11-15-2020, 08:40 PM
(11-15-2020, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-13-2020, 08:33 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Tsk tsk. As usual, I'm the only person in this generational theory forum who actually considers generational theory to be valid.
If you mean the original insights of Strauss and Howe, you may have some such claim. I consider turning theory to have merit, but point out that S&H took most observations from the Industrial Age and did not account fully for the age transition. Like any theory, you often have to tweak to keep the theory valid. In the case of Einstein tweaking Newton, it can be quite a tweak, but a tweak for physicists more than engineers. For most people and most environments, Newton is good enough.
Anyway, a failure to adopt to new data doesn't make devotion to a dated theory a good thing.
I recognize the significance of boundary conditions. It is a good way to avoid getting pulled into a trap.
Obviously it is essential to consider what is not the result of the generational theory (technology? natural disasters? brilliant creative people? random luck?) from what is. Generational theory can't explain the Krakatoa eruption (although it seems to divide the Missionary and Lost generations). Coincidence? Maybe, and I am not going to go further with that argument.
Time in which one is born is environment. Obviously one sees very different worlds if one is born in 1877, 1897, 1922, 1937, 1952, 1977, 1992, or perhaps 2012. Maybe we have better means of forcing people to see the salient events of the past, so just because one is born in 1955 doesn't mean that one can't see such shocking images as newsreel footage of Nazi murder camps as if they were a part of one's conscience even if those date from ten years earlier.
Video is one way of preserving historical reality for its effect upon consciousness. It will be a long time -- maybe never -- before the Nazis get any redemption in history. On a less sordid theme, we have sound and video recordings of musical and theatrical performances, so we can all get to see Gene Kelly's climactic dance in An American in Paris and hear the very different performances of Bach's suites for solo cello by Mstislav Rostropovich and Pablo Casals. Those cellists may be silenced, but their performances live on. In opera, Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti live on.
Institutional changes happen, and some of them stick. Some changes are at most ephemeral fads, like fins on cars in the late 1950's or 'mod' clothes in the 1960's. Some, like the near abandonment of smoking, seem likely to stick.
Successful habits stick. I expect elderly people to remain physically and intellectually active as long as possible, which is good for extending a lifespan and a life with some quality in experience -- as long as they can get away with it. I see Boomers doing this for grand principle as opposed to GI rationality or a Silent zest for life... and figure that retirement age will soon overtake the first wave of Generation X. Staying active intellectually and physically may only be 'pragmatic' for X... people may find different reasons for doing the same thing.
The recursion of history is the forgotten lessons therefrom. Consider as an example at the speculative bubbles of the 1920's and the Double-Zero decade. Speculative bubbles look like easy money and are more profitable than
1. starting new shoe-string businesses
2. long-term thrift
3. investment in plant and equipment
4. streamlining operations in business
5. technological innovation
6. development of human capital
Easy money has always been one of the most obvious temptations. Some very easy ways of making money fast, like commercial fraud, stock scams, trading on insider information, drug trafficking, and outright robbery, do much fraud. The other ways have some lag between investment and pay-off, low returns to the investor, risk, or a requirement of skill and involvement. So let's look at how the generations saw the temptation of a speculative boom based on paper profits around 1915:
GILDED: this will never turn out well.
PROGRESSIVE: if it goes wrong, I won't be around.
MISSIONARY: maybe it will work.
LOST: deal me in!
GI: (baby talk)
Fast forward to 1925, on the brink of the disaster:
GILDED: (dead people don't say much)
PROGRESSIVE: if it goes wrong, I won't be around.
MISSIONARY: maybe it will work.
LOST: deal me in!
GI: it's just too complicated for me to understand.
SILENT: (baby talk)
Fast forward to 1945 as Americans are at war with Hitler and Tojo:
PROGRESSIVE: (dead people don't say much)
MISSIONARY: we could have done better.
LOST: I got burned and had to start over.
GI: Had it not been for the Big Crash, I might not be in this damned war. That made Hitler possible.
SILENT: I don't understand it.
Boom: (baby talk)
Let's really fast forward to 1990:
LOST: (dead people don't say much)
GI: don't do it! just don't do it!
SILENT: we have better systems in place this time.
BOOM: this is easier than saving for retirement.
X: finally the secret of easy money!
MILLENNIAL: (baby talk)
...and 2005
GI: (dead people don't say much)
SILENT: nobody is going to stop it.
BOOM: it might be shaky but I will know when to sell out
X: finally the secret of easy money!
MILLENNIAL: I don't understand it, but I could never invest. Too much student debt.
HOMELAND: (baby talk)
Do you see how it works?
It is possible to learn from the worst. Indeed, the worst, like the Holodomor and the Holocaust, can remained ingrained for centuries. Consider that Grimm's fairy tales are found among all peoples who speak Indo-European (but not Finno-Ugric, Semitic, Turkic, Dravidian, Sinitic, or Austronesian languages. They might seem like obvious old wives' tales, but only in certain contexts. Those tales can be grisly, but they are obviously very old.
Maybe people can learn some lessons: don't look for scapegoats when things go wrong.
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.
