Dear Sean,

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> Strauss and Howe extend the 4T out to include King William's War
> because it is part and parcel of the overall crisis that the
> colonists faced in terms of their structural position in the
> world. King Philip's War and the Glorious Revolution are a part of
> that.

Whatever the reason is, fine. But the important fact is that 1704 is
the historically crucial Battle of Blenheim, which not only saved the
English empire, but also permitted the Hanoverian Succession crisis
to be resolved by 1707.

You can't end the English Fourth Turning period with the Battle of
Blenheim, and then claim it's a "Glorious Revolution crisis" without a
shot being fired.

However, if you separate the timelines of the colonies and England,
which is clearly what S&H are doing, then it works, since the Battle
of Blenheim was, as far as I know, not particularly visible to the
colonies.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> As for the English Civil War being 4T, I can't buy it. It even
> contradicts your own theory. It comes much less than a long human
> lifetime after England's conflict with Spain in the late 16th
> century. Furthermore, it came on the heels of intense religious
> activity and upheaval, especially among the younger generation. I
> see it as analogous to WWI.

No, it doesn't contradict my own theory.

Spain was pretty hostile to England since the 1530s, when King Henry
defied the pope and adopted the Protestant religion. That was bad
enough, since Spain was trying to fulfill its manifest destiny to
lead the Catholic religion to victory over Protestants and Muslims
throughout Europe.

But what really pissed the Spanish off is the reason why the
King adopted the Protestant religion: Because the pope wouldn't grant
him a divorce from his wife so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. And
the wife he wanted to dump was a Spanish princess.

So I have the war between England and Spain starting in the 1560s,
when it became clear that Spain's plan was to get rid of Queen
Elizabeth and then the next in the line of succession would be Mary
Tudor, Queen of Scots -- a Catholic.

And I have the war ending with the Armada crisis in 1588. So the
English Civil War, which began in 1638 with a Scottish rebellion, is
quite consistent with the Generational Dynamics timelines.

And you see a recurring thread here: The issue of the Protestant /
Catholic conflict wasn't simply a religious difference; it was an
important split between Scotland and England. This was the important
theme that ran through this period. In the 1560s, it was an alliance
between Spain and Scotland versus England that was the issue; in the
1540s, it was a Scottish rebellion that started the English Civil
War; and in the War of the Spanish Succession, it was initially an
alliance between France and Scotland that was the issue. The
relationship between England and Scotland was finally resolved
only in 1507 (the date you picked), and then only after the Battle of
Blenheim in 1504 (the date that S&H picked).

Why you "can't buy" that 10 years of violent civil war, 10 years of
military dictatorship by Oliver Cromwell, followed by 18 months of
anarchy under Cromwell's son -- why you can't buy that as a fourth
turning is totally beyond me.

And if you're going to claim that the GR "settled" anything, it
didn't settle even a fraction of what the English Civil War settled.

Here's a description of what life was like before the English Civil
War:

> Charles I (1625-49) inherited a fairly run-down state when he
> became King of Great Britain and Ireland on his father's death in
> 1625. Friction between the throne and Parliament began almost at
> once. The Parliaments of 1625 and 1626 refused to grant funds to
> the King without redress for their grievances. Charles responded
> to these demands by dissolving the parliaments and ordering a
> forced loan.

> In 1628, Charles was desperate for funds and was forced to call a
> third parliament. This parliament presented him with the Petition
> of Right - a bill that declared forced loans, imprisonment without
> trial and martial law illegal. Charles accepted this bill but, in
> 1629, after criticism of his illegal taxation and support of the
> Arminians in the church, he dissolved parliament and imprisoned
> its leaders. For eleven years, Charles ruled without parliament -
> a period described as 'the Eleven Years' Tyranny'.

> Charles's advisers, Strafford and Laud, with the support of the
> Star Chamber, suppressed opposition by persecuting the Puritans.
> In 1640, with Scotland already in revolt, the Short Parliament was
> summoned but it refused to grant money until grievances were
> redressed. It was speedily dissolved. As Scots forces advanced
> into England and forced their own terms on Charles, the Long
> Parliament (beginning in November 1640) rebelled and declared
> extra-Parliamentary taxation illegal, the Star Chamber abolished
> and that Parliament could not be dissolved without its own
> consent. Laud and other ministers were imprisoned, and Strafford
> condemned to death.

> Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelin...harles_i.shtml

So note that the major differences between Parliament and the King
were "settled" before even Charles I was beheaded:

• (*) The oppressive Star Chamber, which permitted the King to
  do anything he wanted to anybody, was abolished.
  
• (*) The King's power of taxation without approval of Parliament was
  abolished.
  
• (*) The King's power to dissolve Parliament was abolished.
  
• (*) Forced loans, imprisonment without trial and martial law were
  also all abolished.

Those are four major changes in the relationship between Parliament
and the King that were "settled." There were no such major changes
settled by the GR.

Nor was the Catholic / Protestant issue settled by the Glorious
Revolution, because Scotland didn't accept it. You're obviously
aware of this yourself, because you gave 1707 as the end of the 4T
period. So your claim that the Catholic / Protestant issue was
"settled forever" is completely untrue, and the issue might have led
to a second English Civil War if France had won the Battle of
Blenheim in 1704.

So a lot was settled by the English Civil War, almost
nothing was settled by the Glorious Revolution, and a lot
more was settled by the War of the Spanish Succession.
All the GR did was set the stage for the real battle, to occur in the
1700s decade.

Incidentally, that's a fairly common theme of awakening events. WW I
didn't settle things, but it launched the Nazis and set the stage for
WW II. The Tiananmen Square event in 1989 didn't settle anything, but
it launched the Falun Gong movement in China and the Wild Lily
rebellion in Taiwan, and these are leading down the path to the next
massive Chinese crisis civil war, even as we speak.

That's a major feature of awakenings. But S&H know that, so they had
the period end in 1704, and you know that, because you ended the
period in 1707.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on which era finally
> solved the King vs. Parliament, Protestant monarch vs. Catholic
> monarch problems. You say it was solved by the English Civil War,
> I by the Glorious Revolution.

No, you DIDN'T say it was resolved by the Glorious Revolution.

What you said is that it was resolved "when 'Britain' finally united
for good as one kingdom (1707). Pretty structural stuff." I agree
with this latter comment, except that I would make it 1709, to
include the battle of Malplaquet.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> Finally, I am open to the GR being the opening salvo in an English
> 4T, whereas it was more chronological central to the colonial 4T.
> That quite possibly puts the WSS in an English 4T (where I think
> we both agree) whereas the colonial equivilent, Queen Anne's War,
> would've been 1T for the colonies.

Now this sounds like something we could both agree with. I have no
HUGE problem in saying that the GR was the opening shot of the WSS
4T, since the beginning of any historical 4T is going to be pretty
hard to determine anyway. But if that's the only remaining issue,
and you want to say that the English 4T runs from 1688 to 1709, then
I'd say we're agreed on all except details.

However, that still leaves the English Civil War as an outstanding
issue. It may be an awakening in the colonies, but if you're still
calling that period of devastation an awakening in England, then I can
only shake my head in bewilderment.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Sean,

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> Strauss and Howe extend the 4T out to include King William's War
> because it is part and parcel of the overall crisis that the
> colonists faced in terms of their structural position in the
> world. King Philip's War and the Glorious Revolution are a part of
> that.

Whatever the reason is, fine. But the important fact is that 1704 is
the historically crucial Battle of Blenheim, which not only saved the
English empire, but also permitted the Hanoverian Succession crisis
to be resolved by 1707.

You can't end the English Fourth Turning period with the Battle of
Blenheim, and then claim it's a "Glorious Revolution crisis" without a
shot being fired.

However, if you separate the timelines of the colonies and England,
which is clearly what S&H are doing, then it works, since the Battle
of Blenheim was, as far as I know, not particularly visible to the
colonies.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> As for the English Civil War being 4T, I can't buy it. It even
> contradicts your own theory. It comes much less than a long human
> lifetime after England's conflict with Spain in the late 16th
> century. Furthermore, it came on the heels of intense religious
> activity and upheaval, especially among the younger generation. I
> see it as analogous to WWI.

No, it doesn't contradict my own theory.

Spain was pretty hostile to England since the 1530s, when King Henry
defied the pope and adopted the Protestant religion. That was bad
enough, since Spain was trying to fulfill its manifest destiny to
lead the Catholic religion to victory over Protestants and Muslims
throughout Europe.

But what really pissed the Spanish off is the reason why the
King adopted the Protestant religion: Because the pope wouldn't grant
him a divorce from his wife so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. And
the wife he wanted to dump was a Spanish princess.

So I have the war between England and Spain starting in the 1560s,
when it became clear that Spain's plan was to get rid of Queen
Elizabeth and then the next in the line of succession would be Mary
Tudor, Queen of Scots -- a Catholic.

And I have the war ending with the Armada crisis in 1588. So the
English Civil War, which began in 1638 with a Scottish rebellion, is
quite consistent with the Generational Dynamics timelines.

And you see a recurring thread here: The issue of the Protestant /
Catholic conflict wasn't simply a religious difference; it was an
important split between Scotland and England. This was the important
theme that ran through this period. In the 1560s, it was an alliance
between Spain and Scotland versus England that was the issue; in the
1540s, it was a Scottish rebellion that started the English Civil
War; and in the War of the Spanish Succession, it was initially an
alliance between France and Scotland that was the issue. The
relationship between England and Scotland was finally resolved
only in 1507 (the date you picked), and then only after the Battle of
Blenheim in 1504 (the date that S&H picked).

Why you "can't buy" that 10 years of violent civil war, 10 years of
military dictatorship by Oliver Cromwell, followed by 18 months of
anarchy under Cromwell's son -- why you can't buy that as a fourth
turning is totally beyond me.

And if you're going to claim that the GR "settled" anything, it
didn't settle even a fraction of what the English Civil War settled.

Here's a description of what life was like before the English Civil
War:

> Charles I (1625-49) inherited a fairly run-down state when he
> became King of Great Britain and Ireland on his father's death in
> 1625. Friction between the throne and Parliament began almost at
> once. The Parliaments of 1625 and 1626 refused to grant funds to
> the King without redress for their grievances. Charles responded
> to these demands by dissolving the parliaments and ordering a
> forced loan.

> In 1628, Charles was desperate for funds and was forced to call a
> third parliament. This parliament presented him with the Petition
> of Right - a bill that declared forced loans, imprisonment without
> trial and martial law illegal. Charles accepted this bill but, in
> 1629, after criticism of his illegal taxation and support of the
> Arminians in the church, he dissolved parliament and imprisoned
> its leaders. For eleven years, Charles ruled without parliament -
> a period described as 'the Eleven Years' Tyranny'.

> Charles's advisers, Strafford and Laud, with the support of the
> Star Chamber, suppressed opposition by persecuting the Puritans.
> In 1640, with Scotland already in revolt, the Short Parliament was
> summoned but it refused to grant money until grievances were
> redressed. It was speedily dissolved. As Scots forces advanced
> into England and forced their own terms on Charles, the Long
> Parliament (beginning in November 1640) rebelled and declared
> extra-Parliamentary taxation illegal, the Star Chamber abolished
> and that Parliament could not be dissolved without its own
> consent. Laud and other ministers were imprisoned, and Strafford
> condemned to death.

> Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelin...harles_i.shtml

So note that the major differences between Parliament and the King
were "settled" before even Charles I was beheaded:

• (*) The oppressive Star Chamber, which permitted the King to
  do anything he wanted to anybody, was abolished.
  
• (*) The King's power of taxation without approval of Parliament was
  abolished.
  
• (*) The King's power to dissolve Parliament was abolished.
  
• (*) Forced loans, imprisonment without trial and martial law were
  also all abolished.

Those are four major changes in the relationship between Parliament
and the King that were "settled." There were no such major changes
settled by the GR.

Nor was the Catholic / Protestant issue settled by the Glorious
Revolution, because Scotland didn't accept it. You're obviously
aware of this yourself, because you gave 1707 as the end of the 4T
period. So your claim that the Catholic / Protestant issue was
"settled forever" is completely untrue, and the issue might have led
to a second English Civil War if France had won the Battle of
Blenheim in 1704.

So a lot was settled by the English Civil War, almost
nothing was settled by the Glorious Revolution, and a lot
more was settled by the War of the Spanish Succession.
All the GR did was set the stage for the real battle, to occur in the
1700s decade.

Incidentally, that's a fairly common theme of awakening events. WW I
didn't settle things, but it launched the Nazis and set the stage for
WW II. The Tiananmen Square event in 1989 didn't settle anything, but
it launched the Falun Gong movement in China and the Wild Lily
rebellion in Taiwan, and these are leading down the path to the next
massive Chinese crisis civil war, even as we speak.

That's a major feature of awakenings. But S&H know that, so they had
the period end in 1704, and you know that, because you ended the
period in 1707.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on which era finally
> solved the King vs. Parliament, Protestant monarch vs. Catholic
> monarch problems. You say it was solved by the English Civil War,
> I by the Glorious Revolution.

No, you DIDN'T say it was resolved by the Glorious Revolution.

What you said is that it was resolved "when 'Britain' finally united
for good as one kingdom (1707). Pretty structural stuff." I agree
with this latter comment, except that I would make it 1709, to
include the battle of Malplaquet.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> Finally, I am open to the GR being the opening salvo in an English
> 4T, whereas it was more chronological central to the colonial 4T.
> That quite possibly puts the WSS in an English 4T (where I think
> we both agree) whereas the colonial equivilent, Queen Anne's War,
> would've been 1T for the colonies.

Now this sounds like something we could both agree with. I have no
HUGE problem in saying that the GR was the opening shot of the WSS
4T, since the beginning of any historical 4T is going to be pretty
hard to determine anyway. But if that's the only remaining issue,
and you want to say that the English 4T runs from 1688 to 1709, then
I'd say we're agreed on all except details.

However, that still leaves the English Civil War as an outstanding
issue. It may be an awakening in the colonies, but if you're still
calling that period of devastation an awakening in England, then I can
only shake my head in bewilderment.

John,

Thanks for the reply.

I will continue to consider your opinion about the 4T nature of the ECW and not dimiss it out-of-hand -- your commitment and your analytical prowess disallow that. But my current position is unchanged.

However, I'm glad we are in agreement on the WoSS.

BTW, what are Mike's views on this? I remember you guys discussing it but forget what he said.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

The problem is that none of this makes sense, and the more I look at it, the crazier it is.

Let me begin by quoting the description of the crisis period of a
fourth turning:

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 258-59

> The Crisis climax is human history's equivalent to nature's
> raging typhoon, the kind that sucks all surrounding matter into a
> single swirl of ferocious energy. Anything not lashed down goes
> flying; anything standing in the way gets flattened. Normally
> occurring late in the Fourth Turning, the climax gathers energy
> from an accumulation of unmet needs, unpaid bills, and unresolved
> problems. It then spends that energy on an upheaval whose
> direction and dimension were beyond comprehension during the prior
> Unraveling era. The climax shakes a society to its roots,
> transforms its institutions, redirects its purposes, and marks
> its people (and its generations) for life. The climax can end in
> triumph, or tragedy, or some combination of both. Whatever the
> event and whater the outcome, a society passes through a great gae
> of history, fundamentally altering the course of civilization.

> Soon thereafter, this great gate is sealed by the Crisis
> resolution, when victors are rewarded and enemies
> punished; when empires or nations are forged or destroyed; when
> treaties are signed and boundaries redrawn; and when peace is
> accepted, troops repatriated, and life begun anew.

> One large chapter of history ends, and another starts. in a very
> real sense, one society dies -- and another is born.

Now I don't care what anybody says, there's nothing about the Glorious Revolution that comes anywhere close to fitting that description. There's simply no match. Period. But there is a match for the English Civil War.

This is an excellent post because it strikes to the very meat of this cycle business.

The description of the crisis taken from S&H very much implies the idea of a crisis being a time of "sturm und drang", of cataclysmic events. And then S&H posit the Glorous Revolution as a Crisis turning. No matter how you slice it, the GR is way less of a raging typhoon than the English Revolution. One can look at the colonies and England as different and thus give King Phillip's War big play by noting that although the scale of fighting was small by the European standards of the day and the war was over in a year is was very BIG when the casualties are scaled to the size of the American population. Given this, it is hard to see why a Crisis centered around King Phillip's war (this is the typhoonic event) would extend all the way to 1704--or even 1688. What relevant events happened in America between 1676 and 1688 that make this period like a raging typhoon?

Yet S&H put the Glorious Revolution crisis where it is and it cannot be that they were thinking of raging typhoons when they did so. We know that their turnings come from generations. And for generations we consider the social and cultural mileu as well as political events like wars.

For example S&H consider that an Awakening started in the 1960's. Here is a plot of social trends since 1940:

The awakening period seems to be a time of rising trends in spirituality (as measured by my frequency analysis of relgious events), in antisocial behavior (measure by the rising crime index) and in drug use (measured by alcohol use). It might be described as a time when Prophets tuned in (spirituality) turned on (drug use) and dropped out (antisocial behavior).

Has anything like this happened before? If we believe S&H the answer would be yes. Here is a similar plot for the 18th century

It looks like a similar thing to the 1960's and 1970's happened in the 1720's and 1730's.

Using social trends it sure looks like the 1960's and the 1720's are "similar" periods.

S&H came to a similar conclusion using methods that are different from what I have just showed. They look at biographies, which is more of a literary, qualitative analysis than the strictly numerical results I have just presented. Yet they come to the same conclusion that the 1720-1745 period is "socially/culturally similar" to the 1955-1985 period. In their terminology, both periods contain Awakening turnings.

Using their methodology they find an Awakening turning over the 1621-49 period. I don't have crime or alcohol use data for this period, but I do see rising religious events over this same time, which I take as corroborative evidence of the correctness of their assessment.

As far as I can tell they got the two Awakenings right and so I am willing to go along with the Crisis they put in between.

Now, if you wish to use S&H's description of a Crisis to provide a definition of a Crisis as the most tumultuus period in a saeculum, then you just about have to focus on wars, and wars with genocidal energy would be the crisis wars. This is what you have done.

But this is NOT what S&H have done, because what you note about the relative "storminess" of the GR wrt to the English Civil War is both correct AND obvious. So obvious that S&H could not possibly have missed it.

We can take the fact that they call the GR and not the English Civil War as a Crisis as proof that they do not use the idea of a raging typhoon as a Crisis definition. It is simply a bit of visual imagery to connote the idea that Crises are usually rather stormy affairs (e.g. the Civil War, Revolutionary War, Depression & WW II), but the example of the GR shows that it is not always so.

You see if we went with your idea that the Crisis really ended in 1714, then an Awakening beginning in the 1720's would make a very short High and a very long Unraveling. We would probably push it back to something like 1740-1763. The 1763-1789 period might be an Unraveling and the 1789-1815 period a Crisis, or something like that.

If we did this, we would have to throw out the idea that Awakenings have their own separate existence that can be independently corroborated by analysis of social trends or revealed by study of cohort biographies. Instead, they would be midpoints between crisis wars--that is, they would be defined by or dependent on the Crisis.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

So I have the war between England and Spain starting in the 1560s,
when it became clear that Spain's plan was to get rid of Queen
Elizabeth and then the next in the line of succession would be Mary
Tudor, Queen of Scots -- a Catholic.

The next in line, my dear forward-looking Mr. Xenakis was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Widow of France, and spawn of the House of Guise. She was a Roman Catholic candidate but not a Spanish candidate as her family ties were to France, Lorraine, and Scotland. Guise did have ties to the husband of Mary Tudor, the much married Philip II of Spain.

Dear Virgil,

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

> >>> John J. Xenakis wrote: So I have the war between England and
> Spain starting in the 1560s, when it became clear that Spain's
> plan was to get rid of Queen Elizabeth and then the next in the
> line of succession would be Mary Tudor, Queen of Scots -- a
> Catholic.

> The next in line, my dear forward-looking Mr. Xenakis was Mary
> Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Widow of France, and spawn of the House
> of Guise. She was a Roman Catholic candidate but not a Spanish
> candidate as her family ties were to France, Lorraine, and
> Scotland. Guise did have ties to the husband of Mary Tudor, the
> much married Philip II of Spain.

Thank you for this observation. Alas, my hindsight is not always
20/20, as yours seems to be. I'm going to have to go back about 18
months to the sources I was looking at then to find out what I should
have been saying.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Mike,

Thank you for your post as it raises a number of important issues and
questions.

First I have to review a point that you and/or some others may have
been aware of all along, but didn't dawn on me until this weekend.

Strauss and Howe talk about the English Civil War and the Glorious
Revolution in both Generations and The Fourth Turning,
but only their effects on the colonists, not their effect on England
itself.

This is clear from the quote that I posted yesterday, which I'm
repeating here because I'm going to refer to it later:

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 264

> Decimated but resolute, the colonists now perceived that the very
> social and political future of their world was in peril and that
> they had been sucked into a collective maelstrom beyond their
> control. Over the next few years, that would enable them to
> withstand the absolutist machinations of the duke of York, the
> Stuart heir. The climax came with the political revolution of
> 1689, the resolution with the advent of global war between England
> and France. But in 1676 the American colonists did not yet know of
> all the trials to come -- nor of the sunny peace to be born of
> such hardship.

It's also clear from the treatment of the 1600s in
Generations. For example, on page 122, it refers to both
Oliver Cromwell and Ren? Descartes as "Prominent Foreign Peers,"
indicating that it makes no distinction between English and French as
foreigners.

On "History and Lifecycle" on that same page, the English Civil War
isn't even listed, beyond the beheading of Charles I and the
restoration of Charles II. More prominent than the ECW is the "Great
Migration" to New England that began in 1630 and ended in 1641, when
Massachusetts separated itself from England.

So now, saying that the ECW was an awakening event makes sense,
because we're talking only about the colonies. A political decision
to separate Massachusetts from England is clearly an awakening-type
event. The colonists were simply not more than dimly aware of the
devastation wrought by the Civil War, or the importance of abolition
of the Star Chamber. They were too far away from England to know
anything except that one King was beheaded and a new one was
installed.

Therefore, all this discussion of why S&H didn't call the ECW a
Fourth Turning is meaningless, because they made <u>no judgment
whatsoever</u> on its impact in England.

Therefore, to say that ECW was a Fourth Turning in England <u>does
not</u> contradict S&H, since S&H don't say, one way or the other.

Similarly, to say (as I do) that the next England 4T was the War of
Spanish Succession from 1701-14 is <u>not contradicted</u> by anything
that S&H say, and in fact is implied by the reference to "global war"
in the quote from p. 264 above.

So most of the discussion that you and I and Sean and others were
making about the Glorious Revolution being a 4T is now <u>totally
meaningless</u>, because we weren't distinguishing between England
the colonies. I mean, we can still argue whether the WSS was a 4T in
England, but the point is that if we're looking to S&H for guidance
then we won't get any because they make <u>no judgment whatsoever</u>
on this point.

This assessment completely changes the framework of the discussions
we've been having, since now we can focus on the colonies and England
as completely separate issues.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> S&H came to a similar conclusion using methods that are different
> from what I have just showed. They look at biographies, which is
> more of a literary, qualitative analysis than the strictly
> numerical results I have just presented. Yet they come to the same
> conclusion that the 1720-1745 period is "socially/culturally
> similar" to the 1955-1985 period. In their terminology, both
> periods contain Awakening turnings.

I have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting your judgment that the
awakening period was 1720-45 in the colonies. My reason for
extending the 4T to 1709 (the battle of Malplaquet) or 1714 (the
Treaty at Utrecht) was because those were important events in
England. However, they were not important events in the
colonies.

However, I'm still puzzled by why S&H end the 4T period in 1704,
question that I'll return to below.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Using their methodology they find an Awakening turning over the
> 1621-49 period. I don't have crime or alcohol use data for this
> period, but I do see rising religious events over this same time,
> which I take as corroborative evidence of the correctness of their
> assessment.

Once again, I have no difficulty accepting this for the colonies.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Given this, it is hard to see why a Crisis centered around King
> Phillip's war (this is the typhoonic event) would extend all the
> way to 1704--or even 1688. What relevant events happened in
> America between 1676 and 1688 that make this period like a raging
> typhoon?

> Yet S&H put the Glorious Revolution crisis where it is and it
> cannot be that they were thinking of raging typhoons when they did
> so. We know that their turnings come from generations. And for
> generations we consider the social and cultural mileu as well as
> political events like wars.

OK, this is where you're raising the crunch question. I'm no longer
looking at the War of the League of Augsburg, or the battle of
Blenheim, or the battle of Malplaquet or the War of the Spanish
Succession, because those events were remote to the colonies. The
colonists weren't even aware of them, except for some gross facts (at
the level of Charles I was beheaded and Charles II was restored). In
particular, whatever visceral feelings of anxiety and fury may have
been coursing through the English heart were completely unknown to
the colonists.

So what was happening in the colonies? Well, the major typhoon event
in New England was clearly King Philip's War, which massacred many
colonists, and ended with ended with King Philip's head displayed on
stick as a symbol of victory. That was 1676. What happened after
that?

In particular, what would make the Glorious Revolution a 4T event for
the colonists?

An analogous question arises for a different event, the Revolutionary
War. It ended in 1783, and yet S&H extend the crisis period to 1794.
Why? The answer is would have to be that the end of the war didn't
end the visceral anxiety that the people were experiencing, because
the end of the war hadn't established what might be called a
necessary "comfort level" of where they were going. That "comfort
level" wasn't established until Washington's first term, when it
became clear the nation had a solid direction.

The establishment of a "comfort level" may be a feature of every
crisis period, in that the public's visceral anxiety continues until
the comfort level is reached. In the case of WW II, we knew very
quickly when the war ended where we were going, but the people of
Germany may have felt extremely anxious for a few years after the war
ended, until details about the partitioning were settled.

So, following along this line of reasoning, we have to assume that
S&H felt that the Glorious Revolution brought some sort of "comfort
level," following King Philip's war. Why do they believe that?

The quote above from the Fourth Turning provides one clue:
"Over the next few years, that would enable them to withstand the
absolutist machinations of the duke of York, the Stuart heir. The
climax came with the political revolution of 1689, the resolution with
the advent of global war between England and France."

But now we have to look at additional Delphic clues to figure out
what's going on. In Generations, p. 127, it says that Puritans
were "shoved ... back under the heal of the Stuart 'tyranny'" by the
Restoration, and that they joined England in the GR in overthrowing
James II. p. 141, it says, "it culminated in the terrifying riots
and rebellions of 1689-92 that expelled from America Europe's "Great
Scarlet Whore,' the alleged Catholic conspiracy of James II and Louis
XIV.

So this seems to imply that after King Philip's War, the colonists
continued to remain anxious about a Catholic conspiracy, and the GR
removed that source of anxiety. So that explains why the 4T period
should extend to 1689.

But why extend it to 1704? Maybe somewhere in these two books it
gives an explanation, but I can't find one.

So let me guess. It must go back to the Battle of Blenheim. Before
that victory, it was feared that France would ally with Scotland,
resulting in a renewed English Civil War. This would end the British
Empire and leave the colonists at the mercy of the Indians and the
French. After the Battle of Blenheim, Scotland was subdued, the
empire survived, and the colonists finally felt confident that they
could get on with their lives, protected from the Indians and the
French by the Empire.

So if that's what they had in mind, then it makes sense to me, and I
gather that it's consistent with your data as well. On the other
hand, I think 28 years is too long for a 4T (people can't maintain
that level of anxiety for that long), so I would end the 4T earlier,
perhaps 1689.

In retrospect it's very strange to me that we went on arguing about
this stuff for something like a year without realizing that England
has to be separated from the colonies, if you want to make sense why
the GR is a 4T event.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> We can take the fact that they call the GR and not the English
> Civil War as a Crisis as proof that they do not use the idea of a
> raging typhoon as a Crisis definition. It is simply a bit of
> visual imagery to connote the idea that Crises are usually rather
> stormy affairs (e.g. the Civil War, Revolutionary War, Depression
> & WW II), but the example of the GR shows that it is not always
> so.

I think the separation of England and the colonies provides the
answer to this. The "GR crisis" that S&H began in 1675 was a
storm, and the GR itself was part of the aftermath that provided a
resolution, and was a 4T event for that reason. But there was
a storm and an aftermath.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> We would have to throw out the idea that Awakenings have their own
> separate existence that can be independently corroborated by
> analysis of social trends. Instead, they would be midpoints
> between crisis wars--that is, they would be defined by or
> dependent on the Crisis.

Do you really believe that Awakenings have their own existence,
separate from the crisis wars to define them?

Are you saying that you believe that an Awakening can occur at any
time? I always thought that S&H claim that Turnings have to occur in
sequence - 4123412341234. Do you believe that something else is
possible?

To me, an Awakening doesn't even have a meaning which is independent
of the crisis war. The pattern is that the Heroes create rules and
compromises to that another such war will never happen again, and the
Awakening occurs because the Prophets rebel against their parents. To
me, it's this "generation gap" that DEFINES an Awakening, and so to
talk about an awakening without a preceding crisis war doesn't make
sense. In fact, I believe that this is also S&H's conclusion.

But are you saying that you use your data to define an Awakening?
Does that mean that you consider it possible to have a sequence like
41232, if your data showed it? Do you believe it's possible to have
two awakenings (almost) in a row like that?

If you presented me with data supporting something like 41232, then I
would have to question either your data or your methodology first.
If I was satisfied that they were correct, then I would have to
search for an explanation of how this anomalous event could have
occurred.

And in fact, there's a case where I believe it has occurred --
Jordan in the 20th century.

Jordan's 4T was the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in the early
1920s, which would have put them into 2T around 1940. But then
Jordan admitted hundreds of thousands of 4T/1T Palestinians in the
40s and 50s, making the automatic citizens, so that the 50s and 60s
must be a kind of combination 1T and 3T, but when the post-partition
Palestinian babies came of age, Jordan would have been in a 2T
period.

So this is (roughly) a case where the 41232 sequence occurred, but
both 2Ts occurred because of two different crisis wars, and the
anomalous sequence occurred because of the massive population shift.

So I'm curious to know if you would analyze such a situation the same
way. Do you believe that a 41232 sequence could occur on its own,
without some explanation like this massive population shift?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> S&H came to a similar conclusion using methods that are different
> from what I have just showed. They look at biographies, which is
> more of a literary, qualitative analysis than the strictly
> numerical results I have just presented. Yet they come to the same
> conclusion that the 1720-1745 period is "socially/culturally
> similar" to the 1955-1985 period. In their terminology, both
> periods contain Awakening turnings.

I have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting your judgment that the
awakening period was 1720-45 in the colonies.

The data I presented was for England, not the colonies.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> We would have to throw out the idea that Awakenings have their own
> separate existence that can be independently corroborated by
> analysis of social trends. Instead, they would be midpoints
> between crisis wars--that is, they would be defined by or
> dependent on the Crisis.

Do you really believe that Awakenings have their own existence,
separate from the crisis wars to define them?

Yes.

Are you saying that you believe that an Awakening can occur at any time?

No, just as you aren't saying Crises can happen at any time.

To me, an Awakening doesn't even have a meaning which is independent of the crisis war.

Yes I know, but that isn't the only way to think about it.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> The data I presented was for England, not the colonies.

OK, but there's still no real conflict. Note the following:

• (*) I believe that the War of the Spanish Succession crisis period
  essentially ended for England with the battle of Malplaquet in 1709,
  so the time from 1709 till 1721 isn't totally unreasonable.
  
• (*) Your 1945-2000 graph of crime, religious events and alcohol in
  America shows religious events rising from 1953 on, but the 1700s
  England graph shows religious events rising from 1727 on. That
  indicates that 1727 might be a more suitable date for the start of
  the awakening.
  
• (*) The America graph shows a gradual increase in alcohol use
  until 1965, and then a more rapid increase. The England graph shows
  a more rapid increase starting in 1721, but that was also the date of
  the bursting of the South Sea Bubble, which must have had a
  significant effect.

All in all, I think it could be argued that your data supports a
awakening date that starts a little later than 1721, and an austerity
("high") period of 1709-1727 is really quite reasonable, so our
methodologies' results don't really differ by much.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> >>> Do you really believe that Awakenings have their own
> existence, separate from the crisis wars to define them?

> Yes.

Then what's the theoretical support? To me, the significant factor in
an Awakening is the "generation gap" driven by the previous crisis
war.

Do you have a theoretical definition of "awakening" that goes beyond
saying that an awakening is whatever the crime, religious event and
alcohol data says is an awakening?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

All in all, I think it could be argued that your data supports a awakening date that starts a little later than 1721, and an austerity ("high") period of 1709-1727 is really quite reasonable, so our
methodologies' results don't really differ by much.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought the Awakening began in 1721 when I said 1720's. S&H use 1727 that's the date I go by. The issue is the long unraveling. If we make the Napoleonic wars the crisis, then it ends in 1815 with the Peace of Vienna and a good start date would be 1789. If we use the 1727-1746 dates for the awakening from S&H, this leaves 1746-1789 for the Unraveling, which at 43 years is kinda long.

Could you post your turning schemes for Britain, France, Germany and Spain? Then I wouldn't have to guess at what the dates are.

Do you have a theoretical definition of "awakening" that goes beyond saying that an awakening is whatever the crime, religious event and alcohol data says is an awakening?

I use the trends to find awakenings empirically. Awakenings (and Crises) show increasing trends in popular unrest (strikes, riots, revolts etc.). In the 18th and 19th centuries increased unrest is seen during Kondratiev downwaves, periods of general deflation following peak wars (major wars that induced considerable inflation). Falling prices makes money more valuable and debt harder to pay back. Hence downwaves are depressionary "hard times" and there is more unrest. The general result is social moment turnings tend to follow major wars.

Thus we see that rises in unrest, religious events, crime, and alcohol use occurred some time after the War of the Spanish Succession and again after the Napoleonic Wars, indicating Awakenings. We also see rises in unrest (but not religious activity) after the Seven Years War and Civil War, indicating a crisis period. The peak war itself can be placed either at the end of a non-social moment or the beginning of a social moment, depending on what the trends (and S&H's analysis) show. For the WSS and the Napoleonic Wars the trend data (and S&H findings) show the Awakening beginning a considerable bit after the war, placing the war itself confortably in the High. The Revolutionary Crisis according to S&H begins considerably after the 1763 end of the Seven Years War, while the trend data suggests a start around 1765. In either case this war falls solidly in the Unraveling. OTOH, for the Civil War the trend data and S&H both show the Crisis beginning with the war. Thus the war starts the Crisis turning.

This model breaks down in the late 19th century. For the US I employ a different model after 1820, which doesn't show deviations from S&H timings until after the Civil War.

So you see, my model for the late 17th century to the late 19th century is closely related to wars like yours is, but my take is different. I look at the impact of the ending of periods of intense warfare on the economy. The primary cause of social moments is huge debt resulting from massive wartime expenditures.

This model grew out of an earlier mechanism in which the cause of stress was population pressure on food supplies leading to (food) price inflation and more frequent famine. These times were naturally stressful and show up as times of rising unrest (social moments) and alternating rising religious events as well (Awakenings). Inflationary times are good times for debtors and thus good times to fund big wars. Hence wars start clustering during inflationary periods (upwaves) and when the raising of debt to fight these wars becomes institutionalized (the Financial Revolution) then the "war model" for the saeculum superceded the population model. This happened around the time of the Glorious Revolution which saw the founding of the Bank of England and the beginning of institutionalized war finance.

So you see this explains why there is this GR vs. WSS anomaly. Under the population model the inflationary WSS should be in a social moment just as the Thirty Years War is. Under the war model the deflationary period AFTER the WSS should be the social moment.

The unrest/religious trends clearly show awakening like conditions during the Thirty Years War and after the WSS, but solid data in between are not apparent. In other words I cannot find a social moment between 1650 and 1725. But since there are Awakenings before and after these dates, if the saeculum really exists there must be a Crisis somewhere in there. S&H put one in 1675-1704 and I just accept it.

Your 1688-1709 crisis would work too. It just creates a long Unraveling from 1649-1688 (39 years) and a short High from 1709-1727 (18 years). But when I publish I have used the S&H dates because they are the established experts and much of what I do is literature review as opposed to original research.

However I maintain that the English Civil War is an awakening--not only because S&H say it is, but also because it is a time of rising religous trends. [Note: there could not be an American saeculum at this early date because 100% of the Puritan generation grew up in England and necessarily would be on the same cycle.]

For me, the only identifiable thing that separates an Awakening from a Crisis is the former has this religious nature that the latter lacks. Otherwise both are periods of sturm und drang(this is what makes then social moments). Obviously there are theoretical differences, in the generational structure and so forth, but I cannot identify generations de novo as S&H do because I do not have the time to do biographical analysis. As Dave Krein said, to do what they did requires reading thousands of books--hence I simply cite their results and use them in my own analyses.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

But the important fact is that 1704 is the historically crucial Battle of Blenheim, which not only saved the
English empire, but also permitted the Hanoverian Succession crisis
to be resolved by 1707.

You see succession as the crisis issue. The way I see it as fiscal irresponsibility is the issue. England no longer would tolerate the monarch commingling public funds with his private funds to spend (without accountability) as he saw fit. After the GR there was a budget, with control of the purse strings by Parliament. There was also a central bank to regularize government funding, no more "hand to mouth" financing. These represent major structural changes.

So I have the war between England and Spain starting in the 1560s ... And I have the war ending with the Armada crisis in 1588.

The War of the Armada is usually considered to have started in the 1580's and to have ended in 1604. The war hardly reached a conclusion in 1588:

Originally Posted by History Buff

The defeat of the Spanish Armada did not, as is often assumed, herald the ascendancy of the English to the status of mistress of the seas in place of Spain, in large part because the English were unable to consolidate their gains as they themselves were defeated in their invasion of Spain and Portugal in 1589. By any metric, Spain retained its grip on the Atlantic sea lanes and overall control of the high seas well into the 17th century, having retooled its navy so rapidly that the post-Armada navy was stronger than its predecessor before the Armada, and shipments of treasure from the Americas increased substantially

Was there any significant difference between the two Awakenings, or was the second basically a rerun?

Dear Mike,

I actually don't have an answer to all the questions you're asking,
although I'm trying to do more in the area of defining boundaries
between periods.

Let me start with some general statements.

When is the crisis war?

In the methodology I'm using, everything is defined in terms of the
crisis war, so the first problem is to determine when the crisis war
starts and ends.

But it's sometimes not simple, because there may be battles before
and after the crisis war. And then it's necessary to look for other
markers, such as those identified by S&H.

For example, when did WW II end?

Well, most people would say it ended in 1945. But why isn't the
Korean war included in WW II? Because it was in 1945 that the public
level of anxiety and fury subsided. The threat from Communism never
raised the level of anxiety and fury that Germany and Japan did.

When did WW II begin?

That's even more complicated. It began for us in 1941, but it began
for England in 1939. So when did WW II begin? Well, it's different
for different countries.

And especially for Japan. They invaded Manchuria in 1930, and I
would call that an early battle of WW II.

Some crisis wars are pretty simple. The Civil War began in 1861 and
ended in 1865. I don't think there's any ambiguity about that.

What about today?

Let's suppose, for example, that World War III breaks out in 2006.
Then if we were looking back at the current period in history, when
would we say that the crisis war started?

Looking back, we'd see a Gulf war in 1991, a Balkans war in 1995, an
Afghan war starting in 2002, and another Gulf war starting in 2003.
So when did WW III start? I would say that it started on 9/11, but
it could also be argued that it started a month later when the Afghan
war began, and it could also be argued that it started in 2006.

But maybe even that's too narrow-minded. Russia has been fighting a
war in Chechnya for 10 years, and al-Qaeda has been waging a war on
us for an even longer time. This is actually a "merging timelines"
issue, since those entities are all on an East European / WW I
timeline, which puts them 10-20 years ahead of us. But still,
shouldn't we say that WW III started at least ten years ago?

When is the 4T crisis period?

This is an even more complicated question.

My thinking on this question has been heavily influenced by what's
happened in America in the last few years.

This started before 9/11. I remember the massive public anger that
seemed to be directed at all corporate CEOs because of the Enron
scandal. Then after 9/11, I was astounded by the willingness of the
public to lock up Muslims just because they were Muslims.

I decided that this kind of thing is part of the Prophet archetype.
It's what's called "hate" in other contexts - you shouldn't hate
someone because he's black or Jewish, and you shouldn't hate someone
because he's Muslim or a CEO. But that's what happened.

I thought the attitude towards CEOs was especially bizarre. There
were probably fewer than a dozen or so CEOs who had actually
committed crimes, but there was this huge public hatred of all
CEOs.

But the next question is: Is this America-only? Was this a one-time
only thing, or does this kind of thing happen throughout history?

This leads to the theoretical explanation: The crisis war, the
generation gap between the Heroes and the Prophets, the awakening with
the risk-aversive Artists in between, the Unraveling when the Artists
are in charge, the Crisis when the risk-seeking Prophets are in
charge.

So the Crisis period begins when the society becomes more
risk-seeking. But what about the "hate" stuff? That has a
psychological explanation: The Awakening occurs when the Prophets are
in conflict with their parents (the Heroes), and the Prophets feel a
certain amount of hatred toward their parents and authority figures
in business and government; the Crisis begins when the Prophets take
that hatred toward their parents and morph it into hatred toward some
other demographic group.

This all makes sense theoretically, and provides guidance for certain
"markers" that can be sought in historical accounts to determine the
beginning of a crisis period: Look for acts of irrational hatred,
fury, vengeance.

So I'd say that the crisis period had clearly begun by the time of
the Enron scandal, and the Nasdaq crash in 2000 is probably a good
point because it's easy to identify.

S&H also provided markers in their 29-Oct-01 USA Today article:

Originally Posted by Strauss and Howe

> (*) Are leaders describing the problem in larger rather than
> smaller terms, proposing grand solutions, and seeking to destroy
> (and not just contain) enemies?

> (*) Is there a shift away from individualism (and civil
> liberties) toward community purpose (and national survival)?

> (*) Are the old "culture wars" arguments beginning to feel lame,
> ridiculous, even dangerous to national unity?

> (*) Is the celebrity culture feeling newly irrelevant? Is youth
> fare becoming less gross and less violent?

> (*) Is immigration reversing? Are mobility and openness declining?
> Is there more nativism in our culture and less "globalism" in our
> commerce?

> (*) Is there a new willingness to pay a human price to achieve a
> national purpose? Will we harness technology only to reduce
> casualties and inconvenience, or also to achieve a total and
> lasting victory.

> (*) Is each generation entering its new phase of life with a new
> attitude? Are aging boomers overcoming narcissism? Are Gen-Xers on
> the edge of midlife, circling their wagons around family? Are
> Millennials emerging as a special and celebrated crop of youth?

Now these things are pretty vague, and very hard to measure in a
historical context.

In my book I talk about a "crisis period," but I'm inconsistent about
defining what it is. Sometimes it includes a previous financial
crisis, sometimes it starts with the crisis war.

What about the end of the crisis period?

Now here I have to come back to the "Glorious Revolution Fourth
Turning" -- and here I'm referring only to the colonies.

How can a crisis period possibly run from 1675 to 1704? That's 29
years. I just don't believe it's possible. I don't buy that the
required level of anxiety and fury can be sustained that long.

The whole generational paradigm, as I understand it, is that the
Artists grow up in the crisis war atmosphere, with death, illness and
suffering all around them. Well, if there's no war going on, then how
can they be Artists? They're going to be Prophets.

So I think that this crisis period pretty much ended by 1676 or a
couple of years after.

Incidentally, I believe this crisis period began earlier, as I
describe in my book. There were a lot of hostilities in the 1660s
because the price of furs and and skins had gone down because they
had fallen out of fashion in Europe. There were sporadic incidents
of violence, and although they didn't spiral into full-scale war until
1675, my feeling is that the crisis period had already begun.

When is the 2T awakening period?

I look at awakening periods in two different ways: by dates and by
events.

The awakening period begins 15-20 years after the end of the crisis
war. From a theoretical point of view, that's pretty much the only
possibility. Narrowing it down any further requires looking at
events.

An awakening period can be identified by events: riots and
demonstrations that don't spiral out of control. Thus I would argue
that the 1960s awakening had clearly begun by 1963, while S&H say it
was 1964.

When does the awakening period end? I would say in the same way that
a crisis war ends -- with a major confrontation that reaches
resolution. One possibility is an "internal revolution," like the
resignation of Nixon, or the replacement of the Second Reich by the
new Weimar Republic, or like the replacement of King James by William
and Mary in England, 1688. The kids all won in these cases.

The Tiananmen Square event in 1989 is an example of an awakening
event that the adults won. That's a bad sign, and indicates that a
civil war is in the offing during the next crisis period.

Having said that, I haven't done the work of trying to identify these
awakening periods, or even enumerating all the types of events that
can occur in an awakening period, so I'm unable to provide turning
dates for France, Germany and Spain. Sometimes I can look at a
particular event and say that it looks like an awakening event (like
the riots of 1848), but I haven't attempted to narrow them down any
further.

You've been discussing things like drugs, alcohol and crime as being
characteristic of awakenings and unravelings, and those things seem
reasonable to me, so I probably wouldn't disagree too much with what
you call awakenings.

The reason that I don't worry too much about precise dates for the
turning changes is that they're not really crucial to what I want to
do. My priority interest in all of this is to develop a methodology
for forecasting the future, for the next few years. That means that I
want to be able to forecast specific types of events (like riots and
demonstrations but no civil war in Iraq, and no antiwar movement in
America).

But if you tell me that your data says that the last awakening ended
in 1984 rather than 1974, I would not strongly argue with you.

In fact, my use of awakening events is probably, when all is said and
done, pretty much identical to your use of trends in popular unrest.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> For the WSS and the Napoleonic Wars the trend data (and S&H
> findings) show the Awakening beginning a considerable bit after
> the war, placing the war itself confortably in the High. The
> Revolutionary Crisis according to S&H begins considerably after
> the 1763 end of the Seven Years War, while the trend data suggests
> a start around 1765. In either case this war falls solidly in the
> Unraveling. OTOH, for the Civil War the trend data and S&H both
> show the Crisis beginning with the war. Thus the war starts the
> Crisis turning.

I'm not following this because I'm not sure whether you're talking
about America or Europe.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> So you see, my model for the late 17th century to the late 19th
> century is closely related to wars like yours is, but my take is
> different. I look at the impact of the ending of periods
> of intense warfare on the economy. The primary cause of social
> moments is huge debt resulting from massive wartime expenditures.

This doesn't match my understanding of an awakening, nor does it
match S&H's:

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 102

> The Second Turning

> An Awakening arrives with a dramatic challenge against the
> High's assumptions about benevolent reason and congenial
> institutions. The outer world now feels trivial compared to the
> inner world.

> New spiritual agendas and social ideals burst forth -- along with
> utiopian experiments seeking to reconcile total fellowship with
> toal autonomy. The propserity and security of a High are overtly
> disdained though covertly taken for granted. A society searches
> for soul over science, meanings over things. Youth-fired attacks
> break out against the established institutional order. As these
> attacks take their toll, society has difficulty coalescing around
> common goals. People stop believing that social progress requires
> social discipline. Any public effort that requires collective
> discipline encounters withering controversy. War are awkwardly
> fought and badly remembered afterward. A euphoric enthusiam over
> spiritual needs eclipses concern over secular problems,
> contributiong to a high tolerance for risk-prone lifestyles.
> People begin feeling guilt about what they earlier did to avoid
> shame. Public order deteriorates, and crime and substance abuse
> rise. Gender distinctions narrow, and child rearing reaches the
> point of minimmum protection and structure.

> Eventually, the enthusiam cools, having left the old cultural
> regime fully discredited, internal enemies identified, comity
> shattered, and institutions delegitimized.

This is pretty much the way I look at an awakening, except that I
tend to more strongly emphasize the aspect of a "generation gap"
between the Heroes and the Prophets. At any rate, there's nothing
about money here, and I don't believe that a "huge debt" is a
requirement. In particular, I don't believe that America's huge debt
was an issue in the 60s.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> This model grew out of an earlier mechanism in which the cause of
> stress was population pressure on food supplies leading to (food)
> price inflation and more frequent famine.

This doesn't sound right to me. The food model that I've developed
is that the evolutionary purpose of crisis wars is to thin the
population so that there'll be enough food. During the mid-cycle
period, population grows faster than food availability, so that food
prices and poverty would increase approaching the next crisis war,
when the crisis war thins the population again, repeating the cycle.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> However I maintain that the English Civil War is an awakening--not
> only because S&H say it is, but also because it is a time of
> rising religous trends. [Note: there could not be an American
> saeculum at this early date because 100% of the Puritan generation
> grew up in England and necessarily would be on the same cycle.]

S&H do not say that the English Civil War was an awakening in
England. If you disagree, please provide a page number.

And yes of course there was an American saeculum. As I describe in
my book, there's evidence of an Indian tribe crisis war in the late
1500s. King Philip's War was fought on the Indians' timeline, not
the English timeline.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> For me, the only identifiable thing that separates an Awakening
> from a Crisis is the former has this religious nature that the
> latter lacks. Otherwise both are periods of sturm und drang(this
> is what makes then social moments). Obviously there are
> theoretical differences, in the generational structure and so
> forth, but I cannot identify generations de novo as S&H do because
> I do not have the time to do biographical analysis.

No, this isn't right, Mike. Awakenings are clearly identifiable as
intergenerational. That's the whole point. And religion takes
different forms in the two cases.

In a crisis war, religion is a fault line across which the war is
fought. Typically there are two armies fighting each other in the
name of different established religions. In the English Civil War,
there were two large armies fighting one another. In the end, it
wasn't about Catholic vs Protestant, even if that's what the rhetoric
was about; it was about the Parliament vs the Crown, with religion as
a symbol.

It's so totally different in an awakening that I'm bewildered that
you say they're indistinguishable.

The prototype awakening is the American Great Awakening in the 1730s.
This was not a big Methodist army fighting a big Anglican army to the
bloody death. This was Americans rebelling against the England of
their parents by rebelling against the English Church. This is
completely different from a crisis war.

Religion is an important symbol in both of these kinds of events, but
it's used as a symbol in two different ways.

A crisis war and an awakening are both visceral, and true motives get
hidden, often by using religion as a symbol. In a crisis war, the
motive is genocidal toward the enemy, and the glory of God or Allah is
the excuse for pursuing the war. In an awakening, the motive is
hostility/hatred toward one's parents or authority figures, and a
perversion of religion or creation of a new religion provides the
excuse.

In both cases, both Crisis and Awakening, it's the narcissistic,
judgmental Prophets using religion as a symbol to provide moral
justification for what they're doing. But it's very different: In an
awakening it's the young Prophets, and in a crisis war it's the old
Prophets. There's just no resemblance.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> You see succession as the crisis issue. The way I see it as
> fiscal irresponsibility is the issue. England no longer would
> tolerate the monarch commingling public funds with his private
> funds to spend (without accountability) as he saw fit. After the
> GR there was a budget, with control of the purse strings by
> Parliament. There was also a central bank to regularize government
> funding, no more "hand to mouth" financing. These represent major
> structural changes.

It's not that succession per se was the issue; it was that
England and Scotland would have two different Monarchs. If France
had won the Battle of Blenheim, there would probably have been renewed
English Civil War, and at any rate the Empire would have failed, and
France would have allied with Scotland and taken control of the
American colonies.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> The War of the Armada is usually considered to have started in the
> 1580's and to have ended in 1604. The war hardly reached a
> conclusion in 1588:

> >>> History Buff wrote: The defeat of the Spanish Armada did not,
> as is often assumed, herald the ascendancy of the English to the
> status of mistress of the seas in place of Spain, in large part
> because the English were unable to consolidate their gains as they
> themselves were defeated in their invasion of Spain and Portugal
> in 1589. By any metric, Spain retained its grip on the Atlantic
> sea lanes and overall control of the high seas well into the 17th
> century, having retooled its navy so rapidly that the post-Armada
> navy was stronger than its predecessor before the Armada, and
> shipments of treasure from the Americas increased substantially

S&H have the crisis at 1569-94, which is pretty close to what I have.

The theoretical issue in the transition from Crisis to Austerity
(High) is that the survival of the country is no longer in danger, so
that the Artist generation ends and the Prophet generation begins.
Once the Armada was smashed, England was no longer in danger, and any
battles after that were mid-cycle wars (like the Korean War).

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

S&H do not say that the English Civil War was an awakening in England. If you disagree, please provide a page number.

Originally Posted by [url=http://www.fourthturning.com/html/puritan_awakening.html

this site[/url]]The Puritan Awakening (Second Turning, 1621-1649) began with Parliament?s ?Great Protestation.? Upon the accession of James? son, the reformist urge turned radical and gained popular momentum. Seeking religious exile, John Winthrop led a ?saving remnant? of true believers to America. In England, this Puritan Enthusiasm led to the Long Parliament (in 1640), civil war, and the execution of Charles I (in 1649). In the new wilderness colonies, the experimental fervor receded, leaving isolated settlements seeking an enforceable moral orthodoxy.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I'm not following this because I'm not sure whether you're talking about America or Europe.

Both, I believe Western Europe and the US have been on approximately the same schedule.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

This doesn't match my understanding of an awakening, nor does it match S&H's:

Of course it doesn't. It's my model, your model is based on the crisis wars concept and S&H's model is based on generational constellations.

Below is a descriptions of S&H's concept of an awakening. I will point out where I an and cannot apply this defintion:

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 102

> The Second Turning

> An Awakening arrives with a dramatic challenge against the
> High's assumptions about benevolent reason and congenial
> institutions. The outer world now feels trivial compared to the
> inner world.

I cannot know how things feel without becoming intimately familiar with the thoughs, beliefs and feelings of people alive during the period under consideration. I would have to read many books to gain thihs insight, which S&H have done, but I have not. So I cannot apply this criterion.

> New spiritual agendas and social ideals burst forth -- along with
> utiopian experiments seeking to reconcile total fellowship with
> toal autonomy.

This seems to describe new spiritual/reglious developments which I do track in my religious event timeline. I would expect more new spiritual agendas to burst forth during awakenings than other times and the data suggests that the periods S&H call awakenings do show more of this.

> The propserity and security of a High are overtly
> disdained though covertly taken for granted. A society searches
> for soul over science, meanings over things.

This deals with the inner thoughts again, which require the detailed reading that S&H have done, but I wish to avoid, so I can't use this.

Youth-fired attacks
> break out against the established institutional order. As these
> attacks take their toll, society has difficulty coalescing around
> common goals. People stop believing that social progress requires
> social discipline. Any public effort that requires collective
> discipline encounters withering controversy. Wars are awkwardly
> fought and badly remembered afterward.

This could be applied from a detailed reading of histories, which I haven't done. So I don't use this.

A euphoric enthusiam over
> spiritual needs eclipses concern over secular problems,
> contributiong to a high tolerance for risk-prone lifestyles.
> People begin feeling guilt about what they earlier did to avoid
> shame. Public order deteriorates, and crime and substance abuse
> rise.

Here S&H specifically mention rising crime and substance abuse, which I track.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> >>> John J. Xenakis says: S&H do not say that the English Civil
> War was an awakening in England. If you disagree, please provide
> a page number.

>

Originally Posted by [url=http://www.fourthturning.com/html/puritan_awakening.html

this site[/url]]
> The Puritan Awakening (Second Turning, 1621-1649)
> began with Parliament's "Great Protestation." Upon the accession
> of James' son, the reformist urge turned radical and gained
> popular momentum. Seeking religious exile, John Winthrop led a
> "saving remnant" of true believers to America. In England, this
> Puritan Enthusiasm led to the Long Parliament (in 1640), civil
> war, and the execution of Charles I (in 1649). In the new
> wilderness colonies, the experimental fervor receded, leaving
> isolated settlements seeking an enforceable moral orthodoxy.

> http://www.fourthturning.com/html/pu...awakening.html

That's the best you can do? I don't know what an "Enthusiasm" is,
but I'm pretty sure it isn't an "Awakening." If they had meant an
Awakening, they would have written, "In England, this Puritan
Awakening" instead of "In England, this Puritan Enthusiasm." So no,
S&H never said that the English Civil War was an awakening.

You know, Mike, I really don't believe that you believe that the
English Civil War was an awakening. This was even more bloody and
violent than our own Civil War, and it had as many far-reaching
consequences. As in times past, I think you're pulling my leg.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John Xenakis

Originally Posted by [url=http://www.fourthturning.com/html/puritan_awakening.html

this site[/url]]
> The Puritan Awakening (Second Turning, 1621-1649)
> began with Parliament's "Great Protestation." Upon the accession
> of James' son, the reformist urge turned radical and gained
> popular momentum. Seeking religious exile, John Winthrop led a
> "saving remnant" of true believers to America. In England, this
> Puritan Enthusiasm led to the Long Parliament (in 1640), civil
> war, and the execution of Charles I (in 1649). In the new
> wilderness colonies, the experimental fervor receded, leaving
> isolated settlements seeking an enforceable moral orthodoxy.

That's the best you can do?

It is a description of the Puritan Awakening. The dates they give include the ECW. They mention events in both England and America; it is clear that they are taking about both countries. Thus, there was an awakening in both England and America over 1621-1649.

Here is their description of another Awakening:

The Transcendental Awakening (Second Turning, 1822-1844) began with Charles Finney's evangelicalism and Denmark Vesey's slave revolt. Soon merging with Jacksonian populism, it peaked (in 1831) with Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the founding of shrill abolitionist societies, and the rise of splinter political parties. After spawning a floodtide of “romantic idealism”—including feminism, new prophetic religions, food fads, and utopian communes—the mood gentrified in the early 1840s into a credo of self-help, moral uplift, and manifest destiny.

There is no discussion of English events, its all American. Here it is clear that the awakening they are discussing applies only to America, not England. But the description of the Puritan Awakening above talks about events in both England and American meaning it applies to both countries.

Not only that, but they explictly mention the execution of Charles I in 1649 (which is part of the ECW) as an event in this description of an awakening. That is, this execution is an Awakeing event that occurred in the ECW that occurred during the Puritan Awakening.

If this execution isn't part of the Awakening then why do they talk about it in the description of an Awakening? S&H didn't talk about any British events in their description of the Transcendental Awakening.

Dear Mike,

As I'm sure you're aware, the reason they're talking about English
events in a colonial awakening is because the English events affect
the colonial awakening. The colonists were English subjects, and
James was their King too, so they were bound to be affected by his
beheading. The point is that the beheading gave impetus to the
colonial awakening by motivating them to separate more from their
generational "parents" back in England. There was no such
relationship or issue in 1822.

S&H wrote a thousand pages on this stuff. If they thought that the
English Civil War was an awakening in England, then somewhere in
those thousand pages they would have said so explicitly, and you
wouldn't have to write paragraphs and paragraphs of stuff to try to
convince me or yourself that maybe they must really have meant this or
that, even though they never really said it, and obviously never
intended to say it.

S&H never said the English Civil War was an awakening in England. If
you disagree, then please provide a page number where they said it
<u>in plain English</u>, without you having to write a whole
additional essay on why they said what you wish they had said. Geez.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

S&H never said the English Civil War was an awakening in England. If you disagree, then please provide a page number where they said it

S&H never said the Vietnam war was an awakening in America. If you disagree, then please provide a page number and quote.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> >>> John J. Xenakis wrote: S&H never said the English Civil War
> was an awakening in England. If you disagree, then please provide
> a page number where they said it

> S&H never said the Vietnam war was an awakening in America. If you
> disagree, then please provide a page number and quote.

Piece of cake.

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 136

> The Consciousness Revolution (Second Turning,
> 1964-1984), which began with urban riots and campus fury,
> swelled alongside Vietnam War protests and a rebellious
> counterculture. It gave rise to feminist, environmental, and
> black power movements and to a steep rise in violent crime and
> family breakup. After the fury peaked with Watergate (in 1974),
> passions turned inward toward New Age lifestyles and spiritual
> rebirth. The mood expired during Reagan's upbeat reelection
> campaign, as onetime hippies reached tiehr yuppie chrysalis.

Here's more:

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 173

> That same year -- 1969 -- was the bloodiest of the Vietnam War,
> the conflict that lay at the Awakening's epicenter. From the
> Generation Gap to mob violence to rock music to the final
> exhaustion of the Great Society, this war was inseparable from the
> Awakening itself. Perhaps Vietnam's civil war would have been a
> fixable foreign problem back in the High, but American
> intervention was doomed to failure in the Awakening.
> Scientifically managed, the war tried to prop up a morally
> questionable ally without slowing the pace of grand constructions
> at home. It didn't work. For the first time in living memory,
> America's leaders were forced to concede that big national
> problems both abroad and at home lay beyond their capacity to
> solve.

Note an interesting parallel here: The Vietnam war was a crisis war
to the Vietnamese, but an awakening period event to the distant
Americans back home; the English Civil War was a crisis war to the
English, but an awakening period event to the distant colonists.

And again:

Originally Posted by Fourth Turning p. 181

> Having conquered half the globe as young footsoldiers, G.I.
> leaders never imagined that a small regional war would pose much
> of a problem. The only two votes against the Tonkin Gulf
> Resolution came from older Lost Generation skeptics (Senators
> Morse and Gruening). But once the war was on, neither the troops
> nor the home front behaved in a way that pleased Lyndoon Johnson's
> generation, and quarrels between parents and children (beween G.I.
> fathers and Boomer sons, especially) worsened by the year. As
> Vietnam wore on, this generation despaired that their prized
> federal government had become, in Nixon's words, "a pitiless,
> helpless giant," no longer capable of doing great things. The old
> G.I. optimism began to ring hollow. Ultimately, the
> Bundy-Rusk-Rostow-McNamara "controlled-response" strategy
> culminated in a controlled defeat, alias Nixon's
> Vietnamization. Ever since, polls have shown that G.I.s are more
> likely than Boomers to despise Vietnam's memory.

This is all so much in contrast to the English Civil War, in every
possible way. The phrase "pitiless, helpless giant," for example,
could never have been applied to the powerful military dictatorship
of Oliver Cromwell that conquered and controlled not only England,
Scotland and Ireland, but the Eastern Atlantic. Then, when Cromwell
died and England sank into anarchy, the desperate Nomads and Heroes
pulled together and united behind a compromise: A new King, but with
vastly reduced powers. As the High/Austerity period wore into
Awakening, the Prophets rebelled against their parents' compromise,
especially when that old, disgusting guy screwed his young wife and
got her pregnant (kids hate that), and threw him out in favor of the
romantic William and Mary, proving that young love conquers all!

That's the English Civil War from England's point of view. Now,
here's the English Civil War from the colonists' point of view:

Those depraved old people back in England kill each other off, behead
the King, then put Crazy Cromwell in charge. Then they put back the
King????? What morons - twenty years of bloodshed and they're right
back where they started! What buffoons. That's why we left England
- to get away from all that craziness. It's nice to be here in the
colonies, where we can just live in peace, be friendly with one
another, have the Indians over every once in a while for turkey
dinner. Oh, hello! You're the Indian in charge? Mind if we call
you King Philip - to remind us of life back home. Hey, now don't get
nasty - let's just have peace, yo brotha. [Long pause] Hey guys,
look what I have here: King Philip's head on a stick. I guess we
aren't so different from England after all!!!

Sincerely,

John

P.S.: This was an entertaining exercise because it was the first time
I've made a connection between the beheading of King Charles and
beheading of King Philip! Who says that history doesn't repeat
itself?

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

You got lots of good quotes on the Vietnam war, now try to do the same for the Spanish American War, another Awakening war.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> You got lots of good quotes on the Vietnam war, now try to do the
> same for the Spanish American War, another Awakening war.

Although the Mexican-American war figures in their treatment of the
previous awakening, the Spanish-American war is barely mentioned.
They probably consider it just a blip, an appraisal that I wouldn't
disagree with, perhaps comparable to our war in Grenada in the 1980s.

I did a quick search, and this is all I can find:

Originally Posted by Generations p. 214 on Nomad Gilded Generation

> ELDERHOOD: "A new America," complained [Charles Eliot]
> Norton on the Eve of the Spanish-American War, "is entering on the
> false course which has so often led to calamity."

Originally Posted by Generations p. 239 on Prophet Missionary Generation

> When they were combat-age, Missionary men faced a lower risk of
> dying in war than any other American generation -- yet none can
> match the Missionaries for crusading zeal abroad. In all three
> wars of their lifecycle -- the Spanish-American War, World War I,
> and World War II -- they led the call for intervention, often over
> resistance from their elders or juniors.

Hope that helps!

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

P.S.: This was an entertaining exercise because it was the first time
I've made a connection between the beheading of King James and
beheading of King Philip! Who says that history doesn't repeat
itself?

Dear Mr. Xenakis, HM James I/VI and his grandson HM James II/VII kept their heads. Their son/father HM Charles I was killed by Progress in the manner described above.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

P.S.: This was an entertaining exercise because it was the first time
I've made a connection between the beheading of King James and
beheading of King Philip! Who says that history doesn't repeat
itself?

Dear Mr. Xenakis, HM James I/VI and his grandson HM James II/VII kept their heads. Their son/father HM Charles I was killed by Progress in the manner described above.

Thanks, Virgil. I corrected the offending posting.

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Although the Mexican-American war figures in their treatment of the previous awakening, the Spanish-American war is barely mentioned.

The Mexican war occurred during the 1844-1860 unraveling.

Since the Spanish-American war is not mentioned in the discussion of an awakening while the Vietnam war is, does this mean that the Spanish American war is not an awakening whereas Vietnam is?

Dear Mike,

A war isn't an awakening; a time period is an awakening. A war that
occurs in an awakening time period may or may not be significant
during the awakening. Maybe the Spanish-American war wasn't
significant in that particular awakening. You know that Mike. What
is this?

John