03-27-2017, 10:48 AM
(03-26-2017, 06:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(03-26-2017, 05:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(03-26-2017, 03:54 PM)freivolk Wrote: This crisis is more similar to the Civil War then to WWII. The civic generation don´t rally around one flag, they form two hostile camps.
Big difference from the Civil War: at the start of the Civil War, the generation being raised as a Civic generation (the Progressive generation) had not yet reached adulthood. The oldest of the Progressive Generation were 18 at the start of the Civil War, and they were in no position in which to become leaders of the Crisis Era. Maybe some of the oldest, like future US President William McKinley (1843-1901) would take on Civic roles, but the Civic role ended up largely in the hands of the Gilded generation that grew up Reactive.
Today's Millennial generation has been brought up as a Civic generation, and it is old enough that it will likely take the stereotypical role of a Civic generation even if the Crisis is a catastrophe for America -- and perhaps especially if there is a catastrophe, as it would be the adult generation least held in blame in the wake of national disgrace. (See the German and Japanese contemporaries of America's GI Generation -- they were the biggest achievers of any generation in their national histories, and their countries had endured catastrophic defeats).
The American Civil War struck near the 3T-4T border when existing adult generations were at their worst -- the Compromise generation still active, but insisting upon process already irrelevant, the transcendental generation having polarized into opposing camps that sought the utter defeat of each other, and the Gilded seeing war more as opportunity and adventure than as the destruction and danger that war is. For an analogue elsewhere, just look at the Russian Civil War when the Idealist generation was divided neatly between Reds and Whites who would prove to seek the extermination of each other due to the ruthlessness and brutality of both sides -- and to Spain in the 1930s. The revolutionaries would prevail in Russia and the reactionaries would prevail in Spain. No matter which side won, most people would still lose.
It's the Boomers who are in hostile camps today. Millennial adults will choose which Boomer faction sets the agenda for the Crisis through the politics of the Civic generation which has yet to show itself.
Historian Shelby Foote described the Gilded generation as civic-minded, having morals and civic duties instilled into them. So I look at those generations a bit differently. Rather than the Progressive, the Gillded may be the hybrid generation, more civic in youth and during the war, but more nomad afterward in the Gilded Age.
Others set different dates from S&H, and often redate the generations so that there's a civic generation born in about the 1830s and a nomad generation in the 1810s. S&H made the prophet generation 30 years long, at a time in history when the saeculum was speeding up and generations were becoming shorter in length from that common in the medieval-renaissance civilization, which ran on the old agricultural age timeclock like during Roman times. The revolution and civil war saecula were times of transition from ancient to modern, and from agricultural/feudal to industrial/bourgeois.
The civil war anomaly, which is probably due to the saeculum speed-up, is very questionable. Whether the generation dates should be changed, or whether they should be looked on as hybrids, it is clear to me that the 1850s were 4T already, and very similar in nature to our half-assed 4T today. The last compromise was in 1850, which is one date cited an an alternative starting date for the civil war 4T. In fact, the civil war almost started that year, and a parallel event happened at the same time in Europe.
The Gilded were a wild bunch before the Civil War. Some remained so, making the Wild West as wild as its reputation. Whether they became a genuine Civic generation in the South is much in question.
Adults born in the 1810s were largely shut out of upper leadership in America, having been cast off quickly after the Civil War. But they grew up as Idealists, and being cast aside around age 50 when the average life expectancy was around 50 likely changed them little.
The Gilded became (in part) a Civic generation, with characteristics of secularism, conformity, social cohesion, a love for doing things on a big scale, cultural blandness, and an indulgent style of child-raising. They were much less daring than GIs and less likely to enrich themselves collectively. The Progressive generation filled the vacuum of that the Compromise generation left behind, and the Gilded had the credibility as war heroes that no other generation had at the time -- and they would never let people forget that.
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.