Dear Kurt,

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> To S&H, the saeculum, once started, perpetuates itself.

I'm starting with this statement because it's the crux of the matter.

The problem is that this statement is not true, by S&H's own
statements. It fails for the Civil War saeculum - don't roll your
eyes because that's exactly the point. And it fails for premodern
societies. TFT only covers 6 saeculae, all Anglo-Saxon, and it fails
for one of them.

TFT's generational paradigm simply fails in going from the Civil War
to the Great Depression. How could there be an Awakening with no
Hero generation? How could there be an Unraveling with no Awakening?
How did a generational change cause a stock market crash?

TFT only covers six saeculae, all Anglo-Saxon, and fails for one of
the six. I've successfully tested GD for hundreds of cases, and
furthermore, GD produces almost identical results as TFT for the six
saeculae that TFT covers.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> In which case, every GD saeculum is a unique event with no
> causation carrying over from the previous saeculum. You don't seem
> to really have a cycle so much as a process initiated by a
> terrible violent event that eventually diminishes. That process
> then remains diminished until the next violent episode where it
> begins anew.

This is completely untrue. My book contains dozens of detailed
examples, and shows on page after page after page how generational
changes after each crisis war cause the next crisis war. If anything,
my book establishes a stronger causation than TFT does.

In fact, I used this causation model several times in the timelines
that I posted a few messages back. For example, after King Philip's
war, the colonists were forced to accept English rule for protection
from the Indians and French. That compromise unraveled in the 1760s,
leading to the Revolutionary War.

In brief: Each crisis period leads to an Austerity period where
austere rules and compromises are imposed, so that "no such war must
ever happen again." The Prophets challenge those rules during the
Awakening, the risk-aversive Artists hold things together during the
Unraveling, when all the austere rules and compromises come completely
unraveled, and then the narcissistic risk-seeking Prophets lead us
into the next war, often across the same fault line over which the
last crisis war was fought.

As far as I can tell, TFT doesn't establish anywhere near as strong a
causation model as that.

Take a look at my web site -- how I'm saying that a new Mideast
crisis war will occur with 100% certainty, caused by the generational
changes following the partitioning of Palestine in 1948. I say over
and over that the most likely time for a new regional war is when
Yasser Arafat is gone (retired or dead), and I explain why a leader
from a younger generation will not hold things together the way Arafat
has.

Take a look at my writings on Iraq - how I've been saying for a year
and a half that an Iraqi crisis civil war is impossible because of
generational changes since the Iran/Iraq war.

Take a look at discussions of Kashmir, Chechnya, Europe, and others.
Generational flow and causation is heavily embedded in each of them.

And where did I get that generational theory? I got it from TFT and
adapted it. It's basically the same theory, with some adaptations so
that it will apply not just to the six cases TFT covers, but to all
places and all times. That's a GOOD thing, and it also provides
additional validation for TFT itself, not only for the six cases, but
for the entire generational theory developed by S&H.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> Generations seem to be almost entirely created by the process. In
> a long unravelling you would end up with many members of an
> "un-typed" generation. In your schema, anyone born in the colonies
> from roughly 1710 to 1740 would not have a S&H archetype. That's
> why, I think, Mike has argued that your saeculum theory is not the
> same as S&H's. The generations are caused by turnings but
> generations do not drive turnings otherwise you would expect a
> colonial Crisis starting in the 1730s.

I don't know what I can add to what I've already said. S&H do not
provide a satisfactory explanation for the 100 year period either.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> The assumption here is that war is the signature event of a
> Crisis. While war is always, or nearly always, present in a Crisis
> the critical aspect is the sudden shift in the political
> situation. This political shift can, and often does, occur
> separately from the main violent conflict of a Crisis (take, for
> example, the New Deal).

There are some semantic issues here -- a crisis war versus a crisis
period.

When I started studying TFT, I was very concerned about the "Great
Depression anomaly." I felt that validating TFT required
establishing an analog to the Great Depression in other fourth
turning periods. And I succeeded: There was the Panic of 1857 before
the Civil War, and the Bank of England meltdown in 1772. And of
course, there's the Nasdaq crash in 2000 for the current period.

(Since that time, I've changed my thinking a bit by developing a
separate generational explanation for major financial credit
bubbles.)

I agree that political shifts occur during crisis periods: for
example, we're seeing that today in that liberal Jewish voters and
conservative Christian voters, who used to be bitter enemies, are
suddenly aligning over the defense of Israel.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> The main difference is lower life expectancy in the South -- 33
> years once you're 20 in the South versus 40 in the Northern
> colonies. This radically shifts a generational theory. However,
> your generations are a passive response to the "stimuli" of
> turnings -- so this is less of a problem.

This sounds reasonable to me. I haven't really looked at this, since
I've been more concerned about crisis wars than in dating individual
eras within the mid-cycle period.

However, remember that TFT and GD date individual eras in different
ways. TFT does it by making inferences from histories and diaries,
and GD does it by seeking historical "awakening events." These two
different methods are bound to lead to a few years' differences in
individual era dates.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> There is however, a difficulty in your turning schema. The older
> generations are going to be differently typed depending on the
> length of the unraveling. Prophets play a role in recent Crises,
> but would play no role at all in the American Revolution. While I
> am amenable to a theory where the incoming generation is the most
> important -- one where the other generations seem irrelevant
> requires explanation.

You raise good questions here, but the fact is that there's no easy
explanation for the 100 year interval between King Philip's War and
the Revolutionary War. TFT handles it by extending the crisis period
in a way that they leave completely unjustified. I've tried to
explain it a different way, by saying that the unraveling period can
be long.

Remember that such long intervals are very rare. I believe I've seen
an interval longer than 100 years only three times in all the cases
I've looked at. In each case I've puzzled over why the interval was
so long. One thing they all have in common is a fairly substantial
mid-cycle war in the middle (the French and Indian wars in this
case), so that may have some bearing on the generational flow.

So I agree that you're asking the right questions, but remember that
we're talking about a situation that's so rare that we don't really
have enough cases to confidently induce a good explanation for it.

Sincerely,

John

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

Interesting concept, that a mass migration would have the immediate effect of forcing the group into the communal discipline of an Austerity.

So....

1600-1620- Migration to the North American wilderness has forced the earliest colonists into de facto Crisis conditions. These were basically Man versus Nature, with Nature very nearly winning.

1621-1630-Migratory Austerity situation. Folks are no longer in immediate peril so long as they maintain communal discipline. Proportionally large migration of Puritans during this period. Puritanism, if effect, becomes The Establishment.

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Interesting concept, that a mass migration would have the
> immediate effect of forcing the group into the communal discipline
> of an Austerity.

> So....

> 1600-1620- Migration to the North American wilderness has forced
> the earliest colonists into de facto Crisis conditions. These were
> basically Man versus Nature, with Nature very nearly winning.

> 1621-1630-Migratory Austerity situation. Folks are no longer in
> immediate peril so long as they maintain communal discipline.
> Proportionally large migration of Puritans during this period.
> Puritanism, if effect, becomes The Establishment.

Yes, I think this makes sense. The Puritans are the challengers in
one country, but after they migrate they become the establishment,
effectively reversing the generational roles of Prophet and Hero.

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 Kurt Horner

> To S&H, the saeculum, once started, perpetuates itself.

The problem is that this statement is not true, by S&H's own
statements. It fails for the Civil War saeculum - don't roll your
eyes because that's exactly the point. And it fails for premodern
societies. TFT only covers 6 saeculae, all Anglo-Saxon, and it fails
for one of them.

This anomaly is perhaps the most criticized portion of S&H's work. I am not alone in thinking it is an error in S&H's historical analysis -- not a actual anomalous event. In my opinion, the Crisis period is roughly 1856 to 1874, encompassing Burning Kansas and most of Reconstruction.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

In fact, I used this causation model several times in the timelines that I posted a few messages back. For example, after King Philip's war, the colonists were forced to accept English rule for protection from the Indians and French. That compromise unraveled in the 1760s, leading to the Revolutionary War.

But why then? If generational change is driving events then the issues should be resolved at a regular rate. Instead the post King Phillip's War colonial saeculum has very short Austerity and Awakening periods and an exceptionally long Unravelling. If these dates are correct, an explanation needs to be available (and to make it less ad hoc, it should explain other long saecula as well).

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

In brief: Each crisis period leads to an Austerity period where austere rules and compromises are imposed, so that "no such war must ever happen again." The Prophets challenge those rules during the Awakening, the risk-aversive Artists hold things together during the Unraveling, when all the austere rules and compromises come completely unraveled, and then the narcissistic risk-seeking Prophets lead us into the next war, often across the same fault line over which the
last crisis war was fought.

However, as I pointed out -- the Prophets are mostly dead in a long saeculum by the time the Crisis starts. This cannot be the mechanism that drives the cycle, because if the unravelling goes on long enough, the cycle would simply die. The incoming generation must be the one delivering the turning shift, with the older generations providing nuance and accent to the nature of that new turning.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I don't know what I can add to what I've already said. S&H do not provide a satisfactory explanation for the 100 year period either.

S&H don't really provide an adequate explanation for any of the saecula -- in that they waffle a bit on their proposed causes for the saecula. The debate that has occurred on this site time and again regarding the theory is a question of the material cause of saeculum -- assuming such cycles are not merely phantoms imposed on history by observers.

My argument with Mike Alexander a while back on the Roman Saeculum thread involved this issue. Mike is concerned, justifiably, that the saeculum is merely a fiction and wishes to demonstrate its existence before finding a cause. My rebuke was that it would be impossible to develop a proof of the saeculum's existence without first determining what to look for. This means that some degree of theorizing must precede investigation.

If we theorize, for example, that large scale conflicts occur when few people are left alive with direct experience of the last such conflict then we can make corrollary conclusions that can be investigated. (Granted, it's possible this theory is correct and that other factors have greater weight, but I digress.) In the case of the Revolution, full scale conflict took a long time to emerge despite a ready conflict at the expected time in the form of the French and Indian War. Why was that war not a colonial Crisis? Some other factor must be involved.

A really short cycle is even more problematic. If we need the older generation to die off before a Crisis can erupt, how could a Crisis arise before they had died? Also, one would expect increasing life expectancy to increase cycle lengths when, if anything, the opposite has occurred. In colonial America life expectancies were lower than in Europe at the time yet the colonial cycle was apparently longer.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

So I agree that you're asking the right questions, but remember that we're talking about a situation that's so rare that we don't really have enough cases to confidently induce a good explanation for it.

And normally one counter-example would not wreck a historical theory since there are so many factors to consider. However, in this case you have a self-contradiction. You have cycle dates that show a long cycle and a cycle mechanism that should produce a shorter than average cycle not a longer than average cycle. It's a pretty significant problem.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> To S&H, the saeculum, once started, perpetuates itself.

The problem is that this statement is not true, by S&H's own
statements. It fails for the Civil War saeculum - don't roll your
eyes because that's exactly the point. And it fails for premodern
societies. TFT only covers 6 saeculae, all Anglo-Saxon, and it fails
for one of them.

This anomaly is perhaps the most criticized portion of S&H's work. I am not alone in thinking it is an error in S&H's historical analysis -- not a actual anomalous event. In my opinion, the Crisis period is roughly 1856 to 1874, encompassing Burning Kansas and most of Reconstruction.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

In fact, I used this causation model several times in the timelines that I posted a few messages back. For example, after King Philip's war, the colonists were forced to accept English rule for protection from the Indians and French. That compromise unraveled in the 1760s, leading to the Revolutionary War.

But why then? If generational change is driving events then the issues should be resolved at a regular rate. Instead the post King Phillip's War colonial saeculum has very short Austerity and Awakening periods and an exceptionally long Unravelling. If these dates are correct, an explanation needs to be available (and to make it less ad hoc, it should explain other long saecula as well).

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

In brief: Each crisis period leads to an Austerity period where austere rules and compromises are imposed, so that "no such war must ever happen again." The Prophets challenge those rules during the Awakening, the risk-aversive Artists hold things together during the Unraveling, when all the austere rules and compromises come completely unraveled, and then the narcissistic risk-seeking Prophets lead us into the next war, often across the same fault line over which the
last crisis war was fought.

However, as I pointed out -- the Prophets are mostly dead in a long saeculum by the time the Crisis starts. This cannot be the mechanism that drives the cycle, because if the unravelling goes on long enough, the cycle would simply die. The incoming generation must be the one delivering the turning shift, with the older generations providing nuance and accent to the nature of that new turning.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I don't know what I can add to what I've already said. S&H do not provide a satisfactory explanation for the 100 year period either.

S&H don't really provide an adequate explanation for any of the saecula -- in that they waffle a bit on their proposed causes for the saecula. The debate that has occurred on this site time and again regarding the theory is a question of the material cause of saeculum -- assuming such cycles are not merely phantoms imposed on history by observers.

My argument with Mike Alexander a while back on the Roman Saeculum thread involved this issue. Mike is concerned, justifiably, that the saeculum is merely a fiction and wishes to demonstrate its existence before finding a cause. My rebuke was that it would be impossible to develop a proof of the saeculum's existence without first determining what to look for. This means that some degree of theorizing must precede investigation.

If we theorize, for example, that large scale conflicts occur when few people are left alive with direct experience of the last such conflict then we can make corrollary conclusions that can be investigated. (Granted, it's possible this theory is correct and that other factors have greater weight, but I digress.) In the case of the Revolution, full scale conflict took a long time to emerge despite a ready conflict at the expected time in the form of the French and Indian War. Why was that war not a colonial Crisis? Some other factor must be involved.

A really short cycle is even more problematic. If we need the older generation to die off before a Crisis can erupt, how could a Crisis arise before they had died? Also, one would expect increasing life expectancy to increase cycle lengths when, if anything, the opposite has occurred. In colonial America life expectancies were lower than in Europe at the time yet the colonial cycle was apparently longer.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

So I agree that you're asking the right questions, but remember that we're talking about a situation that's so rare that we don't really have enough cases to confidently induce a good explanation for it.

And normally one counter-example would not wreck a historical theory since there are so many factors to consider. However, in this case you have a self-contradiction. You have cycle dates that show a long cycle and a cycle mechanism that should produce a shorter than average cycle not a longer than average cycle. It's a pretty significant problem.

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> There are minor differences between the generational birth years
> listed in Generations and The Fourth Turning-OK, so
> there were cuspers.

> Anyway, at the beginning of 1600 the proto-Prophets, Puritan
> generation, born 1584-1614/1588-1617, would have
> been babies to children; the Parliamentary Generation, Adaptive,
> born 1566-1583/1566-1587, would have been in their
> teens to early thirties; the Elizabethan or "Generation of 1560,"
> Civic, born 1542-1565/1541-1565, would have been in
> their mid-thirties to late fifties; the Reprisal generation,
> Nomad, born 1510-1541/1510-1540, getting up there.

> The very earliest colonists would have come from the above. The
> question that comes to mind is, what became of the generational
> archetypes of the survivors between 1600-1630 and into the
> Awakening? Was there morphing? Or did the survivors find
> themselves behaving in a cross-archetype manner?

I haven't looked at any other examples of a situation like this, so
my answer that I've given has to be considered as partially
speculative.

I believe that S&H's generational paradigm is not particularly
fragile It's pretty flexible, and it can handle "perturbations" and
right itself very quickly.

If you have a generation of Artists who are in their 20s, dealing
with the survival of their society, they're going to fight as hard as
if they were Heroes. They may think a little differently than a Hero
might otherwise, but we're talking about survival here. They'll
unite with the older "official" Hero generation, and they'll work
together to do what's necessary to survive. Once the critical period
is over, they'll still unite with the older generation to rebuild
society during the Austerity period, and in this case it will mean
rebuilding society according to Puritan rules.

During the critical period, "proto-Prophet" children would not
develop Prophet personalities, since they're growing up during what
is essentially a crisis period. They'll grow up to a risk-aversive
Artist generation.

Once the Austerity period is reached, those children, who would have
been Nomads back in England, are now going to be Prophets, since
they're growing up at a time when society is being rebuilt according
to austere Puritan rules.

Once the Awakening period comes, everything will have straigtened
itself out again. Take a look at this diagram:



The power of the TFT generational diagonal, as I said, is that it's
flexible and corrects itself very quickly after a perturbation. If
you scramble the generations in the Crisis Era column in any way you
want, it will already have corrected itself by the time of the
Awakening, because: The Youth will <u>always</u> be Artists during a
crisis era, irrespective of what they "should have been." The rising
adulthood generation with <u>always act like heroes</u> during a
Crisis era, because they have no other choice.

So by the Awakening Era, the oldest generation will
<u>effectively</u> be a Hero generation, and the other three
generations will <u>actually</u> be Artist, Prophet and Nomad,
respectively.

So if an "unexpected" Crisis Era occurs for some reason, it only
takes two generations to return to the original TFT paradigm.

Sincerely,

John

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

Dear Kurt,

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> This anomaly is perhaps the most criticized portion of S&H's work.
> I am not alone in thinking it is an error in S&H's historical
> analysis -- not a actual anomalous event. In my opinion, the
> Crisis period is roughly 1856 to 1874, encompassing Burning Kansas
> and most of Reconstruction.

Although I've defended S&H outside of this forum, I think this is the
first time I've had to defend S&H within this forum.

I take S&H at their word that they examined the histories and diaries
of the time, and found no "Hero" generation. So I don't think it's
fair to say that they made an error, based on their concept of a Hero
generation.

As I've said before, I think this is related to the "High Era" issue.
If you lose the war, or you're ashamed of the war, which was probably
true for both Yanks and Rebels at the time, then you won't feel like
a Hero, and the era won't feel like a "High."

We need to refocus the Hero concept back onto their Civic function,
because one way or another, this is the generation that's going to
rebuild society, in what I would call the Austerity era.

Anyway, I pretty much agree with your dates. My inclination would be
to start from the Panic of 1857, but 1856 is OK.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> But why then? If generational change is driving events then the
> issues should be resolved at a regular rate. Instead the post King
> Phillip's War colonial saeculum has very short Austerity and
> Awakening periods and an exceptionally long Unravelling. If these
> dates are correct, an explanation needs to be available (and to
> make it less ad hoc, it should explain other long saecula as
> well).

As I wrote to Tim, I believe that the TFT generational diagonal is so
powerful that it rights itself within two generations after a
perturbation in a crisis.

But let me try this question out on you: Why was there no Civil War
II? During the 1930s we had poverty, Hoovervilles, a lot of labor
violence, and a lot of Conferderate prophets saying, "The South Will
Rise Again!"

Well, why didn't it break out into Civil War? I invite your list of
reasons.

Here are some possible reasons: Everybody had food, even if it was
only in soup kitchens; there was still plenty of land, so there was
little crowding except in the large cities; the people were war-weary
from the Great War.

Pick whatever reasons you want, and they'll also apply to the period
of the 1750s.

What I'm saying is that the Revolutionary War should have occurred in
the 1750s, but didn't because of the Seven Years War.

How does this fit into the generational paradigm?

Well, we know that Nomads don't particularly like Prophets, and only
grudgingly go along with them. But Nomads can still learn from
Prophets. And if Prophets in the 1750s were saying, "I wish we could
dump the British, but we need them for now," the Nomads will hear
that. When the time finally comes, even if the Prophet generation is
too old, then the Nomad generation use what the dead and dying
Prophets taught them.

I think that if you and I sat down and worked on it, we could come up
with a five column diagonal chart that shows how an unraveling period
can last a long time under certain conditions.

And I'll bet we could prove that if it hadn't been for WW II, then we
would have had Civil War II by 1945 or 1950.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> S&H don't really provide an adequate explanation for any of the
> saecula -- in that they waffle a bit on their proposed causes for
> the saecula. The debate that has occurred on this site time and
> again regarding the theory is a question of the material cause of
> saeculum -- assuming such cycles are not merely phantoms imposed
> on history by observers.

Once again I'm in the position of defending S&H. When I read TFT, I
thought that they did provide an adequate explanation. However, I've
always felt that the reasoning wasn't nearly as rigid as I perceive
you to be implying. As I've said, I believe TFT is fairly flexible,
and I believe that it's self-correcting if there's a perturbation. I
think that's why it's so brilliant, and why I've found it to work
throughout history.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> My argument with Mike Alexander a while back on the Roman Saeculum
> thread involved this issue. Mike is concerned, justifiably, that
> the saeculum is merely a fiction and wishes to demonstrate its
> existence before finding a cause. My rebuke was that it would be
> impossible to develop a proof of the saeculum's existence without
> first determining what to look for. This means that some degree of
> theorizing must precede investigation.

Mike feels the saeculum is a fiction? Hmmmm. Why do I find that so
amusing?

Anyway, this is kind of a chicken and egg argument. I agree with you
that you need to start out with some sort of theory, but then you
look at examples and you refine the theory.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> If we theorize, for example, that large scale conflicts occur
> when few people are left alive with direct experience of the last
> such conflict then we can make corollary conclusions that can be
> investigated. (Granted, it's possible this theory is correct and
> that other factors have greater weight, but I digress.) In the
> case of the Revolution, full scale conflict took a long time to
> emerge despite a ready conflict at the expected time in the form
> of the French and Indian War. Why was that war not a colonial
> Crisis? Some other factor must be involved.

As I said, the same question arises as to why there wasn't a Civil
War II.

I have to tell you that I'm not nearly as bothered by this question
as you are. I think that there's a reasonably simple explanation
(even if I don't know for sure yet what it is). As I said, my
intuition and my experience tell me that unraveling periods can last
an extra generation or two, and I think we can come up with a
plausible explanation for that. And as I said, it's very rare anyway
- I've only found three cases where it happens.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> A really short cycle is even more problematic. If we need the
> older generation to die off before a Crisis can erupt, how could a
> Crisis arise before they had died? Also, one would expect
> increasing life expectancy to increase cycle lengths when, if
> anything, the opposite has occurred. In colonial America life
> expectancies were lower than in Europe at the time yet the
> colonial cycle was apparently longer.

Now for this I have some pretty definite feelings. As I've said, in
all the cases I've looked at, the mid-cycle length (the time from the
end of one crisis war to the beginning of the next) is almost always
between 50 and 70 years. It's rarely greater than 70 years,
it's rarely smaller than 60 years, and it's never, in
my experience, shorter than 50 years.

And I consider the last statement to be quite remarkable, and I
believe it's true because you can't start a new crisis war as long as
Artists from the last crisis war are in leadership positions and can
enforce compromise and containment.

I don't think life expectancy has anything to do with it at all. I
think it has to do with "retirement age" from leadership positions.

England was a far more structured society, with national
institutions, probably with some sort of retirement age laws, or at
least customs.

But the colonies had no national institutions, and leaders depended
much more on local customs. I'd bet that the average business owner
in England was younger than the average business owner in the
colonies during this period. (And if I'm wrong about that guess,
then I'll have to come up with a different reason.)

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> And normally one counter-example would not wreck a historical
> theory since there are so many factors to consider. However, in
> this case you have a self-contradiction. You have cycle dates that
> show a long cycle and a cycle mechanism that should produce a
> shorter than average cycle not a longer than average cycle. It's a
> pretty significant problem.

Well, as I said, I'm not really bothered by this problem anywhere
near as much as you are. This is nowhere near a crucial issue for
Generational Dynamics, instead at the level of "some interesting
questions that might be answered."

If you came up with a reasonable justification for a crisis era date
range of 1675-1704, perhaps explain why the Battle of Blenheim makes
all the difference after all, then I'd probably be willing to go along
with it.

But as I said, I believe the generational paradigm is sufficiently
flexible and self-correcting that it can handle this situation
without going to that length.

Sincerely,

John

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

New Generational Dynamics Graphics

I keep trying to find a way to use graphics to help people make sense
of this theory, and I'm trying out something new.

Here's a graphic showing the American timeline, with the Crisis Wars
(Generational Wars) and the non-crisis wars (mid-cycle wars):



The next graphic adds the timelines for Mexico and Vietname:



This shows how these three countries have different timelines, even
though they fought some of the same wars.

Finally, let's add a few more countries:



This diagram makes several points. If you remove all the lines and
just look at the small and large dots, then there's no pattern at
all. It's only when you follow each country's path that you see the
cycle.

Hopefully this will be an effective presentation aid. Comments are
welcome.

Sincerely,

John

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

Brian Rush posted:

"...The Crisis has to be, not only a time of great danger and turmoil, but something that brings the people together in a unified effort to overcome it and causes them to put their differences aside. (That's why the Russian Revolution doesn't qualify.) It doesn't have to end in victory or success, but it does have to end in peace that allows the nation to rebuild in new and better directions. (That's why World War II does qualify for the Germans and Japanese.)

"...When the Crisis comes at the wrong time, I suggest the following occurs:

"1) Adult generations continue to express the same archetypes they did before, but assume Crisis roles according to their phases of life, however awkwardly.

"2) The turning that was going on before the Crisis is disrupted and unfinished.

"3) The child generation, whatever they were being raised as before the Crisis, is overprotected during it and grows up as Artists.

"4) In the subsequent High, a new Prophet generation is born, regardless of the archetype of its parents (though the younger Prophes will still be the children of Artists) and starts off a new cycle in the normal fashion with an Awakening."

From print out derived from paleo 4T site, What Happens When You Lose A War? thread, Sept. 12 '97 post.

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker quoting Brian Rush

> "...When the Crisis comes at the wrong time, I suggest the
> following occurs:

> "1) Adult generations continue to express the same archetypes they
> did before, but assume Crisis roles according to their phases of
> life, however awkwardly.

> "2) The turning that was going on before the Crisis is disrupted
> and unfinished.

> "3) The child generation, whatever they were being raised as
> before the Crisis, is overprotected during it and grows up as
> Artists.

> "4) In the subsequent High, a new Prophet generation is born,
> regardless of the archetype of its parents (though the younger
> Prophes will still be the children of Artists) and starts off a
> new cycle in the normal fashion with an Awakening."

> From print out derived from paleo 4T site, What Happens When You
> Lose A War? thread, Sept. 12 '97 post.

Huh!! I thought that Brian Rush and I disagreed on everything, but I
think this is exactly right. If an unexpected crisis occurs, then
the generations self-correct to the standard form by the time of the
Awakening.

I would add that this appears to be extremely rare. What happens in
the overwhelming majority of the cases where an unexpected invasion
occurs is that the invasion is just another mid-cycle war.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker quoting Brian Rush

> "...The Crisis has to be, not only a time of great danger and
> turmoil, but something that brings the people together in a
> unified effort to overcome it and causes them to put their
> differences aside. (That's why the Russian Revolution doesn't
> qualify.) It doesn't have to end in victory or success, but it
> does have to end in peace that allows the nation to rebuild in new
> and better directions. (That's why World War II does qualify for
> the Germans and Japanese.)

I would have to quibble with this. It's true that a crisis brings
people together, but in the case of a civil war, it brings people
together within each of the opposing factions. The Russian
Revolution, combined with the violent civil war between factions led
by Trotsky and Stalin, was indeed a crisis war.

Sincerely,

John

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

Unforetunately the GD Generational Diagram covered up part of your text.

Interesting comment that the longer mid-cycle periods seem correlated with big mid-cycle wars. "...people were war weary from the Great War." Perhaps that creates a bit of delay even with people who are too young to remember the last Crisis war?

I presume that at the end of the 1600-1620 period that the archetypes would appear as thus: Proto-prophets-eldest in terrible twos; Adaptives just starting to come of age; Heros are the young adults. I don't know about older people.

I wonder if this would have been somewhat comparable to the present situation in Iraq?

During an Awakening the young uns defy The Establishment. As I understand it, Iraq was in an Awakening when the invasion occurred. The invaders have been imposing a new Establishment. The Awakening has taken on an anti-infidel flavor.

The big Puritan invasion resulted in the imposition of a Puritan Establishment. The young uns opposed this. However, the Awakening began after only a decade of austerity; the oldest proto-Prophets would have been about twelve. The young rebels would have been Adaptives. Quoting from Generations: " In 1955, the 'Beat Generation' drew first notice, wrote Bruce Cook, at 'that famous reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco when Allen ginsberg first proclaimed 'Howl' to an astonished, wine-bibbing multitude.' As self-proclaimed 'non-conformists' led a 'bohemian' coffeehouse cult, goateed 20-year-olds sampled foreign cuisines, listened to 'offbeat' music, read 'hip' poetry, told 'sick' jokes, and lampooned the G.I. 'Squaresville.' In 1958, the G.I. Herb Caen tagged them 'beatniks.'"

So, was it 17th century beatniks versus 17th century hippies?

Cast of characters

Puritan birth years listed as 1588-1617 in T4T, 1584-1614 in Generations. Pesky cuspers! In 1661 the Purtans would be 44-73[T4T]/47-73[Gen.] years old.

Cavalier generation, Nomad, birth years 1618-1647[T4T]/1615-1647[Gen.]. In 1661 the Cavaliers would have been 14-43[T4T]/14-46[Gen.].

Glorius generation, Civic, 1648-1673[T4T]/1648-1673[Gen.]. In 1661 the oldest Glorius were about 13-14.

It has been suggested that our Crisis may resemble this colonial crisis. The analogies are very rough. In generational terms-in terms of the foot soldier role-the colonies had a two part crisis. John Xenakis said that this colonial crisis was on the Indians time line, with the Indians starting the actual war. At that time all but the youngest colonial grunts would have been Cavalier Nomads, just as all but the youngest grunts in the Middle East are Xers. Later in the crisis the Glorius filled the foot soldier role.

In the Indians the colonies had a culturally alien enemy, just as we have one in Al Quaida. As to whether we will have anything like Bacon's rebellion or conflict with the French remains to be seen.

There may be a generational lesson here. Both the Cavaliers and the Glorius filled the 4T Hero role-but while the Glorius were triumphant, the Cavaliers were dumped.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

The child generation, whatever they were being raised as before the Crisis, is overprotected during it and grows up as Artists.

This makes sense, but S&H have Prophets born during the Civil War Crisis. Their artists are born before the Crisis and the first wave helps fight the crisis war.

Interesting. One thing, though. Old Toby posted that most of WWII was an Unraveling war for Japan-until near the end. For Japan we would need double symbolism, such as a small dot overlapping a large dot.

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Unfortunately the GD Generational Diagram covered up part of your
> text.

Where is this? I can't find it.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Interesting comment that the longer mid-cycle periods seem
> correlated with big mid-cycle wars. "...people were war weary from
> the Great War." Perhaps that creates a bit of delay even with
> people who are too young to remember the last Crisis war?

That's the hypothesis. One basis for making this hypothesis is as
follows: The evolutionary "purpose" of a crisis war is to thin the
population in favor of "survival of the fittest." So if a major
mid-cycle war, or series of mid-cycle wars, thins the population, so
that there's enough land and enough food for the remaining
population, then the visceral genocidal desire for another crisis war
is reduced or postponed.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> I presume that at the end of the 1600-1620 period that the
> archetypes would appear as thus: Proto-prophets-eldest in terrible
> twos; Adaptives just starting to come of age; Heros are the young
> adults. I don't know about older people.

I'm still not absolutely certain exactly what dates to assign to this
period, but the generations seem right.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> I wonder if this would have been somewhat comparable to the
> present situation in Iraq?

> During an Awakening the young uns defy The Establishment. As I
> understand it, Iraq was in an Awakening when the invasion
> occurred. The invaders have been imposing a new Establishment. The
> Awakening has taken on an anti-infidel flavor.

> The big Puritan invasion resulted in the imposition of a Puritan
> Establishment. The young uns opposed this. However, the Awakening
> began after only a decade of austerity; the oldest proto-Prophets
> would have been about twelve. The young rebels would have been
> Adaptives. Quoting from Generations: " In 1955, the 'Beat
> Generation' drew first notice, wrote Bruce Cook, at 'that famous
> reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco when Allen ginsberg
> first proclaimed 'Howl' to an astonished, wine-bibbing multitude.'
> As self-proclaimed 'non-conformists' led a 'bohemian' coffeehouse
> cult, goateed 20-year-olds sampled foreign cuisines, listened to
> 'offbeat' music, read 'hip' poetry, told 'sick' jokes, and
> lampooned the G.I. 'Squaresville.' In 1958, the G.I. Herb Caen
> tagged them 'beatniks.'"

> So, was it 17th century beatniks versus 17th century hippies?

I don't believe that anything corresponding to the "Puritan flip" has
occurred in Iraq. Generally speaking, the aging Heroes from the
Iran/Iraq war have supported the Coalition forces, although with
reservations, and so the new Prophets treat them all as one big
group of authority figures to be rebelled against.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> It has been suggested that our Crisis may resemble this colonial
> crisis. The analogies are very rough. In generational terms-in
> terms of the foot soldier role-the colonies had a two part crisis.
> John Xenakis said that this colonial crisis was on the Indians
> time line, with the Indians starting the actual war. At that time
> all but the youngest colonial grunts would have been Cavalier
> Nomads, just as all but the youngest grunts in the Middle East are
> Xers. Later in the crisis the Glorius filled the foot soldier
> role.

There's a separate theoretical subject area here, "merging of
timelines," where two societies on slightly different schedules have
a crisis war, and then develop generational patterns on the same
schedule. It looks something like this:



In this case, the colonists' timeline was merging with the Indians'
timeline, which must have called for a slightly earlier crisis
period. This can result in a longer than normal crisis period, as the
diagram shows. (Incidentally, if we ever figure out why S&H came up
with a long 1675-1704 crisis period, then this phenomenon may be part
of it.)

This would mean that you would have a crisis period which begins with
Heroes in one generation fighting Nomads in the other generation, and
ending with more heroes (n?e Artists) fighting original heroes in the
other generation. Then, as previously described, the generational
patterns would self-correct within two generations, by the time of
the next Awakening.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> In the Indians the colonies had a culturally alien enemy, just as
> we have one in Al Quaida. As to whether we will have anything like
> Bacon's rebellion or conflict with the French remains to be seen.

When trying to figure out what's happening today, remember we're in a
major merging timelines situation, with some countries on a "World
War I" schedule, and some on a "World War II" schedule. If we think
of the two world wars as one length "Thirty One Years War," then
we're in an analogous position today to the War of the Spanish
Succession, which merged France's and Germany timelines once and for
all.

The following table lists the approximate "scheduled" crisis war
dates for different countries, based on the assumption that the next
crisis war begins 55-75 years after the END of the last crisis war:

Code:

>            Year ending     Likely dates of next crisis war
>            last crisis    
Country          war	    
--------------   ------- -----------------------------------
Iran             1921    1979-88 Iran/Iraq war - completed
Russia           1928    1993-? Early battles in Russia's next
>                                crisis war have already begun
>                                in Chechnya
Mexico           1924    1979-1999 (Overdue)
Saudi Arabia     1932    1987-2007
West Europe      1945    2000-2020
United States    1945    2000-2020
Japan            1945    2000-2020
Israel/Palestine 1949    2004-2024
China            1949    2004-2024

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Interesting. One thing, though. Old Toby posted that most of WWII
> was an Unraveling war for Japan-until near the end. For Japan we
> would need double symbolism, such as a small dot overlapping a
> large dot.

I would be curious to know what his reasoning is. I've been placing
the Japanese crisis period as beginning in 1931 with their invasion
of Manchuria, but I'm willing to be convinced that that war, along
with their 1934 invasion of northern China, were unraveling wars.
Their previous crisis period was roughly 1852-68, ending with the
Meiji Restoration.

Sincerely,

John

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

Quoting Old Toby:

"...The Meiji restoration is our obvious landmark for the Crisis, but it is not the end of the Crisis, but (like the American revolution) the core of it. The Crisis begins c. 1860, when open civil war breaks out in Japan, and continues until some time after the end of the Satsuma Rebellion (1877).

"...There follows an extremely long High that stretches up to encompass the Russo-Japanese war.

"...The period of Taisho Democracy is a clear Awakening, marking the end of a hegemonic oligarchy and the dawning of a period of social criticism, lifestyle inovation, and fractured politics. It lacks the stale, oppositional politics and popular cynicism of an unraveling.

"...The period from the end of the Taisho period, right up to, or almost up to, the end of war is an Unraveling! The Militarist leadership's beliefs of the inevitability of war with the US and the triumph of fighting spirit over military superiority are clearly Prophet Ideology, not Nomad cynicism. But the brutality with which Japanese Troops conducted the war is typical of Nomads fighting a 3T war. Furthermore Japan never had the wartime unity of a nation in crisis, but rather, the regime faced a sceptical public and a strong peace faction within the government. Finally, Japanese recollections of the war show typical 3T suspicion. The notion that wars are caused by secretive elites who lie to the public to further their own agendas is still common in Japanese popular culture.

"...Toward the end, however, things start to change. The last wave of Japanese soldiers, the ones that supplied the kamikaze pilots, show clear Hero tendencies. As do the countless Japanese youth put in uniforms and sent to grow food or co-ordinate evacuations. It is this group, the Japanese who grew up during the war and the subsequent period of famine and poverty, that are Japan's Heroes, the generation that built modern Japan.

"...The period that followed WWII can never be interpreted as a High. Japan's industrial base was decimated, poverty was widespread, millions were homeless, and there was nothing to eat. Gradually Japan rebuilt, but this was slow in coming, Food shortages continued into the late 50s, and it was still later that Japan regained it's prewar prosperity and prestige. The only way to look at this is is to see it as a Crisis. A slow Crisis, an economic, not military Crisis, but still a period in which the political order was totally recast and a new genration of youth united to save the country and become the patriarchs of its new order.

"...To summarize my chronology, here are the periods: 1860-1880 Crisis Meiji Restoration 1880-1905 Building a Modern State 1905-1925 'Taisho Democracy' 1925-1945 Unraveling Militarist Domination 1945-1964 Crisis Rebuilding Japan 1964-1989 High 'Japan Is #1' 1989-Awakening???"

From print out derived from paleo 4T web site, Japan thread, Dec 11 '98 post. I took the liberty of breaking up the text into smaller paragraphs, but have tried to duplicate the exact wording, including typos.

I was only half serious about the beatnik thing for if an Awakening began way early than maybe something really weird happened.

re: King Phil's War-occurs to me that in a sense a longer Crisis would be self correcting later in the period. The Nomads would have tended to age into a mid-life, Nomad middle manager role. Though perhaps they might circle the wagons a bit early if attacked with the ferocity of a Crisis war.

Interesting comparing the present to the WSS.

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker quoting Old Toby

> "...The Meiji restoration is our obvious landmark for the Crisis,
> but it is not the end of the Crisis, but (like the American
> revolution) the core of it. The Crisis begins c. 1860, when open
> civil war breaks out in Japan, and continues until some time after
> the end of the Satsuma Rebellion (1877).

This is an interesting view, but it's hard to justify. I do agree
with him on the rough start of the crisis period, though I would
prefer to begin it with the Ansei Purge of 1858.

However, it's hard to see how the crisis extended past 1868. Once
the Emperor took control, everything was settled, as the following
descriptions indicate:

Originally Posted by Encyclopedia of World History [Stearns

]
> 1868, Jan. 3 THE MEIJI RESTORATION. The emperor assumed direct
> control over the nation. Certain of the western clans seized power
> in Kyoto, and the remaining Tokugawa forces and those domainal
> forces loyal to the bakufu were defeated in a civil war (July 4,
> Battle of Ueno in Edo). ...

> 1868-1912 THE MEIJI PERIOD. The policy of antiforeignism of the
> Loyalist Party was dropped as soon as it came to power, as Japan
> entered a reform period that involved great borrowing from the
> West, comparable only to the much earlier period of borrowing from
> China. The remnants of military rule and feudalism were
> systematically dismantled, a strong centralized bureaucratic
> government fashioned along Western lines was created under the
> leadership of the Meiji emperor, and Japan became a modern world
> power. Rapid industrialization on Western models took place, and,
> as a consequence, the wealth and population of the land
> multiplied. In the fields of science, education, philosophy, and
> even art and literature, great transformations were wrought by the
> impact of Western civilization, and for a few decades many
> Japanese traits and institutions were somewhat discredited, if not
> completely superseded. Shinto was at first declared the state
> religion; Buddhist elements were to be purged from it, and a
> Department of Shinto was created, but the department was abolished
> (1872) in the face of widespread opposition.

On the other hand, the Satsuma Rebellion did not have much energy,
and collapsed quickly:

Originally Posted by Encyclopedia of World History [Stearns

]
> 1877, Jan.-Sept The SATSUMA REBELLION erupted with some 42,000
> supporters, partially in anger at the treatment of the former
> samurai class by the new government. It was led by Saig Takamori,
> a leader in the Restoration movement, but was quickly crushed by
> the modern, trained army of commoner conscripts. Saig committed
> suicide. A large issue of inconvertible paper currency was used to
> defray government expenses in quelling the rebels.

This was clearly a mid-cycle rebellion.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker quoting Old Toby

> "...There follows an extremely long High that stretches up to
> encompass the Russo-Japanese war. [1904-5]

Once again, this is very hard to justify. There were many
awakening-type events going on long before that, starting with a
revised penal code in 1880. In 1881, the emperor promised a new
constitution by 1889; that deadline was met with a constitution which
created a bicameral Diet. So I would say that the awakening began in
the early 1880s.

Before going on with Old Toby's remarks, I'd like to quote a few
paragraphs from my book:

Originally Posted by John Xenakis in [i

Generational Dynamics[/i]]
> In this book, we've discussed a wide variety of types of
> awakenings -- great art in the "golden age of Greece," new
> religions in the lives of Jesus, Mohammed, and the Buddha, and
> the anti-war movement in our own awakening of the 1960s.

> However, an awakening can take many forms, and Japan's awakening
> took the form of becoming militaristic and imperialistic. The
> Japanese were well aware of the successes in empire building by
> the Europeans, and they felt that if the Europeans could do it,
> then the Japanese could also do it.

> From 1894-1910, Japan engaged in a series of wars against China
> and Russia, resulting in one victory after another. In the
> treaties resulting from these wars, Japan was given Taiwan,
> Korea, and southern Manchuria, along with other territories.

> We should make clear that Japan was not considered to be an enemy
> of the West at this time. In fact, Japan was considered to be an
> advanced, "westernized" nation. Japan mostly sat out World War
> I, but at the Treaty of Versailles ending that war, Japan was
> granted additional territorial awards.

> Never having been an imperialistic nation, Japan was becoming
> giddy with its successes. An awakening period is followed by an
> unraveling period, and in the unraveling period of the 1920s,
> Japan became a completely militaristic state. There was
> censorship of the press, complete state control by the military,
> and open plans for military expansion into China and Russia.

> The stock market crash in America didn't affect Japan until
> America enacted the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which caused a
> collapse in international trade, and started Japan's own
> financial decline. Japan already felt insulted by America's 1924
> decision to limit immigration into the US -- citizens of all
> non-North American nations were restricted, but immigration by
> Japanese was singled out as being totally excluded.

> Exactly 63 years after the Meiji Restoration (78 years after
> Commander Perry's visit), Japan went to war in Manchuria in 1931.
> This was the first major military action of World War II.

> Japan was then at war until America's nuclear weapons fell on
> Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. Japan
> surrendered on September 2.

> Almost overnight, the Japanese people reverted to the old
> non-imperialistic selves they used to be before Commodore Perry's
> visit. The country became strongly pacifist and disbanded its
> armed forces.

> However, Japan's change does not dissolve the ethnic fault line
> between Korea and Japan, resulting from Japan's colonization of
> Korea from 1910 to 1945. We're likely to see a war of Korean
> unification during the next few years, and it's likely that Japan
> will be drawn into that war.

The above represents my view of what happened with Japan, and I
believe it's basically correct. What's really fascinating is that
Japan's awakening was a "pro-war" awakening, while ours was an
"anti-war" awakening. The kids always want whatever their parents
hate.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker quoting Old Toby

> "...The period from the end of the Taisho period, right up to, or
> almost up to, the end of war is an Unraveling! The Militarist
> leadership's beliefs of the inevitability of war with the US and
> the triumph of fighting spirit over military superiority are
> clearly Prophet Ideology, not Nomad cynicism. But the brutality
> with which Japanese Troops conducted the war is typical of Nomads
> fighting a 3T war. Furthermore Japan never had the wartime unity
> of a nation in crisis, but rather, the regime faced a sceptical
> public and a strong peace faction within the government. Finally,
> Japanese recollections of the war show typical 3T suspicion. The
> notion that wars are caused by secretive elites who lie to the
> public to further their own agendas is still common in Japanese
> popular culture.

> "...Toward the end, however, things start to change. The last wave
> of Japanese soldiers, the ones that supplied the kamikaze pilots,
> show clear Hero tendencies. As do the countless Japanese youth put
> in uniforms and sent to grow food or co-ordinate evacuations. It
> is this group, the Japanese who grew up during the war and the
> subsequent period of famine and poverty, that are Japan's Heroes,
> the generation that built modern Japan.

I just don't how it's possible to consider the bombing of Pearl
Harbor to be anything but a crisis era action.

In fact, read this description of how suddenly Japanese society
changed in 1931

Originally Posted by Encyclopedia of World History [Stearns

]
> 1931-32 THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF MANCHURIA [>]. Japan's
> Guandong Army, engaged in night maneuvers at Mukden (Sept. 18 ),
> set off an explosion on a nearby rail line and alleged it to be
> the work of Chinese forces the Manchurian Incident. With this
> excuse, they commenced a preconcerted seizure before morning of
> the arsenal as well as of Andong, Yingkou, and Changchun; Jiang
> Jieshi ordered his troops to withdraw, as he could not sustain a
> major battle with the Japanese.

> 1926-89 The SHOWA PERIOD was the longest reign in Japanese
> history. After a few more years of the liberalism and
> internationalism of the Taish period, a sudden and sharp
> militaristic and imperialistic reaction set in after the
> Manchurian Incident (Sept. 18, 1931). There was a partial
> repudiation of popular intellectual and cultural aspects of
> Western civilization and a revival of older Japanese ideologies.
> Politicians lost their influence, and the army and, to a lesser
> extent, the navy became the dominant forces in the government,
> with the farming populace more often than not supporting the
> military against the urban bourgeoisie and the large economic
> combines or zaibatsu. Under this leadership, the nation embarked
> on a daring program of territorial expansion on the continent.

This paragraph seems pretty dramatically to indicate a widespread
popular change in attitude by the Japanese people to a crisis
attitude. The Japanese were furious at the Americans at this time
because of Smoot-Hawley, and they became far more warlike than they
had been.

Now, when Old Toby says, "It is this group, the Japanese who grew
up during the war and the subsequent period of famine and poverty,
that are Japan's Heroes, the generation that built modern Japan."

What can this possibly mean? Does he mean that the those pilots who
announced "Tora! Tora! Tora!" when they caught American forces
napping at Pearl Harbor just sat and stared out the window while
others were rebuilding Japan after the war? That doesn't make sense.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker quoting Old Toby

> "...The period that followed WWII can never be interpreted as a
> High. Japan's industrial base was decimated, poverty was
> widespread, millions were homeless, and there was nothing to eat.
> Gradually Japan rebuilt, but this was slow in coming, Food
> shortages continued into the late 50s, and it was still later that
> Japan regained it's prewar prosperity and prestige. The only way
> to look at this is is to see it as a Crisis. A slow Crisis, an
> economic, not military Crisis, but still a period in which the
> political order was totally recast and a new genration of youth
> united to save the country and become the patriarchs of its new
> order.

Now, here's the problem again of calling the period following a
crisis war a "High." It's not a "high" to the losing side, and it
wasn't even a "high" to either side of the American Civil War.

The Austerity period following a crisis war is a time of recovery and
rebuilding, of creating new rules, compromises and institutions, so
that "nothing like that must ever happen again."

The Japanese became deeply ashamed at what they had done, and they
became a completely different people, changing from imperialism to
pacifism.

Originally Posted by Encyclopedia of World History [Stearns

]
> 1946, April 10 A series of purges, initiated by SCAP, was
> directed against all ?active exponents? of aggressive nationalism,
> including intellectuals and businessmen, and ultimately involved
> more than 1.5 million people. ...

> 1946 Nov. 3 A new constitution provided for an elected upper
> house, transferred sovereignty from the emperor to the people,
> safeguarded individual rights and equal rights for women, and
> introduced a broad measure of local self-government. It also
> renounced war for all time and became effective on May 3, 1947.

By the 1960s, the Awakening was in full flower:

Originally Posted by Encyclopedia of World History [Stearns

]
> 1962, April 26 Some 6,000 university students staged a protest
> march on the Japanese Diet, where the new Japanese-U.S. Treaty of
> Mutual Security was being considered for ratification. ...

> 1968 Repeated demonstrations and clashes by students and other
> radical elements agitated against the renewal of the 1960
> security treaty with the U.S. and against the visit to Japan by
> U.S. nuclear-powered or nuclear-equipped vessels.

The major themes of the Japanese awakenings in the 1960s were antiwar
and anti-American. An interesting place to look at one aspect of
Japan's post-war awakening is with the Japan Revolutionary Communist
League. This web page gives a detailed timeline that can be used as a
launching point for research into other aspects of the awakening at:

http://www.zenshin.org/english_home/nc_intro.htm

Sincerely,

John

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

Agreed, "High" is definitely not the term that applies to the losing side. The obvious comparison from our history is Dixie in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Interesting how kids can be pro-war or anti-war just so long as they are against what their elders want. From our history the Boomers were against the Vietnam war that was supported by their parents-these same parents had been the triumphant heros of WWII. On the other hand, the Missionaries chose to remember the Maine, not Gettysburg-of course their elders, the Gilded, had been decimated by war.

Assume for the sake of argument that civilization isn't blasted back to the stone age. Assume further that there is a mid-21st century Awakening. Whether the coming-of-age prophets are pro- or anti- war may be influenced by their parents attitudes, which may depend on how a Crisis under Boom leadership turns out.

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Assume for the sake of argument that civilization isn't blasted
> back to the stone age. Assume further that there is a mid-21st
> century Awakening. Whether the coming-of-age prophets are pro- or
> anti- war may be influenced by their parents attitudes, which may
> depend on how a Crisis under Boom leadership turns out.

Of course we know that by 2030, autonomous computers will be
more intelligent than human beings, and so none of this is
particularly relevant, but OK, let's suppose we'll have a mid-21st
century awakening.

I think the "pro-war" Japanese awakening of the late 1800s was a
special case from a unique time. During that period, colonialism was
considered a GOOD thing for everyone, because the wealthy colonial
power brought factories, medicine, and advanced agricultural methods
to the colonized region.

This was particularly evident in Africa after the 1850s, when it was
discovered that malaria could be controlled with quinine, so that by
the 1870s the floodgates to colonize Africa were open. The "Scramble
for Africa" pitted England, Belgium, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain
and Germany against each other to snap up as much of the continent as
possible. By the mid 1890s the Scramble had just carved up just
about all of Africa, and in 1914, all of black Africa except Ethiopia
and Liberia were European colonies.

So although Japan's 1890s awakening was "pro-war," it was actually
Japan competing with England and France to be the leader in the global
industrial revolution.

So if there's a mid-21st century awakening, it doesn't seem likely
that we'll be returning to those old pro-colonial times, those I
suppose that if an intervening war were devastating enough, some
variant of colonial might become a possibility.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

As I've said before, I think this is related to the "High Era" issue. If you lose the war, or you're ashamed of the war, which was probably true for both Yanks and Rebels at the time, then you won't feel like a Hero, and the era won't feel like a "High."

We need to refocus the Hero concept back onto their Civic function,
because one way or another, this is the generation that's going to
rebuild society, in what I would call the Austerity era.

Anyway, I pretty much agree with your dates. My inclination would be
to start from the Panic of 1857, but 1856 is OK.

The term Austerity seems more descriptive, since it applies to the aftermath of any Crisis, triumphant or catastrophic.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

As I wrote to Tim, I believe that the TFT generational diagonal is so powerful that it rights itself within two generations after a perturbation in a crisis.

But let me try this question out on you: Why was there no Civil War
II? During the 1930s we had poverty, Hoovervilles, a lot of labor
violence, and a lot of Conferderate prophets saying, "The South Will
Rise Again!"

Well, why didn't it break out into Civil War? I invite your list of
reasons.

The nature of a Crisis is not foreordained. Some divisions are resolved and some are papered over. There is never a "war to end all wars." What is uncertain going into a Crisis is which divisions will frame the nature of conflict in that Crisis.

In the 1930s, the policies that had everyone's attention were economic policies that had a fairly uniform impact on the country. Unlike the tariff, which had a regional skew to its impact, labor and monetary policy affected all parts of the country about the same. So, while Southern complaints were present, they were part of the background.

Also, the idea of secession was pretty much dead in the 30s. If anything, the federal government was even more capable of pacifying a rebellion than before. The idea of popular revolution, however, still resonated -- and much of the New Deal can be seen as an attempt to prevent a Communist insurgency from ever gaining momentum in America.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

What I'm saying is that the Revolutionary War should have occurred in the 1750s, but didn't because of the Seven Years War.

But one would expect the Seven Years War to become the Crisis for the colonies. For some reason, the Seven Years War didn't stir colonial passions and we have to wonder why.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I think that if you and I sat down and worked on it, we could come up with a five column diagonal chart that shows how an unraveling period can last a long time under certain conditions.

There is another option. You've posited a colonial timeline distinct from the English timeline. However, there were many prominent persons who would have existed as part of both timelines -- because they traveled back and forth between the two continents. As a result, you'd get a lot of people who had experiences from both timelines and whose behavior would impact both timelines. If the timelines do diverge -- which seems likely -- the divergence could lead to a muddled period with no clear Crisis.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

And I'll bet we could prove that if it hadn't been for WW II, then we would have had Civil War II by 1945 or 1950.

This statement is interesting in that such a war would be occurring in a High, and thus impossible if generations drive history. Only by accepting that the generations are wholly formed from the temporal position of a Crisis War could you conclude that a Crisis War could occur in America after 1945. But that raises the question (again) of why Crisis Wars happen at the particular time that they do? Why didn't WWII start in 1936 or 1950? The explanation offered by S&Hs theory is that generational patterns dictated some sort of apocalyptic conflict in that time frame.

You can't have it both ways. Either:

a) Total wars come about when people forget about the previous one, necessitating a saeculum that increases in length as we approach the present. (More people are living longer, therefore the time it takes for those who remember the last big war to fade from influence should be increasing.)

b) Total wars are simply normal wars that occur once the Austerity-Awakening-Unraveling cycle initiated by the last Total War has run its course. In which case, a Total War will be any war that occurs sufficiently deep into an Unraveling.

Option a) appears to be contradicted by events. Pretty much all of the proposed cycles presented, yours included, show a drop or no change in saeculum length in the last two centuries. Certainly, a lengthening of the saeculum is not seen by anyone. So, I have to interpret your theory as relying on the causative theory in option b). In which case an Unraveling could theoretically go on forever and Unravelings have to be considered the base turning type of human societies ? a society undisturbed by great calamity will appear to be in an Unraveling.

I must admit that I find that conclusion amusing. Most social theories seem to assume that human beings living in a world without great calamity would live in a state of Austerity. It?s been said, however, that human beings are great problem solvers but even better problem finders. People seem to expect calamity, so a society without disaster would live with a constant expectation of doom on the horizon. Once a calamity occurs and a Crisis exists, a process is initiated whereby society girds itself against future calamity. In which case, the whole Austerity-Awakening-Unraveling process is simply a predictable reaction to a Crisis. Once the process is complete, society returns to the Unraveling base state.

This would also lead to the conclusion that there are two types of Hero generations. There would be Fulfilled Heroes who see a Crisis period and, potentially, Expectant Heroes who reach adulthood during an extended Unraveling and would constitute a sort of ?fifth archetype.? However, in most cases, you would never get Expectant Heroes since people who expect a calamity will get one (their actions will drive more and more people into conflict).

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Mike feels the saeculum is a fiction? Hmmmm. Why do I find that so amusing?

Not to speak for him, but I think it would be more accurate to say he suspects it is a fiction. Coming from an empiricist, that?s not an unexpected position.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Anyway, this is kind of a chicken and egg argument. I agree with you that you need to start out with some sort of theory, but then you look at examples and you refine the theory.

Oh good, then we can avoid a debate about the utility of empiricism in the social sciences. The latter sentence here carries some pitfalls. We have to keep in mind that any entity such as a ?Crisis?or an ?Unraveling? is an aggregate that we are using to model reality and is not, itself, an observational primary. What are observational are the behavioral tendencies of human beings in general and the historical behavior of specific human beings.

It seems to me that a valid theory has to consider each human being to exhibit the traits of a generational archetype individually and the relative weights of those archetypes determine the ?type? of the whole generation. I.e. a Hero generation will contain people who act like Nomads or Prophets or Artists but the bulk of them will have the Hero outlook. A similar statement would be true of the other generation types. So the most important task is to determine what possible outlooks exist and then determine what would cause those outlooks to arise in greater or lesser numbers.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

And I consider the last statement to be quite remarkable, and I
believe it's true because you can't start a new crisis war as long as Artists from the last crisis war are in leadership positions and can enforce compromise and containment.

I don't think life expectancy has anything to do with it at all. I think it has to do with "retirement age" from leadership positions.

I would agree, however, in most societies, the vast majority of influential people retire at death. Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush could be considered ?retired? but given Carter?s continued activism and the fact that Bush still, even now, receives daily CIA briefings ? can these two really be considered to be retired?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

If you came up with a reasonable justification for a crisis era date range of 1675-1704, perhaps explain why the Battle of Blenheim makes all the difference after all, then I'd probably be willing to go along with it.

I?m not too sure about the S&H dates myself. My main difficulty with the whole turning theory is in exactly the time period we are considering. The 16th through 19th centuries are just a terrible convoluted mess. First off, the notion that the entire West is on one timeline has to be dispensed with. There is just no way that the Napoleonic Wars constitute an Austerity period for Western Europe.

But what are the Crises? English history in particular is problematic. If we have the Civil War, War of Spanish Succession and Napoleonic Wars as Crises we have to ask why there was this huge leap in saeculum length. The first interval is no longer than 50 years between end of Crisis and start of another while the second interval is no shorter than 75. What gives? And why wasn?t the American Revolution a Crisis for Britain like it was for the colonists?

One way to resolve this (without ditching the theory altogether) is to consider the English Civil War an especially violent Awakening. Certainly the number of factions and amount of in-fighting is less indicative of a Crisis than one would expect and the Restoration seems like an Unraveling. Most damaging, I find it difficult to label any portion of the Restoration as an Awakening.

I have an idea for how to solve the 17th century, but that should be a separate post.

Dear Kurt,

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> The term Austerity seems more descriptive, since it applies to the
> aftermath of any Crisis, triumphant or catastrophic.

Not only that, but I don't even think that "high" was the predominant
feeling even in America after WW II. Yes, everyone was proud of
having beaten the Depression and beaten the Nazis, but "high" conveys
a sense of resting on your laurels, and I don't think anyone did
that. (That would be more of an unraveling thing.) I think the
predominant feeling was more "grim determination" never to make the
same mistakes again. In other words, even though we won the war,
there was a lot of self-blame for not stopping Hitler earlier. That's
the logic that got us into Korea and Vietnam. So I think that, win or
lose, self-blame and a desire not to repeat mistakes is most
characteristic of the time following a crisis war.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> The nature of a Crisis is not foreordained. Some divisions are
> resolved and some are papered over. There is never a "war to end
> all wars." What is uncertain going into a Crisis is which
> divisions will frame the nature of conflict in that Crisis.

> In the 1930s, the policies that had everyone's attention were
> economic policies that had a fairly uniform impact on the country.
> Unlike the tariff, which had a regional skew to its impact, labor
> and monetary policy affected all parts of the country about the
> same. So, while Southern complaints were present, they were part
> of the background.

> Also, the idea of secession was pretty much dead in the 30s. If
> anything, the federal government was even more capable of
> pacifying a rebellion than before. The idea of popular revolution,
> however, still resonated -- and much of the New Deal can be seen
> as an attempt to prevent a Communist insurgency from ever gaining
> momentum in America.

Yes, the last sentence is the kind of issue I was thinking of. I
didn't mean that there would be a Civil War II over slavery or over
secession, but that once the Prophets take over then there'll be some
pretext for another Civil War.

I remember, growing up in the 50s, that I would frequently hear the
phrase "the south will rise again" on TV. It may only have been in
situation comedies, but there must have been a lot of latent desire
in the south to get even, with or without secession.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> But one would expect the Seven Years War to become the Crisis for
> the colonies. For some reason, the Seven Years War didn't stir
> colonial passions and we have to wonder why.

You know, for some reason that I can't explain right now this never
occurred to me, but you're absolutely right. Why didn't the French
and Indian wars become a crisis war itself?

Maybe the reason is that it would have required siding with the
British. In other words, I'm speculating that the emotional energy
was directed against the British colonial masters rather than at the
French, and that therefore a crisis war against the French was not
possible.

Let's try a thought experiment. Suppose country X torpedoed and sank
one of our ships, and gave a feeble, not really credible reason for
why it happened. What would country X have to be for us to take
military action in retaliation?

If country X were Iran, we'd have the bombers in the air before you
could say "boo." But if country X were England, it would take a long
time before we'd take military action, and only after trying to
settle the matter diplomatically. If country X were France, then
we'd take military action more quickly that with England, but less
quickly than with Iran.

So the general principle might be that when the Prophets take over,
they guide the country to a crisis war only with certain enemies, and
I'm guessing that in the 1750s the Prophets were talking about
England, not about France.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> There is another option. You've posited a colonial timeline
> distinct from the English timeline. However, there were many
> prominent persons who would have existed as part of both timelines
> -- because they traveled back and forth between the two
> continents. As a result, you'd get a lot of people who had
> experiences from both timelines and whose behavior would impact
> both timelines. If the timelines do diverge -- which seems likely
> -- the divergence could lead to a muddled period with no clear
> Crisis.

This is an interesting idea, but it's hard for me to grasp. The
English would have had visceral fury at France, while the colonists
had visceral fury at England. I would guess that English businessmen
or tourists visiting the colonies would keep their mouths shut about
politics, just as an American visiting Paris today would probably
keep his mouth shut about politics.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> This statement is interesting in that such a war would be
> occurring in a High, and thus impossible if generations drive
> history.

I didn't mean it this way. When I suggested that if it hadn't been
for WW II then we would have had a Civil War II around 1945-50, I was
saying it would be in a crisis period, just as the Revolutionary War
was in a crisis period, rather than in a high period.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> But that raises the question (again) of why Crisis Wars happen at
> the particular time that they do? Why didn't WWII start in 1936 or
> 1950? The explanation offered by S&Hs theory is that generational
> patterns dictated some sort of apocalyptic conflict in that time
> frame.

> You can't have it both ways. Either:

> a) Total wars come about when people forget about the previous
> one, necessitating a saeculum that increases in length as we
> approach the present. (More people are living longer, therefore
> the time it takes for those who remember the last big war to fade
> from influence should be increasing.)

> b) Total wars are simply normal wars that occur once the
> Austerity-Awakening-Unraveling cycle initiated by the last Total
> War has run its course. In which case, a Total War will be any war
> that occurs sufficiently deep into an Unraveling.

I look at crisis wars a little differently. I don't think you can
say a crisis war occurs just because a generational change takes
place; if so, then crisis wars would occur at times that could be
predicted precisely well in advance.

I look at crisis wars as similar to sex, and I'm not joking about
this. I don't think you can look at the Balkans war of the early
1990s or the Rwanda war of 1994, or Hitler's attempted extermination
of the Jews, or even American's use of nuclear weapons on Japan, or
Sherman's march through Georgia, as anything but satisfying a
visceral human desire for genocide. I see this as part of the normal
human evolutionary condition, without which the human species would
never have survived. And just as someone may be "ready" to have sex
but cannot because a partner isn't available, it may be that a
society is "ready" to have a genocidal crisis war but can't because
an enemy isn't available.

Nor do I see a crisis war as anything resembling a "normal war." This
is something I was trying to say to Mike Alexander with his analyses
trying to correlate economic data with wars. I consider crisis wars
and mid-cycle wars to be completely different things. They are simply
different kinds of activities. Mid-cycle wars are logical, and are
fought for political objectives; crisis wars are visceral, and are
fought for genocidal objectives. There is absolutely no relationship
between the two kinds of wars.

The model I have is that when the Prophets take over, then the
society enters a "crisis period," which is what S&H call a "fourth
turning." During the crisis period, a society is "ready" for a
crisis war, but doesn't have one until the appropriate "partner"
(i.e., enemy) is available. During a crisis period, the society has
to balance between political and visceral desires. At the beginning
of a crisis period, the political desires still predominate, and so
the society may proceed very cautiously. But as the crisis period
goes on, the balance gradually shifts away from politics towards the
visceral.

Most of the time, a "partner" becomes available within a few years
after entering the crisis period; but if not, then a crisis war may
not break out for a while. In rare circumstances, a suitable enemy
may not become available for many years, and so the crisis war waits
until then.

Applying this line of thought to the case of the Revolutionary War,
the country entered a crisis period / fourth turning around 1850, but
the French and Indian wars could not be a crisis war because the
French were not suitable enemies. There was no visceral / genocidal
energy directed against the French as there was against the English.
Once the Seven Years War ended, then England became a suitable
"partner," and the country built up to a war.

Incidentally, my analysis is that the Revolutionary War was an
Unraveling war for the English, and that's why England was pursuing
so many conciliatory moves during the 1760s. If England had been in
a crisis period, the Revolutionary War might have begun right after
the end of the Seven Years War.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> This would also lead to the conclusion that there are two types of
> Hero generations. There would be Fulfilled Heroes who see a Crisis
> period and, potentially, Expectant Heroes who reach adulthood
> during an extended Unraveling and would constitute a sort of
> "fifth archetype." However, in most cases, you would never get
> Expectant Heroes since people who expect a calamity will get one
> (their actions will drive more and more people into conflict).

I think that there is a "fifth archetype," but remember I consider it
to be extremely rare. In the hundreds of cases I've looked at, I've
found only three or four cases where crisis wars were more than 100
years apart.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> Oh good, then we can avoid a debate about the utility of
> empiricism in the social sciences. The latter sentence here
> carries some pitfalls. We have to keep in mind that any entity
> such as a "Crisis"or an "Unraveling" is an aggregate that we are
> using to model reality and is not, itself, an observational
> primary. What are observational are the behavioral tendencies of
> human beings in general and the historical behavior of specific
> human beings.

> It seems to me that a valid theory has to consider each human
> being to exhibit the traits of a generational archetype
> individually and the relative weights of those archetypes
> determine the "type" of the whole generation. I.e. a Hero
> generation will contain people who act like Nomads or Prophets or
> Artists but the bulk of them will have the Hero outlook. A similar
> statement would be true of the other generation types. So the most
> important task is to determine what possible outlooks exist and
> then determine what would cause those outlooks to arise in greater
> or lesser numbers.

I assign a little less weight to the importance of individuals than
TFT does. I see a crisis period as determined by large masses of
people, not by an individual. For example, I see the German
generatioinal changes as having "created" Hitler, not as Hitler
developing a theory and convincing an entire nation to abide by it.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> I would agree, however, in most societies, the vast majority of
> influential people retire at death. Jimmy Carter and George H. W.
> Bush could be considered "retired" but given Carter's continued
> activism and the fact that Bush still, even now, receives daily
> CIA briefings -- can these two really be considered to be retired?

I don't think either Carter or Bush senior have much influence today.
I thought Carter's speech at the DNC last week was weird. This is a
guy who's been nailing houses together for the last 20 years.

But when I talk about influencing, I'm thinking of large masses of
people in all kinds of leadership positions - federal, state and
local governments, businesses, labor unions, public schools,
colleges, financial institutions, military, and so forth. It's these
large masses of people that drive policy. And so the generation of
"people who remember the last war" disappears over a period of years
equal to the length of the last war.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> 'm not too sure about the S&H dates myself. My main difficulty
> with the whole turning theory is in exactly the time period we are
> considering. The 16th through 19th centuries are just a terrible
> convoluted mess. First off, the notion that the entire West is on
> one timeline has to be dispensed with. There is just no way that
> the Napoleonic Wars constitute an Austerity period for Western
> Europe.

I agree with this. I don't know if you've seen my crisis wars
graphic, but I'll post it again at the end of this message.

I have the American crisis wars as: King Philip's War, Revolutionary
War, Civil War, and WW II.

The Western Europe crisis wars are: 30 Years War, War of the Spanish
Succession, Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian War, and WW II.

There's a piece missing here: I can't pin down a crisis war for
England between Napoleon and WW II. This is something I've
speculated about now for two years, but this posting has gone on too
long, so I'll leave those speculations for another day.

Sincerely,

John

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



[End of message]

Mr. Xenakis

I'm new here, so please forgive my interjection on to this thread. Please direct me, if necessary, to the proper thread for my questions.

I have read T4T and Generations upon the recommendation of one of my students and have found it quite intriquing. I also came upon your website through this site. I appreciate your commentary in regards to your theory, even though you run the risk of being mistaken - a risk the authors of T4T seem unwilling to engage in. (Some commentary or speculation, however neutral, would be appreciated from time to time, wouldn't you agree?)

I appreciate you bringing to our attention the Morgan Stanley report on the housing market. After reading it and doing some research (and reading some excellent posts on this site), I'm convinced that economic catastrophe is (relatively) right around the corner. What strikes me is the fact that I was oblivious to all the data that is out there strongly suggesting what is about to occur. What made me think that my house would continue to appreciate in double digits yearly into the future? A logical person wouldn't do such a thing, right? I think self-interest has cast a spell of denial over us. Which brings me to my first question for you:

On your weblog post, "Why didn't Kerry get a post-convention bounce?" you say that whoever wins the election this fall will probably be the next "great president." Tell me, if Bush is, indeed, re-elected this November and lets say that the other shoe drops next fall and we experience real economic hardship (which would rest squarely on Bush, Alan Greenspan, & the Republican agenda) don't you think that the whole lot would be thrown out next time around (ala H. Hoover)? After all, jobs and pocket-book issues are the most important aspects of elections. Please comment.

Also, in your post on the Vatican's document on feminism you state that "the "sexual revolution" was being reversed" and "would continue for several decades". Can you give me an example of what you see happening? Do you mean it will be totally reversed to say, 1964? Will there be no (or very few) women in politics? the media? the board room? academia? the military? road crews? construction? I see a generation of astute, ambitious young women before me, who are, in many cases, far superior to their male counterparts (which is a good thing in my opinion - I also don't feel that "respect for their womenly contributions" alone will satisfy them) I'm interested in some speculation of the possibilities you see. I think it is important to remember that many aspects of the "sexual revolution" of the 1920's remained intact through the last crisis and into the next High.

Thank you for your comments.