(02-04-2017, 06:15 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(02-04-2017, 04:15 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Here you are subtlely changing from the S&H model. You are emphasizing a portion of the rising adult phase of life as important. This is my view, that what matters is the experience over a more narrow span of years that a full phase of life, and that this span tends towards the beginning of the phase of life.
I don't think he is changing from the model.
In Strauss & Howe, at least in Generations, the phases of life create the generational constellations that predict what the turnings will be like over a period of time. That doesn't mean that the turnings create generations in the same way.
I believe they say the generations are created based on coming of age experience. That seems to me to be the same thing you and Someguy are saying. One isn't still "coming of age" at 35.
Did you read the appendix, in which they describe how the model works in more detail?
They do not say generations are created during coming of age, that's the Mannheim (1927) model. If they meant that they would have cited him and said it explicitly, it's an easy-to-understand concept.
They proposed a different mechanism in which people occupying different phases of life during an eventful period like a major war develop different peer personalities. There are parallel generational-creating processes operating across the age spectrum.
During the war, the role of youth is to obey orders and keep their head down. The develop a conformist peer personalities, in which adolescent rebellion is delayed to mid-life, that is, they become Artists.
The role of young adults is action, fight in the war. With big stakes comes consequential results. They become a generation of achievers of big things: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty"--JFK. They become Heroes.
Those in charge develop an unsentimental, no-nonsense get it down approach--because that is what is required by events. They become Nomads.
Overseeing the direction of their civilization is the generation that experienced the Awakening in their days of action. Unlike the managers, who focus on What and How, they focus on the Why. They are reinforced as Prophets.
This is the S&H mechanism. It is quite different from Mannheim's. It has problems though. If the generation-creating event lasts for a signficant length of time, many people will occupy two phases of life during that time and so could end in in either generation or a mixture of both. The generations created would be smeared out and quickly loose coherence.