Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Songs of the Prophets
Recently I completed a second full reading of Strauss and Howe's remarkable study of the cyclicality of history, The Fourth Turning, which stands the recent linear view of history on its head. Just like there are four seasons in a natural year, and four seasons of a man's life, there are four seasons of a saeculum (about 80 years, or the length of a person's life): Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Further, there are four generational archetypes that move through that saeculum: Hero, Prophet, Nomad, and Artist. Each Archetype finds itself with a particular role to play during each season of the saeculum. Strauss and Howe make a convincing argument, tracing the saecular seasons and their generations back through Anglo-American history to the War of the Roses; but the Saecular Games were known as far back as Roman, and even Etruscan times, and it was said that every person, should they live a long life, would take part in the Games (or at least be a spectator) at least once.
Today we live in a time of Crisis (the Fourth Turning), the Winter season of the saeculum. During saecular winters, it is the part of the Prophet archetype to provide leadership; the Nomad, to provide the hands-on know-how to get the job done; the Hero, to provide the muscle; and the child Artists, to bear witness, to be helpers, and to simply survive and carry the promise of a future for humanity through the Crisis bottleneck.
The Prophet generation provides the fire and passion necessary to rouse the Heroes to decisive action, and the vision to achievable goals necessary for the survival of the nation. They are tempered by their saecular seasons to look inward, towards the inner (spiritual) world instead of the outward. Strauss and Howe personify the Prophet generation in the figure of the Gray Champion. Examples of the Gray Champion include Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams. These men were not soldiers. Too old to fight, they provided the spiritual leadership for their Crisis season, while the Nomads provided the managers (generals, such as Washington, Grant, Patton) and the Heroes provided the muscle (the G.I., or "Greatest," Generation is an example).
Today, what generation corresponds to that of FDR? What generation is our Gray Champion?
The Baby Boomers.
I make small effort to conceal my scorn for this pampered, indulged, self-important, narcissistic, greedy, and hypocritical group. Unfortunately, they are what we have to guide us through these early days of Crisis. These former hippies and yuppies, who sang the songs of protest against "The Man" during the last Awakening (or Second Turning), who preached "make love not war," who tore down the civic edifices built by the G.I.'s and rebuilt them to serve their own interests, who nurtured the rise of destructive neoliberal and neoconservative politics, now threaten to bring the entire roof down on everyone as they lead us down the path to war, poverty, and complete and utter environmental degradation.
Now, don't get me wrong: there are some Boomer Prophet voices who preach much-needed common sense, and who actually are the exception to the usual Boomer "do as I say, and not as I do" example; and I listen to their words. But even they are not immune to the personality deficiences of their fellow Boomers -- including their constant, narcissistic need for validation. This tendency damages their credibility, further eroding what little influence they already have. Their songs are thus usually drowned out by the greater noise made by the Gingrich's, Obama's, Romney's, and Clinton's of their generation. This is important, for it is their words that should be inspiring the current Hero generation -- the Millenials, or Generation Y, if you like -- to a rebirth of civic spirit, leading in turn to a fresh approach by the Heroes to the enormous predicaments we now face.
But this is not happening. As it stands, Generation Y has no stake in the current paradigm. They have been locked out of the American Dream, the crumbs of which having already been gobbled up by the desperate Gen Xers, my own (Nomad) generation. Gen Y has no sense of civic duty. Why should they have one, anyway? The example of the Boomer Prophets is one of greed and hypocrisy. To follow Boomer ways is to follow the ways of sociopaths.
The next decade will see change and turmoil the likes of which no one now can really fathom. Unfortunately, we have not the leadership anywhere in our society to steer us, and none on the horizon. I fear the Boomers will suffer mightily, as will the Millenials, in the Crisis; and many will not survive the bottleneck to see the world on the other side.
I have given up on the Boomer Prophets, whose songs from my youth now ring hollow in my ears. I fear the wrath of the Millenials, who as their bleak future slowly reveals itself will find it hard to forgive the Gray Champion his failings. Whatever valid criticisms one may have of them -- and there are many -- FDR and Lincoln led the country through some of its darkest days. We need leaders of their calibre. It is our lot in the current Fourth Turning to do without, or to look to the examples of the past for leadership.
Wassail, friends. And I mean it: be hale. Dark days are upon us.
Today we live in a time of Crisis (the Fourth Turning), the Winter season of the saeculum. During saecular winters, it is the part of the Prophet archetype to provide leadership; the Nomad, to provide the hands-on know-how to get the job done; the Hero, to provide the muscle; and the child Artists, to bear witness, to be helpers, and to simply survive and carry the promise of a future for humanity through the Crisis bottleneck.
The Prophet generation provides the fire and passion necessary to rouse the Heroes to decisive action, and the vision to achievable goals necessary for the survival of the nation. They are tempered by their saecular seasons to look inward, towards the inner (spiritual) world instead of the outward. Strauss and Howe personify the Prophet generation in the figure of the Gray Champion. Examples of the Gray Champion include Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, and Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams. These men were not soldiers. Too old to fight, they provided the spiritual leadership for their Crisis season, while the Nomads provided the managers (generals, such as Washington, Grant, Patton) and the Heroes provided the muscle (the G.I., or "Greatest," Generation is an example).
Today, what generation corresponds to that of FDR? What generation is our Gray Champion?
The Baby Boomers.
I make small effort to conceal my scorn for this pampered, indulged, self-important, narcissistic, greedy, and hypocritical group. Unfortunately, they are what we have to guide us through these early days of Crisis. These former hippies and yuppies, who sang the songs of protest against "The Man" during the last Awakening (or Second Turning), who preached "make love not war," who tore down the civic edifices built by the G.I.'s and rebuilt them to serve their own interests, who nurtured the rise of destructive neoliberal and neoconservative politics, now threaten to bring the entire roof down on everyone as they lead us down the path to war, poverty, and complete and utter environmental degradation.
Now, don't get me wrong: there are some Boomer Prophet voices who preach much-needed common sense, and who actually are the exception to the usual Boomer "do as I say, and not as I do" example; and I listen to their words. But even they are not immune to the personality deficiences of their fellow Boomers -- including their constant, narcissistic need for validation. This tendency damages their credibility, further eroding what little influence they already have. Their songs are thus usually drowned out by the greater noise made by the Gingrich's, Obama's, Romney's, and Clinton's of their generation. This is important, for it is their words that should be inspiring the current Hero generation -- the Millenials, or Generation Y, if you like -- to a rebirth of civic spirit, leading in turn to a fresh approach by the Heroes to the enormous predicaments we now face.
But this is not happening. As it stands, Generation Y has no stake in the current paradigm. They have been locked out of the American Dream, the crumbs of which having already been gobbled up by the desperate Gen Xers, my own (Nomad) generation. Gen Y has no sense of civic duty. Why should they have one, anyway? The example of the Boomer Prophets is one of greed and hypocrisy. To follow Boomer ways is to follow the ways of sociopaths.
The next decade will see change and turmoil the likes of which no one now can really fathom. Unfortunately, we have not the leadership anywhere in our society to steer us, and none on the horizon. I fear the Boomers will suffer mightily, as will the Millenials, in the Crisis; and many will not survive the bottleneck to see the world on the other side.
I have given up on the Boomer Prophets, whose songs from my youth now ring hollow in my ears. I fear the wrath of the Millenials, who as their bleak future slowly reveals itself will find it hard to forgive the Gray Champion his failings. Whatever valid criticisms one may have of them -- and there are many -- FDR and Lincoln led the country through some of its darkest days. We need leaders of their calibre. It is our lot in the current Fourth Turning to do without, or to look to the examples of the past for leadership.
Wassail, friends. And I mean it: be hale. Dark days are upon us.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Day Shall Come Again
Winter holds us fast in his grasp. 2011 breathes its last.
2012 is upon us. A new year, rising from the ashes of the old. I have little doubt that it will be only a little less apocalyptic than the Maya foretold. But we shall see. I make no predictions tonight, other than this: whatever darkness lies ahead, there will be another dawn. It may not be sunny to some, but dawn it will be.
I vow to see it.
"Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried: 'Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!' Seventy times he uttered that cry..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, Chapter 20: "Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad"
Wassail, friends, and Happy New Year.
Monday, December 12, 2011
CANZUSUKI, and Why I Sleep Fine Nowadays
Last week, at one of those Eurozone-y meetings that seem to take place once every 26 hours, British Prime Minister David Cameron kind of told his Continental peers to suck it. Bless his heart! Now, the Brits had never adopted the Euro in the first place, but they became part of the trade zone anyway. Now, with the seemingly imminent breakup of the Euro -- or its morphing into some kind of Franco-German Reichzone -- we see which way the UK leans. With its usual detached-ness from the Continent becoming more marked by the day, it mirrors the detachment of the US and its other close (read: English-speaking) allies from the rest of the Real World. The unofficial nations of CANZUSUKI (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland*) are quickly becoming a bit irrelevant on the world stage, as history unfolds.
It's beginning to look a lot like the 1930's. Or, at least feel like it. There is a sense of futility and dread behind all the headlines. We don't need the media to tell us that there's a shitstorm of global proportions brewing. (Well, maybe some people do. They're fucked.) We're well past the beginning stages of the next Fourth Turning -- that is, the next Crisis. The last was World War II; the one before that, the Civil War; before that, the American Revolution. Eighty-year intervals, without fail. So yeah, it's time. How's it going to happen? I believe war with Iran will start it, with either Israel acting unilaterally, or a NATO attack to knock out supposed nuclear sites. This may have the effect of drawing Russia and China in on the side of Iran, and, well... there you go. WWIII. Easy-breezy-Ja-pa-nesy. Won't that be fun? I love to hear those of a hawkish bent boast about how we'll be able to mop up the Iranians before you can say knife; it reminds me that they said the same thing before we invaded Iraq, and before we invaded Afghanistan. Will the country as a whole be able to make that same connection, when Hillary Clinton comes on TV to justify attacking Iran (which has not attacked another country in two or three hundred years, unlike ourselves)? Yeah, sure.
I'm too old to fight in their wars now, thankfully; and by the time my daughter gets old enough to serve, the Crisis will be over, and whatever's left of the United States will begin a new era under a new paradigm. You know, that is extremely comforting; and I am also comforted with the knowledge that I have done all I can humanly do to prepare for the changes currently under way. I sleep more soundly, knowing that it's the fate of my generation -- Gen X, the modern equivalent to the Lost Generation of Hemingway, Tolkien, Patton, Truman, Eisenhower -- to do the hard work of managing our country through Collapse; to keep the Baby Boomers from destroying everything, and to keep the generation after us -- the Millenials, the next "Greatest Generation" -- from destroying the Boomers (though the latter may deserve it, as a whole). It's what Gen Xers, the underprotected latchkey children of the 1970's and early 1980's, were raised to do, albeit indirectly. We're survivors. The events of the larger picture are out of our hands; we just have to make it through to the other side, and shepherd through some of the younger folk along with us.
"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again." -- Robert Jordan
Wassail, friends.
*I included Ireland, though like as not they will go off on their own, as is their wont.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Foradan
Literally "north-man." Here, the meaning is more Winter-man. Sindarin, of course. Simply Sindarin. I did not bother to look up the Quenya.
The trees slip deeper into sleep with each passing day. Some still hang on, mainly the younger ones. Their green leaves will be frostbitten soon, and they will not forget it.
I slow down as well. I am done for the year. No more big projects, aside from getting through this month's madness, to quiet, contemplative January. I am Foradan, withdrawn as the December sun.
I realized that I have given myself a divorce from my country. I hardly recognize it any more. I am more familiar with the natural world: the ebb and flow of natural energies, natural rhythms, sighing earth, listening trees, seasonal suns, and my own place within the great Ring. Doctrine, dogma, rhetoric, debate, are all rendered pointless, insignificant, by the whir of a chickadee's wings.
Wassail, friends. And bon hiver.
The trees slip deeper into sleep with each passing day. Some still hang on, mainly the younger ones. Their green leaves will be frostbitten soon, and they will not forget it.
I slow down as well. I am done for the year. No more big projects, aside from getting through this month's madness, to quiet, contemplative January. I am Foradan, withdrawn as the December sun.
I realized that I have given myself a divorce from my country. I hardly recognize it any more. I am more familiar with the natural world: the ebb and flow of natural energies, natural rhythms, sighing earth, listening trees, seasonal suns, and my own place within the great Ring. Doctrine, dogma, rhetoric, debate, are all rendered pointless, insignificant, by the whir of a chickadee's wings.
Wassail, friends. And bon hiver.
Friday, September 30, 2011
No Other Path to Wisdom
(Note: This comes from Dave over at his Decline of the Empire blog (link provided at right). I read Dave's stuff on an almost daily basis, and while it is never a waste of time, a recent posting of his regarding the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests was particularly good, and gave me pause. I have lifted some paragraphs, giving the Red Font to lines I found especially noteworthy. -- Chris)
I am not going to belabor the point that nothing tangible will be accomplished. Eventually these protests will wither away, and our elite-ruled society will not have changed one iota. This is simply obvious, so there's no need to defend this view. Here at DOTE I refer to this kind of thing as Reality. Don't get confused about what is possible and what is not.
Then why do I say, agreeing with Salon's Glenn Greenwald, that personally, I think there's substantial value in these protests? Well, it's a lot like the difference between breathing and not breathing. The Wall Street protesters are alive, whereas most Americans are not. Most Americans I've known or met dwell among the Walking Dead. They sleepwalk through their miserable daily routine, clinging to this illusion or that, watching Fox News or The Daily Show, vaguely hoping tomorrow will be a better day. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Every two years, about half of them vote for Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum. I don't call that living. I call that incarceration. In Thoreau's famous phrase, these people endure lives of quiet desperation.
And what about the "successful" ones who presumably don't have miserable daily routines? The ones who benefit from the status quo? Those in the elite, or those who got prosperous serving them? Watch the money pile grow in the morning, hit the links at two, a dry martini with filet mignon in the clubhouse, and then off for some blow and Dom Perignon on Buffy's boat. Well, these assholes are in jail too, only they don't know it. They, too, are asleep. Deeply asleep.
In fact, the more "successful" a person is in this corrupt, unjust society, the more hopeless they are in my eyes. I do not say this out of some sort of pathetic envy for their social success or riches. I say this from a position of absolute contempt. So, you're a Big Winner in Dante's Inferno (above, left), you're the "hottest" guy in Hell! Congratulations! How many people did you step on to get to that exalted position?
If I'm going to talk with somebody, I'll choose an occupy Wall Street protester every time. Screw these so-called "successful" people, their casual immorality, their tedious conventional thinking, their self-serving or corn-pone opinions. They don't know anything important, and never will. They do not represent an ideal others should shoot for. Wisdom is born out of suffering. Success gets you nowhere. There is no other path to wisdom.
Protesting an absurdly corrupt, unjust society is not the only way of taking life seriously, of acheiving a critical passion for living that goes far beyond merely breathing or achieving conventional success. But it's one way, and a good way too if it's done consciously. I would certainly hope that those occupying Wall Street are not delusional, that they already know (or will soon learn) that such protests are futile as far as getting anything accomplished is concerned. The Empire is in Decline. The relentless March of History is not on their side (or ours).
However, practical results are not the only things that matter in life. Abandoning the stifling status quo makes psychological breakthroughs possible, and might (ultimately) give birth to a sense of humor (albeit dark humor) about the Human Predicament. This engenders some healthy contemplation of the meaning of life itself. Getting outside the box is liberating. I'm talking about aiming toward The Good Life, where you make your own choices and don't take shit from anyone, at least not if you can help it.
(Wassail, friends. -- C.)
I am not going to belabor the point that nothing tangible will be accomplished. Eventually these protests will wither away, and our elite-ruled society will not have changed one iota. This is simply obvious, so there's no need to defend this view. Here at DOTE I refer to this kind of thing as Reality. Don't get confused about what is possible and what is not.
Then why do I say, agreeing with Salon's Glenn Greenwald, that personally, I think there's substantial value in these protests? Well, it's a lot like the difference between breathing and not breathing. The Wall Street protesters are alive, whereas most Americans are not. Most Americans I've known or met dwell among the Walking Dead. They sleepwalk through their miserable daily routine, clinging to this illusion or that, watching Fox News or The Daily Show, vaguely hoping tomorrow will be a better day. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Every two years, about half of them vote for Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum. I don't call that living. I call that incarceration. In Thoreau's famous phrase, these people endure lives of quiet desperation.
And what about the "successful" ones who presumably don't have miserable daily routines? The ones who benefit from the status quo? Those in the elite, or those who got prosperous serving them? Watch the money pile grow in the morning, hit the links at two, a dry martini with filet mignon in the clubhouse, and then off for some blow and Dom Perignon on Buffy's boat. Well, these assholes are in jail too, only they don't know it. They, too, are asleep. Deeply asleep.
In fact, the more "successful" a person is in this corrupt, unjust society, the more hopeless they are in my eyes. I do not say this out of some sort of pathetic envy for their social success or riches. I say this from a position of absolute contempt. So, you're a Big Winner in Dante's Inferno (above, left), you're the "hottest" guy in Hell! Congratulations! How many people did you step on to get to that exalted position?
If I'm going to talk with somebody, I'll choose an occupy Wall Street protester every time. Screw these so-called "successful" people, their casual immorality, their tedious conventional thinking, their self-serving or corn-pone opinions. They don't know anything important, and never will. They do not represent an ideal others should shoot for. Wisdom is born out of suffering. Success gets you nowhere. There is no other path to wisdom.
Protesting an absurdly corrupt, unjust society is not the only way of taking life seriously, of acheiving a critical passion for living that goes far beyond merely breathing or achieving conventional success. But it's one way, and a good way too if it's done consciously. I would certainly hope that those occupying Wall Street are not delusional, that they already know (or will soon learn) that such protests are futile as far as getting anything accomplished is concerned. The Empire is in Decline. The relentless March of History is not on their side (or ours).
However, practical results are not the only things that matter in life. Abandoning the stifling status quo makes psychological breakthroughs possible, and might (ultimately) give birth to a sense of humor (albeit dark humor) about the Human Predicament. This engenders some healthy contemplation of the meaning of life itself. Getting outside the box is liberating. I'm talking about aiming toward The Good Life, where you make your own choices and don't take shit from anyone, at least not if you can help it.
(Wassail, friends. -- C.)
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