I see the issue with the war. I was thinking of the "war-ending" as a process, in which youth took part, that ran over the late 1960's to early 1970's and ended with the war. Eric and Dave were born in the late 1940’s and so would be imprinted in the earlier portion of this period, hence the reference to the sixties. You are right that the war (and the protests continued into the 1970’s). My bad, I was not clear.
What I have been speaking of is the mechanism through which history (social moments) creates (imprints) generations. I haven’t yet discussed the opposite, how generations create history. You have already identified this mechanism:
The concept of a crisis war is not part of the S&H theory. It is an alternate model. S&H used the constellation model, which I already explained does not work because with it social moments map into more than one generation, resulting in spreading that quickly damps out the cycle. John developed the crisis war concept to provide a mechanism that works. It involves a special kind of intense war that has the property of imprinting all living person into generations based on the phase of life they occupy, as described by S&H. John added a "ratchet effect," in which the propensity to fight a crisis war is inhibited by the presence of those who remember the last one. When they leave the scene (i.e. their last cohort retires (enters elderhood), a new crisis war becomes possible. It won't necessarily happen right away, but when the necessary spark appears it happens. Hence the spacing between the end of a crisis war and the next is around three generations, or longer, so saecula are not necessarily fixed in length:
Crisis Wars Spacing between midpoints
1066
1135-1154 79
1204-1215 65
1264-1282 64
1337-1347 69
1386-1409 56
1455-1485 73
1559-1588 104
1638-1660 76
1701-1714 59
1789-1815 95
1860-1871 64
1937-1945 76
These data are from 2003-4, John may have refined his dating since then. This is is my recording and interpretation of his crisis eras. Any errors are mine.
Remember each generation comes from previous one and inherits all of its genetic, cultural, and material attributes. A priori, there should be no discernable difference between generations. This, of course, is the null hypothesis, which is what most scholars believe (just as most economists do not believe there are economic long cycles). The pro-generation argument to counter this is that the environment affects people’s worldviews, which affects how they will behave in the future. People shaped by different historical experiences will behave differently (create different history). For this idea, it seems to me that for history to create generations, it must make a powerful impression for generation idea to work. The crisis war concept (a war that so intense, so all-encompassing, that John uses the term “genocidal energy" to characterize it) is such a strongly impressionistic form of history.
The generations that take an active role in this war (Nomads and Heroes) get strongly imprinted into their roles. The Artists are simply those who missed out on the action (that creates a sharp divide between them and the Heroes) but who are, more the most part, too young to have their belief systems as adults forged. Prophets are just weaker Artists (i.e. increasingly less impacted by the crisis war and the stories from it). There In John’s theory, the Crisis War does the heavy lifting. 2Ts can happen more or less as S&H describe in their Appendix, but they are not needed to play a role in causing history to repeat (i.e. a cycle), the CW does that.
S&H hold that both kinds of social moments play important roles in creating repeating history (cycles). I think that is right, they just don’t have the right mechanism for it. Dave Krein showed that British generations played significant roles in British policies during the 19th century using a statistical analysis of voting patterns in the House of Commons. This generational influence on government policy is explicitly “generations creating history”. Combine this with the now-established concept of generational imprinting in political science and you have a mechanism for the S&H process.
No I use the explanation you provided: it was only when GIs took charge in the 1960s that, as your previous post put it, momentous events started happening. And what happened when they left power? The momentous events stopped happening, and young people stopped getting imprinted into a dominant generation (Idealists) and started being imprinted into recessives (Reactives). GI’s stopped getting imprinted around 1945-6, when the 4T social moment was winding down. In the early 1980’s AL was 56. So the spacing between the end of social moment in 1945 and the end of the next social moment should be 34 years (=56-22). Add this to 1945-6 and you get 1979-80. So we should expect things to calm down around 1979-80 give a take a year or two--and it did.
What about the start of the 2T? Well the Great Depression became "great" in 1931 (before that is was not different than previous recessions, it had been less severe than 1920-21, for example). AL was also 56 in the early 1960’s. So adding 34 to 1931 gives 1965. So we would predict a 2T social moment over 1965-1980, which more or less corresponds to the 2T as observed. In the early 2000’s AL had risen to age 59 or 60, it varies from year to year. This gives a spacing of 37-38 years which projects the start of the next social moment (the current 4T) in 2002-3. There is no consensus about exactly which year this 4T began, but most would agree it is in the 2001-8 period. We can “backcast” the start of the last 2T implied by a 2001-2008 start of this 4T by noting AL = 59 in 2001 and 61 in 2008, so we subtract 37 from 2001 and 39 from 2008 to get 1964-69. Most would agree that the momentous events started happening sometime in this period.
Warren Dew Wrote:That just begs the question of how the social moment gets started and ends. If it shapes the idealist generation, it can't be determined by the idealist generation, or at least the beginning of it can't.
What I have been speaking of is the mechanism through which history (social moments) creates (imprints) generations. I haven’t yet discussed the opposite, how generations create history. You have already identified this mechanism:
Quote:The GIs were the foot soldiers in WWII, not the managers. As long as the managers were in charge - Truman, then Eisenhower, from the Lost generation - leadership seemed to keep things under control; it was only when GIs took charge in the 1960s that, as your previous post put it, "momentous events" such as "domestic turmoil on a scale far larger than anything seen since" started happening.To wit, history creates generations, which after they come to power, create history. There is a lag between generational imprinting at age 22 and history creation at AL (the average age of leaders). I define AL as the average of the mean ages of governors, Congressmen, Senators, and Supreme Court Justices, all provided by Neil Howe’s database at this site. Therefore, the spacing between AL and 22 drives the spacing between social moments (or 2T/4Ts).
Quote:You're rejecting this theory on the Adaptive/Idealist split because one of the people who suggested it doesn't also have a good explanation for the Idealist/Reactive split? It strikes me that generational transitions don't all have to work the same way, and people can be right about one thing without being right about everything.
The concept of a crisis war is not part of the S&H theory. It is an alternate model. S&H used the constellation model, which I already explained does not work because with it social moments map into more than one generation, resulting in spreading that quickly damps out the cycle. John developed the crisis war concept to provide a mechanism that works. It involves a special kind of intense war that has the property of imprinting all living person into generations based on the phase of life they occupy, as described by S&H. John added a "ratchet effect," in which the propensity to fight a crisis war is inhibited by the presence of those who remember the last one. When they leave the scene (i.e. their last cohort retires (enters elderhood), a new crisis war becomes possible. It won't necessarily happen right away, but when the necessary spark appears it happens. Hence the spacing between the end of a crisis war and the next is around three generations, or longer, so saecula are not necessarily fixed in length:
Crisis Wars Spacing between midpoints
1066
1135-1154 79
1204-1215 65
1264-1282 64
1337-1347 69
1386-1409 56
1455-1485 73
1559-1588 104
1638-1660 76
1701-1714 59
1789-1815 95
1860-1871 64
1937-1945 76
These data are from 2003-4, John may have refined his dating since then. This is is my recording and interpretation of his crisis eras. Any errors are mine.
Remember each generation comes from previous one and inherits all of its genetic, cultural, and material attributes. A priori, there should be no discernable difference between generations. This, of course, is the null hypothesis, which is what most scholars believe (just as most economists do not believe there are economic long cycles). The pro-generation argument to counter this is that the environment affects people’s worldviews, which affects how they will behave in the future. People shaped by different historical experiences will behave differently (create different history). For this idea, it seems to me that for history to create generations, it must make a powerful impression for generation idea to work. The crisis war concept (a war that so intense, so all-encompassing, that John uses the term “genocidal energy" to characterize it) is such a strongly impressionistic form of history.
The generations that take an active role in this war (Nomads and Heroes) get strongly imprinted into their roles. The Artists are simply those who missed out on the action (that creates a sharp divide between them and the Heroes) but who are, more the most part, too young to have their belief systems as adults forged. Prophets are just weaker Artists (i.e. increasingly less impacted by the crisis war and the stories from it). There In John’s theory, the Crisis War does the heavy lifting. 2Ts can happen more or less as S&H describe in their Appendix, but they are not needed to play a role in causing history to repeat (i.e. a cycle), the CW does that.
S&H hold that both kinds of social moments play important roles in creating repeating history (cycles). I think that is right, they just don’t have the right mechanism for it. Dave Krein showed that British generations played significant roles in British policies during the 19th century using a statistical analysis of voting patterns in the House of Commons. This generational influence on government policy is explicitly “generations creating history”. Combine this with the now-established concept of generational imprinting in political science and you have a mechanism for the S&H process.
Quote:Then you lose an otherwise cogent explanation for a clean Idealist/Reactive split either, as far as I can tell.
No I use the explanation you provided: it was only when GIs took charge in the 1960s that, as your previous post put it, momentous events started happening. And what happened when they left power? The momentous events stopped happening, and young people stopped getting imprinted into a dominant generation (Idealists) and started being imprinted into recessives (Reactives). GI’s stopped getting imprinted around 1945-6, when the 4T social moment was winding down. In the early 1980’s AL was 56. So the spacing between the end of social moment in 1945 and the end of the next social moment should be 34 years (=56-22). Add this to 1945-6 and you get 1979-80. So we should expect things to calm down around 1979-80 give a take a year or two--and it did.
What about the start of the 2T? Well the Great Depression became "great" in 1931 (before that is was not different than previous recessions, it had been less severe than 1920-21, for example). AL was also 56 in the early 1960’s. So adding 34 to 1931 gives 1965. So we would predict a 2T social moment over 1965-1980, which more or less corresponds to the 2T as observed. In the early 2000’s AL had risen to age 59 or 60, it varies from year to year. This gives a spacing of 37-38 years which projects the start of the next social moment (the current 4T) in 2002-3. There is no consensus about exactly which year this 4T began, but most would agree it is in the 2001-8 period. We can “backcast” the start of the last 2T implied by a 2001-2008 start of this 4T by noting AL = 59 in 2001 and 61 in 2008, so we subtract 37 from 2001 and 39 from 2008 to get 1964-69. Most would agree that the momentous events started happening sometime in this period.
