In Generations (1991), the archetypes are identified as Idealist, Reactive, Civic, and Adaptive. In The Fourth Turning (1997), the terminology shifted to Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. Steve Bannon’s high-profile promotion of The Fourth Turning brought renewed attention to the whole framework — especially around the topic of Crisis. Crisis, analysed from a reformist position far to the left of Bannon’s, Klein’s Shock Doctrine argument, stripped to its mechanism, is this: crisis — whether natural disaster, financial collapse, or war — creates a window of political unconsciousness in the affected population. People are disoriented, institutional memory is disrupted, normal democratic resistance is suspended. Into that window, prepared actors move with pre-written legislation, pre-positioned contracts, pre-selected beneficiaries. The crisis doesn’t have to be manufactured to be exploited — but manufacturing it is simply the logical refinement of the technique. Her examples: Pinochet’s ...
13/4 Practice cultivating bodhicitta—love of all beings including oneself—until the sky opens up as a parachute for everyone. But one that hasn’t a single shape or color and is omnidirectional. It is seemingly everything already and yet because it’s completely in the ‘now’ it’s thought to be ephemeral and nothing at all. It is us and not us, both that and not that, as well. Why then ask what color is your parachute? Better to have it open on its own and be surprised at its color. But what then if it never opens? Try to imagine that…hitting the ground from a great height. It’s OK. I’ve imaged that and didn’t physically die. This is similar to focusing on one’s being that is not a being nor a nonbeing. Then, gathering it all—one’s ontology—into a sum of experiences and stuffing it back into its parachute pack, imagining it as one’s primordial safety net. A security blanket your baby self has now outgrown. Consider this, has it been worth it? The pain versus the pleasure? Did ...