jVROe4bNoBZIOnVjp2Z.6ZDBQw3vRGWM.8f4R8mL.PduJQ9y_uJuk2FJAxnXnjl6vxT45PsDds.G6lEWuYJd118wCLA4ZuGOTyhwlZVzVqVi30vJTG6k2L8RN3jQ-%26lp=>
Do This Every Time You Turn On Your Computer...

If you live in the US and have a tablet, computer or smartphone connected
to the internet then this may be the most important article you ever read..

Sponsored by Scanguard
<https://beap.gemini.yahoo.com/mbclk?bv=1.0.0&es=EkqyPzcGIS_AD37mNzZdp6FN_LaOR1hZUpN8sERSeSKUGHbedlAeV1T1xftRUBeKWz0KmEkhdPw7Mcq6xCZtsH6kRl14OCSTg0fsEeVvM8EtUoe2R.CD5O.sL6.ZOnKPjm1Pdd59Qf2LAejVsFEEf8.E4KQzaz8xMJbW_9d_lWxrlPGovQrFtsoV5Q0suMAn3rupmVn2CSGQjbuJT873yVMf95D9L9fXCYvMluuzzTZTjUN5w8mq.vAGBman0uco65p3JbeuwmPxnuDw77h8eDvc1fvBsThKjMwYmPZLKhz9rrgbB.9sgv899XqI1U28xMztHrQmUQOwdsnTgeBt_cTQspt3Sbdz3InCeEyJAVZdvobbgD.dUWC.B6aPGQLuBucBy2v4NS2vQpSk1eSzdbPHFjBHlFZVlYeENC74WrR95GXVURrucAE8EvCtlkvysGa_rtq3QU0u0VzJR4ttFOElEBwZJkcMygvVQLCSP04jVROe4bNoBZIOnVjp2Z.6ZDBQw3vRGWM.8f4R8mL.PduJQ9y_uJuk2FJAxnXnjl6vxT45PsDds.G6lEWuYJd118wCLA4ZuGOTyhwlZVzVqVi30vJTG6k2L8RN3jQ-%26lp=>
[image: Inline image 2]

*I don’t know Bannon well. *I have worked with him on several film
projects, including “Generation Zero,” over the years. I’ve been impressed
by his cultural savvy. *His politics, while unusual, never struck me as
offensive.* I was surprised when he took over the leadership of Breitbart
and promoted the views espoused on that site. Like many people, I first
learned about the alt-right (a far-right movement with links to Breitbart
and a loosely defined white-nationalist agenda) from the mainstream media.
Strauss, who died in 2007, and I never told Bannon what to say or think.
But we did perhaps provide him with an insight — that populism, nationalism
and state-run authoritarianism would soon be on the rise, not just in
America but around the world.

*Because we never attempted to write a political manifesto, we were
surprised by the book’s popularity among certain crusaders on both the left
and the right.* When “The Fourth Turning” came out, our biggest partisan
fans were Democrats, who saw in our description of an emerging “Millennial
generation” (a term we coined) the sort of community-minded optimists who
would pull America toward progressive ideals. Yet we’ve also had
conservative fans, who were drawn to another lesson: that the new era would
probably see the successful joining of left-wing economics with right-wing
social values.

Beyond ideology, I think there’s another reason for the rising interest in
our book.* We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that
social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic
(too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of
nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle* in
which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what
philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you
strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only
a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order.

*Along this cycle, we can identify four “turnings” that each last about 20
years — the length of a generation. *Think of these as recurring seasons,
starting with spring and ending with winter. In every turning, a new
generation is born and each older generation ages into its next phase of
life.

*The cycle begins with the First Turning, a “High” which comes after a
crisis era.* In a High, institutions are strong and individualism is weak.
Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if many
feel stifled by the prevailing conformity. Many Americans alive today can
recall the post-World War II American High (historian William O’Neill’s
term), coinciding with the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies.
Earlier examples are the post-Civil War Victorian High of industrial growth
and stable families, and the post-Constitution High of Democratic
Republicanism and Era of Good Feelings.



*The Second Turning is an “Awakening,” *when institutions are attacked in
the name of higher principles and deeper values. Just when society is
hitting its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of all the
social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity.
Salvation by faith, not works, is the youth rallying cry. One such era was
the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Some historians
call this America’s Fourth or Fifth Great Awakening, depending on whether
they start the count in the 17th century with John Winthrop or the 18th
century with Jonathan Edwards.



*The Third Turning is an “Unraveling,”* in many ways the opposite of the
High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong
and flourishing. Third Turning decades such as the 1990s, the 1920s and the
1850s are notorious for their cynicism, bad manners and weak civic
authority. Government typically shrinks, and speculative manias, when they
occur, are delirious.



*Finally, the Fourth Turning is a “Crisis” period.* This is when our
institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up, always in response
to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. If history does not
produce such an urgent threat, Fourth Turning leaders will invariably find
one — and may even fabricate one — to mobilize collective action. Civic
authority revives, and people and groups begin to pitch in as participants
in a larger community. As these Promethean bursts of civic effort reach
their resolution, Fourth Turnings refresh and redefine our national
identity. The years 1945, 1865 and 1794 all capped eras constituting new
“founding moments” in American history.

*Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and
religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy
and empire).*

In our paradigm, one can look ahead and suggest that a coming time period —
say, a certain decade — will resemble, in its essential human dynamic, a
time period in the past. *In “The Fourth Turning,” we predicted that,
starting around 2005, America would probably experience a “Great
Devaluation” in financial markets, a catalyst that would mark America’s
entry into an era whose first decade would likely parallel the 1930s.*

Reflecting on the decade we’ve just lived through, we can probably agree
that* the 1930s parallel works well.* In the economy, both decades played
out in the shadow of a global financial crash, and were characterized by
slow and disappointing economic growth and chronic underemployment of labor
and capital. Both saw tepid investment, deflation fears, growing inequality
and the inability of central bankers to rekindle consumption.

*In geopolitics, we’ve witnessed the rise of isolationism, nationalism and
right-wing populism across the globe.* Geostrategist Ian Bremmer says we
now live in a “G-Zero” world, where it’s every nation for itself. This
story echoes the 1930s, which witnessed the waning authority of great-power
alliances and a new willingness by authoritarian regimes to act with
terrifying impunity.

In social trends, the two decades also show parallels: falling rates of
fertility and homeownership, the rise of multi-generational households, the
spread of localism and community identification, a dramatic decline in
youth violence (a fact that apparently has eluded the president), and a
blanding of pop youth culture. Above all, we sense a growing desire among
voters around the world for leaders to assert greater authority and deliver
deeds rather than process, results rather than abstractions.

We live in an increasingly volatile and primal era, in which history is
speeding up and liberal democracy is weakening. As Vladimir Lenin wrote,
“In some decades, nothing happens; in some weeks, decades happen.” Get
ready for the creative destruction of public institutions, something every
society periodically requires to clear out what is obsolete, ossified and
dysfunctional — and to tilt the playing field of wealth and power away from
the old and back to the young. Forests need periodic fires; rivers need
periodic floods. Societies, too. That’s the price we must pay for a new
golden age.

If we look at the broader rhythms of history, we have reason to be
heartened, not discouraged, by these trends. Anglo-American history over
the past several centuries has experienced civic crises in a fairly regular
cycle, about every 80 or 90 years, or roughly the length of a long human
life. This pattern reveals itself in the intervals separating the colonial
Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great
Depression and World War II. Fast-forward the length of a long human life
from the 1930s, and we end up where we are today.

*America entered a new Fourth Turning in 2008. It is likely to last until
around 2030. Our paradigm suggests that current trends will deepen as we
move toward the halfway point.*

Further adverse events, possibly another financial crisis or a major armed
conflict, will galvanize public opinion and mobilize leaders to take more
decisive action. Rising regionalism and nationalism around the world could
lead to the fragmentation of major political entities (perhaps the European
Union) and the outbreak of hostilities (perhaps in the South China Sea, the
Korean Peninsula, the Baltic states or the Persian Gulf).

*Despite a new tilt toward isolationism, the United States could find
itself at war.* I certainly do not hope for war. I simply make a sobering
observation: *Every total war in U.S. history has occurred during a Fourth
Turning, and no Fourth Turning has yet unfolded without one. America’s
objectives in such a war are likely to be defined very broadly.*

At the end of the 2020s, the Fourth Turning crisis era will climax and draw
to a close. Settlements will be negotiated, treaties will be signed, new
borders will be drawn, and perhaps (as in the late 1940s) a new durable
world order will be created. Perhaps as well, by the early 2030s, we will
enter a new First Turning: Young families will rejoice, fertility will
rebound, economic equality will rise, a new middle class will emerge,
public investment will grow into a new 21st-century infrastructure, and
ordered prosperity will recommence.

During the next First Turning, potentially the next “American High,”
millennials will move into national leadership and showcase their optimism,
smarts, credentials and confidence.* Sometime in the late 2030s, the first
millennial will be voted into the White House, prompting talk of a new
Camelot moment.* Let a few more years pass, and those organization-minded
millennials may face a passionate and utterly unexpected onslaught from a
new crop of youth.

*Welcome to the next Awakening. The cycle of history keeps turning,
inexorably.*











-- 
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