09-27-2020, 01:25 AM
No two Crisis Eras are alike. Recognizing the ages of the Adaptive (A), Idealist (I), Reactive ®, and Civic ©, generations of the times of the Crises of 1780, 1869, 1940, and 2040 we find the following:
\\\ 1780... 1860... 1940 ... 2020
A >80 >69 >81 >78
I 57-79 39-68 58-80 60-78
R 38-56 18-38 40-57 39-59
C 14-37 <18 16-39 <39
The Civil War Crisis was the most destructive in American history, as Howe and Strauss put it, because the Crisis came too early. The generations in place (the Progressive Generation is excused for obvious reasons) were at their worst at their roles in a Crisis. The Compromise Generation still had influence and used that influence to use process to support compromises that had worked well into the 1850's but could no longer work as their generation had largely lost political power. The Transcendental Generation was still polarized into opposing camps that had opposite ways of seeing slavery -- one as progress toward empire in pushing a plantation society into a larger domain, and one side seeing slavery as an abomination. The Gilded on both sides saw war as a lucrative adventure that would finance settlement of the West for themselves instead of the carnage that it would become.
Typically the Adaptive generation is no longer on the scene to get in the way of decisive action, only to find that all is spiraling out of any control or design. (OK, I doubt that the Progressive Generation would have told Americans to be nice to Hitler and Tojo so that they might be 'nice' to us). By 1780 any Tories had decided that sticking around in an independent America was a bad idea, and by 1940 American political life could have hardly been more placid.
The Crisis of 1940 had the Missionary Generation setting the agenda and supplying the intellectual purpose. The Lost were astute administrators who had just gotten through the harshest times that Americans then living knew and provided shrewd administration of the war machine and generalship over the troops. The GI Generation was perfectly fit to turn technology and muscle into victory.
So the generational constellation of 2020 looks much like that of 1940. Not so fast! The GI generation set a pattern for extending lifespans, which was to give up tobacco, drink moderately if at all, stay as physically fit as possible (think of George Romney, father of Mitt, dying while working out on an exercise machine at age 89), and connected as long as possible... and one might get to act at age 70 as one does at 50. Still, 80 is undeniably old, and anyone who fails to take care of himself can be old before his time.
The Silent, the current adult Adaptive generation, has followed the GI lead. Joe Biden shows all 60 of his 78 years, so to speak... and I would not be surprised if he outlasted Trump. Obviously I cannot expect Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi to hammer out compromises on anything... The Silent can mess things up if they take the Compromise role of James Buchanan.
A bad set of purposes can make an Idealist agenda a disaster. Neoliberal economics got us into the economic mess that we now have of extreme and pointless inequality of economic opportunity and economic results. 95% of the people suffering for 2% is precisely what one needs -- for a successful revolution whose purpose is overthrowing a rapacious elite whose sole principle is taking everything possible. The biggest factor in how this Crisis will end for us is how well the Idealist (Boom) Generation does. Yes, Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster as a leader, the sort who seeks to turn everyone against everyone except that the economic royalists of our time prove themselves the only ones with solid organization.
I see Generation X well tested, one that will cast off whatever unnecessary fluff America has in entrenched interests and questionable traditions of recent vintage. These are the sorts who, should there be a revolution, would insist on plenty of room for small business which can get much done without the need for bloated bureaucracies, rent-seeking behavior, and interference in the political process. If the economic reformation culminates in large businesses becoming "too big to save" instead of "to big to fail", then we will need small business to operate among the skeletons of dinosaurs after the economic equivalent of the K-T boundary.
(We can even think on to the time when Generation X starts taking the upper leadership of Nation and executive ranks. With Barack Obama we have seen the typical leader of the "Mature Reactive" type, the 60-something leader who insists upon precedent and protocol, doesn't shake things up too much, and defers to the experts. Obama fits the pattern well, so guess what sort of leadership we can expect. More of the same, but that sort will not scare me). But we are not there yet.
The Civic Generation (this time the Millennial Generation) has no stake in an economic order that so far has given them little more than low pay for their competence, heavy debt, and the highest real rents ever. I expect it to seek and support rational decisions, whatever the source. Maybe the solution to high real rents is to revitalize "Flyover Country".
\\\ 1780... 1860... 1940 ... 2020
A >80 >69 >81 >78
I 57-79 39-68 58-80 60-78
R 38-56 18-38 40-57 39-59
C 14-37 <18 16-39 <39
The Civil War Crisis was the most destructive in American history, as Howe and Strauss put it, because the Crisis came too early. The generations in place (the Progressive Generation is excused for obvious reasons) were at their worst at their roles in a Crisis. The Compromise Generation still had influence and used that influence to use process to support compromises that had worked well into the 1850's but could no longer work as their generation had largely lost political power. The Transcendental Generation was still polarized into opposing camps that had opposite ways of seeing slavery -- one as progress toward empire in pushing a plantation society into a larger domain, and one side seeing slavery as an abomination. The Gilded on both sides saw war as a lucrative adventure that would finance settlement of the West for themselves instead of the carnage that it would become.
Typically the Adaptive generation is no longer on the scene to get in the way of decisive action, only to find that all is spiraling out of any control or design. (OK, I doubt that the Progressive Generation would have told Americans to be nice to Hitler and Tojo so that they might be 'nice' to us). By 1780 any Tories had decided that sticking around in an independent America was a bad idea, and by 1940 American political life could have hardly been more placid.
The Crisis of 1940 had the Missionary Generation setting the agenda and supplying the intellectual purpose. The Lost were astute administrators who had just gotten through the harshest times that Americans then living knew and provided shrewd administration of the war machine and generalship over the troops. The GI Generation was perfectly fit to turn technology and muscle into victory.
So the generational constellation of 2020 looks much like that of 1940. Not so fast! The GI generation set a pattern for extending lifespans, which was to give up tobacco, drink moderately if at all, stay as physically fit as possible (think of George Romney, father of Mitt, dying while working out on an exercise machine at age 89), and connected as long as possible... and one might get to act at age 70 as one does at 50. Still, 80 is undeniably old, and anyone who fails to take care of himself can be old before his time.
The Silent, the current adult Adaptive generation, has followed the GI lead. Joe Biden shows all 60 of his 78 years, so to speak... and I would not be surprised if he outlasted Trump. Obviously I cannot expect Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi to hammer out compromises on anything... The Silent can mess things up if they take the Compromise role of James Buchanan.
A bad set of purposes can make an Idealist agenda a disaster. Neoliberal economics got us into the economic mess that we now have of extreme and pointless inequality of economic opportunity and economic results. 95% of the people suffering for 2% is precisely what one needs -- for a successful revolution whose purpose is overthrowing a rapacious elite whose sole principle is taking everything possible. The biggest factor in how this Crisis will end for us is how well the Idealist (Boom) Generation does. Yes, Donald Trump is an unmitigated disaster as a leader, the sort who seeks to turn everyone against everyone except that the economic royalists of our time prove themselves the only ones with solid organization.
I see Generation X well tested, one that will cast off whatever unnecessary fluff America has in entrenched interests and questionable traditions of recent vintage. These are the sorts who, should there be a revolution, would insist on plenty of room for small business which can get much done without the need for bloated bureaucracies, rent-seeking behavior, and interference in the political process. If the economic reformation culminates in large businesses becoming "too big to save" instead of "to big to fail", then we will need small business to operate among the skeletons of dinosaurs after the economic equivalent of the K-T boundary.
(We can even think on to the time when Generation X starts taking the upper leadership of Nation and executive ranks. With Barack Obama we have seen the typical leader of the "Mature Reactive" type, the 60-something leader who insists upon precedent and protocol, doesn't shake things up too much, and defers to the experts. Obama fits the pattern well, so guess what sort of leadership we can expect. More of the same, but that sort will not scare me). But we are not there yet.
The Civic Generation (this time the Millennial Generation) has no stake in an economic order that so far has given them little more than low pay for their competence, heavy debt, and the highest real rents ever. I expect it to seek and support rational decisions, whatever the source. Maybe the solution to high real rents is to revitalize "Flyover Country".
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.