Generation Theory Thread

[David Horn]

(05-16-2017, 05:12 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

Dave Horn Wrote:S&H relied on the absence of a generation in the constellation as a necessary attribute to repeating each associated turning,

This mechanism doesn’t work. The easiest way to see this is to note that the saeculum today is about 80 years long, which is about the same as life expectancy at age 20. Thus about half the adult population goes on to live beyond a saeculum length. Yet it is true that folks in their 80’s and 90’s are typically much less active is the political, economic, and cultural of the nation, as so their archetype can be thought of as absent.  Prior to 1700, the saeculum averaged 108 years in length, while life expectancy of elites at age 20 was 53. Thus, more than half the adult population died before they ever reached mature adulthood. Mature adulthood was thinly spaced and the elderhood was entirely empty.  Thus, two archetypes were missing from the adult population.

This has always been a weakness of this theory.  The counterargument is: recessive generations don't matter as much, which is hard to make. 

Mikebert Wrote:Another way to see this is how in the world did a 2T appear in 1886, when there was no Hero generation to play the role of targets for a rising Prophet generation?

This assumes the ACW was an anomaly that had no Civics, but that has been argued to death in the past.  I'm of the opinion that there was a false demarcation of both turnings and generations that allowed the anomaly, but that still leaves one or more truncated turnings and generations. 

Mikebert Wrote:

Dave Horn Wrote:You can argue that a multi-generational effect occurs because the events in a "crisis" or an "awakening" are so dramatic that they are imprinted strongly on later generations not born at the time of those turnings, but is that enough to create an oscillating pattern like you're seeking to find? 

The problem is that the events of a crisis or an awakening aren’t really all that different.

Consider 17th century England.  The English Revolution was by far a larger scale event than the Glorious Revolution, yet it was the latter that was the Crisis. Or look at today. The protests today are nothing compared to those of the last 2T.  We just had a national election and not one of the 21 candidates was even shot at, much less assassinated. Last 2T we had a presidential candidate shot to death, a president shot, and another shot at, plus a couple of important social leaders were assassinated.

On the other hand, the death toll in this 4T is greater than in the last: about twice as many are killed today in rampage events as died in events of sociopolitical violence last 2T. But do people really care about those deaths, it doesn’t seem to have produced much of a response, except when the shooter is Muslim.

If you assume that the transition from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial, and now from the Industrial Age to the Post-industrial Age had an impact, you can square the circle.  Unfortunately, that makes the theory weak on prediction, since those changes are not part of the theory as conceived.  It also leaves a long period of relative stability as the model, and these anomalous eras as undefined.

Mikebert Wrote:

Dave Horn Wrote:Is it more likely that the effect is actually transmitted through one or more institutions rather than the family or even society in general?

I doubt it, which is why I don’t buy into the macro-saeculum ideas.

There are a number of plausible mechanisms for a two-stroke cycle of alteration eventful and uneventful periods of generational length.  Many have been proposed.  The mechanism S&H proposed works: history creates generations (those coming of age in a social moment are imprinted into a dominant generation) and generations create history (dominant generations pursue an activist political agenda when in power that results in a social moment).  This is why they had this concept of dominant and recessive generations.  When dominant generations are in power, they pursue an activist political agenda, that manifests as one of Schlesinger’s liberal eras, and typical contains a critical realignment election. These more activist eras are associated with higher levels of political and cultural instability, which creates the milieu of a social moment, which affects the generation coming of age, who are imprinted into another dominant generation.

OK, but that also puts the theory in a bit of a vacuum.  If the very pace of history is changing, are those changes just ignored?  I don't think so.  For example, the concept of war changed dramatically when rifling made formal set-piece battles untenable.  Wouldn't the cannon-fodder be impacted by that more than some imprinting from elders whose knowledge was empirically archaic?  The same applies to railroads and the telegraph.  Today, it's the Internet and, now, social media.  These are ignored in the theory, but demonstrably have sway.

Our current era is fragmented beyond anything supported by a 4 archetypal model.  That is due in large part to technologies that have been effectively pressed into service by elites with the wherewithal to use them effectivesly.  Liberal eras require cohesion to work.  If cohesion is suppressed, artificially or otherwise, do we get reactionary periods as a byproduct?  After all, reactionary politics still promotes change, just not the change we might expect.

Mikebert Wrote:Dominant generations come in two flavors, prophets and heroes.  S&H make an argument that a combination of parental nurture, which they assert is cyclic, and the coming of age experience colors these dominant generations into their two types.  But this is rather ad hoc.  Invoking a cycle of parental nurture just shifts the question of how do generations get their archetypes to another, unexplained cycle.  IMO, the best attempt at an explanation that can be modeled was the multi-modal saeculum proposed by Sean Love.  I am not sure I completely understand his theory. 

Sean now posts on the Facebook group, but not here.  Since I don't read the Facebook group, it's hard to comment on that.  In any case, A multi-saecular model, especially one that follows the pattern of the turnings, starts to look like fractals.  Mathematically, that's appealing but unconvincing.