Why do S&H start Civic generations so early?

[Blazkovitz]

Let's compare

According to S&H's dates:
The oldest Silents (1925) were 21 when their 1T started
The oldest Boomers (1945) were 19 when their 2T started.
The oldest Xers (1961) were 23 when their 3T started.

But the oldest Millennials (1982) were 26 when their 4T started. Same for GIs. The oldest GIs were 28 in 1929. Shouldn't both generation start later? Or does it have something to do with nature of the Civic archetype or the 4T?

[Ghost]

1T started in 1945.
2T started in 1963.
3T started in 1980.
4T started in 2001.
I'm going to guess that 1T will start when the coronavirus is no longer a problem. Maybe 2022.

[Warren Dew]

(06-06-2020, 03:02 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: But the oldest Millennials (1982) were 26 when their 4T started. Same for GIs. The oldest GIs were 28 in 1929. Shouldn't both generation start later? Or does it have something to do with nature of the Civic archetype or the 4T?

People in their late 30s are definitely more Millenial than X, so I think the latter is closer.  It may also have to do with the nature of the 3T, if those tend to be prolonged.

[David Horn]

(06-06-2020, 09:12 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 03:02 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: But the oldest Millennials (1982) were 26 when their 4T started. Same for GIs. The oldest GIs were 28 in 1929. Shouldn't both generation start later? Or does it have something to do with nature of the Civic archetype or the 4T?

People in their late 30s are definitely more Millennial than X, so I think the latter is closer.  It may also have to do with the nature of the 3T, if those tend to be prolonged.

3Ts are prolonged parties, at least for those of us in a position to enjoy them. Since the rich and powerful are fully onboard with party-party-party, and they are in a position to make them continue, the party continues until it can't.  Others are not so lucky, and the 3T is just a grindstone wearing them down.  By definition, that is an unstable system, so crises are a given.  That we have several at once this time is the only thing unusual about this 4T.

[Remy Renault]

If Western Continental Europe is on the same timeline as the US then they appear to be having a very subdued 4T this time around, just like circa 1870. But I'd also be willing to argue that not every society is on the same 80 year cycle. I think Western Continental Europe has 150 year cycles instead. 1789-1945 was a cycle unto itself, just like 1648-1789 was before that. Sure, in the 1870s you had the Franco-Prussian War as well as German and Italian unification, but Europeans don't view that era as a time of great upheaval with "no turning back". Europe had a protracted 4T in its 150 year cycle that lasted from 1914 to 1945. How was WWI not a 4T event for the French, Germans, and Austrians? I agree it wasn't a 4T event for the Americans. WWI changed the map of Europe more than WWII did while the latter changed the balance of power.

And it shouldn't need to be said there are other cyclical theories of history out there. S&H's isn't the only one.

[Ghost]

(06-07-2020, 07:10 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: If Western Continental Europe is on the same timeline as the US then they appear to be having a very subdued 4T this time around, just like circa 1870. But I'd also be willing to argue that not every society is on the same 80 year cycle. I think Western Continental Europe has 150 year cycles instead. 1789-1945 was a cycle unto itself, just like 1648-1789 was before that. Sure, in the 1870s you had the Franco-Prussian War as well as German and Italian unification, but Europeans don't view that era as a time of great upheaval with "no turning back". Europe had a protracted 4T in its 150 year cycle that lasted from 1914 to 1945. How was WWI not a 4T event for the French, Germans, and Austrians? I agree it wasn't a 4T event for the Americans. WWI changed the map of Europe more than WWII did while the latter changed the balance of power.

And it shouldn't need to be said there are other cyclical theories of history out there. S&H's isn't the only one.

I am not too sure, because S&H made generations that date back to the European Renaissance.

The odd thing is that even though S&H talk about 80-90 year cycles and 20-22 year generations, the average length of their generations (from the European Renaissance until today) is like 23 years.

[David Horn]

(06-07-2020, 09:15 AM)Ghost Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 07:10 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: If Western Continental Europe is on the same timeline as the US then they appear to be having a very subdued 4T this time around, just like circa 1870. But I'd also be willing to argue that not every society is on the same 80 year cycle. I think Western Continental Europe has 150 year cycles instead. 1789-1945 was a cycle unto itself, just like 1648-1789 was before that. Sure, in the 1870s you had the Franco-Prussian War as well as German and Italian unification, but Europeans don't view that era as a time of great upheaval with "no turning back". Europe had a protracted 4T in its 150 year cycle that lasted from 1914 to 1945. How was WWI not a 4T event for the French, Germans, and Austrians? I agree it wasn't a 4T event for the Americans. WWI changed the map of Europe more than WWII did while the latter changed the balance of power.

And it shouldn't need to be said there are other cyclical theories of history out there. S&H's isn't the only one.

I am not too sure, because S&H made generations that date back to the European Renaissance.

The odd thing is that even though S&H talk about 80-90 year cycles and 20-22 year generations, the average length of a generation (from the European Renaissance until today) is like 23 years.

This was discussed ad infinitum on the old forum by just about every poster there at the time.  The result was just more controversy.  No reason emerged that even a thin majority could support.  If anything, the structure of the Agricultural Age was sufficiently different that this occurred then but not now. What that difference might have been was 90% of the discussion.

[Ghost]

(06-07-2020, 09:36 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 09:15 AM)Ghost Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 07:10 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: If Western Continental Europe is on the same timeline as the US then they appear to be having a very subdued 4T this time around, just like circa 1870. But I'd also be willing to argue that not every society is on the same 80 year cycle. I think Western Continental Europe has 150 year cycles instead. 1789-1945 was a cycle unto itself, just like 1648-1789 was before that. Sure, in the 1870s you had the Franco-Prussian War as well as German and Italian unification, but Europeans don't view that era as a time of great upheaval with "no turning back". Europe had a protracted 4T in its 150 year cycle that lasted from 1914 to 1945. How was WWI not a 4T event for the French, Germans, and Austrians? I agree it wasn't a 4T event for the Americans. WWI changed the map of Europe more than WWII did while the latter changed the balance of power.

And it shouldn't need to be said there are other cyclical theories of history out there. S&H's isn't the only one.

I am not too sure, because S&H made generations that date back to the European Renaissance.

The odd thing is that even though S&H talk about 80-90 year cycles and 20-22 year generations, the average length of a generation (from the European Renaissance until today) is like 23 years.

This was discussed ad infinitum on the old forum by just about every poster there at the time.  The result was just more controversy.  No reason emerged that even a thin majority could support.  If anything, the structure of the Agricultural Age was sufficiently different that this occurred then but not now. What that difference might have been was 90% of the discussion.

Sorry about that.

[David Horn]

(06-07-2020, 09:39 AM)Ghost Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 09:36 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 09:15 AM)Ghost Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 07:10 AM)Remy Renault Wrote: If Western Continental Europe is on the same timeline as the US then they appear to be having a very subdued 4T this time around, just like circa 1870. But I'd also be willing to argue that not every society is on the same 80 year cycle. I think Western Continental Europe has 150 year cycles instead. 1789-1945 was a cycle unto itself, just like 1648-1789 was before that. Sure, in the 1870s you had the Franco-Prussian War as well as German and Italian unification, but Europeans don't view that era as a time of great upheaval with "no turning back". Europe had a protracted 4T in its 150 year cycle that lasted from 1914 to 1945. How was WWI not a 4T event for the French, Germans, and Austrians? I agree it wasn't a 4T event for the Americans. WWI changed the map of Europe more than WWII did while the latter changed the balance of power.

And it shouldn't need to be said there are other cyclical theories of history out there. S&H's isn't the only one.

I am not too sure, because S&H made generations that date back to the European Renaissance.

The odd thing is that even though S&H talk about 80-90 year cycles and 20-22 year generations, the average length of a generation (from the European Renaissance until today) is like 23 years.

This was discussed ad infinitum on the old forum by just about every poster there at the time.  The result was just more controversy.  No reason emerged that even a thin majority could support.  If anything, the structure of the Agricultural Age was sufficiently different that this occurred then but not now. What that difference might have been was 90% of the discussion.

Sorry about that.

Nothing to be sorry about. It's a legitimate topic, as I noted.

[beechnut79]

(06-07-2020, 06:46 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 09:12 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 03:02 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: But the oldest Millennials (1982) were 26 when their 4T started. Same for GIs. The oldest GIs were 28 in 1929. Shouldn't both generation start later? Or does it have something to do with nature of the Civic archetype or the 4T?

People in their late 30s are definitely more Millennial than X, so I think the latter is closer.  It may also have to do with the nature of the 3T, if those tend to be prolonged.

3Ts are prolonged parties, at least for those of us in a position to enjoy them. Since the rich and powerful are fully onboard with party-party-party, and they are in a position to make them continue, the party continues until it can't.  Others are not so lucky, and the 3T is just a grindstone wearing them down.  By definition, that is an unstable system, so crises are a given.  That we have several at once this time is the only thing unusual about this 4T.

Think it's time to, as a classic early Willie Nelson song says, "Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over."?  But wasn't that also said back when the AIDS scare killed off the sexual revolution?

[User3451]

(06-06-2020, 03:02 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Let's compare

According to S&H's dates:
The oldest Silents (1925) were 21 when their 1T started
The oldest Boomers (1945) were 19 when their 2T started.
The oldest Xers (1961) were 23 when their 3T started.

But the oldest Millennials (1982) were 26 when their 4T started. Same for GIs. The oldest GIs were 28 in 1929. Shouldn't both generation start later? Or does it have something to do with nature of the Civic archetype or the 4T?

I think all, or at least most, of the generational dates and turning dates need to be taken with a grain of salt. It's all really fluid.

According to S&H:

The Silent Gen is 1925-1942
-Biden and Bernie are clearly Grey Champions. This only really works if all of these dates are off by five years or so. 

The Boomers are 1943-1960
-People turning 60 today don't seem like core Boomers at all. Those folks would have turned 22, graduating college, in 1982, and are supposed to be Boomers? 

The Xers are 1961-1981
-I don't see how 76-81 is Xer. That group never had the same milestones as Xers and has much more in common with Millenials

The Millenials are 1982-2004 
-1982 feels late to me, and 20014 is definitely not Millenial

The Zoomers are from 2005
-1998 or thereabouts IMO

[Eric the Green]

(06-06-2020, 03:02 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Let's compare

According to S&H's dates:
The oldest Silents (1925) were 21 when their 1T started
The oldest Boomers (1945) were 19 when their 2T started.
The oldest Xers (1961) were 23 when their 3T started.

But the oldest Millennials (1982) were 26 when their 4T started. Same for GIs. The oldest GIs were 28 in 1929. Shouldn't both generation start later? Or does it have something to do with nature of the Civic archetype or the 4T?

Astrology!

That's not why S&H do it, but what they say aligns with Neptune, the planet of the double saeculum.

When it enters a cardinal sign, within a year or two a dominant generation starts.

1821 Neptune entered Capricorn (Gilded, 1822)
1861 Neptune entered Aries (Missionaries, 1860)
1901 Neptune entered Cancer (GIs, 1901)
1943 Neptune entered Libra (Boomers, 1943)
1984 Neptune entered Capricorn (Millennials, 1984)
(maybe if the Millennials started early according to S&H, they started later according to the planetary clock)

[Blazkovitz]

(06-07-2020, 06:46 AM)David Horn Wrote: 3Ts are prolonged parties, at least for those of us in a position to enjoy them. Since the rich and powerful are fully onboard with party-party-party, and they are in a position to make them continue, the party continues until it can't.  Others are not so lucky, and the 3T is just a grindstone wearing them down.  By definition, that is an unstable system, so crises are a given.  That we have several at once this time is the only thing unusual about this 4T.

I think this is the best explanation

[Blazkovitz]

Biden presidency might be a transitional period between saecula for the US. In Europe, there is a lot to be played out:
-Britain's position after full Brexit
-France's future after Macron (Melenchon vs Le Pen)
-Germany's future after Merkel

[David Horn]

(06-08-2020, 08:53 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: Biden presidency might be a transitional period between saecula for the US. In Europe, there is a lot to be played out:
-Britain's position after full Brexit
-France's future after Macron (Melenchon vs Le Pen)
-Germany's future after Merkel

You only missed Spain and Italy on your litany of European troubles.  Europe is a multi-culture, trying to remain one while coming together.  At the moment, it's an exercise in futility.  I suspect that the EU, as it is today, will evolve dramatically before anything cohesive emerges there.  This may be an issue for the next 2T/4T.  

Short term:" you'll be enjoying the same level of chaos there as we Americans are enjoying here. 

[galaxy]

(06-07-2020, 09:36 AM)David Horn Wrote: This was discussed ad infinitum on the old forum by just about every poster there at the time.  The result was just more controversy.  No reason emerged that even a thin majority could support.  If anything, the structure of the Agricultural Age was sufficiently different that this occurred then but not now. What that difference might have been was 90% of the discussion.

Late arrival on the scene here, who missed those discussions - what were some of the ideas mentioned?

[David Horn]

(08-09-2021, 07:47 AM)galaxy Wrote:

(06-07-2020, 09:36 AM)David Horn Wrote: This was discussed ad infinitum on the old forum by just about every poster there at the time.  The result was just more controversy.  No reason emerged that even a thin majority could support.  If anything, the structure of the Agricultural Age was sufficiently different that this occurred then but not now. What that difference might have been was 90% of the discussion.

Late arrival on the scene here, who missed those discussions - what were some of the ideas mentioned?

Starting with the obvious and working down:

1. All saecula prior to the Civil War saeculum were fully within the Agricultural Age. In other words, change occurred slowly and built solidly on prior saecula.  Statistics and norming tend to work best in a consistant milleau, and that changed abruptly in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
   
2. The Industrial Age was the first change in cultural-social norms in 12,000 years, so the Civil War saculum was almost guaranteed to be affected.  How and why were duscussed ad infinitum.
   
3. Change has only accellerated since then, so the Great Power and Millennial saecula are potentially stand-alone examples, which correlate poorly with prior examples. The reasons are many, but the speed of transportion and information flow occupied the most discussion.
   

Other opinions were also included.  The advance of science and decline in religous belief among them.  It's wide open.  Have at it! 

[galaxy]

(08-09-2021, 09:28 AM)David Horn Wrote: Have at it! 

Well, how about population growth? The apparent shortening of the saeculum corresponds pretty well to the start of the huge population spike of the last 200 years. Perhaps when each successive generation is larger than the one before it, the generations find it easier to sweep their predecessors out of the way as they enter the next phase of life. The best thing to point to as an example of this is probably how the small size of the Lost Generation allowed the Missionary Generation to remain "in power" unusually long, though this didn't seem to affect the boundaries of the relevant turnings much.

Every generation, influenced by its own lived experience, believes itself to be "the best" or "the one that's got it right," so it stands to reason that every generation would hold on to what power it has as long as possible and would "rule" either until becoming simply too old to do so or until being forced out by the following generation in a large cultural shift. Seemingly because of population growth, being forced out has (with a single exception) been the norm for two saecula now, and it seems like 15-20 years is about the fastest that that can happen.
 
The question then becomes this: as countries finish the demographic transition and return to stable or even declining populations, will the saeculum lengthen again? Or has forced replacement become the norm, which will be held in place by the fast pace of modern society and the memory of those living currently? I don't know, but Japan seems like the place to watch in the coming decades for any hints.

[David Horn]

(08-09-2021, 11:04 AM)galaxy Wrote:

(08-09-2021, 09:28 AM)David Horn Wrote: Have at it! 

Well, how about population growth? The apparent shortening of the saeculum corresponds pretty well to the start of the huge population spike of the last 200 years. Perhaps when each successive generation is larger than the one before it, the generations find it easier to sweep their predecessors out of the way as they enter the next phase of life. The best thing to point to as an example of this is probably how the small size of the Lost Generation allowed the Missionary Generation to remain "in power" unusually long, though this didn't seem to affect the boundaries of the relevant turnings much.

Every generation, influenced by its own lived experience, believes itself to be "the best" or "the one that's got it right," so it stands to reason that every generation would hold on to what power it has as long as possible and would "rule" either until becoming simply too old to do so or until being forced out by the following generation in a large cultural shift. Seemingly because of population growth, being forced out has (with a single exception) been the norm for two saecula now, and it seems like 15-20 years is about the fastest that that can happen.
 
The question then becomes this: as countries finish the demographic transition and return to stable or even declining populations, will the saeculum lengthen again? Or has forced replacement become the norm, which will be held in place by the fast pace of modern society and the memory of those living currently? I don't know, but Japan seems like the place to watch in the coming decades for any hints.

All good points and hard to dismiss out of hand.  Then again, there are so many possible impacts that the entire saecular order may no longer apply (we've discussed that too).  My personal beliefs involve the immeging Industrial Age and the post-industrial periods that followed.  It's hard to model something that was more or less static for millennia, then went full dynamic for 250 years.  ANd we'renotgoing to be here long enough for the dustto settle, ifit ever will.  Change seems to be the norm now.

[pbrower2a]

(06-06-2020, 08:23 AM)Ghost Wrote: 1T started in 1945.
2T started in 1963.
3T started in 1980.
4T started in 2001.
I'm going to guess that 1T will start when the coronavirus is no longer a problem. Maybe 2022.

I think you are right. COVID-19 reminds me of a fabricated Klingon proverb from Star Trek:

"Only fools fight in a burning house". 

Obviously an Earthling (Gene Roddenberry or some subordinate scriptwriter)  penned that saying in the Star Trek episode "Day of the Dove". A Klingon Warrior was trapped on the Enterprise... 

• [/url]
  

Quote:

• [url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000638/?ref_=tt_ch]Captain James T. Kirk : [to the alien entity]  Get off my ship. You're a dead duck here, you're powerless. We know about you, and we don't want to play. Maybe... maybe there're others like you around, maybe you've caused a lot of suffering, a lot of history; but that's all over. We'll be on guard now, we'll be ready for you, so ship out! Come on, haul it!
  Dr. McCoy : Yeah, out already!
  Kang : Out! We need no urging to hate Humans. But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house. Out!
  
  
• Captain James T. Kirk : Go to the devil.
  Kang : We have no devil, Kirk. But we understand the habits of yours.
  
  
• Kang : We need no urging to hate Humans. But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house.
  
  
• Kang : For three years the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been at peace. A treaty we have honored to the letter.
  Captain James T. Kirk : We took no action against your ship, Kang.
  Kang : Were the screams of my crew imaginary? What were your orders, Kirk? To start a war? You've succeeded! To test a new weapon? We shall be happy to examine it.
  Captain James T. Kirk : There was a Federation colony on this planet. It was destroyed!
  Kang : By what? No bodies, no ruins. A colony of the invisible?
  Captain James T. Kirk : Yes, a test of a new Klingon weapon leaving no traces. Federation ships don't specialize in sneak attacks.
  
  
• Kang : When I take this ship, I'll have Kirk's head stuffed and hung on his cabin wall.
  
  
• Captain James T. Kirk : YOU received a distress call? WE received a distress call!
  Kang : I don't propose to spend the rest of my life on this ball of dust arguing your fantasies! The Enterprise is MINE!
  
  
• Kang : What power is it that supports our battle yet starves our victory?
  
  
• Kang : Kirk, my ship is disabled. I claim yours. You are now prisoners of the Klingon Empire against which you have committed a wanton act of war!
  
  
• Chekov : Filthy Klingon murderers! You killed my brother, Pyotr. The Archanis IV research outpost. A hundred peaceful people massacred! Just like you did here. My brother - you killed my brother!
  Kang : And you volunteer to join him. That is loyalty.
  
  
• Kang : With your death, we win!
  Captain James T. Kirk : Nobody wins. Have any more of your men died? We can't be killed! There's an alien aboard. It wants us alive.
  Kang : Then, no doubt, you will reassemble after I have hacked you to bits!
  
  
• Kang : I have captured your Engineering section, and now control the ship's power and life support systems. I have deprived all areas except our own. You will die of suffocation in the icy cold of space.
  [power on the Bridge is cut] 
  

Who would seek to go on a military campaign into a country infested with a plague? 

The end of a potentially-martial Crisis Era comes when war becomes too horrible to continue, its objectives are met, or no further campaigns can attain any victory worthy of the cost. Maybe such enemies as Nazis wage war until they are annihilated because they know that they will be humiliated and annihilated in defeat. But the "Colonials" in America assure the British that they can keep the rest of their Empire intact (except for losing Florida, which neither the British not the inchoate United States recognize as desirable... the Spanish somehow want it). The Union side assures the recent Confederate enemy that they can keep their real estate if not their strange form of property which is all too human for such use. Italians realize that they can remain Italians -- just not the fascist @$$holes that Mussolini and his clique were. Germans who knew that they had to toe the Nazi line to be attorneys, teachers, librarians, or printers find that they can be free of the repression and corruption of Nazis... and the fear of the Gestapo. The Japanese found that they could restore all institutions except those necessary for creating a bloodthirsty order of conquest and enslavement -- and prosper like never before after beating their swords into plowshares.  

The risk of further war is the destruction of what remains -- and of all hope... or of conquering a lifeless, wrecked terrain in which all resources are unusable. Farmlands without peasants to feed the conquerors and administrators? Worthless. Industrial plants turned to rubble without the labor to even collect the rubble for reviving the industry? Worthless. Or maybe the industrial, commercial, and residential assets are intact but permeated with radiation as is Chernobyl and thus unusable? That too is worthless. (Chernobyl is not a Crisis-Era event and is not the result of war, but you get the general picture). When that happens, the Crisis is no more. It is not by design that the Crisis ends; it is because the Crisis loses its grasp on human necessity. When people no longer need to fight to survive, then the Crisis is over.  

Klingons are modeled after some totalitarian society on Earth, whether fascists or Commies... maybe Commies because Commies at the least value their own lives. Nazis and their Japanese partners in crime were nothing but death.