Quote:But why the start of those issues, and not a few years earlier, with Sputnik and the Cuban missile crisis, which were viewed as equally major events by Silents and older generations but seem to have had minimal to no impact on Boomers? Or why not a few years later, since the Vietnam War was the real big issue of the 1960s. Also, a tangent, but do you really remember the Vietnam war ending in the 1960s? My memory is that it didn't end until the peace treaty of 1973, or maybe the boat lift of 1975. Of course it ended with a loss, so that was also disempowering, but I wouldn't have thought its course in the 1960s would seem empowering either. I'm interested in how it could be seen that way.
Where did I say the war ended in the 1960’s? The empowering aspect of the war was on the part of protestors, who perceived that they had succeed in ending a war, which is empowering.
Generation imprinting occurs most rapidly with those aged late teens through mid-20’s, centered on age 22. It is what people in that age group are experiencing that forms generations. Things like the missile crisis and Sputnik are dramatic events, but no social or cultural trends involving youth stemmed from it. On the other hand, things like the civil rights movement had by the early 1960’s involved idealistic youth in the North (like Bernie Sanders). This movement also succeeded when it delivered major de facto constitutional change: long-delayed enforcement of the 15th Amendment. When the black civil rights movement petered out and the war was over, there were new civil rights movements: Women’s, Chicano, Gay, and Environmental movements in which new cohorts of youth were involved and so imprinted into a dominant generation. Also there were all the new religious groups and communes being formed as part of the on-going Awakening.
All this was forging a dominant, empowered, generation amongst Left-leaning youth. The same thing was happening on the Right: The young gunslingers on Wall Street learning how to profit from stocks with no earnings during the go-go years (1967-68), the sober youth appalled with the sex, drugs and bad behavior, who rallied to Nixon’s law and order ideology, or those who went to Reagan rallies in 1976 (lots of kids in my HS). The experience of stagflation and the success of Volcker’s interest rate policy forged right-leaning youth of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s into “austerians”, who believe that “the tax cuts worked” as you said above. The 1973 Roe vs Wade decision sparked a pro-life moment amongst Catholics (this was a big thing at my Catholic school), which later moved to Protestants. The phenomenon of mega-churches got their start in the 1970’s and grew from there. Fundamentalist and conservative Evangelical churches, who had withdrawn from involvement with secular politics during the last 4T re-entered the fray with organizations like the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family. Although these were elder-initiated projects they did have an intent to help shape their youth, and so would initially have an imprinting effect, which would dissipate as the project became routine.
Imprinting would be expected to be somewhat different for conservatives, whose value systems are supposed to NOT embrace novel or radical ideas or practices (i.e. the sorts of things that make a social moment and imprint a dominant gen). The imprinted effect comes from the reaction to some new cultural element. Once the reaction is complete, the imprinting stops. So social moments largely reflect the actions of progressives or leftists, which are why they correspond to the political eras Schlesinger deems liberal.
When the 1960’s birth cohorts started forming paradigms in the early 1980’s the battles were won (or lost) and the movements were over. The energy of the 2T had been dissipated. There were no new causes to embrace, larger narrative to follow, people accepted the paradigms created in the 2T and focused on their own lives. In short, they were imprinted into a recessive generation (GenX) that was less idealistic, but more realistic in their expectations (or so they would maintain).
Imprinting requires a continuous or near continuous stream of events (a social moment) that gives rise to youth-involved movements or projects (e.g. fighting in wars) that keep imprinting new cohorts reaching the vicinity of age 22. When the activity peters out (the social moment ends) imprinted stops., a dominant generation gives way to a recessive one.
Quote:For my theory - that the shift from Adaptive to Idealist is defined at an early age by the fact that Adaptives actually remember the crisis war and Idealists do not - this particular era transition doesn't need to be sharp, and can be caused by, rather than be the cause of, the transition from Adaptives to Idealists.
Well actually John’s theory J
Quote:But as I understand it, you reject that theory.
Yes, because of the Idealistic/Reactive split. One cannot invoke the crisis war here. Instead a fair bit of hand-waving is required.
Quote:The establishment getting its act together could definitely cause a sharp delineation, since leadership changes tend to be relatively sudden; this would also apply to nondemocratic states, which I consider important to the theory. This generates a testable hypothesis: the length of the Awakening period should be highly variable since it's somewhat random when a competent leader comes to power.
No the marker is not competent leadership, it is activity involving that informs ones opinions of the world works (paradigm). I would hardly think those who managed WW II were incompetent. Yet imprinting continued all through the war and ended shortly after. Why? Because the project that was imprinting youth ended. Before that it was the experience of the Depression that was on ongoing education that poverty can happen to people through no fault of their own. Until it happened, it couldn’t teach this lesson, and once it and the war were over there were no more lessons to be taught and the cohorts arriving after 1945 simply adopted the 4T paradigm and became a recessive generation.
So the length of an Awakening/prophet imprinting period should equal the length of a social moment plus a “buffer” zone of a few years.
Quote:It would also mean that Idealists and Reactives aren't differentiated until the beginning of adulthood.Correct
Quote:I'm not sure whether I'm ready to believe that, since much has been made of alleged differences between Boomer and X childhoods. I'll have to think about that.
Much has. But it has the marks of a just so story.
