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Silents vs Boomers
#1
Are these two generations really separate? Or were the Silents just Boomers born to early for the 60s awakening?

There is (or was) a lot of countercultural Silents. Lennon was born in 1940, Mick Jagger in 1943. Osho Rajneesh and Anthony de Mello in the early 1930s. All of these heavily promoted values associated with the boomers. On the other hand I'm not sure there are any quintessential Silent ideas. Unless lack of interest in Grand Ideas is a Silent trait?

As for leadership style, I think Berlusconi (1936) was very similar to Trump, although I still think Trump's leadership style is more Reactive. Likewise, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber was more like an Xer. His (quite accurate IMO) analysis of Leftist psychology predates gen X criticism of political correctness, but is essentially the same thing. I also saw Charles Manson described as a proto-Xer by someone on this board.

There are seemingly lots of proto-Boomers and some proto-Xers, but where are all the typically Artistic Silents? Couldn't ours be a cycle with no Artistic generation at all, and a 30-year-long (1930-60) prophetic generation?
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#2
(12-30-2018, 11:30 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Are these two generations really separate? Or were the Silents just Boomers born to early for the 60s awakening?

There is (or was) a lot of countercultural Silents. Lennon was born in 1940, Mick Jagger in 1943. Osho Rajneesh and Anthony de Mello in the early 1930s. All of these heavily promoted values associated with the boomers. On the other hand I'm not sure there are any quintessential Silent ideas. Unless lack of interest in Grand Ideas is a Silent trait?

Martin Luther King? Malcolm X? Louis Farrakhan? Jesse Jackson? Of course if one was black one had plenty to be upset about during the American High. There were cult leaders Marshall Applewhite, Jim Jones, and above all Charles Manson.

The Silent operated in the shadow of the GIs, at least in the US. Maybe people outside the US could be dissidents if part of the ethnic and religious majority (Havel? Brodsky? Yevtushenko?) Adaptive types are more likely to seek to mitigate things than topple them.

Quote:As for leadership style, I think Berlusconi (1936) was very similar to Trump, although I still think Trump's leadership style is more Reactive. Likewise, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber was more like an Xer. His (quite accurate IMO) analysis of Leftist psychology predates gen X criticism of political correctness, but is essentially the same thing. I also saw Charles Manson described as a proto-Xer by someone on this board.

There are seemingly lots of proto-Boomers and some proto-Xers, but where are all the typically Artistic Silents? Couldn't ours be a cycle with no Artistic generation at all, and a 30-year-long (1930-60) prophetic generation?

Trump and Kaczynski are pathological characters. Trump is simply a horrible person with Reactive coarseness (a potty mouth that would put Harry S Truman to shame) and an exaggerated lust for money rare among the successful. I've met some rich kids who are down-to-Earth. Truly successful people either have little time for flamboyant indulgence because they are more intent on making money doing what they do best or seek to go into the Maslovian realm of self-actualization.

Kaczynski seems to have Asperger-like symptoms and much rage. The only virtue that I can see in him is a rejection of materialism.

The PC stuff is itself ludicrous. At best it is bromide; at worst it is an attempt to make Orwellian lies out of words themselves. That is one 3T trend already dying.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#3
(12-30-2018, 12:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Martin Luther King? Malcolm X? Louis Farrakhan? Jesse Jackson? Of course if one was black one had plenty to be upset about during the American High. There were cult leaders Marshall Applewhite, Jim Jones, and above all Charles Manson.

Again, all those black leaders seem to operate within a framework very similar to the boomer one. The same for Applewhite and Jones. Proto-boomers. Heaven's Gate was essentially an exercise in New Age extremism, and nothing is more Boomerish than New Age.

Quote:Adaptive types are more likely to seek to mitigate things than topple them.

This is perhaps the most important thing in your post. Silents wanted to mitigate whatever the GIs caused, Boomers to topple the whole GI world.

What about the past Artists? Were the Progressives proto-Missionaries as well?
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#4
(12-30-2018, 01:31 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(12-30-2018, 12:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Martin Luther King? Malcolm X? Louis Farrakhan? Jesse Jackson? Of course if one was black one had plenty to be upset about during the American High. There were cult leaders Marshall Applewhite, Jim Jones, and above all Charles Manson.

Again, all those black leaders seem to operate within a framework very similar to the boomer one. The same for Applewhite and Jones. Proto-boomers. Heaven's Gate was essentially an exercise in New Age extremism, and nothing is more Boomerish than New Age.

Quote:Adaptive types are more likely to seek to mitigate things than topple them.

This is perhaps the most important thing in your post. Silents wanted to mitigate whatever the GIs caused, Boomers to topple the whole GI world.

What about the past Artists? Were the Progressives proto-Missionaries as well?

If I recall the discussion of Adaptive/Artist generations in Howe and Strauss i see attempts to escape the strictures of the culturally-limiting society that immediately follows a Crisis. The cultural consensus sets in rapidly and becomes rigid. The Artist generation can at most seek to challenge the boundaries on an ad hoc basis, which may imply the unthreatening whimsy that I recognize in such songs as "mister Sandman" and "Puff, the Magic Dragon" or exploiting a concern of the time such as juvenile delinquency (let boys be boys and let them grow out of it) or poverty (expand opportunity).

Blacks were ahead of the curve on the generational cycle because of racism that kept black people from full participation in the economic and cultural mainstream. Due to the context in which they lived, they were right.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#5
(12-30-2018, 11:30 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Are these two generations really separate? Or were the Silents just Boomers born to early for the 60s awakening?

There is (or was) a lot of countercultural Silents. Lennon was born in 1940, Mick Jagger in 1943. Osho Rajneesh and Anthony de Mello in the early 1930s. All of these heavily promoted values associated with the boomers. On the other hand I'm not sure there are any quintessential Silent ideas. Unless lack of interest in Grand Ideas is a Silent trait?

As for leadership style, I think Berlusconi (1936) was very similar to Trump, although I still think Trump's leadership style is more Reactive. Likewise, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber was more like an Xer. His (quite accurate IMO) analysis of Leftist psychology predates gen X criticism of political correctness, but is essentially the same thing. I also saw Charles Manson described as a proto-Xer by someone on this board.

There are seemingly lots of proto-Boomers and some proto-Xers, but where are all the typically Artistic Silents? Couldn't ours be a cycle with no Artistic generation at all, and a 30-year-long (1930-60) prophetic generation?

At any given time, all four archetypes will be present in every cohort, because all four are tied, not just to the cultural moment, but also to genetic traits.  Given that, the generational archetype is merely the dominant one at that time, creating the underlying ethos of the era.  I'm a true Boomer, but many of the people I knew when I was young were very different from me.  Some might be called throw-backs -- more like older siblings, cousins or family friends.  Some were legitimately different: Civics and Nomads, well before or after those traits should be expected.  Some of the Civics died in Vietnam after volunteering to go.  

And regarding the lack of Artist types: I can't see that at all.  We didn't have an explosion of art and music in the 1960s from young Boomers, after all.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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#6
(12-31-2018, 07:22 AM)David Horn Wrote: And regarding the lack of Artist types: I can't see that at all.  We didn't have an explosion of art and music in the 1960s from young Boomers, after all.

Yes, the explosion of good music in the Millennial cycle (lasting from late 60s to early 2000s) will be probably remembered as the "golden age of rock". And it might be true that the Silents inspired it.
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#7
(12-31-2018, 09:21 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(12-31-2018, 07:22 AM)David Horn Wrote: And regarding the lack of Artist types: I can't see that at all.  We didn't have an explosion of art and music in the 1960s from young Boomers, after all.

Yes, the explosion of good music in the Millennial cycle (lasting from late 60s to early 2000s) will be probably remembered as the "golden age of rock". And it might be true that the Silents inspired it.

Yes, and the golden age of rock was pretty much over by the early 1980s (and started earlier, in the mid-60s not the late 60s). The Silents, mostly late wave/Boomer cuspers, led by The Beatles and company, the folk and folk-rock artists like Bob Dylan and Donovan, and the Motown sound artists, certainly led the way. But rock certainly continued into the 2000s, and sometimes it was even listenable (though later rock was sometimes deliberately ugly and revolting). Now, pop music can be described as innocuous cookie cutter when it is not downright annoying.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#8
(12-30-2018, 11:30 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Are these two generations really separate? Or were the Silents just Boomers born to early for the 60s awakening?

There is (or was) a lot of countercultural Silents. Lennon was born in 1940, Mick Jagger in 1943. Osho Rajneesh and Anthony de Mello in the early 1930s. All of these heavily promoted values associated with the boomers. On the other hand I'm not sure there are any quintessential Silent ideas. Unless lack of interest in Grand Ideas is a Silent trait?

As for leadership style, I think Berlusconi (1936) was very similar to Trump, although I still think Trump's leadership style is more Reactive. Likewise, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber was more like an Xer. His (quite accurate IMO) analysis of Leftist psychology predates gen X criticism of political correctness, but is essentially the same thing. I also saw Charles Manson described as a proto-Xer by someone on this board.

There are seemingly lots of proto-Boomers and some proto-Xers, but where are all the typically Artistic Silents? Couldn't ours be a cycle with no Artistic generation at all, and a 30-year-long (1930-60) prophetic generation?


I can't relate to the comments about Kaczynski or Manson, but the Silent Generation was a typical Artist Generation. It did produce a lot of artists, although not as many as the one born circa 1770 in Europe, but then the USA is not a society that values artists. But in other respects they were very typical. Strauss and Howe described them as an inheritor generation, benefiting from the institutions their civic forebears expanded and preserved. They are, they said, the most credentialed generation ever. Artists are Adaptives, which means they adapt to being repressed in childhood by being silent in youth, and then go through a mid-life crisis (which the Silent Generation may have invented) or otherwise become more activist in mid-life during an awakening, in which they mentor youthful and spirited prophets. Since then though they are stick-in-the-mud conservatives bent on protecting their position. So they did not become prophetic leaders as elders, but went silent again, and that's why it was a 3T and not a 4T.

Lack of grand ideas is indeed a Silent trait, according to S&H. They note especially that any Silent person does not like their theories. Silents don't like theories and big ideas, because they relate to people as individuals and relate with feelings more than ideas. The mid-life Silents in the sixties were big on "I'm OK You're OK" and tolerance of differences and post-modern thinking. One of my Silent mentors was so keen to point out in his big class that humans are "variations on a theme." Civil rights was a big Silent cause, which means everyone equally respected. But big, grand ideas tend to be based on generalities and categories, something to which Silents are allergic. 

Boomers, on the other hand, like Strauss and Howe themselves, although they absorbed a lot of these Silent traits, are quite willing to identify big ideas and promote them, and many are quite militant about them. The religious right, on the other hand, although supported by lots of southern boomers, was led by Silents. Cultural obedience is a Silent trait, because they are Adaptives and don't rock the boat as much. Silents are much more reluctant to be unconventional and they respect old customs and proprieties more readily.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#9
(01-01-2019, 01:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Artists are Adaptives, which means they adapt to being repressed in childhood by being silent in youth, and then go through a mid-life crisis (which the Silent Generation may have invented) or otherwise become more activist in mid-life during an awakening, in which they mentor youthful and spirited prophets. Since then though they are stick-in-the-mud conservatives bent on protecting their position. So they did not become prophetic leaders as elders, but went silent again, and that's why it was a 3T and not a 4T.

So these Boomerish ideas mattered for Silents only during their midlife crisis? Starts to make sense now. I had a quarter-life crisis in 2006-9, and investigated some New Age stuff like lucid dreaming back then.
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#10
(01-01-2019, 06:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(01-01-2019, 01:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Artists are Adaptives, which means they adapt to being repressed in childhood by being silent in youth, and then go through a mid-life crisis (which the Silent Generation may have invented) or otherwise become more activist in mid-life during an awakening, in which they mentor youthful and spirited prophets. Since then though they are stick-in-the-mud conservatives bent on protecting their position. So they did not become prophetic leaders as elders, but went silent again, and that's why it was a 3T and not a 4T.

So these Boomerish ideas mattered for Silents only during their midlife crisis? Starts to make sense now. I had a quarter-life crisis in 2006-9, and investigated some New Age stuff like lucid dreaming back then.

Perhaps after as well. Adaptive adults often serve as mentors to Idealists, suggesting possible directions for escaping the strictures of the High. Idealists go further against those strictures, often breaking them altogether. Idealists are less cautious about ideology and custom than are their living elders at the time of an Awakening (typically Lost-like Reactive adults in elderhood, GI-like Civic adults in midlife, and Silent-like Adaptive adults fully adult. (In the Missionary Awakening, the Gilded, brought up as a Reactive generation, often had taken on Civic-like characteristics; I do not see Generation X becoming a Reactive-Civic composite; X is just too old to take on any Civic traits having lost the opportunity).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#11
(01-01-2019, 01:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(12-30-2018, 11:30 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Are these two generations really separate? Or were the Silents just Boomers born to early for the 60s awakening?

There is (or was) a lot of countercultural Silents. Lennon was born in 1940, Mick Jagger in 1943. Osho Rajneesh and Anthony de Mello in the early 1930s. All of these heavily promoted values associated with the boomers. On the other hand I'm not sure there are any quintessential Silent ideas. Unless lack of interest in Grand Ideas is a Silent trait?

As for leadership style, I think Berlusconi (1936) was very similar to Trump, although I still think Trump's leadership style is more Reactive. Likewise, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber was more like an Xer. His (quite accurate IMO) analysis of Leftist psychology predates gen X criticism of political correctness, but is essentially the same thing. I also saw Charles Manson described as a proto-Xer by someone on this board.

There are seemingly lots of proto-Boomers and some proto-Xers, but where are all the typically Artistic Silents? Couldn't ours be a cycle with no Artistic generation at all, and a 30-year-long (1930-60) prophetic generation?


I can't relate to the comments about Kaczynski or Manson, but the Silent Generation was a typical Artist Generation. It did produce a lot of artists, although not as many as the one born circa 1770 in Europe, but then the USA is not a society that values artists. But in other respects they were very typical. Strauss and Howe described them as an inheritor generation, benefiting from the institutions their civic forebears expanded and preserved. They are, they said, the most credentialed generation ever. Artists are Adaptives, which means they adapt to being repressed in childhood by being silent in youth, and then go through a mid-life crisis (which the Silent Generation may have invented) or otherwise become more activist in mid-life during an awakening, in which they mentor youthful and spirited prophets. Since then though they are stick-in-the-mud conservatives bent on protecting their position. So they did not become prophetic leaders as elders, but went silent again, and that's why it was a 3T and not a 4T.

Manson was a criminal, and his chaotic, neglectful, and abusive upbringing was going to create problems no matter what generation he was born into. Even he operated with some Silent characteristics, acting as a mentor to confused Boomers who fell for his sick teachings. He would have been trouble had he been successful as a musician, and even popular musicians have their limits. Kaczynski had problems perhaps related to an early disease that by some accounts gave him a flawed character that had much latent anger and no ability to love. He was good at math and a loser at all else. Being good at one or two things is not enough to get along (think of the movie Rain Man).

Reactive generations are the ones most likely to become criminals because they have the least guidance in childhood, are least likely to connect to cultural traditions, and are most likely (because they are often  severely deprived) to become greedy and materialistic. Most somewhat-successful criminals are greedy and materialistic, and those who cannot connect their greed or materialism to some form of service to humanity (which includes the formation of legitimate businesses, one of the most constructive things that one can do if one is otherwise uncreative and less than brilliant) either become frustrated losers or outright criminals.


Quote:Lack of grand ideas is indeed a Silent trait, according to S&H. They note especially that any Silent person does not like their theories. Silents don't like theories and big ideas, because they relate to people as individuals and relate with feelings more than ideas. The mid-life Silents in the sixties were big on "I'm OK You're OK" and tolerance of differences and post-modern thinking. One of my Silent mentors was so keen to point out in his big class that humans are "variations on a theme." Civil rights was a big Silent cause, which means everyone equally respected. But big, grand ideas tend to be based on generalities and categories, something to which Silents are allergic. 

Howe and Strauss say this of all Adaptive generations so far. They can achieve great things, including fine novels (Voltaire's Candide), music (J S Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, D Scarlatti, Rameau, Telemann, Zelenka), architecture (Rastrelli in Saint Petersburg, Russia; and lots of artists). But -- they are generally NOT great political figures unless they seem to be throwbacks to a Civic generation (Bolivar, A. Jackson, Napoleon or seem ahead of the political curve and take on many Idealist traits, as did Theodore Roosevelt). We have never had a Silent President and probably never will. Sorry, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

Quote:Boomers, on the other hand, like Strauss and Howe themselves, although they absorbed a lot of these Silent traits, are quite willing to identify big ideas and promote them, and many are quite militant about them. The religious right, on the other hand, although supported by lots of southern boomers, was led by Silents. Cultural obedience is a Silent trait, because they are Adaptives and don't rock the boat as much. Silents are much more reluctant to be unconventional and they respect old customs and proprieties more readily.

The militancy is the difference between Adaptive leaders out to mitigate and humanize the system and the more iconoclastic Idealists who have far less emotional stake in the order that made the High possible. An Idealist almost never has memories of the dangerous struggle between ideas that manifests itself in a Crisis Era and fail to recognize the potential consequences of their resolute beliefs until they find themselves in struggles as they approach old age with people with similarly-firm but incompatible, exclusive, and hostile beliefs that the opposing side holds with nearly-equal vehemence. Thus liberal humanism versus genocidal racism; people who held slavery as an abomination against those who thought it a good and necessary institution; firm belief in the Divine Right of King George III against the ideal of local democracy; or a Catholic Church operating an Inquisition against new Protestant churches in dissent with the findings of a corrupt, medieval bureaucracy.

The winners write the historical commentaries after the Crisis wars.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#12
(01-01-2019, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Kaczynski had problems perhaps related to an early disease that by some accounts gave him a flawed character that had much latent anger and no ability to love. He was good at math and a loser at all else.

High IQ, but low EQ?

I still find his analysis of Leftist psychology and the "power process" quite illuminating.
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#13
(01-01-2019, 06:35 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(01-01-2019, 01:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Artists are Adaptives, which means they adapt to being repressed in childhood by being silent in youth, and then go through a mid-life crisis (which the Silent Generation may have invented) or otherwise become more activist in mid-life during an awakening, in which they mentor youthful and spirited prophets. Since then though they are stick-in-the-mud conservatives bent on protecting their position. So they did not become prophetic leaders as elders, but went silent again, and that's why it was a 3T and not a 4T.

So these Boomerish ideas mattered for Silents only during their midlife crisis? Starts to make sense now. I had a quarter-life crisis in 2006-9, and investigated some New Age stuff like lucid dreaming back then.

I would say so, although to be fair, to call them "Boomerish ideas" is only valid from our latter-time point of view. It was Silents (especially Boomer cuspers, but not limited to them) who created a lot of the ideas, movements and arts that the Boomers latched on to, were inspired by, and further developed.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#14
(01-01-2019, 01:06 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(01-01-2019, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Kaczynski had problems perhaps related to an early disease that by some accounts gave him a flawed character that had much latent anger and no ability to love. He was good at math and a loser at all else.

High IQ, but low EQ?

I still find his analysis of Leftist psychology and the "power process" quite illuminating.

It sounds like a meeting of autism and sociopathy.

I am on the spectrum, and I know that I can't get away with much.

That he got a few things right in his "Unabom Manifesto"? A broken clock is right every twelve hours. Note also that there was and still is much hostility between leftist factions. The Trotskyites and Maoists would be at each others' throats. The Hard Left seems far more splintered than the Hard Right, the Hard Right being much more syncretic. I have seen people in KKK robes -- with Nazi swastikas. An organization called Crosstar unwittingly used the symbol of the WWII-era, Nazi-like Hungarian Arrow Cross Movement, took note of it, and took pride in the connection to a Jew-butchering gang. The Greek Golden Dawn thugs have adopted the Nazi Horst-Wessel-Lied, even if Nazi occupation of Greece was so harsh that the Greeks would have welcomed the Turks as liberators. There is no possible synthesis between Tito and Castro. The concept of human brotherhood does not apply to extremists except in shared hatred -- and then within the fascistic Right (blacks, Jews, liberals, social democrats, Communists, homosexuals, feminists, organized labor).

Ted Kaczynski went so far to the Left that he took on extreme-Right characteristics.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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#15
(01-01-2019, 03:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would say so, although to be fair, to call them "Boomerish ideas" is only valid from our latter-time point of view. It was Silents (especially Boomer cuspers, but not limited to them) who created a lot of the ideas, movements and arts that the Boomers latched on to, were inspired by, and further developed.

I have also the impression that the stage for Counterculture was already prepared in the late 1940s.

One distinct characteristic of Counterculture is its distrust for science and technology. I've seen a late 40s poem that said something like "reason lead to Auschwitz". Sexual revolution? bikini was invented in 1946. Hindu-influenced mysticism? Zen started to be popular in California directly after WW2.

Going by this pattern, can we expect the iGen to prepare ground for the next Awakening in late 2020s?
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#16
It may be too late for Generation X to age into a Nomad/Civic hybrid. But could the Millenials become like the Progressive generation? If so, the generational constellation for the next 1T may be:

1. Xers as Lost like elders. Basically, Xers as classic aging-Nomads.

2. Millenials taking on an Adaptive role, but-like the Progressives-acting almost like a recessive Civic generation.

3. Proto-Prophets in their tender growing up years. Given the double rhythm, they will most likely become Apollo type Prophets.



The Boomers would all be in old age, and dying off rapidly. Silent survivors would be very old.
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#17
(01-02-2019, 01:11 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: It may be too late for Generation X to age into a Nomad/Civic hybrid.  But could the Millenials become like the Progressive generation?  If so, the generational constellation for the next 1T may be:

1.  Xers as Lost like elders.  Basically, Xers as classic aging-Nomads.

2.  Millenials taking on an Adaptive role, but-like the Progressives-acting almost like a recessive Civic generation.

3. Proto-Prophets in their tender growing up years.  Given the double rhythm, they will most likely become Apollo type Prophets.



The Boomers would all be in old age, and dying off rapidly.  Silent survivors would be very old.

Wouldn't that constellation result in the awakening directly following the 4T? The iGeneration would turn prophetic, and a prophetic generation doesn't wait with the awakening until they are 40.
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#18
(01-02-2019, 06:07 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(01-01-2019, 03:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I would say so, although to be fair, to call them "Boomerish ideas" is only valid from our latter-time point of view. It was Silents (especially Boomer cuspers, but not limited to them) who created a lot of the ideas, movements and arts that the Boomers latched on to, were inspired by, and further developed.

I have also the impression that the stage for Counterculture was already prepared in the late 1940s.

One distinct characteristic of Counterculture is its distrust for science and technology. I've seen a late 40s poem that said something like "reason lead to Auschwitz". Sexual revolution? bikini was invented in 1946. Hindu-influenced mysticism? Zen started to be popular in California directly after WW2.

Going by this pattern, can we expect the iGen to prepare ground for the next Awakening in late 2020s?

These trends were very much underground and not available to pop culture before the sixties, but preparing the ground fits I guess, if you mean among a small group of people. From the mid-50s on especially, with the beatniks and rock'n'roll. But can that small minority trend be considered a generational trait?

The difference between before 1964 and after 1966 was quite stark, however. The styles of life and dress, the ideals and goals, the culture very much changed quickly. But in Europe, counter-cultural influences were more prominent even somewhat continuously since the previous Awakening, although the wars and oppression put a damper on it. Existentialism, depth psychology and the new science, for example, manifested "the revolt against reason" with its distrust of science that Henri Bergson started in about 1907. And in any case, the sixties/seventies Awakening also looked back to previous ones. Awakenings in the USA jump from Awakening to Awakening, almost as if there was no break, even though there is a 50-60 year break.

By iGen, iirc, you mean Gen Z. I think the Millennials are already iGen enough, even though they weren't born into the world of iphones and social media. Artist Generations when they come of age are not tech oriented, but people oriented, so the name iGen will not fit them later on. Civics are tech oriented. Of course, you could say the name "Silent" didn't fit them in mid-life, at least. But it did in youth.

If you say the groundwork was prepared for the Awakening in the late 1940s, then that would indicate that this will happen again when the next first turning starts, but I don't think will be until at least 2028. Since some younger GI/Greatest Generation members helped launch the counter-culture (Timothy Leary born 1920), we can expect that some (or maybe just a relative few) of the millennials born after 2000 could do something similar, as well as the new artist generation.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#19
(01-02-2019, 03:48 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:
(01-02-2019, 01:11 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: It may be too late for Generation X to age into a Nomad/Civic hybrid.  But could the Millenials become like the Progressive generation?  If so, the generational constellation for the next 1T may be:

1.  Xers as Lost like elders.  Basically, Xers as classic aging-Nomads.

2.  Millenials taking on an Adaptive role, but-like the Progressives-acting almost like a recessive Civic generation.

3. Proto-Prophets in their tender growing up years.  Given the double rhythm, they will most likely become Apollo type Prophets.



The Boomers would all be in old age, and dying off rapidly.  Silent survivors would be very old.

Wouldn't that constellation result in the awakening directly following the 4T? The iGeneration would turn prophetic, and a prophetic generation doesn't wait with the awakening until they are 40.

There's no reason I can see for hybrids in our period; the turnings and generations are unfolding as predicted.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#20
(01-02-2019, 07:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: These trends were very much underground and not available to pop culture before the sixties, but preparing the ground fits I guess, if you mean among a small group of people. From the mid-50s on especially, with the beatniks and rock'n'roll. But can that small minority trend be considered a generational trait?

No, but producing such a minority seems to be a trait of Artistic generation. I've recently discovered Evelyn de Morgan, a Progressive gen painter, and she was definitely be a proto-Missionary.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Categ..._de_Morgan

Her fascination by the Indo-European religion is more a throwback to the Romantic era, though. I have the sexy Driad on my wallpaper Smile

Quote:By iGen, iirc, you mean Gen Z. I think the Millennials are already iGen enough, even though they weren't born into the world of iphones and social media. Artist Generations when they come of age are not tech oriented, but people oriented, so the name iGen will not fit them later on. Civics are tech oriented. Of course, you could say the name "Silent" didn't fit them in mid-life, at least. But it did in youth.

OK, I'll abandon the name iGen, and start calling them New Silent generation (sounds better than New Progressives IMHO, although they are more like the Progressives, because of the dionysian-apollonian rhythm)
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