BTW, in thinking about covid being the Fourth Turning crisis, isn't some kind of "Hero" supposed to emerge from the younger generation to lead things to the beginning of the next cycle?
The general population seriously needs to return to observing the 10 Commandments. The real blueprint for a sane world and happy families. VIVA CHRSTO REY!
“It remains an open question whether this necessary renewal of strength and vitality can be reintegrated harmoniously into our societies, or whether our world will again be plunged into a time of significantly greater strife, danger, and war."
I agree with that, and it will depend upon the understanding of both why the “strong man” world of the 19th century created the problems that the “open society” proponents reacted to, and why the “open society” world then failed in its own way.
I contend that both points of view are “wrong” - or incomplete - and, ironically, for the same reasons. The reason for the conceptualization of the “open society” was the reaction to the “strong man” one (war, nationalism, division, etc.). Now, in reaction to the “open society”, either the pendulum is swinging back again, or something new and truly better and sustainable is evolving; that remains to be seen. Although the “strong man” world may seem like the right and better one at the moment, that feeling could be more reactionary and ephemeral than correct.
I say that because I don’t think the proponents of the “open society” addressed the fundamental political “problems” of the “strong man” world correctly. They didn’t go deep enough. And if that’s not understood then there is a strong probability that the “new” strong man world could be just as problematic as the old one. This hopefully will not simply be a reactionary return to the lesser of two evils. As the author wrote, “… finding the proper balance between “closed’ and “open” values is necessary to maintain a healthy society…”
To the proponents of the “open society” world the problems of the “strong man” world was mainly nationalism and derivatives of that, which to them were considered simply limited and erroneous beliefs. ‘Change the beliefs and you change the world’ so they thought, but they were only half right; in my opinion their understanding of “beliefs” was too superficial.
For example, “nationalism” is not a belief in the all-important psychological, metaphysical and creative sense. Instead, nationalism is a by-product (or symptom) - one of many - based upon deeper more fundamental concepts that are the “blue prints” (i.e, psychic patterns) for reality construction. Those beliefs have origins both from religion and science. It’s understandable that they were blind to this, ironically, because of the nature of beliefs themselves. Beliefs are strongly held ideas accepted as true. As such, they are seldom obvious and identifiable - especially within one’s own mind - because beliefs about reality are accepted as true and therefore not questioned (i.e., are invisible assumptions). But they can be identified and indeed changed, but only if they are understood to be beliefs ABOUT reality and NOT reality itself.
The fundamental beliefs that have plagued people for recorded history is a very complex and deep subject so what I’m saying may seem outrageous and ridiculous, but so be it. The two most important one’s are the ideas of “Original Sin” from religion and - more recently - the “tainted subconscious” from science. In fact, one could say that the “tainted subconscious” is the secular version of “original sin”, so they’re related.
There are many derivations of those fundamental ideas. Beliefs in sin, for example, can appear psychologically as self-hatred, a mistrust of one’s self, the projection of evil intents on others, moral relativism, and vicarious atonement. Belief in a tainted subconscious can appear as the repression of certain thoughts or certain desires considered “bad” or “taboo,” fear of psychological introspection, repression of spontaneity, mistrust of one’s own thoughts, the denial of “magic”, the blocking out of “inner data” such as intuition and impulses towards action.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in recognizing this and the importance of understanding the similarities within both worlds, and not just the differences.
Indeed, as the author stated, “Despite its obsession with ‘openness,’ the world of the post-war open society has in truth always been, in its own way, a strictly enclosed and deeply stifling place. It is a world in which human nature, indeed our very humanity, is viewed with great suspicion, as something dangerous to be surveilled, suppressed, and contained – or, even better, remolded into a reliable cog to fit safely into a predictable, riskless machine.”
Unless beliefs at that level of the mind are addressed, understood properly and reconciled then whatever superficial changes are made will ultimately net the same results.
It will be fascinating to see how things play out.
I would argue that the finale of seeing us as "something dangerous to be surveilled, suppressed, and contained" was the response to covid. In this, the managerial class actually showed itself to be not so much different from 1930s Germans in spite of their delusions of being the protectors of humanity from another Holocaust. In Germany shop windows were spray painted with "unvaxxed" and "don't buy from the unvaxxed" (in German of course) without any apparent self-awareness of similarities to just before Kristallnacht. In Germany and Austria when the unvaxxed were banned from leaving their homes police would stop people on the street with "papers please," without so much as a blush of shame. In Australia, a "low vaccination rate community" suffered its members being rounded up by armed soldiers and taken to a (quarantine) camp. Across the developed world one particular group of people was publicly shamed by politicians, discriminated against, fired, denied organ transplants, and (in Austria) threatened with imprisonment, because they "spread disease." Just like another group was wrongly accused of.
Similar to another poster here, I have been waiting on the 4th turning, but have just recently come to understand that the covid debacle -- economic ruin, civil liberties laid waste to, 17 million excess deaths by some accounts (iatrogenic & lockdown related) -- maybe that was the denouement of the last era, maybe that was our 4th turning. I feared it would be nuclear war, to the point the occasional sound of military planes terrified me for months up until the inauguration. But maybe, indeed, we are past it, and a new era is taking its first hesitant steps.
Interesting that you compare the draconian mandates during covid to be like the Nazis. Personally, I don't give the covid crowd that much credit. I saw them more as wimpy, people - bureaucrats mostly - who were more interested in following orders (and taking bribes) and protecting their own interests than caring about much of anything else. Also, if you know it was all a scam it's not the same as actually being "evil", one might rationalize. Of course there's always a spectrum of mentalities when talking about any group of humanoids, so no doubt some were true believers, and some were sadistic.
The "fourth turning" is intriguing to me but I've been waiting for it for so long now I don't know what to think. The covid scam is an interesting contender, and maybe it's a personal thing (like maybe another person would say it was the 2008 GFC, or experiencing the war in Ukraine or Gaza, or losing "everything" in a storm or fire, etc.) One thing I recall Strauss writing was that the crisis stage would effect "every one" and would be very difficult, and I just can't say I've had much to complain about pretty much ever. That's why I still think it's in the offing.
And let's not forget the whole theory could be bs. As it is, there's disagreement as to when it even began, so te actual crisis has become a moving target. For that matter, the stock market drop when covid was advertised is considered by some to be the "big crash" that also has been expected (by people like me) but as far as I'm concerned that was "nothing". A year at most of paper losses (that is, unless you owned bonds) is not my idea of life-changing hardship. We shall see.
Very good article by the way. Thank you for writing it.
Oh gosh I didn't write it -- I just highly recommended it to John. I agree that covid seems like a weak contender, but it fits as a possible ending to the 20th century managerial technocracy, because it woke a lot of people up to the fallibility of experts, to propaganda, to the weakness of "rights" unless the people are always ready to defend them, and to the dangers of the madness of crowds. That suggests we could be ready for a change of societal direction, I hope. Also, covid was pretty bad for a lot of us. Kids became suicidal, I lost my dad to the Moderns vaccine, my family spent months uncertain we would continue to have income, businesses were destroyed, etc.
Yes, I realized after I posted that you sent the article, but it’s basically the same thing to me because I probably wouldn’t have seen it if not for you, so thank you, again.
I don’t mean to belittle the covid event, and I’m sorry if you and your family suffered from it.
Another realization I hope people made is that “covid” didn’t make any one do anything except to make choices. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, stand 6 feet apart, quit your job, stand down, go along to get along, follow orders from superiors, boycott facilities, etc.
My worse experience with covid was with my family. I told everyone it wasn’t what they we’re being told, but they thought I was a nut. My step sons were embarrassed for me. My wife told everyone I didn’t get vaccinated because my doctor advised against it because I had an “unusual condition”, to avoid people thinking I was weird. That really pissed me off. I hate being misrepresented and it denied my right to express my opinions and give others a different perspective. At least I didn’t wear a mask whenever possible and I gave a lot of managers a lot of shit (whether I made a dent with any of them I may never know.) Had I complied, I could imagine some young precocious kid seeing me and thinking, “Look at that guy. Even he’s wearing a mask!” That would be pathetic and soul crushing.
But more to your point, I don’t really know what my family - never mind others - learned from it all. They literally don’t want to talk about it. But if I had to guess, they think it was all a big misunderstanding and one shouldn’t blame people for what they did. I hope not, but they tend to take the “let’s move on” mentality.
History suggests only a minority, maybe 20%, are needed to wage a revolution when one is needed and deserved. So, we all don't need to wake up to foment a real change and I'm just hopeful we are on the precipice of one. The managers, administrators and technocrats of society aren't worth their salt and real change needs to happen.
BTW, in thinking about covid being the Fourth Turning crisis, isn't some kind of "Hero" supposed to emerge from the younger generation to lead things to the beginning of the next cycle?
Secret societies have no place in civil society. Hitler outlawed them.
General Patton remarked "we went to war on the wrong side." He knew the score.
And now just questioning certain things will get you labeled antisemetic.
What kind of society does not allow questions to be asked? Not one with high moral values.
The question becomes, do we want a civilization with high moral values, or one that cares nothing for children cept to send them off and let strangers indoctrinate them into society for us?
Thank you for presenting such an insightful article.
I do believe we need to distinguish between Trump's America [What I think of as True American Values] and the America that has existed since the JFK assassination where things went off track as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
As it happens I slept poorly last night with my head churning over some pondering about Twitter [X], it's impact upon humanity, freedom of speech versus censorship,etc.
I concluded similar to this article of yours that there are in essence, two paths humanity gets attracted to. Those paths lead to entirely different outcomes.
That of Rules based [Islam would be an example] or Values based, Which,[ if we remove the church, and leave in the Bibles metaphoric messages.......seems to encourage a Values Based direction]
This article was very timely for me. Very insightful.
"And, through the globe-spanning power of the United States, it has shaped the political and cultural order of the rest of the world as well."
What an arrogant fluck. The boy needs to travel more.
Regardless of how you come down on the above statement, we all face a stunning fact:
Trump is American culture and it is being soundly rejected around the globe.
The US will now have to bomb out countries they don't like by themselves. No more using intermediaries like Israel and Ukraine to get at people we don't like.
The best hope for the globe is that Russia/China maintain the ability to vaporize the eastern seaboard in 23 minutes. Even Trump won't cross that line.
As I said before, Trump is speeding us into the actionable phase of the 4th Turning. Those outcomes are unknown and may be far different than people here expect.
Me, please read the article, not just the headline. "Gods" is metaphorical. It refers to strongly held beliefs that define a society. The author seems to be pro-religion.
BTW, in thinking about covid being the Fourth Turning crisis, isn't some kind of "Hero" supposed to emerge from the younger generation to lead things to the beginning of the next cycle?
Do you think that's Elon Musk?
Trump is too old according to that theory.
Truly brilliant John. The unbelievable power of fickle morality and lack of genuine wisdom. Thank you
The general population seriously needs to return to observing the 10 Commandments. The real blueprint for a sane world and happy families. VIVA CHRSTO REY!
“It remains an open question whether this necessary renewal of strength and vitality can be reintegrated harmoniously into our societies, or whether our world will again be plunged into a time of significantly greater strife, danger, and war."
I agree with that, and it will depend upon the understanding of both why the “strong man” world of the 19th century created the problems that the “open society” proponents reacted to, and why the “open society” world then failed in its own way.
I contend that both points of view are “wrong” - or incomplete - and, ironically, for the same reasons. The reason for the conceptualization of the “open society” was the reaction to the “strong man” one (war, nationalism, division, etc.). Now, in reaction to the “open society”, either the pendulum is swinging back again, or something new and truly better and sustainable is evolving; that remains to be seen. Although the “strong man” world may seem like the right and better one at the moment, that feeling could be more reactionary and ephemeral than correct.
I say that because I don’t think the proponents of the “open society” addressed the fundamental political “problems” of the “strong man” world correctly. They didn’t go deep enough. And if that’s not understood then there is a strong probability that the “new” strong man world could be just as problematic as the old one. This hopefully will not simply be a reactionary return to the lesser of two evils. As the author wrote, “… finding the proper balance between “closed’ and “open” values is necessary to maintain a healthy society…”
To the proponents of the “open society” world the problems of the “strong man” world was mainly nationalism and derivatives of that, which to them were considered simply limited and erroneous beliefs. ‘Change the beliefs and you change the world’ so they thought, but they were only half right; in my opinion their understanding of “beliefs” was too superficial.
For example, “nationalism” is not a belief in the all-important psychological, metaphysical and creative sense. Instead, nationalism is a by-product (or symptom) - one of many - based upon deeper more fundamental concepts that are the “blue prints” (i.e, psychic patterns) for reality construction. Those beliefs have origins both from religion and science. It’s understandable that they were blind to this, ironically, because of the nature of beliefs themselves. Beliefs are strongly held ideas accepted as true. As such, they are seldom obvious and identifiable - especially within one’s own mind - because beliefs about reality are accepted as true and therefore not questioned (i.e., are invisible assumptions). But they can be identified and indeed changed, but only if they are understood to be beliefs ABOUT reality and NOT reality itself.
The fundamental beliefs that have plagued people for recorded history is a very complex and deep subject so what I’m saying may seem outrageous and ridiculous, but so be it. The two most important one’s are the ideas of “Original Sin” from religion and - more recently - the “tainted subconscious” from science. In fact, one could say that the “tainted subconscious” is the secular version of “original sin”, so they’re related.
There are many derivations of those fundamental ideas. Beliefs in sin, for example, can appear psychologically as self-hatred, a mistrust of one’s self, the projection of evil intents on others, moral relativism, and vicarious atonement. Belief in a tainted subconscious can appear as the repression of certain thoughts or certain desires considered “bad” or “taboo,” fear of psychological introspection, repression of spontaneity, mistrust of one’s own thoughts, the denial of “magic”, the blocking out of “inner data” such as intuition and impulses towards action.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in recognizing this and the importance of understanding the similarities within both worlds, and not just the differences.
Indeed, as the author stated, “Despite its obsession with ‘openness,’ the world of the post-war open society has in truth always been, in its own way, a strictly enclosed and deeply stifling place. It is a world in which human nature, indeed our very humanity, is viewed with great suspicion, as something dangerous to be surveilled, suppressed, and contained – or, even better, remolded into a reliable cog to fit safely into a predictable, riskless machine.”
Unless beliefs at that level of the mind are addressed, understood properly and reconciled then whatever superficial changes are made will ultimately net the same results.
It will be fascinating to see how things play out.
I would argue that the finale of seeing us as "something dangerous to be surveilled, suppressed, and contained" was the response to covid. In this, the managerial class actually showed itself to be not so much different from 1930s Germans in spite of their delusions of being the protectors of humanity from another Holocaust. In Germany shop windows were spray painted with "unvaxxed" and "don't buy from the unvaxxed" (in German of course) without any apparent self-awareness of similarities to just before Kristallnacht. In Germany and Austria when the unvaxxed were banned from leaving their homes police would stop people on the street with "papers please," without so much as a blush of shame. In Australia, a "low vaccination rate community" suffered its members being rounded up by armed soldiers and taken to a (quarantine) camp. Across the developed world one particular group of people was publicly shamed by politicians, discriminated against, fired, denied organ transplants, and (in Austria) threatened with imprisonment, because they "spread disease." Just like another group was wrongly accused of.
Similar to another poster here, I have been waiting on the 4th turning, but have just recently come to understand that the covid debacle -- economic ruin, civil liberties laid waste to, 17 million excess deaths by some accounts (iatrogenic & lockdown related) -- maybe that was the denouement of the last era, maybe that was our 4th turning. I feared it would be nuclear war, to the point the occasional sound of military planes terrified me for months up until the inauguration. But maybe, indeed, we are past it, and a new era is taking its first hesitant steps.
Interesting that you compare the draconian mandates during covid to be like the Nazis. Personally, I don't give the covid crowd that much credit. I saw them more as wimpy, people - bureaucrats mostly - who were more interested in following orders (and taking bribes) and protecting their own interests than caring about much of anything else. Also, if you know it was all a scam it's not the same as actually being "evil", one might rationalize. Of course there's always a spectrum of mentalities when talking about any group of humanoids, so no doubt some were true believers, and some were sadistic.
The "fourth turning" is intriguing to me but I've been waiting for it for so long now I don't know what to think. The covid scam is an interesting contender, and maybe it's a personal thing (like maybe another person would say it was the 2008 GFC, or experiencing the war in Ukraine or Gaza, or losing "everything" in a storm or fire, etc.) One thing I recall Strauss writing was that the crisis stage would effect "every one" and would be very difficult, and I just can't say I've had much to complain about pretty much ever. That's why I still think it's in the offing.
And let's not forget the whole theory could be bs. As it is, there's disagreement as to when it even began, so te actual crisis has become a moving target. For that matter, the stock market drop when covid was advertised is considered by some to be the "big crash" that also has been expected (by people like me) but as far as I'm concerned that was "nothing". A year at most of paper losses (that is, unless you owned bonds) is not my idea of life-changing hardship. We shall see.
Very good article by the way. Thank you for writing it.
Oh gosh I didn't write it -- I just highly recommended it to John. I agree that covid seems like a weak contender, but it fits as a possible ending to the 20th century managerial technocracy, because it woke a lot of people up to the fallibility of experts, to propaganda, to the weakness of "rights" unless the people are always ready to defend them, and to the dangers of the madness of crowds. That suggests we could be ready for a change of societal direction, I hope. Also, covid was pretty bad for a lot of us. Kids became suicidal, I lost my dad to the Moderns vaccine, my family spent months uncertain we would continue to have income, businesses were destroyed, etc.
Yes, I realized after I posted that you sent the article, but it’s basically the same thing to me because I probably wouldn’t have seen it if not for you, so thank you, again.
I don’t mean to belittle the covid event, and I’m sorry if you and your family suffered from it.
Another realization I hope people made is that “covid” didn’t make any one do anything except to make choices. Get vaccinated, wear a mask, stand 6 feet apart, quit your job, stand down, go along to get along, follow orders from superiors, boycott facilities, etc.
My worse experience with covid was with my family. I told everyone it wasn’t what they we’re being told, but they thought I was a nut. My step sons were embarrassed for me. My wife told everyone I didn’t get vaccinated because my doctor advised against it because I had an “unusual condition”, to avoid people thinking I was weird. That really pissed me off. I hate being misrepresented and it denied my right to express my opinions and give others a different perspective. At least I didn’t wear a mask whenever possible and I gave a lot of managers a lot of shit (whether I made a dent with any of them I may never know.) Had I complied, I could imagine some young precocious kid seeing me and thinking, “Look at that guy. Even he’s wearing a mask!” That would be pathetic and soul crushing.
But more to your point, I don’t really know what my family - never mind others - learned from it all. They literally don’t want to talk about it. But if I had to guess, they think it was all a big misunderstanding and one shouldn’t blame people for what they did. I hope not, but they tend to take the “let’s move on” mentality.
History suggests only a minority, maybe 20%, are needed to wage a revolution when one is needed and deserved. So, we all don't need to wake up to foment a real change and I'm just hopeful we are on the precipice of one. The managers, administrators and technocrats of society aren't worth their salt and real change needs to happen.
BTW, in thinking about covid being the Fourth Turning crisis, isn't some kind of "Hero" supposed to emerge from the younger generation to lead things to the beginning of the next cycle?
Do you think that's Elon Musk?
Trump is too old according to that theory.
We'll see what happens.
The next line of Kissinger's statement was omitted, and more cautionary.
"it doesn't mean he knows this, or that he is considered a great alternative. It could just be an accident." - HK
Intellectuals give me gas. I can't stand academic intellectuals. They are all full of shite.
Secret societies have no place in civil society. Hitler outlawed them.
General Patton remarked "we went to war on the wrong side." He knew the score.
And now just questioning certain things will get you labeled antisemetic.
What kind of society does not allow questions to be asked? Not one with high moral values.
The question becomes, do we want a civilization with high moral values, or one that cares nothing for children cept to send them off and let strangers indoctrinate them into society for us?
Do we want a society where questions are taboo?
I think not!
Wow John,
Thank you for presenting such an insightful article.
I do believe we need to distinguish between Trump's America [What I think of as True American Values] and the America that has existed since the JFK assassination where things went off track as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
As it happens I slept poorly last night with my head churning over some pondering about Twitter [X], it's impact upon humanity, freedom of speech versus censorship,etc.
I concluded similar to this article of yours that there are in essence, two paths humanity gets attracted to. Those paths lead to entirely different outcomes.
That of Rules based [Islam would be an example] or Values based, Which,[ if we remove the church, and leave in the Bibles metaphoric messages.......seems to encourage a Values Based direction]
This article was very timely for me. Very insightful.
Wow:
"And, through the globe-spanning power of the United States, it has shaped the political and cultural order of the rest of the world as well."
What an arrogant fluck. The boy needs to travel more.
Regardless of how you come down on the above statement, we all face a stunning fact:
Trump is American culture and it is being soundly rejected around the globe.
The US will now have to bomb out countries they don't like by themselves. No more using intermediaries like Israel and Ukraine to get at people we don't like.
The best hope for the globe is that Russia/China maintain the ability to vaporize the eastern seaboard in 23 minutes. Even Trump won't cross that line.
As I said before, Trump is speeding us into the actionable phase of the 4th Turning. Those outcomes are unknown and may be far different than people here expect.
Thank you very much for sharing. ♥️💪💯
Lost a subscriber over this. There is one and only one true God
I don't even know why I'm replying to you - just happened to stumble in here - but WTF is your problem?
Who's denying God?
In case you wondering - www.crushlimbraw.com - that's me!
Me, please read the article, not just the headline. "Gods" is metaphorical. It refers to strongly held beliefs that define a society. The author seems to be pro-religion.
Too late, unsubscribed. Perhaps try having actual content other than click bait headlines.
"Strong Gods" is a quote from a book, and not even original to N.S. Lyons, let alone John. Maybe be less quick to cancel people?