(08-03-2020, 02:01 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: Mikebert:I have a better response. The S&H material describes a cycle and a theory that it involved generations. We now have an an adult post-millennial generation who started being born around 1997. This pegs generation length at 18 years (1997-1925)/4 = 18. It also implies 2001 as the 4T start and that the 4T is now ending. This hasn't been the case and so the theory is rejected. The cycle they described consists of turnings that range from 5 to 30 years in length (average length 22) that form a four-generation amalgam that ranges from 69 to 110 years (average 87). This range implies a 4T start as early as 1998 and as late as 2039.
So I have a question for you, and I pose it with all due respect because I have read your posts over the years with more than a little interest, and assign them more credence than most, not that you need my seal of approval: Why are you here on this forum, if you believe as I (almost) do, that S&H theory is “discredited”?
So the cycle has not been invalidated. Such a "prediction" is so wide as to be useless, however, which is why they provided a theory that can provide tighter focus. This tighter focus is what allows us to actually test the theory against reality and so falsify it, like a good theory candidate. But that doesn't say the cycle doesn't exist, just that its not generational in the sense they said it was.
Short answer is I am still interested in the cycle, just not the theory. But most T4T fans have been operating in this vein for years without explicitly acknowledging it.
S&H are not the pioneers in this field of historical cycles and "big history" in which I am something of an expert. Their cycle falls into the category of "long cycles". These are cycle with a two generation length. The saeculum is a dual long cycle construct consisting of a two pairs of dominant+recessive generations. They have come in two flavors, inner-directed and outer directed. It is structurally similar to Modelski and Thompson's Leadership cycle which consists of two "war cycles" consisting of a part of "warrior" and "pacifist" generations. Other long cycles include the Kondratieff cycle and Klingberg's foreign policy cycle.
I wrote about these cycles in my book on Stock Cycles (these are stock market cycles that correspond to 1/2 Kondratieffs). This cycle was invalidated in 2014 by the rise of the S&P500 above the extreme limit allowed by the model. The Kondratieff cycle implied by this cycle is still going on, but at 80+ years in length it is no longer qualifies as a long cycle, and indeed, most of people who use K-cycles go with a different cycle dating that comports with the classical fifty year length, so I believe the financial based K-cycle I was following is also invalidated. With the S&H theory being invalidated, I now believe long cycles to be a dead end.
My interest has shifted to cliodynamics, secular cycles and specifically the America secular cycle. I have identified what I call a capitalist crisis as a key feature of the American secular cycle which gives me dates of 1907 and 2006 as corresponding signposts in the current and the last secular cycle giving a 100-year length. This means today is cycle-similar to around WW I (not WW II). And there are a number of parallels. (e.g. a pandemic, Red Summer. Palmer raids, immigration restriction is an issue, Southern White Man (Red) party in control of the executive). But one difference is that the stock market is way overvalued, whereas it was undervalued in 1920. So we could have a 1929-like event since we do have a market bubble. If we got another financial panic on top of all the other issues already present this could produce a crisis start analogous to the last one in 1929, providing a another pair of signposts (1929, 2020) this one giving a ca 90 year length.
In either case we are talking about a longer cycle than 72 years.