Is this a Fourth Turning?

The New Neo Posted on by

Hmmmm:

It was all prophesied in 1997 in Neil Howe and William Strauss’ “The Fourth Turning,” and, depending on who you ask, it was either a breakthrough in “generational theory,” a strange work of pseudo-science, or both.

In the book, Neil and Strauss — who cowrote several books on generational theory, following careers in Washington DC-area consulting circles — argue that history moves in 80-year cycles that stretch back thousands of years to the ancient Greeks. Why 80 years? Because each cycle roughly corresponds to the length of one long human life, what the Etruscans ritualized and the Romans called a “saeculum”…

The end of the saeculum 9 is the 20-year period that represents the “winter” stage of the cycle. Howe and Strauss called this “the fourth turning,” when the hero generation, entering young adulthood, faces off against the prophet generation that is entering elderhood…

Howe and Strauss saw the climax coming around 2020 and the resolution, including a “Great Devaluation” as the economy is entirely restructured for a new set of circumstances, around 2026.

“History is seasonal, and winter is coming,” they wrote…

Warning that “a sudden spark will catalyze a crisis mood,” Howe and Strauss said that “[r]emnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire.”

Sometime before 2025, they wrote, “America will pass through a great gate in history” and “the very survival of the nation will feel at stake.”

I think there’s at least something to the theory, although how much I credit it I haven’t decided. I do know that the last two paragraphs of the above quote feel like a pretty good description of 2020 so far, including the bit about the “sudden spark.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute – You ain’t heard nothin yet”

The New Neo Posted on by

If you didn’t know the history of this clip, you probably wouldn’t think it at all extraordinary. But it’s Al Jolson in “The Jazz Singer,” uttering the first line ever spoken in the movies.

The audience was stunned. And I think that one of the best things about it is the joke – “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” until now!

Jolson’s energy is extraordinary, very different from anything you see today. He had quite the hip swivel, too, back in 1927.

This is the sort of thing that explains why the left hates Trump with the heat of a thousand suns, and must destroy him

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump dares to go there:

President Donald Trump said Friday he is asking the Treasury Department to review the tax-exempt status of universities and school systems, suggesting in a tweet that too many were about “Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education.”

Trump also said he would have their funding revoked “if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues.”

“Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!” he wrote.

I am actually in awe of this. It is exactly where the fight must be carried. I don’t think this move of Trump’s will actually work – although I wish it would, because the universities do not deserve their tax-exempt status, having utterly forfeited their stance as objective seekers of truth and defenders of freedom of expression and having become propagandists for the worst excesses of the left. But whether it works or not, Trump has named what is happening and he has done what the left is usually so adept at doing – moving the Overton Window.

I don’t even think that Trump thinks this particular action would succeed at this point. However, what he and the right need to do is to let people know that the rot in the universities is one of the main causes of the turmoil and riots and craziness that have been going on for the last six weeks or so – as well as of the more longterm cancel culture and the furious debunking of history, of the Enlightenment, and of western civilization itself.

He needs to keep saying this, because that is the real war. The 2020 election is only one battle in it.

Biden, the blank screen candidate

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Barry Meislin” writes of Joe Biden:

Biden, in his current, quasi-vegetative state is merely the next logical step up from Obama’s description of himself as a “blank screen on which people…project their own views”…

And it is precisely his blankness that so many fervently hope and pray will “catch the conscience of the king”.

On the other hand it may be going to far to even refer to Biden as “Blankness Visible”.

It seems far more likely that he’s trending more in the direction of a speech-impaired, not-even vague Chance the Gardener appearing in a highly touted but hugely underwhelming sequel called “Being (Not All) There”.

I think all of that is true. In some ways it’s a brilliant move on the part of the left – because I doubt it’s a strategy of Biden himself. More likely Obama and others have come up with it.

Initially they were faced with a large group of candidates from which to draw, as well as an opposing candidate (Trump) whom they had successfully demonized with a huge swath of the American public. Not a bad position for the left.

But it didn’t go as planned. None of the interest-group darlings of the left caught on with enough people to become a leader. Biden was nowhere, bringing up if not the rear then close to the rear. But the left didn’t care about that because he didn’t fit the bill in the least; they thought he was a loser, an old white guy, and he certainly hadn’t historically been on the left anyway.

Over time, though, a leader finally emerged, and it was Bernie Sanders. Oh, no! Another old white guy, this time a Jewish one – not the demographic they had in mind. What’s worse, he was unashamedly on the left and always had been. They were afraid that, because of Sanders’ up-front leftism, if he was their nominee he would lose to Trump, and that could not be borne.

Who was left by that time who had any chance of beating Trump? The only one turned out to be Biden, because of his history as Obama the Great’s vice president. It was actually Obama, you may remember, who then issued a warning that Sanders was too extreme to be the party’s candidate. Biden remained, and although he was not one of the original candidates of choice, he was now the candidate by default.

And yet, over time, as his slide into dementia became more clear, and as COVID and the resultant lockdown reared their ugly heads, the strategy emerged: expose Biden as little as possible, protect him at all costs, lean on the Obama legacy and the idea of returning to better days, and send messages to the voters on the left that people other than Biden himself would actually be in charge of policy and those people would be of the far left.

Quite brilliant, actually. It might even win. Biden’s fading mental capacity has been turned into a feature of sorts, rather than a bug.

However, the very odd thing about Biden’s current stance as a blank screen is that, unlike Obama in 2008 (who initially projected himself as a blank screen), Biden’s been in the public eye for over 40 years as a very prominent politician. And people (outside of Delaware) have consistently rejected him on the basis of the lengthy record of mediocrity coupled with mendacity and just plain ickiness that he’s amassed.

Now in his dotage, as his mind fades, Biden is being recast by his helpers as a newly-blank screen. It’s surpassingly odd and it might even work. It’s like the plot of a bad movie, and yet it’s real.

!968 vs. today

The New Neo Posted on by

As Kathy Shaidle writes in her discussion of the life of Valerie Solanas, the woman who wrote an anti-male manifesto and then came very close to murdering Andy Warhol in that annus horribilis 1968:

Yesterday’s mental illness is today’s social policy.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Solanas was recently featured in a New York Times article that said:

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas walked into Andy Warhol’s studio, the Factory, with a gun and a plan to enact vengeance. What happened next came to define her life and legacy: She fired at Warhol, nearly killing him. The incident reduced her to a tabloid headline, but also drew attention to her writing, which is still read in some women’s and gender studies courses today.

I was in college at the time, and I remember my own reaction to the story of Solanas and Warhol, as well as much of the turmoil of the late-60s. I was having my own personal turmoil, which involved trying to decide what I should do with the rest of my life (temporarily resolved in my case by going to law school, which was really no resolution at all) but in particular included dealing with the fact that my boyfriend was in combat in Vietnam during the year 1968-1969. For me the personal and the political intersected, as it often does, and other events of that year were also so dramatic and so disturbing that Solanas was only a distant footnote that didn’t have much meaning to me except that I thought what happened was a fringe event at the hands of an insane person.

I’ve been thinking about the late-60s more and more often these days, for obvious reasons. As Shaidle writes, “2020 more and more resembles 1968 but with worse music.” That’s a true line and a funny one. But the parallel is also serious, and although I agree with it up to a point, here’s why I depart from it: the difference between then and now is the successful 50-year Gramscian march in-between, ironically (or inevitably?) accomplished by many people from that same fringe of terrorists turned educators and cultural “leaders” who have instructed generations of young people to follow their ideologies and have spread and mainstreamed them.

Back then, the crazies and revolutionaries and assassins and the like were on the outside, and the vast vast majority of people and institutions in the country did not support them. Yes, the antiwar protests were large, but when the draft died and Nixon initiated troop withdrawals and Vietnamization, the protests died down too.

Indeed, 1968 and 2020 resemble each other except for the music. But it’s like the difference between a pennywhistle and a Wagnerian opera.

Judge “Ahab” Sullivan keeps aiming his harpoon at General “Moby Dick” Flynn

The New Neo Posted on by

It is no surprise that Judge Sullivan filed for a full en banc hearing by the DC Circuit Court on the Flynn case rather than comply with the order of the three-judge panel to get off Flynn’s back.

No, no surprise at all. In several previous posts, I’ve compared Sullivan to Captain Ahab, and yesterday’s announcement is further indication that the analogy is pretty apropos. That doesn’t mean that Sullivan is acting on his own; I believe there are plenty of leftists/Democrats supporting him and guiding him in this noble endeavor. His crew, as it were: “To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

My prediction now? I think the court will grant the hearing, and I think there’s a good chance – because of the political makeup of the court, which is heavy with Democrats – that they will side with Sullivan. That’s a travesty of justice, but we see a great deal of that these days, don’t we?

I hope I’m wrong. I’d like to feel a little less cynicism. But as I wrote here Wednesday:

If the ruling went against Flynn, such a decision would be an especially egregious case of going against the settled law in order to effect a political end. But the temptation to do it would be great, in order to continue to stick it to Flynn, silence him, and continue the “narrative” that it’s Barr’s actions that have been politically motivated.

And, since most of America is unaware of the details of the case and how Flynn was mistreated and framed, it would probably work. I hope the judges show more integrity than that. But recent trends make it a very real question as to whether they will.

[NOTE: If Trump loses the election in November, once he leaves office and becomes a private citizen I believe that the Democrats will continue and even step up their lawfare efforts against him, thus continuing to transition us to full banana republic.]

[ADDENDUM: Please see this for more information about procedures in the Sullivan/Flynn case.]

Late start to posting today

The New Neo Posted on by

Sorry about the late start.

I had a lovely night last night. It featured a pretty severe gall bladder attack. That may be Too Much Information, but let me just say this is a rather new affliction for me, one I wouldn’t want to wish on anyone. Intense pain in exactly the place where the gall bladder is, and various other symptoms on the list.

At least I know what I think caused it, a rare treat that will become even more rare in my life from now on – a salami sandwich.

One good thing about gall bladder attacks is that, as bad as the pain is when they’re in progress, once they’re over with the pain goes away almost instantaneously. Odd, that; almost like flipping a light switch.

Seattle dispatchers, police, and violence: does anyone have statistics on this?

The New Neo Posted on by

At a City Council meeting in Seattle recently:

The types of 911 calls that Seattle police respond to most are reported disturbances, suspicious circumstances, parking issues, public assistance needs and car crashes, accounting for 41% of all calls. Those are mostly noncriminal issues…

“We believe 911 dispatch should be removed from SPD control,” partly because armed police responding to calls too often leads to killings of Black people, said Angélica Cházaro, a representative from Decriminalize Seattle invited to present to the council’s budget committee Wednesday. “911 calls should be referred, whenever appropriate, to non-police responders.”

So let me get this straight – a non-police dispatcher will decide whether a call needs police intervention or whether the response should be from some other agency. To do that, the dispatcher must evaluate the likelihood of violence in the situation. There is the possibility of two types of error: sending police when it’s not needed and needlessly escalating the situation into violence that would not otherwise have occurred, or failure to send police which therefore results in some sort of violence that would otherwise have been stopped by police.

I suppose the results could be evaluated after the new methods have been tried for a while, comparing statistics before and after. My guess is that more violence would occur rather than less.

Also, I’d love to see how often in Seattle “armed police responding to calls…leads to killings of Black people,” when the calls are of the seemingly nonviolent type. In other words, how often last year in Seattle were black people (or any other people – if we can pretend for a moment that all lives actually matter) killed by police in situations in which the initial call was about a non-violent matter?

My guess is that the number is exceedingly small. Does anyone know?

Coleman Hughes on Black Lives Matter – and the election

The New Neo Posted on by

The following is a great video – until the end, when he says he plans to vote for Biden (34:35):

How can Hughes say he will vote for Biden after spending about a half hour arguing against the premises of the Democratic Party, and adding that he doesn’t find Biden “inspiring”? His tepid reason – that Biden can beat Trump, and that Biden is “incredibly boring,” which is how he wants his presidents to be – is not only unconvincing, but to me it’s not even on the money, unlike nearly everything else Hughes says in the video.

Among other things, although Biden has always been dumb and wrong, he’s always also been quirky, an individual given to colorful stories and braggadocio, not unlike the things that Hughes probably detests in the Trump style. Biden still has those characteristics on occasion, and watching him is about as “boring” as watching a slow motion train wreck. Strange outbursts can happen at any moment – “dog-faced pony soldier”; “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” and so many others. And Biden has become the soul of identity politics (including his early announcement of the criteria for his VP pick), something Hughes seems to detest.

So why on earth is Hughes determined to vote for Biden, and more than willing to say so four months prior to the election? I can’t say I expected Hughes to say he would vote for Trump. What I expected him to say was that he’s not keen on either candidate, but that’s it’s still quite some time before the election and many things have yet to happen that could be relevant. Instead, he wasted no time in saying he was voting for Biden.

Looking back, I think the key to why he said that is twofold. First, don’t underestimate the revulsion a very cerebral and calm person such as Hughes might have to someone perceived as non-cerebral and impulsive, such as Trump. Second, the clue comes when Hughes is asked about affirmative action, and he says he would consider affirmative action based on finances. He’s talking about a color-blind but not needs-blind affirmative action, in which standards are lowered and different criteria used for the admission of someone whose family and/or community has less money.

To me, although that has some intuitive attractiveness, it’s another trap that leads to a bad outcome, and is inherently unjust. Why “unjust”? Because it’s another example of the quest for cosmic justice, a quest Thomas Sowell describes and then demolishes in his book The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Simply put, that is an impossible quest to fulfill. We cannot make such decisions because we don’t know enough. And in our attempts to pursue that goal, we inevitably commit other injustices – for example, a child of rich parents may be up against myriad other obstacles in life that we cannot measure and cannot know (abuse from parents or siblings, just to take one example, or serious depression, or a host of other issues that do not appear on his or her application). The other problem is the same one that all efforts at affirmative action face: that of possible poor fit of student to school, which only goes to hurt the person who is the supposed beneficiary of the program.

The fact that Hughes still potentially favors some sort of affirmative action indicates to me that he has not abandoned the quest for cosmic justice. It’s understandable, because brilliant though he is he still is very young, and because that quest is incredibly difficult to give up. It is so well-intentioned that it is seductive – if only we could finally get it right! But we can’t, and we must “first, do no harm” in the meantime.

So it follows, I suppose, that Hughes also cannot give up some of the dreams that seem to be what the Democrats continue to mouth. And that results in a rejection of Trump and the hopes that Biden won’t be too bad, and that empowering the Democrats somehow won’t be the disaster it promises to be. If someone as brilliant as Hughes can come to this conclusion, it frightens me.