What are your specialities?

[Ldr]

Mikebert,

Look at the casualties and you will see that the vast majority has occurred close to the ending of 4th turnings. And then look at the scale, it's logarithmic, which enforces the fact that during 4th and 1st turnings, when vasopressin levels are high, group violence is much more prevalent than during 2nd and 3rd turnings, especially in the Western nations/areas of influence. Thirty Years' War and WW2 are totally in their own class, and both were solely caused by Western nations. Obviously that chart could be nitpicked to death (no pun intended), which is not very fruitful for this discussion. What I'm trying to say is that sociopolitical instabilities and group violence are higher during 4th and 1st turnings, and this goes back to the Anarchy of 1133-1153, fitting in a 4th turning almost like clockwork.

You can see the data from past centuries in the Strauss-Howe generational theory, as they list for example how intense childcare is during each turning, all the way to the middle ages. Therefore, if you believe Strauss & Howe's historical findings, then you can believe that the obtained stats from the 20th century (chapter 4) apply to the other centuries as well, as oxytocin levels dictate the intensity of childcare.

But how did I get the cyclical idea? Look at the chart below from The Fourth Turning. When nurture is 'underprotective', that is when oxytocin levels are very low. And when nurture is 'overprotective', that's when oxytocin levels are very high. The same goes for lemmings and voles too. The yellow line represents oxytocin levels, and is basically the same as is in the theory's chapter 4.7. (And once the oxytocin levels go higher during 3rd/4th turning, alcohol consumption drops, and these things can even manifest as laws like it did during the prohibition era, once the public opinion/majority turned against substance use.)

Now look at the yellow oxytocin level line in the generational hormone cycle. It's basically the same:

This is how I got the cycle idea: reading The 4th Turning book, mostly believing in the charts that Strauss & Howe presented, as they clearly understood the trends of history. I never believed the explanations that somehow millions of people could create a social dynamic of precise 80 year cycles that always work the same way, and continuously for at least five centuries... It's next to impossible.

But if the Strauss-Howe generational theory is actually based on a biology, one that can be proven, then Strauss & Howe's theory could go from a theory to reality. This is how I understood that hormone levels of oxytocin and vasopressin are involved, as they are the paramount social hormones in humans, and in other animals as well. I researched these two social hormones and found out that their levels are in control of the social mood: hormones control an individual's mood, thus especially social hormones control the social mood (when in sync). But not only that, the levels of oxytocin and vasopressin also control territorial behavior, in-group and out-group dynamics, xenophobia, flattening/increasing social hierarchy, group aggression, and much more that is directly connected the the Strauss-Howe generational theory!

After all this I found out that two Russian studies (on lemmings and voles) have direct proof that these mentioned social hormones oxytocin and vasopressin have vastly different generational levels during their population cycles, that are in sync, and that these levels heavily correlate with the Strauss-Howe generational theory, which was quite an amazing coincidence. There are numerous biological clocks in nature, and moose populations for instance have a nearly 40 year cycle, and I really don't believe that their generational cycle is a "social dynamics" thingy either.   What I'm getting at here is that what are the chances of creating a generational oxytocin & vasopressin hormone theory based on the Strauss-Howe generational theory, only to find that the cyclical animal populations have the same generational hormone cycle of oxytocin and vasopressin? I would say the chances are close to 0%, but what do you think?

(Lemming and vole cycles are about 4 years in length, so basically the only difference is that the human cycle is 20 times longer, 80 years. But then again, human lifespan is more than 20 times compared to those small mammals.)

What I'm going to say next may be controversial, but in the light of biology and history backing up the generational hormone theory as an explanation for the Strauss-Howe generational theory, I'll state the following. Strauss & Howe found the generational hormone cycle, but they did not understand it's roots, as almost no real knowledge of oxytocin and vasopressin was available during the 20th century. They had to come up with an explanation for the cycle, and that is when they generated the social dynamics theory. Unfortunately, this is also the weak point of their theory, as it is based on nothing but assumptions. They interviewed many generations, but if one is asked "why don't you drink alcohol", do they respond "I have high levels of oxytocin" or "generational group pressure is why I don't drink"? No, they come up with the usual explanations of "I don't want a hangover", "I value my health", "drunk people are social rejects", "my parents drank so I don't want to", or some other generally acceptable reason. They cannot know what they basically don't understand, as hormone levels impact every single action, reaction and thought an individual has, and thus generational hormone levels impact the actions, reactions and thoughts each generation has. Strauss & Howe recorded the events that surfaced during each 80 year cycle, but they couldn't see the underlying current that generated the generations and moved the cycle forward.

I believe that the cyclical hormone levels is what creates the generational archetypes. Lemmings and voles also have generational archetypes, as each of their generations acts and reacts in a similar way to how the previous generation with the same hormone levels did, 4 years before, as their cycle is about 4 years.  So it's not like humans are the only species with generational cycles, but since humans are social animals, the effects of generationally varying social hormone levels cause strong tides in our societies when compared to the rest of the animal world.