What are your specialities?

[Ldr]

(10-08-2019, 11:19 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(10-05-2019, 11:26 AM)Ldr Wrote: ... This is why I never believed in the reasoning of the Strauss-Howe generational theory. ...

Just curious (and if you've addressed this elsewhere I apologize) ... if you don't believe the theory why do you post in this forum?

That's a good question, and I have a specific answer to it. I believe that the historical observations by Strauss & Howe about the generational traits and the cycle as a whole are accurate. But I do not believe in the "social dynamics" explanations about how the generations are formed and why the cycle keeps on turning. It just doesn't work, as it is virtually impossible for the events they describe to happen because of generations "reacting" to other generations and societal events, especially as the cycle is so precise while spanning several centuries.

That's why I took the historical observations as a starting point, and built a biological explanation for the generational theory, tossing away the "social dynamics" explanations, as they weren't convincing enough. It is the varying hormone levels that create the generational traits, and also the dynamics of the turnings. And the statistics support this idea in chapter 4 of the generational hormone theory's webpage. In addition, many cyclical mammal species have the same cycle, as the hypothalamus that secretes hormones is common with the rest of the animal world.

To give you an example, the nurturing intensity goes around in a 80 year cycle. But the science basically says that good parenting results in good parenting skills for the child, and bad parenting leads to bad parenting skills for the child. This is just one example of how the "social dynamics" theory is incorrect in its assumptions. If one tries to explain that the nurturing intensity is higher because of societal events, wrong again. The nurturing intensity was low in the 1970's, and started to go up since then, but was the 1980's or 2000's somehow a more dangerous time, explaining the higher nurturing intensity? Not really. Was the social mood different? Yes, but trying to explain the changes to the social mood through generational societal interactions falls flat, because none of it can be explained with any real accuracy. What I'm getting at is that all of the "social dynamic" explanations of the Strauss-Howe generational theory are very easy to shoot down with basic science.

But when looking at the generational archetypes is very important, because they are the ones who create the history, and they are created by hormone levels. It's just like with the other cyclical animal populations, their different generations behave different according to the position of the cycle. It's actually quite simple when you think about it, but as human societies are infinitely more complex, the manifestations are also different. But when it comes to parenting and breastfeeding, the manifestations are the same in humans and other animals.