The Saeculum Cycles





High: Institutions (social, economic, and governing) are strong, and people tend to conform to the established order to push the society in a common direction. (Example: Post-World War II to the Kennedy Assassination.)

Awakening: Institutions are attacked in the name of personal freedom, usually right when social progress is at its zenith. Activists during this period tend to look back at the previous High as an era of cultural and spiritual poverty. (Example: the rise of modern Conservatism and the Hippie movement of the 60s and 70s)

Unraveling: Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong. Unraveling are defined by social and economic decadence. (Example: The 1980s all the way through the middle of the second Bush Administration)

Crisis: The period where the shit hits the fan. All the decadence and irresponsibility of the previous cycle leads to a collapse of the social, economic, and political institutions people take for granted. The last time this happened was between 1929 and 1945. We’re in the middle of the latest one right now. During the crisis institutions are rebuilt and society identifies the common enemy threatening its survival, leading to a new High.



Prophet: People who are born into a High and grow up self absorbed and indulgent only to attack the institutions that helped them prosper during an Awakening, and become morally self righteous later in life. (The Baby Boomers)

Nomad: The generation that grew up in the shadow of the narcissism of the Prophet generation and become alienated nihilistic adults before growing more pragmatic later in life. (Gen-Xers)

Hero: The kids that grew up during a period of decadence only to watch it all come crumbling down. This makes them team oriented and intrinsically optimistic about their ability to change things. (Millenials and the Lost Generation.)

Artist: The generation that grows up during a Crisis and become committed to building new institutions. They’re more willing than previous generations to sacrifice for the greater good. (Gen-Z and the Greatest Generation).



The Economic Cycles



The Convergence of the Cycles





New Progressives





White Nationalists

Conflict



I'm thinking of adding a new page to the wikia and going into detail about something that's been on my mind for a while now: a period of civil unrest in America during the 2020s.I've alluded to there being instances of violence by right-wing nationalists and neo-Nazis during the 2020s of the Second Renaissance, but I've never really elaborated on it because, I've kinda been scared of thinking about the depths of the horror we're in for in the coming decade. But I'm reaching a point where I can't not think about it. So buckle up because this is going to be one of my longer posts detailing what I think is leading to what I'm calling the American Troubles.First we must identify the contributing factors to the present and impending economic and social upheaval. This will require identifying phenomena at the root of American culture, longstanding socio-economic trends impacting the world, and the political situation that has ultimately stemmed from it.There is a phenomena in American history that emerges as two great cycles of history: The first being the, lasting roughly 80 years or a human lifetime. Within theare four 20 year generational cycles marked by the emergence of a generation's political culture upon entering adulthood. The second cycle is the 50 year Economic cycle that marks the emergence of a generation's position as the primary economic driver and the retirement of another generation from that position. These cycles contribute to fairly predictable generational archetypes, and are punctuated by crises. Please see the Strauss–Howe generational theory for details on the Saeculum cycle, and the Next 100 Years by George Friedman for a deeper examination of the economic cycles, as I'll be using terminology from both.As stated before, Saeculum cycles tend to end with the death of the bulk of the generation that lived through the last Saeculum crisis, and leads to a major social upheaval that can potentially threaten the survival of the government. The simplest explanation I can give of this is that it is one thing to know that the Holocaust or the Great Depression happened, it is quite another to be told about the look in the eyes of those liberated at Auschwitz or not being able to eat lunch one winter by your grandparents who were actually there. Human beings really haven't changed that much, and there is a lot of power in the words of respected elders. When you lose those elders, their warnings and lessons fade and mistakes new and old emerge.Now, it should be noted that there are approximately 3 maybe 4 examples of this in America's relatively short history, which is why I've been hesitant to adopt this theory into the timeline. But, the 3 known examples, in descending order are: World War II, the Civil War, the Revolution, and the beginning of the Enlightenment. Two of these cases were major social upheavals, but the other two were the result of international events largely unconnected to the internal politics of the US, with the Enlightenment seeing no violence to speak of; however one could make an argument that the Second World War establishes that the Saeculum Cycles impact Western Civilization as a whole, and not just the US. I would argue that while that has some merit, the US absolutely faced social calamity in the early 1940s, in part resulting from the Great Depression which had not been fully resolved by 1941, and had created the social upheval to allow for fascist and communist movements to emerge in America. It was only by the unifying threat of global war that the US was able to essentially combat these internal problems with an external enemy.However you may feel about the validity or consistency of the Saeculum Cycles, they are four distinct minor cycles:Each minor cycle has its own Generational Archetypes, which are as follows:Every 50 years or so one generation ascends to being the dominant economic force as their parents and grandparents retire leading to a crisis as the economic order breaks down. In 1980 the Greatest Generation retired and the Baby Boomers ascended, before that it was the Lost Generation that ascended in the 1930s, as the Generation born just prior to the American Civil War retired, and so on. In 2030 or so, Millennials will be in their 40s and 50s and will ascend as the Boomers retire. As we saw in the 1970s, or the Long Depression of the 1870s, the period leading up to tipping point of the economic cycle can itself be a prolonged crisis, rather than a singular instance. I would argue that this is true for every cycle, because while 1929 is typically placed as the beginning of the Great Depression, that was only true if you lived in urban areas. For poor farmers, the dust bowl and the contraction of available capital began the depression much earlier. The tipping point is not the point when the situation goes bad, the tipping point is when the situation becomes intolerable. So for those of you who think the economic conditions of America in the 2010s were stressful or just unsatisfactory, the next decade will get worse before things get better. The tipping point, tends to feature a fairly major change in economic policy, ala Reaganomics, the New Deal, the end of Reconstruction (really Sherman's economic policies under Hayes), Jacksonianism, and the Revolution.We are in one of the most unique periods in American history where a Saeculum and Economic cycle are ending at the same time. To put that into perspective, the last three Saeculum ended with World War II, the Civil War, and the American Revolution. The last economic cycles ended with the Stagflation crisis, the Great Depression, the Long Depression, the Panic of 1819, and the American Revolution. This will be the first time since our country was founded that the two great cycles will end at the same time. That should make everyone just a little nervous. We are seeing the end of the world created by the Lost Generation and the Greatest Generation, as well as the collapse of the economic system established by the Reagan administration; and the serious of the end of these cycles cannot be understated. What we're seeing right now with a widening wealth gap, the disintegration of the purchasing power of the middle class, and the emergence of ultra-right wing and/or "White Nationalist" groups are fore-shocks to the impending crisis. In both cycles there is also a breakdown in ideology, a loss of faith in the political and economic theories that have governed people's worldview. You're seeing this today with the rejection of the elites/experts, and in some cases an outright rejection of the principles of democracy itself. President Trump and his supporters for example, either reject the popular vote results in 2016 election, or go so far as to claim that its a good thing that the popular vote doesn't decide the President in the first place. An extension of this belief extends to the Republican party's fanatical defense of gerrymandered districts that force Democrats to win by double digit margins in a state just to win a simple majority of its seats in Congress. I expect this rejection of democratic principles to get worse in the 2020s, and combined by an economy that is likely to make the wealth gap even more pronounced and the middle class standard of living an unsustainable fantasy, it is not difficult to imagine violence emerging in the United States.I am not willing to go so far as to claim that we will see a Second American Revolution or Civil War, more likely we'll see two new trends: A New Progressive Era, which I've covered in my Great Reset posts, and the titular subject of this piece: The American Troubles.We are already seeing the beginnings of the divide in American society that could very well lead to a period of violence and social upheaval: one one side you have the Progressive wing of the Democratic party, on the other the White Nationalist wing of the Republican Party. These will not be Bernie Sanders' or Donald Trump's movement's anymore; they'll be taking on life as much more radical incarnations of what those two old men began.The Progressive wing of the Democrats will take on a life of their own as a more egalitarian entity that is far more skeptical of modern capitalism than previous generations. Its still not a truly coherent entity, but it is more united than it is to the Democratic party itself. By the 2020s we're likely to see the ideology of this new Progressive movement emerge in earnest; don't expect them to call themselves Democratic-Socialists, they're more likely to claim affiliation with entirely new ideology (which like every new ideology, will take pieces of older ideas and unify them under a new perspective). These groups will push for reforms in the 2020s at the state and local level, and they'll have some success, probably going so far as to attempt constitutional reforms. But their real moment of victory will come with the election of either 2028 or 2032 where they'll push for major reforms at all levels of government and American society. Don't think Universal Healthcare, or raising taxes a little bit, think Nationalized Healthcare, Banking, and Housing; think changes to the legal code that allow for multiple accusations of sexual misconduct or racist behavior to be admissible as character evidence in court; think government administration reforms where whole departments are replaced with project management AIs; and of course think large-scale immigration reform to make it much easier for people to attain citizenship.Don't just think Neo-Nazis or even Neo-Confederates (though there will certainly be plenty of both), the real threat will come from groups that today aren't all that militant. Homogenized, religious communities, suburban gun owners, and rural workers in agriculture, manufacturing, and mining. These are overwhelmingly white, male, protestant, and lower-middle class groups, who's livelihoods have been eroded by contemporary economic policy, and who also believe their culture is being eroded by contemporary social policies, particularly with regard to immigration and the more equal treatment of women in society. Don't think of these people as just actively hating women, gays, immigrants, ethnic minorities, etc. for the sake of hating them, but rather the fact that they feel resentful that other groups seem to be succeeding while people that look like them seem to struggling more than they used to; and in their minds capitalist economics is a zero sum game: if "other people" are doing well, that means less opportunities for white men. You see this argument pop up a lot when Trump and his ilk try to defend high employment but low wages by stating that labor is cheaper now that women have joined the workforce. These groups could become a problem if Trump is unseated in 2020, but it may be more likely that they fester for a few more years and don't become a real threat until the next crisis really emerges.There is one important point to remember about the White Nationalists and how much of a threat they can be by the time of the next convergent crisis: they are the minority. Non-Hispanic white men make up about 30% of the US right now, or around 100 Million people. The fighting age population of this group will be around by 2030 (55% will be considered "working age, over 20 and under 64) so around 55 million people. Then you have to consider ideology, and an actual willingness to fight. About half could be considered moderately liberal, another quarter would casually support rebel groups but not actually pick up arms and join them, so that leaves a hypothetical rebel White Nationalist "Nation" of around 13 million people. Not small by any means, but not geographically unified either. They're also poorer, less educated, and have a higher elderly dependency ratio than other demographics, meaning they can't source arms or dedicate as much of their population to combat as readily as the more diverse and faster growing portion of the country. So we're more likely to see an American ISIS with territory spread out like a spider's web than a coherent government with control of a geographically defensible region or even a group of states. But make no mistake these people will be dangerous, they will be armed, and they will likely be a defining threat to America in the 2020s and 30s, especially as new pro-immigration policies are adopted to make up for the drop off in productivity from an increasingly elderly dependent population.These groups will start out fairly widespread, but not coherently connected, with seemingly random instances of violence against the government and immigrant populations around the country, but the most dangerous groups are likely to emerge in corridors of rural Ohio-Indiana, Alabama-Mississippi, and Iowa-Nebraska-Kansas. The worst violence at the start will be in the California, Texas, and Arizona where immigrant groups will be entering the country in large numbers, but the states they'll be fighting in will be overwhelmingly opposed to these groups and too important for the government to tolerate their actions, so you could see some Waco-style raids on militia groups in these states early on, but those in the "Heartland" will have more local support and a perceived reason to fight. They will actually be less combative than their allies in the coastal and southwestern states, but will become more militant as more reforms are brought forward by the Progressive government. There may be an attempt to create a kind of "Heartland Republic," but these groups will functionally be on their own, facing confrontations with local law enforcement, National Guard and possibly even US Special Forces. At this point its difficult to characterize the period of conflict beyond, "It's gonna be ugly, but it will end." Its not impossible to imagine a White Nationalist Group raiding a statehouse or even winning a contested election in one state and declaring independence, or groups of said domestic terrorists attacking far outside their "home territory," possibly against Washington itself, with likely no strategic success but plenty of perceived success to their supporters and opposition. But, Americans tend to rally together in the face of such a clearly visible foe, as do all humans really, and the White Nationalists may very do more to assure the destruction of their way of life by fighting than if they continued formal political resistance.The coming crisis will be the most transformative period in US history, and will redefine how America sees itself, but it many ways it is just the inevitable conclusion of easily the most significant trend in human history: the end of Agrarianism. Every cultural institution from education, family structures, to every major religion all stems from Agrarian social norms. If a society needs a lot of farmers, it needs a lot of children because farming is a career that does not generate a lot of capital for social services and kids can help care for a family's elderly, and children can start doing work on a farm fairly early in life, making them economic engines. However, any society dependent on the birthing of large numbers of children (because many are likely to die in a society with inadequate access to healthcare) is by its vary nature repressive, and patriarchal. Women are burdened with producing and caring for offspring, while men are free to work. Without going into detail, this is basically why so many cultures are obsessed with male lineages, chastity, and hetero-normative behavior. However, during the enlightenment something incredible happened: humans started to make more food without needing nearly as many people. This led to a large population that could focus more on careers that further advanced quality of life, which further reduced the need for an agrarian class, and so on. The Industrial Revolution kicked this trend into high gear, and the information age has left menial labor the least attractive career on the table, and made children the greatest source of conspicuous consumption.The next crisis won't be tied to agriculture, and both sides won't even acknowledge that this way of life is ultimately what they're fighting over, but rest assured this will be the defining cause of the next battle for the soul of America, and indeed will drive the political confrontation we'll see in every developed nation going forward. The aftermath will lead to a country that is more diverse and less patriarchal, with family groups that today are seen at best as unusual subcultures, and at worst a social taboo. The next crisis end with a reversal of the Reagan Revolution: more diverse and decentralized social order and a more centralized government. I remain an hopeless optimist, and feel that the Republic will be reborn from this era stronger than it was before, and a better America will come about from the hardship we've yet to face.