Dear Jenny,

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

> During the early years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Philip
> entertained hopes that she would marry him (like her sister, Queen
> Mary did), hopes that were bolstered by her flirtation (she
> flirted with many princes -- it was a major diplomatic tool she
> employed). However, after a few years of the treatment, Philip
> realized that he would not be able to take over England through
> matrimony.

I gather this entire period was rich with all kinds of sexual
innuendo. As I understand it, one reason that the Spanish were so
pissed with England and with the Church of England is that Henry had
formed the Church of England in order to get a divorce from Catherine
of Aragon, who was a Spanish princess, in order to marry Anne Boleyn
(whom he "divorced" by beheading her three years later). And I
assume that the long conflict between Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen
of Scots has to be one of the major feminist milestones of the
millennium!

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

You might argue that one voter has more influence than one peasant, but the generational paradigm applies to large masses of people. If there are many, many more peasants than there are voters, then the large mass of peasants will have far more influence than the few voters.

You may be right on this point, however, you'd need to flesh out more of an argument to convince me. To clarify my point, I'm positing two extremes of social organization. On one hand, you have a society where power and influence is largely hereditary. On the other, you have a society where mass protests trigger a shift of resources and mass appeal confirms the new distribution. The peasants I refer to are the typical lower class citizen of the former society. The voters I refer to are the typical lower class citizen of the latter society. In an aristocratic society, a lower class citizen will often not have significant influence or, if they do, they will gain it through long-term discourse with and employment by the upper class. In other words, even though the "peasant" may in fact influence events they will gain the opportunity to do so at a later age.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

A crisis period can begin before "real fighting" begins. When Queen Elizabeth was crowned in 1558, she immediately moved to consolidate the position of the Church of England. This raised
the ire of Catholic Spain, who allied with Mary Queen of Scots. That's why the crisis period began in that period. During this period. Elizabeth built a powerful navy. After the defeat of Spain's Invincible Armada in 1588, England was no longer in fear of losing to Spain, and any remaining battles evaluate as non-crisis wars.

I didn't say the Crisis began in 1585, just the war. The Crisis would have started in the 1570s back when English privateering really started to accelerate. While the conflict with Spain was a long time in coming, direct English intervention in the Netherlands in the mid-1680s is what brought on the actual war. As for England not being in fear of losing, would you consider D-Day to have ended the most recent Crisis? Does the Revolutionary Crisis end at Yorktown or the Civil War Crisis at Gettysburg?
The last case is especially significant. The Union was clearly winning in 1865, yet Sherman's soldiers devastated the Deep South. Does Sherman's March sound like an Austerity event?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I'm not sure what you mean by "superfluous." You can't have Prophets without Heroes, Artists and Nomads.

You have given the Prophets primacy in both social moments. Clearly they are the most important archetype in GD. Their character is determined by the fact that they have no personal experience with the preceding Crisis.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Which turning dates are you referring to?

You gave 1679-1689 as an Awakening for England. You also give 1620-1630 and 1679-1690 as Austerity periods for the colonies. (Page 12 of this thread, halfway down.)

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I agree with this completely. There's no way that the Heroes drive the crisis period. If we're to judge from what's happening today, the Heroes don't even know what's going on.

Well, that is the trade off between the two social extremes. Aristocratic societies change too slowly. Populistic societies have decisions made by the ignorant.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Young Heroes do not rebel during a crisis because they don't even know who the enemies are. During an Awakening, the young Prophets DO rebel, because they know exactly who the enemies are: their parents.

Why do you and Mike keep using the word "rebellion?" In order to have an impact, all the Heroes have to do is pick sides. No rebellion necessary. Just a sudden increase in young, enthusiastic supporters to the more extreme factions. This emboldens them, believing the groundswell of support is local to their movement rather than society-wide. We are already seeing an upswing in political interest among the young -- that's the transition from the Nomad archetype to the Hero archetype.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Why do you and Mike keep using the word "rebellion?" In order to have an impact, all the Heroes have to do is pick sides. No rebellion necessary. Just a sudden increase in young, enthusiastic supporters to the more extreme factions. This emboldens them, believing the groundswell of support is local to their movement rather than society-wide. We are already seeing an upswing in political interest among the young -- that's the transition from the Nomad archetype to the Hero archetype.

Because you assign the role of change agent to the coming of age generation. Youth are not in charge of society's institutions, they lack the power to change society unless they agitate for it. Attempts by the powerless to change the status quo of the powerful is rebellion.

Heroes don't do that. As you said they join one of the sides run by a powerful older generation. This generation is responsible for what change occurs--not the young.

What you seem to be saying is by their choice of which side to join, young people can produce a critical mass on one side or another and effect change. This is a romantic idea, but I can see no evidence that it occurs. Even during Awakenings, the agents of political change are older generations.

Young people entering into political activity is a generational change. But so is another generation entering into the time of maximum power. If young people can influence events by appearring at the margins of political life, in low-power positions, think of the impact an older generation has as it gains control of the very levers of power.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Wasn't the monarchy restored?

Yes, but the monarch was elected and a legislature remained.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

And didn't it replace a dictator? Was Napoleon's France really less aristocratic than Cromwell's England?

Napoleon billed himself as the cementation of the Revolution. He enshrined religious liberty, held plebiscites and filled offices based on merit not birth. Cromwell's England still had a House of Lords and furthermore, Cromwell himself backed away from the revolution when establishing the Protectorate.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Was the post-revolution French monarchy truly less aristocratic than the post-Glorious Revolution English monarchy?

Considerably. The English still had a conception of legitimacy based upon a right to rule conferred by property. The French, by contrast, were now convinced that the popular will determines legitimacy. While I think English turning length dropped slightly at the Glorious Revolution there's a huge intellectual journey from Locke's view of legitimacy to the Jacobin's view of legitimacy.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

How does one assess how aristocratic versus populist a society is? The risk is one infers that the shift to populism occurred because of the shift in turning length.

Let me answer the second question first. If a drop in turning length caused the populism you would then need another proposed mechanism for the drop in turning length. Correlation is not causation, but if there are no other plausible correlations then correlation is at least consistent with causation. Like me, you see a drop in turning length around 1800. Is there another plausible mechanism?

As for assessment, a strong indicator is the question of legitimacy. In the modern West, zero legitimacy accrues to a regime of privelege -- the will of the people is everything. Even Nazi Germany appealed to the mass of people as its source of legitimacy. It is possible that the Nazi regime would have eventually morphed into a regime of privelege but in practice it was just as populistic as other Western countries. The age at which one could become active in the Party would be very low. Party positions were also meritorious and intended to be competed for, not passed down by heredity.

My proposed Ancient Rome saeculum also embodies this principle. Turning lengths are low throughout (although usually not 18 years). This is because there were some hereditary positions like the Senate, but many officials (especially military positions) were elected. Roman politics resisted the establishment of dynastic succession. The ultimate political arrangement had new Emperors proclaimed by the soldiery. It wasn't the most tidy form of democracy but it was certainly populistic.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Let me answer the second question first. If a drop in turning length caused the populism you would then need another proposed mechanism for the drop in turning length.

You misunderstood me. I didn't mean to imply that the shift in turning length caused the populism. Both the existence of turnings and post-1789 French populism are interpretations, not raw observables. In order to make an interpretation, one requires some sort of theoretical framework.

Given the S&H turnings, one might see similar turnings in Western Europe in the early 19th century. I know I do, and others here have too. In T4T, S&H say that England and America stayed on roughly the same timing until the 18th century, suggesting a Crisis end around 1704 for Britain. Dave Kaiser gives 1780-1800 as approximate dates for a British Crisis. This gives 76 years for the three turnings in between 1704 and 1780 or ~25 years on average, clearly an "aristocratic" length in your scheme.

Dave Krein gives the start of the next British Crisis in 1857. 1780-1857 defines a 77-year saeculum with ~19 year turnings, a populist length in your scheme. There doesn't seem to be greater populism in Britain beginning around 1780. One of Kaiser's main points in his article was that unlike the situation in America and France, the British upper classes successfully held off democratization at this time

Now you might counter by questioning whether English turnings shortened like French turnings or that Kaiser's description of what happened in England is valid. But if you do this, then we are no longer talking about correlations but battling interpretations. If both turnings and concepts like populism are so fluid so that two observers can "measure" different values for each, there can be no talk of correlation as these is no measurable data to correlate.

Mr. Xenakis - I know you don't want me to address you, but to what alliance between Catholic Spain and Mary Queen of Scots do you refer?

Pax,
Dave Krein '42

Dear Kurt,

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> You may be right on this point, however, you'd need to flesh out
> more of an argument to convince me. To clarify my point, I'm
> positing two extremes of social organization. On one hand, you
> have a society where power and influence is largely hereditary. On
> the other, you have a society where mass protests trigger a shift
> of resources and mass appeal confirms the new distribution. The
> peasants I refer to are the typical lower class citizen of the
> former society. The voters I refer to are the typical lower class
> citizen of the latter society. In an aristocratic society, a lower
> class citizen will often not have significant influence or, if
> they do, they will gain it through long-term discourse with and
> employment by the upper class. In other words, even though the
> "peasant" may in fact influence events they will gain the
> opportunity to do so at a later age.

The model that I use is really way, way simpler than yours. I don't
distinguish between classes or different types of society. In my
model, the societal changes that come from the flow of generations
are driven by large masses of people. A small group of people, no
matter how powerful, will not affect the kinds of generational
changes we're talking about.

This is indeed a break from TFT, particularly as regards the
awakening period. TFT is restricted to modern societies where, "as in
America, generations are left free to develop and express their own
personalities." According to the authors, premodern societies are
unlikely to be sufficiently free for spiritual awakenings to occur.

In the GD model, awakenings occur anyway. The spiritual/secular
distinguish is removed, and an awakening occurs because of a
"generation gap" between the Hero and Prophet generation.

There are sub-cases. If you have a class A of peasants and a class B
of aristocrats, and class A is 1000 times bigger than class B,
then the generational changes will be driven by class B.

Another case is that class A and class B are comparable in size. If
they have serious disagreements (as in a market-dominant minority
society), then you have a civil war.

Going back to class A, a "peasant class," and class B, a "ruling
class," we can look at China to see what can go wrong when the ruling
class tries to exert too much control over the peasant class.

In Mao's Great Leap Forward program of 1958, he took the following
steps in order to try to control the masses of peasants:

(1) 500,000,000 million peasants were taken out of their individual
homes and put into communes, creating a massive human work force. The
workers were organized along military lines of companies, battalions,
and brigades. Each person's activities were rigidly supervised.

(2) The family unit was dismantled. Communes were completely
segregated, with children, wives and husbands all living in separate
barracks and working in separate battalions. Communal living was
emphasized by eating, sleeping, and working in teams. Husbands and
wives were allowed to be alone only at certain times of the month and
only for brief periods. (This was also a birth control technique.)

(3) All workers took part in ideological training sessions, to
provide for ideological training of the Chinese masses.

To make a long story short, this system didn't work as planned.
Agricultural production was crippled, and tens of millions of people
died of starvation.

Now if we move ahead to 1989, we see a different dynamic. The ruling
class used the "massacre" form of government to suppress the Tiananmen
Square protest, and it appeared to have worked -- for a time.

But within a few months it led to the formation of the Falun Gong,
a system of exercise and meditation. Older people (Prophet
generation) get together to do exercises and meditate together.
Beijing has been violent suppressing activities related to Falun
Gong, and it's illegal to practice it. So we have the ridiculous
situation that China appears to be suppressing the equivalent of
Richard Simmons tapes. But the followers of the Falun Gong are the
prophets that will lead the next Chinese rebellion that will kill
tens or hundreds of millions of people.

Another result of the Tiananmen Square massacre was the formation, in
Taiwan, of the Wild Lily rebellion, by college students, also a few
months later. These students were horrified by what they saw happen
in Tiananmen Square, and they demanded that Taiwan separate itself
from China and become a separate country. They weren't listened to
much at the time, but by 1990 things had changed: Chen Shui-bian, a
veteran of the Wild Lily rebellion, was elected President of Taiwan.
He was reelected in a tumultuous election a few months ago. China is
apoplectic over this, but that's another story.

Incidentally, there are some things that are decided by the ruling
class. In the case of wars, it's the mid-cycle (non-crisis) wars
that are decided by the ruling class. It's the crisis wars
(generational wars) that are spawned by the great masses of people,
and that's why they're so genocidal.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> I didn't say the Crisis began in 1585, just the war. The Crisis
> would have started in the 1570s back when English privateering
> really started to accelerate. While the conflict with Spain was a
> long time in coming, direct English intervention in the
> Netherlands in the mid-1680s is what brought on the actual war. As
> for England not being in fear of losing, would you consider D-Day
> to have ended the most recent Crisis? Does the Revolutionary
> Crisis end at Yorktown or the Civil War Crisis at Gettysburg?

> The last case is especially significant. The Union was clearly
> winning in 1865, yet Sherman's soldiers devastated the Deep South.
> Does Sherman's March sound like an Austerity event?

There is no sharp division between the crisis and austerity periods.
The crisis period appears to end with some major explosive event that
resolves the crisis. However, at the very least, it can take a few
months for things to settle down.

In the case of WW II, the true explosive event, both literally and
figuratively, was the use of nuclear weapons.

In the case of the Civil War, it was Sherman's march.

In the case of England's war with Spain, it was the destruction of
the Invicible Armada. See my message to David Krein for more
information.

In the case of the Revolutionary War, I will tell you honestly that I
am not sure at this time. I would like to say that crisis ended when
British General Cornwallis let himself be encircled at Yorktown, and
then surrendered with 7,000 men. However, I'm still holding back a
little because of S&H's belief that the crisis ended in 1794.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> You have given the Prophets primacy in both social moments.
> Clearly they are the most important archetype in GD. Their
> character is determined by the fact that they have no personal
> experience with the preceding Crisis.

Some years ago, I had a conversation with the co-President of
LunchDates, a Boston area dating service, for an article I was
writing. Over the years, he had interviewed literally thousands of
single people, and matched them. He said that the one thing he's
learned is that "There's something wrong with everybody."

The more I get into this generational stuff, the more I realize that
there's something wrong, something freaky, about every generation.
The Heroes are so traumatized by the war that they become too
authoritarian and drive their children away from them. They grow old
being lonely and despised. The Artists suffer a form of generational
child abuse, and grow up to be indecisive and risk-aversive. They
grow old feeling guilty and being blamed for all the short-sighted
"indecisive" compromise decisions they made when they were in power
during the Unraveling. The Prophets become so narcissistic and
arrogant that they lead the nation into another war. They grow old
guilty and condemned. The Nomads grow up in the Prophets' shadow and
hate them. They blame the war on the Prophets, and grow old bitter
and reclusive.

Each generation drinks its own poison. The poison is different from
generation to generation, but it's still poison. In the end, the
same is true for any generation: Life sucks, and then you die.

So, the Prophets do seem to have primacy in both social moments.
That's their blessing and their curse. Incidentally, this isn't
unique to the GD model - it's also true in the TFT model.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> You gave 1679-1689 as an Awakening for England. You also give
> 1620-1630 and 1679-1690 as Austerity periods for the colonies.
> (Page 12 of this thread, halfway down.)

An awakening begins 15-20 years after the climax of the crisis war,
and reaches its own climax around ten years later, so that one's OK.

With regard to the colonies, I'm still puzzling over that. It begins
with a crisis that isn't a war (a migration to a strange new land),
and a lot of the austerity work was undoubtedly done on the boat
over. And I still don't know what to make of the King Philip's War
crisis, and why it took 100 years for the Revolutionary War. At the
very least, the Austerity period has to be fixed.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> Well, that is the trade off between the two social extremes.
> Aristocratic societies change too slowly. Populistic societies
> have decisions made by the ignorant.

I wouldn't phrase it this way. I would say that generational
decisions in any society (crisis wars, awakenings) tend to move
quickly, while non-generational decisions (mid-cycle wars, budgetary
changes) tend to move more gradually.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> Why do you and Mike keep using the word "rebellion?" In order to
> have an impact, all the Heroes have to do is pick sides. No
> rebellion necessary. Just a sudden increase in young, enthusiastic
> supporters to the more extreme factions. This emboldens them,
> believing the groundswell of support is local to their movement
> rather than society-wide. We are already seeing an upswing in
> political interest among the young -- that's the transition from
> the Nomad archetype to the Hero archetype.

The word "rebellion" comes right out of the 1960s, as does the phrase
"generation gap."

Picking sides and rebelling isn't the issue. During the 1990s,
everyone picked a side and rebelled, but since each person was out
for himself, there was no unity.

Today, the Prophets are defining what the "sides" are. The Heroes
are getting more interested in foreign affairs, because they
understand that after the sides have been chosen up, they'll be the
ones who'll go bravely off to war, while their Prophet parents wave
goodbye in tears.

Sincerely,

John

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

Dear David,

Originally Posted by David Krein

> Mr. Xenakis - I know you don't want me to address you, but to what
> alliance between Catholic Spain and Mary Queen of Scots do you
> refer?

As a professional historian, you know a lot more about history than I
do.

I make no claim to be a historian. As I've previously said, my
background is in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Mathematical
Logic.

I believe that the work that I'm doing is worthwhile and significant.
I did not deserve the extremely contemptuous message you sent to me
last time. In fact, my background is irrelevant; no one deserves the
extremely contemptuous message you sent.

Perhaps an analogy will help. This analogy makes the assumption,
which is probably correct, that I know a great deal more about
mathematics and computers than you do. Suppose that you had
difficulty connecting your computer to the Internet, and I wrote a
message expressing contempt for you for being so stupid as to not be
able to do something like that. You probably wouldn't even bother to
answer such a message, but if you did, you would probably say
something like, "I'm a historian. I just use computers as a tool. I
learn as much about computers as I need to do my job."

What I've done is taken S&H's work and created a model, very close to
a mathematical model, of how the world works. I can't say that
history is a "tool." Perhaps I should call it a "data set," or a
"data base" of trillions of gigabytes of data. I'm not a historian
like you, and I learn history on the fly, learning as much as I can,
as much as I need to develop my model and validate it.

Now, it would be nice, as several have suggested, if I could take ten
years off and become a "real historian," just as I'm sure you would
consider it "nice" to take ten years off and learn everything about
computers. The problem in my case is that I don't really expect to
live that long, so that's not a good idea, even if I wanted to do it.

I come to this forum to test out ideas, to receive help from people,
and to help other people. Many of the people in this forum know a
great deal more than I do about many subjects, including history, and
many people, especially Mike, have been tireless in pointing out
flaws, holes and errors in the model I've been developing. This has
been very valuable to me, and I'm thankful for it.

So as a historian, your views are valuable to me. I do not welcome
your contempt, but I do welcome your comments and criticisms.

Originally Posted by David Krein

> [To] what alliance between Catholic Spain and Mary Queen of Scots
> do you refer?

I wrote the message to Jenny based on my memory that there was some
such alliance. When I read your message, I went back to the section
of my book, written well over a year ago, where the Armada story is
discussed, and found that I didn't use the word "alliance" in that
description.

So I went back to the original source, and found this:

Originally Posted by Trevelyan pp 242-43, 259

> From the moment that Mary made herself Elizabeth's captive, the
> politics of England, and indeed of all Europe, turned on the
> hinges of her prison door. Since she ad thrown away her own
> liberty and her own power of intiative, Philip began to think that
> she might be used to serve the purposes of Spain instead of those
> of France. Urged by the Pope, Spain, and the Jesuits, the more
> extreme English Catholics laid plot after plot to place her on
> Elizabeth's throne, through assassination, rebellion, and foreign
> conquest. In 1570 Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth and the
> Jesuit Mission was launched on England. In 1572 the Duke of
> Norfolk was executed for plotting with the agents of Philip, Alva,
> and the Pope to set Mary on the throne, this time as the puppet
> not of France but of Spain. She was to have Norfolk [p. 243] for
> her husband, the Pope undertaking to divorce her from Bothwell.
> The assassination of Elizabeth was henceforth a customary part of
> these discussions among the secular and relligious chiefs of
> continental Europe, to whom the murder of heretics seemed a holy
> work.

> The execution of Norfolk, the greatest nobleman in the land,
> following close on the fall of the Northern Earls, marked the
> final victory in England of the new regime over the old feudalism.
> It was indeed a changing world. In the same year [1572] the
> Massacre of St. Bartholomew, which crippled but did not destroy
> the Huguenot cause in France, was counterbalanced by the effective
> rebellion of the seamen and towns of Holland against the cruelties
> of Philip of Spain. The Commons of England, full of rage and
> fear, were petitioning for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,
> as though she had not been anointed with oil. For fifteen years
> longer Elizabeth, obeying her pacifist and royalist instincts,
> stood between her people and Mary's life. She liked not the
> killing of Queens, and the deed would mean formal war with Spain.
> So long as Mary was her next heir, she might hope that Philip
> would bear yet a little longer with her and her seamen. But if
> Mary disappeared, Philip might claim England for himself and
> launch the invasion. Only sixty miles lay between the shores of
> Kent and the yet unvanquished veterans of Alva in the
> Netherlands. Fortunately those miles were of salt water, and
> turbid salt water was an element of increasing importance in this
> new age so disrespectful to the feudal past and to all the chiefs
> of chivalry. ...

> [p. 259] The first serious attempt of Spain to conquer England
> was also her last. The collossal effort put forth to build and
> equip the Armada, the child of such ardent prayers and
> expectations, could not, it was found, be effectively repeated,
> although henceforth Spain kept up a more formidable fighting fleet
> in the Atlantic than in the days when Drake first sailed to the
> Spanish Main. But the issue of the war had been decided at its
> outset by a single event which all Europe at once recognized as a
> turning point in history. The mighy power that seemed on the eve
> of universal lordship over the white man and all his new dominions
> had put out its full strength and failed. One able observer,
> Cardinal Allen, was quick to recognize in the Armada campaign the
> ruin of his life's work, to which he had sacrificed the ordinary
> feelings of patriotism by urging on the invasion of England.
> When, some years later, the traveller Fynes Moryson entered Rome
> in disguise to view its antiquities, he found that the Cardinal
> had ceased to persecute his Protestant fellow countrymen who
> visited the city, having changed his conduct in this respect
> 'since the English had overthrowne the Spanish Navy in the yeere
> 1588, and there was no small hope of reducing England to
> papistry'.

> Source: [Trevelyan] George Macaulay Trevelyan, A
> Shortened History of England, Penguin Books, 1942

(Note: The first two paragraphs are relevant to this discussion. The
third paragraph is relevant to the discussion with Kurt, to
provide support for the claim that the Armada crisis ended in 1588.)

Trevelyan's description does not use the word "alliance," which is
why I didn't use the word "alliance" in my book. However, I got the
definite impression from reading Trevelyan's description last year
that there was indeed an alliance between Mary and Spain, if not a
formal alliance, then a verbal alliance, and if not that, then at
least a "wink-wink" alliance. That's what I was remembering when I
wrote the message to Jenny.

I should not have used the word "alliance" in my message to Jenny.
However, I do infer from Trevelyan that in fact there was some sort
of alliance between Mary and Spain, and that's the alliance I was
referring to.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Of course Abraham Lincoln's desire to preserve the union is conservative. But why did Lincoln need to preserve the Union? Because the South seceded.

Non sequitur. That was not the only possible response. By stating such, Lincoln and establishment historians have conveniently avoided addressing the motivation for preventing succession -- tax revenue to fund industrial improvements.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Now was the Republican victory, as seen through the eyes of a slaveowner, a conservative victory for the status quo?

In some ways, yes. In that the Republicans were seen as merely a reconstituted Whig Party -- complete with a policy of high tariffs. Your whole framing of this conflict focuses on what the South wished to preserve and what the North wished to alter, when the whole point is that total revolution is rarely, if ever, advocated. The South saw slavery as acceptable and the tariff as unacceptable. The North saw the reverse.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

And as it turned out, slavery was banned by those same Republicans who claimed they had no intention of ending slavery.

And there is some evidence that Republican leaders wanted this outcome. Of course, the reason why they wanted this is usually not discussed -- emancipation was a prelude to colonization. While this does support the notion that the Republicans were radicals (which I do not dispute) it doesn't make the Fire-Eaters inherently conservative -- unless we are now considering racial purity a progressive goal.

Did Christopher Columbus defeat
the Spanish Armada?

The following article, from today's Christian Science Monitor,
is relevant to our discussion because it illustrates how little the
new "Hero" generation knows about history. This is why they need
"Prophets."

Sincerely,

John

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


Note to British youth: Columbus did not defeat the Armada

from the August 12, 2004 edition

By Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

LONDON -- He led British sailors to a stunning victory over the
powerful Spanish Armada in 1588. He is renowned for his naval cunning.
He is a true British hero.



(Caption: He is Gandalf. (Photograph) NOT FRANCIS DRAKE: Gandalf
(played by Ian McKellen) did not beat the Spanish Armada. PIERRE
VINET/NEW LINE CINEMA.)

Well, not really. But in the minds of one out of every 20 British
young adults, J.R.R. Tolkien's white-robed wizard has replaced Sir
Francis Drake.

This and other wildly wrong answers in a recent survey here about
British history (half of 16- to 34-year-olds did not know that the
Battle of Britain took place during World War II), point to a
staggeringly poor grasp of cultural heritage.

The survey is prompting noisy accusations about the dumbing down of
the nation that gave the world such luminaries as William Shakespeare,
Charles Babbage, and Stephen Hawking.

Hand-wringing educators assert that such historical ignorance is
hardly surprising given the proliferation of vulgar reality TV shows,
media fascination with pop culture, shortcut teaching methods, and
ever-easier university entrance exams.

Others say this explanation is based on stereotyped perceptions.
Despite the learned sound of a British accent to American ears,
Britons are not uniquely erudite. On the contrary, British culture is
not enamored of cleverness.

England, observers claim, has long been a society of doers rather than
thinkers - "a nation of shopkeepers," according to the 18th-century
phrase. More recently, it has become a country where "intellectual" is
a dirty word, where speaking proper English is ridiculed, where the
school "swot" (geek) is mocked, while the sporting hero is lauded.

"We have a paradoxical relationship with intellectuals," says John
Adamson, professor of history at Cambridge University. On the one
hand, he says, some academics and eggheads enjoy a prominence and
influence way beyond their financial status. "But in the broader
culture," he adds, "we have a certain disdain for clever-cleverness."

That disdain may be partly to blame for some of the latest charges of
"dumbing down." TV is usually cited as the biggest offender for having
replaced rich programming from a generation ago in favor of a thin
diet of soap operas, makeover shows, and reality TV.

Many blame the BBC for abandoning public-service broadcasts in order
to schedule vacuous programs that assure perky ratings. Even
"Mastermind," a once- cerebral quiz show, has replaced some questions
of high culture with pop trivia to win a wider audience.

"The BBC helped to shape the taste of the nation," says John Beyer,
director of the Mediawatch-UK standards watchdog. "What has happened
is that today the taste is being shaped by what is available -
low-budget, low-quality, low-intellectual programs."

The media and the arts stand accused of similar tendencies. The
intimate secrets of soccer stars are common currency here; yet few
people could name the last British Nobel Prize winner.

But television and the media are clearly not entirely to blame.

'Will this be on the exam?'

Educators point to failings in the school system. History courses, for
example, focus too heavily on the 20th century, they say, neglecting
earlier periods. Shakespeare students often do not have to read the
full play - they just watch a video and read a few scenes that may
come up in examination questions.

Exams are a pale imitation of the tests set 20 or 30 years ago,
according to teacher Chris Brotherton.

"Exams are getting easier," he says, anticipating another set of
inflated results when marks are awarded for 16- and 18-year-olds later
this month. "Because we have 45 percent going on to university now,
compared to 15 percent a generation ago, it has to be easier to get an
'A' grade."

But he claims that at the same time, teaching has improved. "When we
were at school it was 'chalk and talk.' There was no thinking - it was
all about memorizing."

A surge in university admissions suggests that youth see value in
acquiring knowledge. But Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for
Real Education, says professors complain that the academic standard of
incoming students "is nothing like what it was 10 or 15 years ago."

"Undoubtedly, traditional standards in this country have dropped
markedly over the last 20 or 30 years and a lot of it we would put
down to the cultural change in the education system where content has
been thrown out in order to allow more young people to achieve
success," Mr. Seaton says.

Not just a British problem

The problem is hardly Britain's alone. Across the pond, the US
Department of Education reported in 2001 that more than half of
high-schoolers thought the US fought World War II in partnership with
Germany, Japan, or Italy. Sixty-five percent couldn't link the Boston
Tea Party to the American Revolution.

Such ignorance is not new, either. In 1987, educator E.D. Hirsch
created a storm with the publication of "Cultural Literacy," outlining
essential facts that he thought educated Americans should - and by his
estimate, didn't - know.

In Britain, not everyone subscribes to this view of a dumb and dumber
country.

Professor Adamson says the students passing through his classes are
more intelligent and articulate than their predecessors 10 years ago.
Plenty of them know that Gandalf never got close to the Spanish
Armada.

David Goodhart, editor of "Prospect," a high brow monthly, says
intellectualism is alive and well in Britain.

"In Britain, we have always despised the idea of the preening expert
who is not understood by the ordinary man," he says, "But we actually
have a more thriving media, university, theater culture than Germany
and other countries in continental Europe where there is a more formal
respect for the intellectual."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0812/p01s04-woeu.html

[End of message]

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Because you assign the role of change agent to the coming of age generation. Youth are not in charge of society's institutions, they lack the power to change society unless they agitate for it. Attempts by the powerless to change the status quo of the powerful is rebellion.

Heroes don't do that. As you said they join one of the sides run by a powerful older generation. This generation is responsible for what change occurs--not the young.

The very fact that there are sides (plural) indicates a lack of a status quo for them to rebel against. In the Awakening there is a rough policy consensus which the Prophets test by pulling on the extremes of that consensus. This is resisted. In a Crisis, the middle dissolves and is replaced by conflict -- eventually resulting in a new consensus. The middle disolves because when idealistic Heroes tug on the extremes the extremes don't resist, they pull further apart.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

What you seem to be saying is by their choice of which side to join, young people can produce a critical mass on one side or another and effect change. This is a romantic idea, but I can see no evidence that it occurs. Even during Awakenings, the agents of political change are older generations.

When you affect a revolution the older generations may write the pamphlets but they don't push for real action until they know there are youths willing to drag the King out of his bed and put him in the guillotine. I don't consider this notion romantic, at all. Just pragmatism on the part of the angry older leaders.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Young people entering into political activity is a generational change. But so is another generation entering into the time of maximum power. If young people can influence events by appearing at the margins of political life, in low-power positions, think of the impact an older generation has as it gains control of the very levers of power.

If older generations coming to power are the driving force of the saeculum, then saeculum length will not exceed average life expectancy at 20. Ever. The Prophets will (theoretically) achieve their peak of power when the last wave of artists begins to die out. Until very recently, the average life expectancy at 20 in most cultures was 45. That means that 65 years after the Artist/Prophet cusp Prophet ascendancy must occur (if not earlier). In a saeculum with 27-year turnings that would occur in year seven of the Unraveling. The time of the Prophets would be the Unraveling -- which as you have pointed out, utterly destroys the notion of a long-cycle saeculum based on phase-of-life.

The only way that both long and short saecula can have the same material cause is if the youth drive the cycle. This poses no problem for you, Mike, since I know you favor separate causes for the long and short cycles. However, GD is crippled by the existence of any period where the saeculum is more than 80 years long. The material cause proposed for GD depends upon short saecula.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear David,

Originally Posted by David Krein

> Mr. Xenakis - I know you don't want me to address you, but to what
> alliance between Catholic Spain and Mary Queen of Scots do you
> refer?

As a professional historian, you know a lot more about history than I
do.

I make no claim to be a historian. As I've previously said, my
background is in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Mathematical
Logic.

I believe that the work that I'm doing is worthwhile and significant.
I did not deserve the extremely contemptuous message you sent to me
last time. In fact, my background is irrelevant; no one deserves the
extremely contemptuous message you sent.

Perhaps an analogy will help. This analogy makes the assumption,
which is probably correct, that I know a great deal more about
mathematics and computers than you do. Suppose that you had
difficulty connecting your computer to the Internet, and I wrote a
message expressing contempt for you for being so stupid as to not be
able to do something like that. You probably wouldn't even bother to
answer such a message, but if you did, you would probably say
something like, "I'm a historian. I just use computers as a tool. I
learn as much about computers as I need to do my job."

What I've done is taken S&H's work and created a model, very close to
a mathematical model, of how the world works. I can't say that
history is a "tool." Perhaps I should call it a "data set," or a
"data base" of trillions of gigabytes of data. I'm not a historian
like you, and I learn history on the fly, learning as much as I can,
as much as I need to develop my model and validate it.

Now, it would be nice, as several have suggested, if I could take ten
years off and become a "real historian," just as I'm sure you would
consider it "nice" to take ten years off and learn everything about
computers. The problem in my case is that I don't really expect to
live that long, so that's not a good idea, even if I wanted to do it.

I come to this forum to test out ideas, to receive help from people,
and to help other people. Many of the people in this forum know a
great deal more than I do about many subjects, including history, and
many people, especially Mike, have been tireless in pointing out
flaws, holes and errors in the model I've been developing. This has
been very valuable to me, and I'm thankful for it.

So as a historian, your views are valuable to me. I do not welcome
your contempt, but I do welcome your comments and criticisms.

Originally Posted by David Krein

> [To] what alliance between Catholic Spain and Mary Queen of Scots
> do you refer?

I wrote the message to Jenny based on my memory that there was some
such alliance. When I read your message, I went back to the section
of my book, written well over a year ago, where the Armada story is
discussed, and found that I didn't use the word "alliance" in that
description.

So I went back to the original source, and found this:

Originally Posted by Trevelyan pp 242-43, 259

> From the moment that Mary made herself Elizabeth's captive, the
> politics of England, and indeed of all Europe, turned on the
> hinges of her prison door. Since she ad thrown away her own
> liberty and her own power of intiative, Philip began to think that
> she might be used to serve the purposes of Spain instead of those
> of France. Urged by the Pope, Spain, and the Jesuits, the more
> extreme English Catholics laid plot after plot to place her on
> Elizabeth's throne, through assassination, rebellion, and foreign
> conquest. In 1570 Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth and the
> Jesuit Mission was launched on England. In 1572 the Duke of
> Norfolk was executed for plotting with the agents of Philip, Alva,
> and the Pope to set Mary on the throne, this time as the puppet
> not of France but of Spain. She was to have Norfolk [p. 243] for
> her husband, the Pope undertaking to divorce her from Bothwell.
> The assassination of Elizabeth was henceforth a customary part of
> these discussions among the secular and relligious chiefs of
> continental Europe, to whom the murder of heretics seemed a holy
> work.

> The execution of Norfolk, the greatest nobleman in the land,
> following close on the fall of the Northern Earls, marked the
> final victory in England of the new regime over the old feudalism.
> It was indeed a changing world. In the same year [1572] the
> Massacre of St. Bartholomew, which crippled but did not destroy
> the Huguenot cause in France, was counterbalanced by the effective
> rebellion of the seamen and towns of Holland against the cruelties
> of Philip of Spain. The Commons of England, full of rage and
> fear, were petitioning for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,
> as though she had not been anointed with oil. For fifteen years
> longer Elizabeth, obeying her pacifist and royalist instincts,
> stood between her people and Mary's life. She liked not the
> killing of Queens, and the deed would mean formal war with Spain.
> So long as Mary was her next heir, she might hope that Philip
> would bear yet a little longer with her and her seamen. But if
> Mary disappeared, Philip might claim England for himself and
> launch the invasion. Only sixty miles lay between the shores of
> Kent and the yet unvanquished veterans of Alva in the
> Netherlands. Fortunately those miles were of salt water, and
> turbid salt water was an element of increasing importance in this
> new age so disrespectful to the feudal past and to all the chiefs
> of chivalry. ...

> [p. 259] The first serious attempt of Spain to conquer England
> was also her last. The collossal effort put forth to build and
> equip the Armada, the child of such ardent prayers and
> expectations, could not, it was found, be effectively repeated,
> although henceforth Spain kept up a more formidable fighting fleet
> in the Atlantic than in the days when Drake first sailed to the
> Spanish Main. But the issue of the war had been decided at its
> outset by a single event which all Europe at once recognized as a
> turning point in history. The mighy power that seemed on the eve
> of universal lordship over the white man and all his new dominions
> had put out its full strength and failed. One able observer,
> Cardinal Allen, was quick to recognize in the Armada campaign the
> ruin of his life's work, to which he had sacrificed the ordinary
> feelings of patriotism by urging on the invasion of England.
> When, some years later, the traveller Fynes Moryson entered Rome
> in disguise to view its antiquities, he found that the Cardinal
> had ceased to persecute his Protestant fellow countrymen who
> visited the city, having changed his conduct in this respect
> 'since the English had overthrowne the Spanish Navy in the yeere
> 1588, and there was no small hope of reducing England to
> papistry'.

> Source: [Trevelyan] George Macaulay Trevelyan, A
> Shortened History of England, Penguin Books, 1942

(Note: The first two paragraphs are relevant to this discussion. The
third paragraph is relevant to the discussion with Kurt, to
provide support for the claim that the Armada crisis ended in 1588.)

Trevelyan's description does not use the word "alliance," which is
why I didn't use the word "alliance" in my book. However, I got the
definite impression from reading Trevelyan's description last year
that there was indeed an alliance between Mary and Spain, if not a
formal alliance, then a verbal alliance, and if not that, then at
least a "wink-wink" alliance. That's what I was remembering when I
wrote the message to Jenny.

I should not have used the word "alliance" in my message to Jenny.
However, I do infer from Trevelyan that in fact there was some sort
of alliance between Mary and Spain, and that's the alliance I was
referring to.

Sincerely,

John

John,

Your response to David confused the hell out of me. I think he was just wondering if you accidentally confused "Bloody Mary" of England (1516-1558) with "Mary, Queen of Scots" (1542-1587). It happens all the time, especially considering they were briefly contemporaries.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

If older generations coming to power are the driving force of the saeculum, then saeculum length will not exceed average life expectancy at 20. Ever.

I don't see this.

The Prophets will (theoretically) achieve their peak of power when the last wave of artists begins to die out.

No, they will achieve their peak in power when they do. This age (Amax) is a measureable thing, there is no need to speculate. We can obtain a good handle on this from data right in Generations. In the appendix of Generations, the national leadership share by generation is given. One can find the peak for each generation. If you subtract the mid point of the birth years of the corresponding generation you will get an estimate for Amax. Addtional estimates for Amax can be obtained from the years of plurality in Congress given for each generation by subtracting the birth years. Here is a plot of Amax values (ignore the solid symbols):



The particular model for the post-1820 turnings that I favor has a new social moment turning beginning around the time that a paradigmic generation reaches Amax. That is, the social moment turning begins Amax years after the midpoint of the birth years of the elder paradigmic generation.

A paradigmic generation is defined as a generation that is created by the experience of living through a social moment at an particular age, Apar, the age of paradigm-formation. I assume Apar is about 25 years old.

That is, one subtracts Apar years from a social moment to generate the birth years of a paradigmic generation created by that social moment. The midpoint of these birth years is thus Apar years before the mid point of this social moment. This generation creates the conditions for the start of the next social moment when it reaches Amax.

What this means is the time from the middle of one social moment to the beginning of the next social moment is Amax - Apar years.

The time from the begining of a social moment to its midpoint is L/2 years where L is the length of a turning. Thus, the time from the beginning of one social moment to the beginning of the next social moment is

1) Amax - Apar + L/2 years.

This period is 1/2 a saeculum or two turnings long. So we have

2) 2L = Amax - Apar + L/2 ; solving for L

3) L = 2/3 (Amax - Apar)

Currently Amax is about 55 (see Figure). With an Apar of 25 this gives an 80 year saeculum. This suggests the the saeculum we are in the midst of should run from about 1964 to 2044. But Amax has been trending up. Should it reach 60, saeculum length would reach 93 years based on equation (3). If max power should reach 65, which is not impossible with today's life expectancies, saeculum length would reach 107 years, which is well beyond today's life expectancy.

Dear Sean,

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> Your response to David confused the hell out of me.

Both the question and the answer allude to another exchange, posted
several weeks ago.

John

Dear Kurt,

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> The very fact that there are sides (plural) indicates a lack of a
> status quo for them to rebel against. In the Awakening there is a
> rough policy consensus which the Prophets test by pulling on the
> extremes of that consensus. This is resisted. In a Crisis, the
> middle dissolves and is replaced by conflict -- eventually
> resulting in a new consensus. The middle disolves because when
> idealistic Heroes tug on the extremes the extremes don't resist,
> they pull further apart.

The last sentence is backwards. It's the idealistic Prophets that
tug on the extremes, and it's the Heroes who don't resist.

You know, I'm confused by this paragraph. It sounds like you're
talking about a civil war, which is a special case of a crisis war.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> However, GD is crippled by the existence of any period where the
> saeculum is more than 80 years long. The material cause proposed
> for GD depends upon short saecula.

Crippled?????? Where does stuff like this come from? I don't even
know what you're referring to. If perchance you're alluding to the
colonial King Philip's War period, the only reason I don't have an
answer is that I need more data to distinguish between two or three
different theoretical possibilities with respect to the different
turnings. But GD has absolutely no problem whatsoever handling long
periods theoretically.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

The Prophets will (theoretically) achieve their peak of power when the last wave of artists begins to die out.

No, they will achieve their peak in power when they do. This age (Amax) is a measureable thing, there is no need to speculate. We can obtain a good handle on this from data right in Generations. In the appendix of Generations, the national leadership share by generation is given. One can find the peak for each generation. If you subtract the mid point of the birth years of the corresponding generation you will get an estimate for Amax. Addtional estimates for Amax can be obtained from the years of plurality in Congress given for each generation by subtracting the birth years.

Let's count the number of buried assumptions in this "measurable" quantity:

1) Peak in power is assumed to occur in correlation with plurality of influential positions held by that generation.

2) The diminishment of the prior generation from power has no bearing on the amount of influence wielded by the ascendant generation.

3) That elected offices are a representative sample of positions of influence (an assumption I'm OK with, but it is nonetheless there).

4) Assumes that turning boundaries will come at the peak in a generational oscillation rather than (for example) after a particular threshold is reached or (another example) when a particular ratio of influential positions is held relative to one of the other archetypes.

5) Generational boundaries in S&H's work are not created by theory but deduced from historical analysis. The historical assumptions of S&H become part of your data set.

It is highly misleading to call your data set "peak in power." Rather it is merely the age at which the largest plurality of elected federal officials were members of a particular arbitrarily defined generation.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Currently Amax is about 55 (see Figure). With an Apar of 25 this gives an 80 year saeculum. This suggests the the saeculum we are in the midst of should run from about 1964 to 2044. But Amax has been trending up. Should it reach 60, saeculum length would reach 93 years based on equation (3). If max power should reach 65, which is not impossible with today's life expectancies, saeculum length would reach 107 years, which is well beyond today's life expectancy.

And that's fine for societies, such as ours, where life expectancy is improving. However, run this model in reverse and you get 13-year turnings in 1800.

Unless you're going to assert that Amax was higher in the 18th century and / or that Apar was a lot lower, this model does not work for 80+ year saecula with non-industrial life expectancy. And that was exactly what I was saying. You cannot explain long saecula with elder ascendancy as your mechanism unless you have a society with an Amax substantially higher than our own.

Elder ascendancy does not work as a material cause for any pre-industrial long cycle. So we have to conclude that either: a) there are no pre-industrial long cycles or b) another mechanism drives these cycles.

I'm not saying I'm convinced my proposed mechanism (youth emergence) is the right one -- all I'm saying is that I've yet to see a mechanism that explains a comparable range of saeculum lengths.

Unless you're going to assert that Amax was higher in the 18th century and / or that Apar was a lot lower, this model does not work for 80+ year saecula with non-industrial life expectancy. And that was exactly what I was saying. You cannot explain long saecula with elder ascendancy as your mechanism unless you have a society with an Amax substantially higher than our own.

I am not asserting anything, I use the model for the post-1820 saeculum. However by lowering Apar one can get longer saeculae with the same or lower Amax. One could argue that Apar would reflect education. Modern generations, having received more education would have higher Apar than earlier generations. Unlike Amax, there is no way to measure Apar that I know of. It becomes an adjustable parameter in the model. It is no different from your concept of populist and aristocratic generational length. There is no direct evidence for them, they are inferred from data fitting.

Let's count the number of buried assumptions in this "measurable" quantity:

Are you trying to say that measurements don't involve assumptions? When you measure pH what are you measuring? Are you aware of all the buried assumptions in that quantity?

1) Peak in power is assumed to occur in correlation with plurality of influential positions held by that generation.

No. Peak power is assumed to occur when the fraction of "positions of power" held by a generation reaches a maximum. Seats in the national legislature and governorships are used as a proxy for positions of power. It seems obvious to me that a generation's influence is at a maximum when it holds the most positions of power.

2) The diminishment of the prior generation from power has no bearing on the amount of influence wielded by the ascendant generation.

Of course it has a bearing, why do you suppose the leadership share of the next generation is rising? Obviously because the share of the generation ahead of them (i.e. their influence) is declining.

3) That elected offices are a representative sample of positions of influence (an assumption I'm OK with, but it is nonetheless there).

I should hope so, you used the age at which monarchs came to power as a proxy for nobility in general

4) Assumes that turning boundaries will come at the peak in a generational oscillation rather than (for example) after a particular threshold is reached or (another example) when a particular ratio of influential positions is held relative to one of the other archetypes.

The model us formulated in this way. It could be formulated in another way, what's the big deal? The other things you mention are not easy to work with and so are a poor choice for model parameters. Why would you choose them? Amax is easy to get values for and it works.

5) Generational boundaries in S&H's work are not created by theory but deduced from historical analysis. The historical assumptions of S&H become part of your data set.

No they don't. See the discussion below to see what I am doing.

It is highly misleading to call your data set "peak in power." Rather it is merely the age at which the largest plurality of elected federal officials were members of a particular arbitrarily defined generation.

Actually its "the age at which the largest majority of elected federal officials were members of a particular arbitrarily defined generation". This is a pretty cumbersome term, peak power is a lot shorter and it is more accurate than you think. Your use of the work "plurality" suggests you don't understand what I am doing--see below.
************************************************** ********
Amax can be thought of as the average age of all the members of Congress and Governors. That is, the age at which power is wielded, on average. It is similar to the average age at which one gets married or the average age at which monarchs ascend to the throne, or the average age at which young people begin to express themselves politically. It's no different from the sort of average ages you use.

However it is hard to obtain this average age through history (I have found no neat tabluations). I calculated it for 2003 and got 57. What this means is the "average Congressman/governor" in 2003 was born in 1946, making him a Boomer. Now obviously all of these folks weren't born in 1946, some will have been born in 1947 and 1945 and so on. But if you plot the frequency of birth years you will get a roughly bell-shaped distribution. This bell curve represents the distribution of Congressmen/governors by age for a particular year. Here's an example using just House members (it doesn't show the peak in 1946, but 1947 because Senators tend to be older and skew the overall distribution slightly to the left.



For years other than 2003 one would get other bells centered on that year minus the average age. As time passes we can imagine the bell curve sliding along from left to right. At a certain point a particular generation will encompass a maximum fraction of the area under the bell curve. This point will be when that generation is maximally represented in the halls of government. This is the time of peak generational power (in government).

When will this occur? It will occur when the center of the distribution lines up exactly with the mid-point of the generation. Now S&H have kindly compiled generational leadership share for their generations and put it in their book. For example, in 1923, the Missionary generation reached 83% leadership share. It never got any higher. This year is then the year when the bell is centered at 1871 (or close to it), the center of the Missionary generation. The "average Congressman/governor" in 1923 was born in 1871 (or close to it), making the him 52 years old (or close to it). That is, we get an estimate of 52 for Amax in 1923. This is a lot easier than digging up the ages of all Congressmen and governors in 1923 and averaging them.

We can do the same for the other generations and get other estimates for Amax in other years. This gives a handful of values, which appear in the graph. But we can get more. S&H also provide dates for plurality in the House and the Senate. These dates refer to the time when a particular generation outnumbers all other generations. When does this happen?

It happens when the center of the distribution passes over the divider between generations. Returning to the Missionaries, S&H say that plurality in the House was gained in 1909. Thus, in 1909 the center of the distribution was at (or near to) 1860, the beginning of the Missionary generation. The average Representative in 1909 was born in 1860 (or close to it), making him 49 years old (or close to it). S&H give the year for plurality for the Senate as 1917, from which an average age of 57 for Senators in 1917 can be estimated. So we have an estimate of 49 for the average age of Representatives in 1909 and 57 for the average age of Senators in 1917. If I average both together I get an average age of 53 (average of 49 and 57) for Congressmen in 1913 (average of 1909 and 1917). This point appears in the Figure as do others obtained in this way.

Now these are estimates. To get the "real" values one would have to actually tote up all the Congressmen in each year and average them. But, one would expect the estimates to be either too high or too low more or less randomly, and by averaging them, one can get a better and better estimate for the true value of Amax. This is why I want as many estimates as I can get. You did the same thing when you constructed an estimate for the length of an aristocratic generations by averaging the age at ascension for a number of English monarchs. Basically you used each ascension age as an estimate for this generational length, and averaged a lot of them together to get a plausible value. I am doing the same thing.

Using this method I get a fairly decent set of Amax estimates. They are estimates, not true values. Obviously as shown by the scatter, the precision of this method of assessment is not great, but they are a lot tighter than your individual estimates for aristocratic generation length. But the regression line, which represents a consensus of 21 separate estimates for Amax gives a much better value for what Amax truly is at any time than any individual estimate. The same is true of your average.

What the max power graph says is the average age of holders of political power in the early 19th century was about 47, but today is it around 55. That is, holders of political power are older today than in the past. Since lifespan has increased it seems reasonable that Amax should also have increased.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

The last sentence is backwards. It's the idealistic Prophets that tug on the extremes, and it's the Heroes who don't resist. You know, I'm confused by this paragraph. It sounds like you're
talking about a civil war, which is a special case of a crisis war.

I see the older generations as having defined the extremes. The Heroes then choose which camp to back. I don't see the Heroes as being quite so drone-like as you do. They are cliqueish -- they build coalitions and gather allies -- but they are not monolithic in their views.

Every Crisis will start with disagreement over the way society should be structured. Sometimes that disagreement will rapidly boil over into open fighting (American Revolution, Civil War) and at other times the disagreement will be settled and violence will be geared towards external threats and internal dissent to the new system (New Deal and WWII, War on Terror?). The revelevant factors are most likely the geographic and proportional distrubution of the supporters of particular factions when the Crisis starts. If the relative proportions of supporters of each faction are close, then civil war is the probable outcome. If the proportions are skewed towards one faction, then that faction will sieze power and an external war is the probable outcome. A geographic skew could also cause a civil war, even if the proportions would normally cause one faction to simply win (American Civil War).

Take the current situation in the US as an example. Things got fairly tense in 2000 with the close election. A close or disputed election in 2004 could spark open violence. However, a landslide will almost certainly quell any possibility of civil war. If the election is close or disputed we may be in for a wild ride. If it's a landslide, whichever faction wins will dominate the Crisis and determine what external enemies we have that need to be crushed.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Crippled?

Yes, crippled. With the Revolutionary saeculum the "Prophets" for the Revolution would have been born during the Awakening or even during an Unraveling. How are these people "Prophets" if they didn't grow up in an Austerity period? If elder ascendancy is your mechanism then the Prophets would have ascended to power prior to the Seven Years War and that would have been the Crisis. It clearly wasn't. Now, if you posit the War of the Spanish Succession as the previous Crisis for colonial personalities, then you have to explain why the Revolution wasn't a Crisis for England.

It is huge problem for a society to "miss" its Crisis period. If you have a mechanism that predicts a Crisis within a particular range, and no Crisis occurred, then the mechanism is suspect.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

But GD has absolutely no problem whatsoever handling long periods theoretically.

It wouldn't if youth emergence was your model. So long as GD relies on elder ascendance it cannot explain long cycles. A generation cannot create a turning mood if they're already dead and buried.

Based on life expectancy, we can determine a point at which a generation's influence must begin to decline. Prior to industrialization the magic number is 65. Past age 65, the number of people in a generation in positions of influence must be declining -- and that's being generous in using life expectancy at 20 rather than birth, using a high value of the same and assuming retirement occurs at death. So, to use the elder ascendance mechanism, as soon as the time between the middle birth year of the Prophet generation and the middle year of the Crisis exceeds 65, that mechanism becomes extremely dubious. Otherwise you would have Prophet influence declining during the early years of the Crisis which is inconsistent with the idea of a Prophet-driven Crisis.

That break point occurs at 21 years average turning length. At that point, the middle Prophets are born 67 years before the midpoint of the Crisis. (This is even more problematic for the causative factor being the diminishment of the Artists -- they begin to die less than halfway into the Unraveling so Prophet power should be surging throughout the Unraveling.)

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

It seems obvious to me that a generation's influence is at a maximum when it holds the most positions of power.

Given that committee assignments and chairmanships are gained through seniority, maximum number of seats may not be the best measure of the peak of a generation's power. The actual peak of power would likely occur after the peak number of seats controlled.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Now S&H have kindly compiled generational leadership share for their generations and put it in their book. For example, in 1923, the Missionary generation reached 83% leadership share. It never got any higher. This year is then the year when the bell is centered at 1871 (or close to it), the center of the Missionary generation.

This value is only useful for an empirical test of their generation structure. I would consider 1871 the start of that Prophet generation, not its midpoint. The peak of Prophet power would more likely fall in the early 30s (where we would expect it to).

I accept pretty much all of your analysis. It's soundly reasoned. The issue is that the correlation of generational peaks with turning shifts comes as no surprise to me. The elder ascendance model appears to work in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, prior to the 19th century we are faced with a dillema. Either the longer cycles presumed by S&H are bunk or the saeculum was driven by another mechanism at that time.

I fully concede that elder ascendance is a defensible theory for the last two centuries. It also possible that this correlation is purely coincidental and not relevant to the timing of the saeculum.

Dear Kurt,

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

> Yes, crippled. With the Revolutionary saeculum the "Prophets" for
> the Revolution would have been born during the Awakening or even
> during an Unraveling. How are these people "Prophets" if they
> didn't grow up in an Austerity period? If elder ascendancy is your
> mechanism then the Prophets would have ascended to power prior to
> the Seven Years War and that would have been the Crisis. It
> clearly wasn't. Now, if you posit the War of the Spanish
> Succession as the previous Crisis for colonial personalities, then
> you have to explain why the Revolution wasn't a Crisis for
> England.

I'll respond to the details of your message later. All I want to do
is make a general response.

Generational Dynamics does not depend the kind of analysis you're
exemplifying here. The questions you're raising here are of only
secondary importance to GD.

GD starts from crisis wars. It produces a diagram like the
following:



The dots in the above diagram are found by evaluating wars using
criteria <u>that have absolutely nothing to do with generations.</u>
The criteria have been previously posted in this thread.
http://www.fourthturning.com/forums/...?p=98544#98544

That's the whole point of GD - by using a "top down" approach, as
contrasted to S&H's "bottom up" approach, you get these results.

OK? So GD is not crippled even if I can't always tell you when the
Awakening period ends and the Unraveling period begins.

GD is structured in a completely different way, so that the
generational analysis is not fundamental to the most important
results of the model. The generational analysis gives you a deeper
theoretical <u>explanation</u> and <u>justification</u> for the
model, but it's not a requirement for the model, as long as the
historical data fits the model.

Furthermore, I don't believe that it's even possible to get a
generational model that's comparable in precision to the GD crisis
war model. I can evaluate crisis wars throughout history, but how in
the world would anyone ever be able to evaluate unraveling periods
throughout history? I don't believe it's even remotely possible to
do that without a time machine.

So the generational analysis is still important, but not having all
the details worked out (assuming that it's even possible to
work out all the details) in no way cripples, harms, or even
tarnishes GD.

I'll respond to your generational questions in a later message.
However, if I say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure," to some of your
questions, keep in mind that it doesn't matter, from the point of view
of the GD model.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Unless you're going to assert that Amax was higher in the 18th century and / or that Apar was a lot lower, this model does not work for 80+ year saecula with non-industrial life expectancy. And that was exactly what I was saying. You cannot explain long saecula with elder ascendancy as your mechanism unless you have a society with an Amax substantially higher than our own.

If I was to use this type of model for the earlier periods of course I would use a lower Apar, much as you use a longer "aristocratic generation".

Amax would be fixed over time since lifespan didn't rise at that time, let's use 50. In Medieval times the nobility married early, a young noble learned much of what he needed to know by the time he reached puberty. A good value for Apar would be 12-16. With these values you get a saeculum length of 91-101 years, in the same range as the 17th and 18th century lengths.

As we move into the "populist" era as you call it, people from other walks of life start to matter politically. Such people don't rule by hereditary right. They have to earn it: by mastering a trade or business and generally making their way in the world. In general they haven't learned enough of "the ropes" to understand enough to the world to make thehr way until later--say 23-25. Apar is greater and with the same Amax, saeculum length drops to 64-72. (Note: S&H's spacing of awakenings in the 19th century is 64 years).

The model I show has a built-in mechanism that fixes the spacing of adjacent social moments. Namely, the span of time between when one picks up a paradigm in youth, and then expresses it in late middle age. With the elder model it is easy to see how the generations affect history. They occupy the positions of power and so have direct control over policy. Consider the difference in outcome between a Fed with a Keynesian paradigm concerned with full employment and one with a classical paradigm concerned wth price stablity. The outcome is history being created. Now consider why should a Fed hold one paradigm or another? Could not the experience of the Depression in youth affect a Fed banker's way of looking at how the economy works? Could not the experience of stagflation early in one's career affect how one thinks about the economy?

How do youth make policy? Can the mailroom boy affect corporate culture in a meaningful way? No, corporate culture is set from the top down. A CEO that insists on performance and doesn't care if corners are cut will get one kind of culture. A CEO who insists in integrity and "walks the talk" will get another. I've seen it happen. Youth might have a role at the margin, but the elders are at the center and have a much bigger role. Replacement of one group of elders with another who think radically differently can affect policy a lot.
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Conceptually, the model I presented can do the minimum that your model does. With Apar of 12-16 and Amax of 50, you can get the longer turnings. With a slightly higher Amax of 53, you can move Apar to 15-19, if the first set are too low for your tastes. Conceptually, one can obtain values for Amax and Apar that seem plausible and will generate long saecula. Consider that nobles will rule until death--they don't retire like modern leaders. The average age of Queens Elizabeth and her three most trusted councilors during the Armada crisis was 52. They were fairly young when their crisis service started (36-47) but they all served to death or the end of the Crisis.

You can question the low value of aristocratic Apar and I can question how youth do what you posit they do. But as long as the models stay fuzzy and conceptual we won't be able to go much beyond arguing. John's mechanism works too. It has to be tweaked a bit, but I could probably come up with a formulation that works as well as yours. But what is the point? A better way to make progress is to use the concepts developed here to develop a model that can be tested in a concrete manner. In my previous post I showed a practical way to obtain values for Amax that doesn't require a prohibitive amount of effort.
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Your model would have turning length today be shorter than it was in the 19th century, reflecting a lower voting age. Yet 19th century turnings (on average) were shorter than recent ones. The model I am working on predicts a sharp drop to low turning length and then a gradual rise:



Actually, the model I am using resembles yours. It is politically-based (my other models are economically-based). It also assumes a change in the way the saeculum functions due to a rise in pluralistic society. Your term populist might mean the same thing as my term pluralistic, I am not sure.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

This value is only useful for an empirical test of their generation structure. I would consider 1871 the start of that Prophet generation, not its midpoint. The peak of Prophet power would more likely fall in the early 30s (where we would expect it to).

You still aren't getting it. S&H did the work to find out what fraction of the members of Congress and governors were born between 1860-1882 in a whole bunch of years. 1923 is the year in which the largest number of Congressmen and governors were born between 1860 and 1882, 83% of all of them. The average birth year for people born between 1860 and 1882 is roughly 1871. The average birth year for Congressmen and governors in 1923 will be about the same (1871), based on symmetry arguments I made previously. This makes the average age of Congressmen and governors in 1923 roughly 52. It has nothing to do with S&H's generational structure whatsoever.

What year you consider to be the start of the Prophet generation is irrelevant to this analysis. The only way it would be relevant is if you had compiled a set of leadership fractions like S&H did, but for your generations. Then I would use your generation dates with your leadership share figures to do the same analysis and get very similar results. But, hey, if you had done that, you could provide the average ages directly, and this analysis wouldn't be necessary. The actual average ages, year by year, are the preferred data. I don't have them. You don't either, right? I am simply using S&H's work to obtain estimates for them. This is much easier, unless--perhaps you are willing to compile them?
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Side comment: Interestingly, the paradigmic Missionary generation is roughly 1873-1892, about what you have.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

You still aren't getting it. S&H did the work to find out what fraction of the members of Congress and governors were born between 1860-1882 in a whole bunch of years. 1923 is the year in which the largest number of Congressmen and governors were born between 1860 and 1882, 83% of all of them. The average birth year for people born between 1860 and 1882 is roughly 1871. The average birth year for Congressmen and governors in 1923 will be about the same (1871), based on symmetry arguments I made previously. This makes the average age of Congressmen and governors in 1923 roughly 52. It has nothing to do with S&H's generational structure whatsoever.

No, one thousand times, no! Age "52" has every bit as much to do with S&H's generational structure as "40" does. If you can get a hold on the fact that we are dealing with both individuals and generations, within a constellational relationship with that "looking" up and down the "age ladder," these differing "age locations" are significant.

For example, beer marketers ignore the guy over 35. Why? It is a proven fact that somewhere before that age, all things being equal, most beer drinkers will have then made up their minds which brand they like. And that "brand" is gonna stick with them till they die.

But...

... Here come that "mid-life crisis" after 35 (and into the forties). Ergo the beer drinker (politics and pop culture etc) is faced with a strange turning point: At the age of 35, he's "got it," but at that age of 45 he seems to lose it!"

So both ages, the one previous to 40 and the one after 40 is just as important as the age "40" (the mid point in S&H's generational equation).

This same kinda deal can be applied to that aftermath of the "mid life crisis," to the age of "52".

Yes, it is perhaps complicated. But this is what makes the S&H (actually it's a Hebrew, and even Hindu etc..., concept) theory very, very interesting. :wink:

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

No, one thousand times, no! Age "52" has every bit as much to do with S&H's generational structure as "40" does. If you can get a hold on the fact that we are dealing with both individuals and generations, within a constellational relationship with that "looking" up and down the "age ladder," these differing "age locations" are significant.

Marc, what I was discussing in that post is a technique for estimating the average age of Congressmen and governors in 1923 (and other years). One way to do this is to dig up the birthdates of all those who served in Congress or as governor in 1923, calculate their ages and average them. This is a lot of work. An easier way to get an estimate for this value is what I was discussing. It has nothing to do with what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Marc

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

... This makes the average age of Congressmen and governors in 1923 roughly 52. It has nothing to do with S&H's generational structure whatsoever.

No, one thousand times, no! Age "52" has every bit as much to do with S&H's generational structure as "40" does.

Marc, what I was discussing... has nothing to do with what you are talking about.

Ok. :wink: