When will the earliest New Prophets be born?

[Einzige]

I'd like to take the temperature of the forum on the issue.

From personal experience with two War Baby grandparents ('41 and '43), I'd consider the '43 grandmother to have a basically Boomer disposition, while my '41 grandfather was very much a Silent. So I'm convinced the earliest Prophets can be born during a Crisis.

And based on that personal experience (my Boomer-esque War Baby grandmother's being born in 1943, fourteen years after Black Tuesday), and holding to a 2006 Fourth Turning start date, I'd bet that the cohort of 2020 will look awfully Prophet-like when they've grown up.

[Einzige]

(08-28-2016, 10:00 PM)taramarie Wrote: They are called cuspers

I know what they're called, but not all Cuspers are created equal. Like I mentioned, first-wave War Babies in my experience were all pretty typically Silent-ish, while second-wave War Babies were more Prophet-like.

My grandparents were both quite conservative, but they fought constantly; my grandfather was demure and fairly non-judgmental, while my grandmother loosed the fateful lightning every chance she got. "Cuspiness" is probably something like a glass-half-full situation, where when you get to 50.01% you're pretty much there.

[Warren Dew]

Poor Quiets. They're already being skipped over for the next Idealist generation in half the threads on their forum.

[beechnut79]

I was born in Nov. 1944 so I would definitely be considered a cusper. In fact I have contemplated at times writing a book about it, the title being "On the Cusp of the Boom". I have however determined that I tend to have more Silent characteristics than Boom ones.

[Hintergrund]

They'll be born during the last two years of the Crisis, but since nobody knows when that'll be... y'know that I think that the Crisis hasn't even really begun yet.

[Ghost]

(08-14-2019, 07:57 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: They'll be born during the last two years of the Crisis, but since nobody knows when that'll be... y'know that I think that the Crisis hasn't even really begun yet.

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion right away. For example, Some people on here would agree that the start of 3T took place in late 1980 with the Reagan vs. Carter election and the assassination of John Lennon. 1981 borns and some born in late 1980 were born after the start of 3T, but I (as well as most people on here probably) still consider them as being Generation X.

[Hintergrund]

You didn't even understand how Generations and Turnings are related.

[pbrower2a]

(08-14-2019, 07:57 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: They'll be born during the last two years of the Crisis, but since nobody knows when that'll be... y'know that I think that the Crisis hasn't even really begun yet.

We are in the Crisis, as the foundation of American democracy is under attack from the inside, including from people who have had all the advantages all their lives. At least in the last Crisis, the worst heels were in Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, and Zagreb -- maybe Budapest at times. Not until 1943 were the Axis Powers doomed, and not until 1944 did the Allies deliver the death blows. 

History moved fast beginning with Operation Uranus (Soviet pincer assaults besieging the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad) and culminating with the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri.  

As a foretaste. think of the scene in the great movie The Wizard of Oz  in which the Wicked Witch of the West takes a burning broom to the Scarecrow... just as you think that the witch is about to extend things out indefinitely, Dorothy extinguishes the fire on the Scarecrow and gets water on the witch. You should know the rest. That is how a Crisis comes to an end, or at least to the beginning of the end after which all else is anticlimax. Within ten months of D-Day, Antichrist Hitler was in Hell. History may not resolve quite as swiftly as a feature film, but it can resolve with amazing speed. 

One election may be enough. That is how we do things in America.

[Hintergrund]

I'd say that Hitler was toast the moment the US were at war with him.

[Anthony '58]

Since the first Missionaries were born in 1860 - the year the first state (South Carolina) seceded to start the First Civil War, I voted for 2020, because 2020 will be the year that the first state (probably California) will secede to start the Second Civil War.

And the Second Civil War will start on November 4 - the day after the election.

[David Horn]

(08-22-2019, 08:08 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: I'd say that Hitler was toast the moment the US were at war with him.

The same applied to the Japanese, and Admiral Yamamoto stated as much after the Peart Harbor attack.

[David Horn]

(06-21-2020, 04:26 PM)Anthony Wrote: Since the first Missionaries were born in 1860 - the year the first state (South Carolina) seceded to start the First Civil War, I voted for 2020, because 2020 will be the year that the first state (probably California) will secede to start the Second Civil War.

And the Second Civil War will start on November 4 - the day after the election.

This assumes that Trump wins in the Electoral College, but the popular vote is even more skewed against him, and Californians are willing to go to the mattresses.

[sbarrera]

Great poll. Here's a followup question: what do we call the new saeculum? If we know what it should be called, does that mean we are in the First Turning, and can therefore determine the correct New Prophet start birth year?

Great Power Saeculum: 1865-1946
Millennial Saeculum: 1946-2025(?)
________ Saeculum: 2025(?)-

[David Horn]

(06-22-2020, 09:46 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Great poll. Here's a followup question: what do we call the new saeculum? If we know what it should be called, does that mean we are in the First Turning, and can therefore determine the correct New Prophet start birth year?

Great Power Saeculum: 1865-1946
Millennial Saeculum: 1946-2025(?)
________ Saeculum: 2025(?)-

By no means have we determined what the centrality of the coming saeculum will be.  At a minimum, it would be nice to know that it will be peaceful (in general) or a warrior saeculum like the last one.  WW-III is still out there as a possibility, but not this time.   Blowing civilization to bits seems to be a very human thing to do

[nguyenivy]

I think what year it will be depends on whether COVID is our big crisis climax or not. If it is, then whoever is born in the 2 to 3 years leading up to its end will be the new Prophets. What makes me wonder if COVID really is the big one has more to do with last time: the 1918 flu killed many people around the world but we weren't in an 'official' crisis until 1929 (unless you were in Europe where they seemed to just have a gigantic Crisis from 1914 to 1945 between both WWs). Were people's reactions to the 1918 flu different given it happened during a 3T? Did places close down on their own accord or did governments sweep in to enforce closures in like these days?

[pbrower2a]

Starting about three years before the end of the Crisis Era if the analogue is to the Crisis of 1940, and about five years before if the analogue is to the Crisis of 1860. Some may already be born.

Hey Boomers -- let's not foster any dangerous narcissism among kids. It didn't work out well when many of us became narcissists..

[pbrower2a]

I voted "already have" because I see the disappearance of COVID-19 as the definitive end to this Crisis/.

[pbrower2a]

(10-30-2021, 04:14 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: I think what year it will be depends on whether COVID is our big crisis climax or not. If it is, then whoever is born in the 2 to 3 years leading up to its end will be the new Prophets. What makes me wonder if COVID really is the big one has more to do with last time: the 1918 flu killed many people around the world but we weren't in an 'official' crisis until 1929 (unless you were in Europe where they seemed to just have a gigantic Crisis from 1914 to 1945 between both WWs). Were people's reactions to the 1918 flu different given it happened during a 3T? Did places close down on their own accord or did governments sweep in to enforce closures in like these days?

We have been in a Crisis since 2008 with the financial calamity. To be sure, this Crisis has had much 3T character, reflecting the will of the economic elites for what they most like about a 3T (severe inequality, market power, and no constraints upon economic indulgence), but for about everyone else it is a Crisis. The 3T character reflects that the elite the attitude that every man is for himself alone, which is one way of ensuring that just about everyone gets hurt.

When that cracks, we will have solved most of our problems. COVID-19 has killed over 700,000 people in America, roughly the population of Denver. One ideological segment of America has done far worse in meeting the Crisis, and that is the part most likely to support the more reactionary interests in America. Resistance to masks, vaccines, and social distancing has been strongest among Trump supporters. Such bodes ill for the current constellation of Republican voters.

[galaxy]

Well, if we go on my "generation math" 1T start date of 2026, then probably around 2022 at the earliest (and 2028 at the latest).


Even those born today will be distinct from those born earlier, though. A Silent born in 1940 was much more similar to the Boomers than to the GIs, and the opposite was true for a Silent born in 1930. A child born in 2017 will remember the pandemic, which currently (knock on wood) looks like the Crisis climax, very differently compared to one born in 2007, because the 2017-born will not remember a time before the pandemic, while the 2007 will.

Obviously anyone born in the 2010s is too young to really get a generational analysis on, but I know several people born in 2005-2008 who all seem broadly similar to those born a little earlier, my group, the "dark millennials" (as someone on here nicknamed them) who do not remember 9/11 but remember a time before 2008 (so born roughly 1997 to 2002). Not the same, but similar.