Duels

It's surprising that anyone felt the need even to ask about how and when to fight a duel. It does appear to be an actual question, at least.  Previous research suggested that duels are more common in the First Turning, with examples like The OK Corral and Hamilton v. Burr. One could also look at notable fictional ones, such as shown in Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story, and Hamlet. If true (it is a meager universe to work with, statistically speaking), one explanation could be that the post-war era we have people who hear stories of the glory of combat. With actual combat in short supply, imitation combat takes its place.

This article, though, looks at items such as the Code Duello, which appears to have been promulgated around the Crisis (I'm not sure what the years are for Ireland, but 1777 was getting to the Fourth in England, at least). Maybe now is about the time people start talking this way. Perhaps honor is making a comeback.

Greatest

Every once in a while one of these articles comes up that, although it doesn’t mention Strauss & Howe, appears to have taken their books as source material. Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times has Chris Erskine’s weekly column suggesting that Millennials will be comparable to what Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation." That the Millennials will be comparable to the generation that beat the Nazis should be no surprise: The first Generations book predicted that in 1991. A follow-up in 2000 bubbled it up to the title: “Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation.” (Note that this was still when the oldest Millennial was only 18.) Granted that it’s not clear how a coddled, self-obsessed, protected generation can possibly up being so great, which makes it a real man-bites-dog sort of story. Still, if you’ve been following this, it’s pretty old news.

Until last year, perhaps. Here’s a selection of recent news articles concerning Millennials and “greatest generation.”

• Millennials: The Next Great Generation (Time, May 2013)
• Millennials: The greatest generation or the most narcissistic? (The Atlantic, May 2012 - Does not agree with Strauss & Howe...at all.)
• Millennials savings habits mirror those of the GI Generation (CNBC April 2013)
• Millennial identity (and identification) (TED/NPR, September 2013)
• A millennial takes on the Greatest Generation prediction (Medium.com, December 2013)

Plus - no surprise - copious reactions to the Time story. Which is to say: One article promulgating the concept, one strongly opposing it, a couple noting potential (and correlated) data points, and many responses to these 3 or 4 original sources. 

And now Mr. Erskine’s column. Which references some other data but doesn’t directly reference the above.

It’s not, therefore, common knowledge. Some people believe it, some expect it will probably come to pass, some consider it various sorts of ridiculous nonsense. WIth the author of this blog, of course, being in that first class. If there is going to be a Crisis peaking in the next 10 years, naturally it’s successful resolution will depend on those young enough to do something about it. (And whatever effective guidance and leadership is provided by those slightly older.)

Mr. Eskine, if you happen to run into this, it would be good to know if you are inspired more by personal interactions, by the Time article and associated coverage, or by Strauss & Howe’s work. 

Cake

Where Wikipedia - indeed, the Web - can lead you if you let it....

Coldplay was on the iTunes Festival in Austin, which of course brought up the recent split between frontman Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. Which itself was nearly overshadowed by an interview which reeks of "Let them eat cake."

Not that this is the first time she's done this.

One possible direction to go from here: As Marie Antoinette is often associated with that phrase, in the context of the French Revolution, is this sort of disconnect an indicator of a Fourth Turning? Going down that path, it turns out that there was an emperor of China (1800 years ago) who was reputed to have said something similar.

An ancient Chinese emperor who, being told that his subjects didn't have enough rice to eat, replied, 'Why don't they eat meat?

Evidently, Emperor Hui was developmentally disabled,  and was supported (more-or-less) by regents throughout his reign. This opened the door on a period that was so confusing it could easily be a Second Turning. However, reviewing it again, it seems more likely to have been a Fourth: In a 17 year reign, there were 9 regents - one every two years on average, but since one was there for 9 years (his wife Empress Jia Nanfeng), it was more like one per year - sometimes two. And almost every time the regent changed, there was a new war to go with it.

If you want to justify making the world fall apart, of course, it's helpful to have someone clueless  (preferably a Reactive) to blame for it.

Confusion

Second Turnings are confusing!

An earlier post mentioned how good way to tell a Second was how hard it was to understand the politics, with the Seven Year War and the Cold War being given as examples.

Religion is the same. Want to understand why "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is such a big deal? Good luck! One might think that trying to understand Puritans might have helped, but instead it ended up going down rabbit holes like the Vestments Controversy, and resulted with plenty of conjecture and possibilities but nothing that said REALLY FOR SURE why it mattered. It almost sounds like it was a big deal because ... it was a big deal. 

One might suggest that Watergate was the same, that it rose to the level of outrage that it did because it did. In the current political climate, questions of government spying, executive overreach, obstruction of justice become ignored because - it's Chinatown. It's too difficult to tell who would be helped or hurt, whether the actions are for the greater good or political gain, that people take a stand on nothing more than "he's our guy." Whereas in 1973 there were enough people willing to look at more fundamental issues like, say, the importance of rule of law. And possibly whether the Vietnam War (and associated actions) was a good idea. And whether they missed JFK. 

Perhaps Charles I was similarly done in by the moral certitude of the Awakening. Seems like a possibility, anyway.

Spain

People often act as if it's a big surprise that 1492 was not only the year Columbus sailed for America from Spain, but also the one where the Jews were expelled from the (relatively new) country. If you are here - and especially if you look at that previous post, and the one about First Turnings - it's not a surprise at all. If anything, it's expected.  If major exploration is being sponsored, chances are potential traitors have been or soon will be pursued, expelled, blacklisted. Or vice versa.

(Yes, the 1492 post is a bit cheeky, placing it as part of the Fourth, since the Reconquista ends at the very start of the year. It pulls the end of the war and the start of exploration together so perfectly, though.)

Does the proposal to grant Jews Spanish citizenship say anything about the Turning there? Perhaps: This sounds like a Third or Fourth Turning event, like woman's suffrage at the start of the 20th century. Alternatives welcomed.

Monopoly

The game of Monopoly was published during the Great Depression. The original game, according to some sources, had socialist education intentions. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) It's not too unreasonable to expect that recent proposals to change some of the rules may be Turning related.

Which doesn't mean that rule changes are a good idea. It's a game, with - absent current need to demonstrate Ricardo's observations on rents - no requirement that it be an accurate model of the economy. The rule changes might encourage risk taking but it certainly can extend the game to the annoying six-hour-long slog that became their hallmark.  The official rules restrict the amount of cash in the economy - only $200 added for each time around, on top of the $1500 that each player begins with. With fees and interest and payments made to the bank, chances are that rather less than that $200 will be available in the economy. And that's good, because it means people have to decide what they want: 4 railroads gets you a consistent return although no options for improvement, while hotels on Broadway and Park Place can knock a fellow player out....although at risk of cash-impoverishment in the meantime.

Yeah, maybe this is all about getting more cash in the economy, which people would like.

Robots

People used to be concerned about computers taking their jobs. Whipple had Robby. Kirk had M5.  For a while now, it’s been more about immigrants of various sorts, as robots were consigned to eating old people’s medicine. So it’s a bit of a surprise for an article about losing jobs to robots to be coming around. It's like these cycles repeat, or something. 

One way to look at it is a reaction to stress in general, that if the world is going downhill then the jobs must be going with them. Or perhaps improvements in automation are happening at this same time, one small part of overall technological improvements. Another option is that the strong institutions of the Fourth and First are returning, and people subconsciously externalize the loss of freedom as the inevitable control of cold, logical, unhearing machines. 

As always, if a generational explanation is given, something similar should be evident in previous Saeculums as well. And it appears that we can find something very similar in the lead-up to the American Civil War, where folks can be found who opposed slavery because they thought slaves were going to take their jobs.  As well as in the aftermath, when folks could be found who thought former slaves were going to take their jobs. 

Dinosaurs

Picked up a Tapejara figurine in the toy store and couldn't even tell if it was REAL. That's how much dinosaurs have changed since I was a boy reading about them. Back then, the standard line was

• Big slow lizards
• Tiny brains
• Extinct because -- well, not certain, really. Maybe drought, maybe cold, maybe simply out-evolved by smart mammals like us.

The book I remember reading as a boy was by Roy Chapman Andrews. Not that I remember the book, really, or the author. There was a mention of finding fossilized dinosaur eggs for, no kidding, the very first time.  And there was the dinosaur that laid the eggs, named after him: Protoceratops Andrewsi. They were found in Mongolia, where the author and his team of explorers had to be wary of nomadic bandits. I probably looked up Andrews and Mongolia and the Gobi Desert in the encyclopedia we had, and recall being confused about the world he had written about compared to the one described there. Mongolia didn't even exist any more: It was part of China, now. Much of it wasn't desert. Bandits were not mentioned as being a problem.  It was like this part of the world had completely changed a mere 40 years later.

And it's now 40 years again after that. Dinosaurs are now known as incredibly varied, from dangerously smart hunters to huge sea monsters to big slow - but social and complex - herd beasts. Extinction? Meteor - everyone knows that. All changes in perspective wrought starting in the late 1960s, becoming mainstream in the 1980s, with mass dissemination due in part to Jurassic Park. Mongolia, meanwhile, is still part of China. Bandits still aren't much trouble there. Some things change more quickly than others.

Unshocked

Yesterday's post was about when and why "shocking" happens -- that outside of the Second and Third Turnings, it hardly happens at all. Examples were given. 

It's worth considering, though,  that the second and third turnings comprise 50% of all time. Is it that big a deal if most of the shocking events are in that half? From a straight statistical perspective, it actually is. This isn't "40% of sick days are on Mondays and Fridays" but "75% of shocking moments are in 50% of the time." The former is trivial to show as statistically meaningless, the latter very significant. 

Assuming you have rigorously defined "shocking" and looked at a large enough universe to justify that 75%, that is.

However, there is another option that fits the evidence: Reactives might just be past being shocked. Or not paying attention to what is shocking.

Perhaps. Almost all of the items from yesterday's post were from the last 50 years. Is there anything from previous Turnings to support this Second/Third assertion?

Well, from that linked to article are the following items:

 Un Chien Andalou - 1929 

 Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 - 1912
 Lady Chatterly's Lover - 1928

Stravinsky's The Riot, er, Rite of Spring - 1913

(Plus several more from 1963-2000 that weren't mentioned yesterday.)

In short, almost everything there is from either the Second or Third of the current or previous Saeculum. The only definite exception is "Un Chien Andalou": 1929 starts the Fourth Turning, so it's (barely) off. While there are mentions of recent  (i.e. in the current Fourth) offensive plays, part of the point of the article appears to be "But nobody seems shocked about them, really."

Before that - well, there's at least Fanny Hill, which fits the pattern a few saeculums back (it was published in 1748). Shakespeare was active from the end of the Armada Crisis and into the subsequent First, and his legacy is in his writing skills, not his shock value.

9/11 was shocking, which perhaps proves more that we were in a Third at that point. If MH370 was to come barreling out of the sky into the U.S. Capitol, it might cause outrage but not shock - people would believe such a thing could happen, as something similar has happened before.  JFK's assassination, on the other hand, was unbelievable, and knocked the nation back.  Maybe it was an important transition because it was shocking. Or vice versa.

Shocking

Shocking only happens during the 2nd and 3rd turnings. 

Or to be pithy about it: In the First, no one dares; in the Fourth no one cares.

In the Second starts the tearing of social structures, but there are still structures around.  That makes it possible to be shocked at their erosion or destruction. In the Third the technique of shocking has become science and people push it to the limits - they shock in order to shock, whereas in the Second the shock value was more a secondary effect. The Jane's Addiction album "Nothing's Shocking" - with a cover showing a naked flaming sculpture - is a perfect example of this.

Watching Saturday Night Live musical guests, especially early on, is a great way to see this. Devo, jerking about in radiation suits. The B-52s' bouffant hairdos and toy pianos combined with strange lyrics and "all sixteen dances." Fear inciting a skin head riot. Gary Numan and David Bowie and Klaus Nomi gender-bending to the breaking point - all really unexpected -shocking- in a way that can't be imagined with current pop stars. Even the Rolling Stones were an unexpected burst of raw sexuality, with Mick licking his bandmate's lips during "Respectable."

Sinead O' Connor's outburst was about the last thing that might be called "shocking." Now, though...what? The only surprising things have been manufactured stars being caught with their backing loops exposed. The good stuff is mainstream, the non-mainstream stuff doesn't get close.

Music videos with androgynous women and cows or faces rising up out of a pot of beans was perhaps more shocking 30 years ago than, say, the Saw series is now. While society was changing then, there were still vestiges of the post-War standards that have since been completely shattered. We won't be shocked that way again until SOME standards are ubiquitous enough for someone to tear them down.

When Rachel Rosenthal shaved her head, a woman in the audience supposedly vomited. When Britney Spears did it....who cared?

Harmonics

It seems like there are events - trends - that repeat throughout the cycle , and not where you expect - halfway through, say, and half as intense.

Bush attacks Iraq because he equates Kuwait to Czechoslovakia 50 years before - and perhaps to avoid becoming the next Chamberlain. American Bandstand is reflected by TRL 40 years later; folkies show up in the middle of the Crisis but just on the margins.

There's a term for this in wave theory and perhaps it should be no surprise that it shows up here.

TDM

TDM.

While this acronym is a homophone for Te Deum and tedium, it really it is for Time Division Multiplexing. It's the straightforward way of dividing up bandwidth by quickly switching from one signal to another - straightforward enough to be a common science museum display, anyway. The guy presenting today brought it up in reference to online voice systems and asked if anyone knew what decade in which it was invented. He followed up by asking what century...

The 19th, it turns out. Invented in the 1870s by Émile Baudot, and used in telegraph systems, it began wider use for telephones in the 1950s and 1960s.

For those following along, of course, those are interesting dates, especially together. Both are post-war periods, at least in the United States. (The Franco-Prussian War, which Baudot was involved in before this invention, seems similarly like a Crisis period, at least on initial inspection.) Is there a reason this technology entered widespread use during First Turnings? Consider that it was previously-proven technology when phone systems were being implemented - why wasn't it used right from the start? Is it possibly related to the fact that the telephone - and the telephone company - were invented at almost the same time?

That is a deep enough question that it wouldn't be possible to answer it in a single post. There are limited instances to compare it with, other reasons it might have happened this way, reasonable explanations that depend only on the normal diffusion of technology and associated technical build-outs.

It's at least an interesting coincidence, though. What will be the equivalent implementation in 20 years, after the current Crisis ends?

Surplus

The Supply Sergeant on Hollywood Boulevard. Not a really big store, but it does have a big sign. 

There was clearly a point at which such a sign was needed, to draw people to this store rather than another. But another what? 

Another surplus store? They used to be more common, certainly - there were at least two in the East San Fernando Valley that have been gone for years - a third, counting a recent closure on Van Nuys Boulevard. Or was surplus just another clothing store at the time the sign went up? Surplus was a good place for camping gear in the 1970s - although already getting competition from REI and Sports Chalet. In Cars, Sarge's Surplus Hut has literal artillery, which is (probably?) more than these places ever really did. Knives and paintball guns appear to be the extent of actual weaponry at The Supply Sergeant, although there might have been more than that back in the day. It mostly has, well, camping gear and clothing (uniform parts, used and new, along with blue jeans and working clothes) .

Between the size of the sign and the khaki-clad soldier on the sign, this would appear to be about 60-70 years old. A cursory Googling indicates that, as expected, military surplus stores were (no surprise) big after WWII. The U.S. government, in particular, had plenty of excess military supplies that were no longer needed. Buy large lots for pennies apiece, get other general purpose items, charge appropriately => Profit!

And a slightly less cursory Googling gets: Yep, opened soon after the end of the war.

Philippic

Been Lou Adler Barry Sadlered

This is Lou Adler's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in front of the Hard Rock Cafe.

(The chain, not The Doors' , although coincidentally their star is a few feet from Lou's.)

A legendary music producer, he worked with many artists - like The Mamas and the Papas and Carole King - and also produced The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

He is name dropped in this Bob Dylan homage/pastiche by Simon and Garfunkel, "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamarad Into Submission)." Which continues...

I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled
Roy Halleed and Art Garfunkled
I just discovered somebody’s tapped my phone.

Bob Dylan had an FBI file in the 1960s, and one of most famous songs mentions the phone being tapped. (Although both that song and this one came out in 1965, which raises issues of who-heard-what-first that will need later investigation.) Of note here is the realization that, for a good long time, the idea of one's phone being tapped wasn't a major fear. From perhaps 1974 until 2001, it stopped being an issue of concern. People who thought the CIA was listening in on them were derided as tinfoil-hat kooks. In "The Puzzle Palace" (1982), while the likelihood of the NSA having such capability was raised, there wasn't outrage over it. Various protections grew up over the time (starting roughly when these songs were released) that made it clear that the government was to tap phones for legitimate criminal investigations...only. 

Or so we thought. Eventually, the NSA bubbled back into people's consciousness, and now it's assumed your phone is not only tapped, but able to be played back any time for any reason.

 The Turning-based explanation would be that the First was a time when still-strong institutions were able to act with impunity, while their weakening in the Second made their actions unacceptable through the end of the freedom-loving Third. To check this, of course, one would have to look at previous Thirds to see what the equivalent reduction in government power might have been before the Civil War or the American Revolution - and the Glorious Revolution is probably worth checking as well.

Now that the Fourth is back, strong institutions will be doing what they can to keep the power they have. Unless it turns out that the Crisis is about grabbing power back.

Return

The reason for last weeks posts on identifying Turnings was to come back to Russia and the U.S. and their respective places. Which aren't quite where I thought they were.

To start, while Russia is out of its Fourth, it's not definitely up to the Second. Pussy Riot's cathedral exhibition certainly hits Youth and Religion and protest indicators. My previous post, though, was noting that the Corruption indicated First, and said that the Second was imminent, not in progress. Which is much more in line with the last time around, when Stalin was in charge. 

Either way, Crimea agreeing to be annexed by Russia isn’t looking like a match in a tinderbox. The U.S. is still acting cautiously, leaning on sanctions. Ukraine may not be happy, but fighting back doesn’t seem like an option with any appealing outcomes. And Russia is still being painted as a big loser - not by everyone, but often -  despite these victories. 

Blockbuster

Former Blockbuster store, Sherman Oaks, California

This is ironic in a number of ways and on a number of levels.

To start, for those who don’t recognize this, it’s a reference to Clerks, Kevin Smith’s self-funded first movie. Budgeting being what it was, he shot the film at the convenience store where he worked. This required filming at night, after the store was closed, which further required an excuse within the film for why the store’s protective shutters were closed. To wit: Dante, the protagonist of the film, arrives at work to find someone has jammed gum in the shutter locks so that they cannot be opened. He uses shoe polish to paint a message on a sheet that he hangs on the shutters: “I assure you we’re OPEN!”

Here, meanwhile, the message says 1) we are a bunch of film geeks 2) we recognize our place in the world at this instant -- or, at least, what it was until the day we had to put this sign up and 3) we found the most appropriate movie quote available to recognize that this is the end of an era. Even if it’s not an era that anyone will look back on with nostalgia.

Of course, Dante isn’t the only “clerk” in the film. His friend Randal works next door at, yep, a video store, a “shitty” mom-and-pop video rental store, exactly the sort of place that Blockbuster was able to out-compete on cost and price and selection and eventually drive out of business. They had obvious cost advantages in scale, were able to market nationally on brand, and also leveraged local demographic data to ensure that they had a better selection of movies that the locals wanted to see. Even if there were concerns that driving others out of business was going to lower the overall availability of movies.

(Ironically enough, though, I rented Clerks from just such a mom-and-pop store.) 

The former store pictured here is one of the last of the Blockbuster company-owned stores to be closed. It was out-competed by Redbox (cheaper rentals from lower-cost kiosks) and Netflix (video rentals by mail - which cut into profits even before online streaming was available). It was almost certainly the last store from which I rented an actual physical movie product, probably in July 2001, based on the movies I recall renting. Which is probably just confirmation that I wasn’t their primary consumer.

The Crisis isn’t the only time businesses shut down, and there’s nothing in particular that makes Blockbuster’s demise more-or-less likely now. Netflix wouldn’t have been possible with the videotapes that Blockbuster started with - too heavy for rental-by-mail to support. Tapes are more expensive to duplicate than DVDs, which means the latter became cheap enough to buy rather than rent. It’s not surprising that Blockbuster was losing profits soon after online streaming availability started to spread, which similarly required advances in technology that perhaps depended on little more than the steady growth from Moore’s Law. Once that point arrived, renting physical movies in physical locations became an untenable business model.

In any case, companies simply don’t last forever, and 25 years is a solid run. Hmm - in fact it may be around the median - is it possible that Turnings bring enough change to push marginal companies over the edge? If so, we’d expect new businesses to start (and to end, regardless of age) more frequently around that time. Which is falsifiable, at least.

Fourth

And now it comes back to the Fourth Turning, the Crisis, where this blog started. Which also means there's not a lot more to say besides what has already been covered. Using the format as for the last three, though:

The Third is about freedom and individualism, with institutions as weak as they ever are. The problem with weak institutions is that big problems can be avoided, missed - ignored. During a two-decade period, the marketplace and individuals have been solving problems easily amenable to such solution. 

Other problems remain unsolved, like "Should owning human beings be allowed." Or "Who should be responsible for the defense - and associated costs (taxation) - of the American colonists?"  As for the previous Fourth, it could be said it was about defining the relationship between government and the marketplace, between complete control (USSR), ownership of the means of production (Axis) and GENERALLY laissez-faire* relationships (US and UK).  Just ask Gödel: you can't expect the marketplace to fix problems that are within the marketplace. And when problems like this get big enough, they eventually come down to who can impose their will through force. 

Which is why identifying the Fourth Turning usually comes down to:

WAR: a war that everyone is involved in, one with a no-kidding winner and a definite loser, one that changes who is in charge and why. 

This isn’t especially helpful until afterwards, and the peak of Crisis periods is often near the end. Until then, the identifiers previously noted can be helpful. When looking back, though, it’s so overpowering an indicator that it’s difficult to pay attention to much else. Although Strauss and Howe also mention that immigration falls during the Crisis, after peaking during the Third.

* It's difficult to say "capitalism" with a straight face when Roosevelt had been setting up new government systems on a regular basis since March 1933, and since the manufacturing power of the country was made available to the government completely in support of the war effort. Nonetheless, it wasn't anything like any of the Axis countries, much less the Soviet Union. 

Third

The Third Turning can be conspicuous by its absence. It is often quickly skipped over in history class, as it doesn't have events that fit the usual flow. Since it's after the end of the Second, institutions have been weakened, attacked, even torn down. Personal freedom moves to its highest point, and people make use of it. That makes it difficult to set up a cohesive narrative. 

One can talk about the Civil War in terms of North and South: “The South wanted to keep slavery so it set up ways for it to expand but Republicans were elected by Northern states on a keep-it-contained platform so then the South seceded.” Similar descriptions about “The Colonists and Great Britain,” “The Protestants and the Catholics,” “The Axis and the Allies” can be used for other Crisis periods.  Institutions are at their strongest, then, so it makes sense to talk in terms of Japan and America rather than, say, Hirohito and Roosevelt. During the Third, when institutions are weak and social structures are in disarray, individuals start poking out more. From 1992-1996, American political discourse was more often about “Clinton and Gingrich” than “Democrats and Republicans.” With more actors on the stage, the plots become more fragmented and harder to tie together. From 1929 to 1945 can be effectively summarized as “The Great Depression and World War II.” while 1989 to 2005 would miss a lot if described as “The end of the Cold War and the rise of the Internet and the Gulf War’s role in the increase of militant Islam lead to invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.” (And even that one isn’t unified at all.)

The way around this is to embrace the individualism inherent in the period. How three guys influenced film says a lot about what was happening in the mid-Nineties. Isaac Newton singlehandedly changed physics, astronomy, and mathematics. Everyone remembers the one guy who crossed the Atlantic on his own. Stop trying to make sense of anything but the fact that people have an exceptional amount of freedom...for a little while. 

In the Third Turning, it's  also common to see "vibrant" economies: The dot-com era. The Roaring Twenties. The Forty-Niners. People can make a lot of money if they get in early enough, and people try. Still, the fortunes made aren't always as real as they look. It’s an interesting time, if you know where you are and what to look for.

Soldier

As previously noted, hope it's good. 

Okay, really, I previously noted that it might continue with the concept of Captain America as Hero. Presumably contrasted with the (Nomadic) Black Widow.

Still hope it's good, though.

Second

The Second Turning is also known as the Awakening, like the Great Awakening of the early 18th century. It’s a time of spiritual, moral, and religious tumult, an inward-looking mirror of the Crisis. Youth is celebrated, convention and tradition less so. It can be considered a reaction to the corruption and blandness of the First.  

During a Second Turning, expect to see:

Religious/spiritual symbolism and rhetoric: William Jennings Bryan spoke of a Cross of Gold. Martin Luther King went to the mountaintop. Martin Luther himself posted 95 Theses.  Whether talking about economics, justice, or religion itself, religion and spirituality are a frequent theme in the Awakening.  While all institutions will start weakening around this time, religious institutions are often under the heaviest attack.

Crowds: In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin mentions attending a revival presided over by George Whitefield, and estimated that (as reported) thirty thousand could easily have heard him at once. Hundreds of thousands showed up at Woodstock. Whatever might be worth saying is worth being heard by a lot of people.

Youth: Bryan was barely old enough to be president when he won the Democratic nomination in 1896. Franklin was a few years younger than that in Whitefield’s crowd. And these are the old fogies in Awakening times. The past is the past, the future belongs to the young. (This is not always a good thing.)

Speeches and such: “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.” “The Cross of Gold.” (“I Have a Dream” misses by only by a few months, as Strauss & Howe consider the last Second Turning to have started after Kennedy’s assassination.) “The Liberator.” People will note and remember what was said.

First

After casual assertions that Russia and the Ukraine are entering a Second Turning, it is perhaps time to explain how that could be so. And to describe how sheep’s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes...er, that is, how to identify the Four Turnings. One at at time...

The Four Turnings are a cycle, so that the First Turning follows the Fourth. In the Fourth, there are massive and usually violent changes, while institutions - like government, large companies, army/navy/air force/marines - become strong as people look to get big jobs done. When the big work is done, though, the institutions are still strong for a while. While people are glad that a major job has been completed, the ability to do less pressing but still worthwhile pursuits beckons. 

In the First Turning, therefore, we often see

Exploration and Discovery: 1492 was the year that Ferdinand and Isabella finalized the Reconquista. A decades-long period of war was over, Spain was a regional power, but there wasn’t anyone to fight, anymore. And then this italian merchant shows up suggesting a new way to get to the Indies... After the Revolutionary War came Lewis and Clark (1804). After World War II,  the Marianas Trench (1960). 

Public works: Another way to use up excess enthusiasm is to point resources at big, popular, helpful projects.  Consider something like the Interstate Highway System (1956) , allowing easy automobile transport from New York to Los Angeles.  Or buying up a chunk of the continent, as Jefferson did with the Louisiana Purchase 

However, the combination of exuberance and strong institutions also lead naturally to

Corruption: Those public works don’t fund themselves, nor do the institutions behind them. It is easy (and unfortunately common) for the large sums of money required by governments, companies, unions, etc. in the Fourth Turning to be siphoned away by those with connections.  The Transcontinental Railroad - and the associated public subsidies - led to the Credit Mobilier scandal, and the general post-war atmosphere of corruption was described by Mark Twain in "The Gilded Age."  

Witch hunts: Too often, one of those aforementioned worthwhile pursuits is finding new people to fight. And so much the simpler if those people can’t easily fight back. Communists in 1947, Jews in 1492, actual witches in 1692....

So how does this suggest that Russia is finishing their First and heading into their Second Turning? For various reasons, it appears their last Fourth Turning ended (as did the Soviet Union) in 1991. While it’s a little too cynical to call the subsequent privatization of industry a public work, it was certainly either source or evidence of significant corruption. And, as previously noted, that corruption is leading to exactly the sort of demonstrations that symbolize a Second Turning. 

Cold

Let’s look at that “New Cold War” idea some more - that is, that the United States and Russia are going to...well, what?

At least for the latter part, the Cold War meant

A) Finding evidence supporting that the West was Best, short of fighting a full-scale war;

B) Hoping that our side wouldn’t mess up on the main fronts (diplomatic, espionage, proxy wars) any worse then their side;

C) Constant fear of nuclear annihilation.

People born before 1991 may not realize how constant Item C was, how every news bulletin carried with it the possibility that The Big One had started. It was like the war was on, already, every minute - we were only waiting for the switch to go from Cold to Violently Hot. It’s going to be difficult to consider the new situation anything like a “Cold War” until that attitude prevails again.

With the exception of that, though, these really remind me most of either the run-up to the (American) Civil War, or the French and Indian War 100 years before that. Everything from 1820 on seemed to be decided in terms of whether it supported or opposed the South and their slave-holding ways. Trying to make sense of The Seven Years War, meanwhile, is very much like trying to understand why the U.S. cared that Cuba was helping Angola be Marxist. The current situation isn’t nearly as confusing: Putin wants control of more of the former USSR than he does, and is doing what he can to reassert it. Depending on his success or lack of same, it could be a real war, but not a Cold one.

Camelot

The musical Camelot premiered in 1960 and was immensely popular. It was a favorite of John F. Kennedy, and his whole term of office was associated with it. Once the assassination happened, it became even more poignantly appropriate, as it pointed backward to a more perfect time when anything could happen, when the world was only getting better.

Or so Jackie wanted you to think.

Really, the Camelot association was set up completely by JFK’s widow after his death. She worked with - maybe worked over is a better term - journalists at the time to very specifically associate her husband’s administration with the lines

Don't let it be forgot, 

that once there was a spot, 

for one brief, shining moment, 

that was known as Camelot.

(Several movies since then have made it seem as if it was there the whole time. Forrest Gump drinks too many bottles of Dr. Pepper while the musical’s title song plays in the background. Animal House’s not-quite-infamous parade scene referenced Camelot as well as Jackie’s November 22 outfit, although it was set a full year earlier. (Some goofs suggest it actually was set in fall of 1963.))

Nonetheless, making this sort of branding work is dependent on people being willing to believe in it. That Jackie was ABLE to make it stick says something about how well it worked. So let’s look at that for a moment.

We can see in this American myth of Camelot that...

• Everything was better before the world started changing
• The reason everything was better was that the folks in charge cared about what they were doing
• Important Work was being done, and being done through Big Ideals

As we continue, though, we have to acknowledge some less hopeful attributes as well

• Even the most pure and chaste could become corrupted
• Big Ideals are not easy to stand by when one is personally involved
• Once corruption becomes common, it is difficult for what has been built to remain standing.

The musical ends with the start of a war, one that may destroy all that has come before. This sort of destruction can be expected during Fourth, but also Second, Turnings. (For comparison, look at the English Civil War (1642-1651), which resulted in the death of the king and the temporary absence of the monarchy.) The only suggestion that this is a Third Turning (i.e. leading into a Fourth) is that it is mostly about a single person, Arthur. However, in this case the single person is also the head of state and government. These institutions are weak, not strong, during the Third Turning. The rest of the attributes above, positive and negative, are First Turning indicators. 

The fact that Camelot (the musical) was hugely popular suggests that it already was in tune with the times, that people did feel the world was, if not perfect, at least getting there. Post-war optimism - a basic First Turning phenomenon - would align with that. There was also that recently-founded Round Table, the United Nations. Perhaps everyone knew that corruption was around, but were willing to accept it until it could no longer be ignored. In any case, we can see in Camelot a too-appropriate description of the transition from First to Second Turning:  A hopeful, enthusiastic post-war world gets caught up in corruption and self-attack, eventually falling apart. 

Jackie probably didn’t have to work as hard as she did on Camelot. It was so obvious that it might have happened on its own anyway. 

Baumer

In All Quiet on the Western Front, the average age of the soldiers is 19.

N-n-n-n-nineteen.

I read Erich Maria Remarque’s great World War I novel when I was 22 and, incidentally, in the military. The relationships between Paul Baumer and his classmates/platoon-mates was very much like mine with my friends, there. Even if we weren’t going through even close to the same kind of warfare, the similarities, the understanding and recognition of how you connect with people in such situations...I felt a kinship with them.

Paul Hardcastle’s single Nineteen was released in 1985. It heavily sampled from a documentary about the Vietnam War which said that was the average age of soldiers. It was a favorite of my friends and I. Most of us were a little older than that, but we knew what it was to be 19.

The standard assessment of Germany’s saeculum is that it is aligned with the rest of Western Europe. That means the Crisis ended with World War II, making The Great War some Second- or Third-Turning aberration that wasn’t total enough. I’ve thought lately that the Crisis is a better fit, especially since that makes World War II a Second Turning war for Germany. Second Turnings are a time when spiritual and religious matters have larger influence, and what the Nazis did can be seen as a spiritual takeover.  

But going in that direction makes me not quite as close to Paul Baumer and his friends, in terms of Turnings or generational archetypes. And that’s hard to accept, so far. 

Sailors

In the Crimean War, the Russian Navy scuttled several line-of-battle ships at the entrance to the harbor of Sevastapol. This was done to keep the opposing naval forces out.  The cannon from the ships were brought ashore and used to defend the city. (This is why The Sebastopol Sketches, Tolstoy's on-the-scenes narration of the city's siege, lacks ships but has sailors everywhere.) While this might have helped extend the war, the outcome was not in doubt.

When the Russians do it AGAIN, then, it doesn't inspire admiration for a rousing strategic counter thrust. Really, it can make one wonder what historical point they are trying to make. Even if it seems to be a good idea, isn't it tempting fate a bit? 

Recognition

Just because it’s a Crisis doesn’t mean we’re all going to die.

In the Ken Burns documentary “The War” there’s a telling anecdote from near the end. It attempts to look at World War II by examining the effects in four different locations in the U.S., including Sacramento. A family from there had a scion in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded. One of the young girls discussed what it was like to be in a refugee camp, watching her sister and herself grow thinner, pushing their fingers into their abdomen to see if they could feel them out their back. After they returned home,  she couldn't quite believe how people would talk about how rough the War was, when they had to deal with ration cards, and had no beef or sugar. 

These young girls survived being behind enemy lines for several years, and came back to the U.S. to tell the tale and go on to live long lives. As did most of the people back home. If you weren’t personally in a war zone - and in the U.S., you probably weren’t - your survival rates were going to be pretty good. 

There’s lots that could happen, and lots of ways things could go bad. I wouldn’t be going through this if I didn’t think preparation and prediction weren’t helpful. Nonetheless, there are likely to be plenty of situations where survival won’t be that difficult, and where gold, lead, and food are no more important than they are at this very instant.

March

Yesterday was March 4, a good day to wander down memory lane to twenty-three years ago. The Gulf War started in January 1991, and as February came through it was clear there was going to be a need for Protest! Complete! Youthful! Peaceful! And such a protest was duly planned: The March 4 Peace.

Strauss & Howe make the point early in their book - released later that same year - that Generation X was simply not the same as the slightly older Boomers when it comes to protesting war. Frequent mention was made of Alex P. Keaton, the conservative counter to the hippie parents on Family Ties. Words like “conservative” and “cynical” show up instead of “liberal” and “idealist.”  

(Actually, in their first book, the label “13th Generation” is used for those born after the Boomers. Generation X by Douglas Coupland came out a few months earlier, but that name wasn’t in common use until a few years later.)

And it’s not like that describes everyone. Sean Lennon recorded a version of “Give Peace A Chance," that was in heavy rotation ahead of the January 15 deadline that, everyone knew, was going to be the starting point for the war to start in earnest. Which it did, just over twenty-four hours later.

And so, on a commuter college campus, with a student body having demographics almost exactly centered on cynical Generation X, the March 4 Peace was promoted with posters everywhere, starting in mid-February. Unfortunately, the ground war started soon after, Iraqi troops left Kuwait quickly, and a ceasefire was declared on February 28, 1991, making the March 4 Peace moot.

Rambling

A jump in the stock market because some people think Putin blinked is hardly reason enough to consider the last two days completely vindicated. It seems to be heading in the direction expected, though. And found some other articles on strategic considerations, how smart Putin really is, and the non-monolithic Russian view.

The Cold War keeps coming up in regards to this. Surprisingly, the Crimean War doesn’t, even though it's more applicable in all sorts of ways. There's, uh, the Crimean part. Although the Second Turning part isn't part of common historical discourse, it's been previously noted as a related possibility. Actually, any further connections would get lost in the Second Turning-ness of either that time or this time.

Is the Cold War possibility because of the offset between (2T) Russia and the (4T) United States? After World War II, America was in the First Turning, while (by this theory) the USSR was in the Third. The Kitchen Debate, with improvements in the USSR being contrasted with state of the art in the U.S., would seem to be in line with this view. But what could be the equivalent of the atomic bomb tests, which appeared to really move the relationship from uneasy victors of the War to potential (but never quite actual) antagonists?

Surrender

Two whole days later, is that prediction on the Crimea already a loser?

Problem one is the vagueness of “won’t get out of hand,” that being the main declaration of said prediction. Although there was also an admission of no NATO invasion plans, so that, at least, is a hard high limit. No problem inferring that to mean “no individual major members of NATO, either,” for anyone keeping score. Really, though, the rest of the post places some reasonable expectations and restrictions on What It Means.

Still, it’s starting to look a little out of hand to the casual observer. While there may be nothing at all to the more interesting rumors (“Russia tells Ukraine military to surrender”), the scope of the takeover is significant. One can imagine this as a powder keg, waiting for a spark. It’s not easy to imagine how big the explosion would be. Although...it might not be much. 

As previously noted, large-scale pacification isn’t an option for the Russians. (No special or definite knowledge on that, simply the recognition that Ukraine is big, the Russian Army trying to keep things under control in the Caucasus, and the start of this was Ukrainian nationalism that seems to be growing rather than fading.) If they invade, they are likely to end up with enough army there to be attacked, not enough to effectively defend. That leads to plenty of uncomfortable situations.

Then there’s the economic impact. My portfolio had a lot of red today, evenly distributed - or mostly so, since it was up by the end of the day, if not hugely so. Ukraine’s stock market took a big hit, but so did the Russian one - whatever happens, those in a position to care don’t seem to consider this an unalloyed win for Russia. Getting into wars with your neighbors costs money and resources, which can get people nervous about your long-term plans -- or lack of same.

Which is another reminder that Putin isn’t necessarily a mastermind. He may be playing multi-dimensional chess, although he may also be focused on the Power in Power Politics. Perhaps his "brilliant" planning is simply the best he can do at this point. Perhaps he is still dreaming of Imperial Russia -- perhaps the Crimean situation is an emotional response that is working only because he has more resources to put on the table.  Even smart people do stupid things. 

Those thoughts will start occurring to the occupying forces at some point, too. Even in an idyllic touristy resort area, being cut off from home, surrounded by water on most sides and enemies on the rest, is not necessarily a recipe for long-term morale. Nationalist fervor can only keep you going so far, especially if staples like drinking water or electricity become difficult to procure. With all this in mind, it still seems like there’s not much further this could go. 

A final thought - one that actually brings it back to where it started - is that a Fourth Turning indicates the means and the will to invest all resources in attacking a problem. A Second Turning is about trying to hold things together when everything starts to fly apart. The United States does not appear willing to make an investment for the Ukraine. Russia looks as though it is trying hard simply to hold it all together.

Commies

So there's this show called Tree Fu Tom, about a kid who magically shrinks himself to help out the inhabitants of a tree in his backyard. In this one episode, the Mushas (mushrooms/toadstools/fungi), trick the local grownup, Treetog, into leaving for a few days, then start making announcements and city-wide changes using her voice. Eventually Tom sees through their subterfuge, rallies his fellows around him with the truth, and gets them out of there so Treetog can come back. 

The Mushas are Amanitas, so you know they are bad. They also make things stinky and dirty like in Musha City - Tom uses the resemblance to make it clear that something is rotten in Denmark . 

There are a couple of different ways to interpret this, but one valid one is that the Communists (Mushas) have subverted the government (Treetog), taking it over from the inside, a bit at a time, subtle changes that individually go unnoticed. And then, almost too late, heroic McCarthy  - I mean Tom - deduces what they are up to, and rallies support to make it known what they are doing. 

Actually, that probably wasn’t what they were after. 

More likely, they are Big Oil (Mushas) infiltrating the media (Treetog) to spread disinformation and policy changes (climate change denial) that despoils the environment.

Either way, though, the precursors of the First Turning are already showing up.  As we work through the Crisis, the powers of institutions will become stronger - they have to, to fight the battles we want fought. And to decide what to fight, there will be more definite distinctions drawn between Us and Them, since battles require enemies. Then it’s only a matter of time, once the big fights are won, for smaller ones to take precedence. Witch hunts wouldn’t become a problem if they didn’t start off seeming like a good idea, didn’t take on people that everyone knows are bad.

Crimea

The situation in the Ukraine seems to be more in flux than before. It’s either Munich all over again, Waterloo all over again, a huge incident that isn't quite the same, or none of the above.  

Let’s try an actual prediction here, though: As both Ukraine and Russia are in their Second Turning,  it feels like this cannot get out of hand. It's going to remain internal. Putin won't overreach because uncertainty at home means he can't risk further destabilization. Sending troops only to Crimea means its justifiable for protection and not excessive in world opinion. Sure, there will be a UN resolution condemning it, but no NATO invasion plans.  Ukraine will accept the current situation because they have little choice. They will have to play a longer game to retrieve what was lost - like a Northern Ireland situation.  

Which is likely just what will be there soon. An external protection force watching out for a local majority that’s an overall minority. Cut off except by boat and plane, said force has limitations on its ability to move tactically. The locals will be taking advantage of the embedded force to attack asymmetrically until the situation resolves itself. If that happens, with history as our guide, resolution will take decades. (And probably still won't matter that much to the U.S.)