Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

This rings a bell from an earlier discussion. Is this how you define "social moments"? As I recall, you look for periods in which such events occur, but such that no (or few) such events occur in the period 20 years before and 20 years after.

This is one of the tools. I look for numbers of events during periods of generational length (25 yrs before the early 19th century and 18 years after) that are higher than the numbers in adjacent periods of similar length.

However, I note that the Vietnam War isn't mentioned in the 1960s list. Does that mean that external wars are not included -- but internal wars or civil wars are?

External wars aren't included as themselves, although unrest due to the war is included.

What are the criteria for an event to be included in this list?

This is what we are discussing here. I started my list using a long detailed timeline of labor-related events I found on the net. So I have lots of strikes and the starts of labor unions. I add in race riots and events from Black History and Civil Rights-orientated sites. General history timelines include some "unrest-type" events. I found something called the hippy timeline that had lots of sixties and seventies stuff. Over a period of several years I've collected a lot of events and I still add to it.

Generally I use events that seem to strike me as adding to what Ken calls "social tension" or what I call "unrest". Labor strife can be thought of as class warfare, which certainly fits into the category of social tension or unrest. Riots, uprisings, revolts, assassinatons obviously qualify as do demonstrations. Some wars, typically internal wars such as Civil Wars, revolutions count. Others, mostly external one like wars of conquest, interventions or geopolitical wars do not. I see these sorts of wars as expressions of national power, a nation has to have it more or less together to embark on these sort of external wars.

On the other hand I count Indian wars because I see them as arising from local conflict betwen settlers and indigenous peoples. Now another person will certainly classify some events differently. It usually doesn't make much of a difference because of the sheer number of events (over 1100). Suppse one added one more event (the Vietnam War) to the 1960's and an event (the Korean War) to the 1950's. It wouldn't change the red line in any noticeably fashion. In fact you can do all sorts of things with the events in the sixties and it wouldn't change the peak year.

On another subject, the previous message posts the news story that the number of wars and war deaths has gone down dramatically in the
last 12-15 years.

I know that this is the kind of thing you study. What would be your explanation for this phenomenon? Did the same thing occur prior to World War II?

I don't know. No. There is no saecular pattern to armed conflicts that I can see:

Dear Mike,

That's certainly a very weird graph. Why are there no wars from
1940-45? Because there's only one war, World War II.

Why is there a huge spike in 1919? Because World War I was settled,
and all the little subwars previously counted as part of WW I were
suddenly counted as separate wars.

Why were there no wars in 1980? I have no idea.

Why have the number of wars gone down sharply from 33 in 1991 to 19
in 2003, according to the news story? Here's my guess:

It seems to me that we're in a unique time that has never occurred
before, in the following way. Since the end of WW II, America has
not only been policemen of the world, but has also been the great
foreign aid dispenser of the world.

For example, why didn't Haiti have a major civil war in either 1994
or 2004? Because America poured money into Haiti. Poverty is huge
in Haiti, but as long as foreign aid keeps everyone fed, there's no
war.

The same is true in Palestine. The same is true in Bangladesh. In
places around the world, where poverty might drive masses of people
into war, the war is forestalled by foreign aid.

All of the countries who fought in WW II as a crisis war were in an
unraveling period by 1990 or so. That fact, plus American foreign
aid, have combined to keep the number of wars down among WW II
belligerents. Therefore, the number of wars has been low.

Because of these two factors, there has never been a similar time in
the history of the world. Unfortunately, it's not a long term trend,
but just the calm before the storm.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

That's certainly a very weird graph. Why are there no wars from 1940-45? Because there's only one war, World War II.

The figure shows the number of wars that started in the year of interest, not that were in progress.

Why is there a huge spike in 1919? Because World War I was settled, and all the little subwars previously counted as part of WW I were suddenly counted as separate wars.

No, lots of wars started in 1919. You can do your own investigation starting with data here.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

That's certainly a very weird graph. Why are there no wars from 1940-45? Because there's only one war, World War II.

The figure shows the number of wars that started in the year of interest, not that were in progress.

Why is there a huge spike in 1919? Because World War I was settled, and all the little subwars previously counted as part of WW I were suddenly counted as separate wars.

No, lots of wars started in 1919. You can do your own investigation starting with data here.

Still, John has an interesting point about the qualitative nature of said wars. Some kill 500, some kill 20,000,000. Some take out .0001% of a population, some take out 30%. I think this would need to be taken into consideration, not just how many wars started at a given time.

This soothing effect will disappear when the developed countries enter the Great Devaluation.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

That's certainly a very weird graph. Why are there no wars from 1940-45? Because there's only one war, World War II.

The figure shows the number of wars that started in the year of interest, not that were in progress.

Why is there a huge spike in 1919? Because World War I was settled, and all the little subwars previously counted as part of WW I were suddenly counted as separate wars.

No, lots of wars started in 1919. You can do your own investigation starting with data here.

Still, John has an interesting point about the qualitative nature of said wars. Some kill 500, some kill 20,000,000. Some take out .0001% of a population, some take out 30%. I think this would need to be taken into consideration, not just how many wars started at a given time.

Sure he does and he may wish to do something along those lines, or you may. I provided the link to the database.

I did a survey of this data and did not find anything directly usable. I did a little filtering, but didn't get anything exciting so I stopped. The same sort of thing with the composer database.

For me, negative results are also desirable as it shows that the method I am using can fail to find cycles. If I found a cyclical structure to every set of data I came accoss, that would be suspicious wouldn't it? One might think that the method is biased and I am finding cycles that aren't there.

Getting back to the earlier topic, I had shown how the frequency of "unrest events" putatively indicative of social tesnion could be represented by a moving average shown in red in thihs figure:



To this plot one can add other indicators. I employ crime rates, alcohol consumption and religious activity. The last is obtained by compiling a timeline of religious events and running a 10 year moving average just as described for unrest events. I discussed the sorts of things I count as reglious events on a March 22, 2004 post. Here are the plots:



One can see rising alcohol use, crime, frequency of unrest events and frequency of religious events in the 1960's. The first three I consider indicators of social tension, while the fourth I consider a direct indicator of spiritual awakenings. The unrest plot peaks in the 1969-1974 period, alcohol use in the 1979-82 period, religious events in the 1974-81 period and crime in the 1980-91 period. I also construct a composite indicator by averaging the four together. This gives a consensus peak in the 1974-81 period. The consensus plot also shows the beginning of the rise in 1959. So this gives 1959-1981 as a period of rising and then high social tension/religious acitivity or what I will call awakening behavior. I also employ an economic indicator, in this case the secular bear market from 1966-1982. The two provide a consensus dating of 1963-1982, which is very close to S&H's dates of 1964-1982. I take it that this analysis provides empirical support for S&H's dates.

This figure shows the same sort of plot for the Great Awakening



The composite plot shows a peak in the 1741-44 era. The rise begins around 1713. The economic indicator in thihs case is the Kondratiev downwave from 1715 to 1738. The consensus is 1714-1741. S&H use 1727-1746. The empirical dates are 9 years early, whcih isn't too bad, but not as good at the recent dates.

Here's the figure for the Transcendental Awakening:



The composite indicator suggests 1816-1844. The associated economic cycle is 1814-1843 (Kondratiev downwave) and the consensus is 1815-1843. This is pretty close (about four years distant) to S&H's 1822-1844 dates. This is enough for now, the post is already pretty long with all these figures.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Getting back to the earlier topic, I had shown how the frequency of "unrest events" putatively indicative of social tesnion could be represented by a moving average shown in red in thihs figure:



To this plot one can add other indicators. I employ crime rates, alcohol consumption and religious activity. The last is obtained by compiling a timeline of religious events and running a 10 year moving average just as described for unrest events. I discussed the sorts of things I count as reglious events on a March 22, 2004 post. Here are the plots:



One can see rising alcohol use, crime, frequency of unrest events and frequency of religious events in the 1960's. The first three I consider indicators of social tension, while the fourth I consider a direct indicator of spiritual awakenings. The unrest plot peaks in the 1969-1974 period, alcohol use in the 1979-82 period, religious events in the 1974-81 period and crime in the 1980-91 period. I also construct a composite indicator by averaging the four together. This gives a consensus peak in the 1974-81 period. The consensus plot also shows the beginning of the rise in 1959. So this gives 1959-1981 as a period of rising and then high social tension/religious acitivity or what I will call awakening behavior. I also employ an economic indicator, in this case the secular bear market from 1966-1982. The two provide a consensus dating of 1963-1982, which is very close to S&H's dates of 1964-1982. I take it that this analysis provides empirical support for S&H's dates.

This figure shows the same sort of plot for the Great Awakening



The composite plot shows a peak in the 1741-44 era. The rise begins around 1713. The economic indicator in thihs case is the Kondratiev downwave from 1715 to 1738. The consensus is 1714-1741. S&H use 1727-1746. The empirical dates are 9 years early, whcih isn't too bad, but not as good at the recent dates.

Here's the figure for the Transcendental Awakening:



The composite indicator suggests 1816-1844. The associated economic cycle is 1814-1843 (Kondratiev downwave) and the consensus is 1815-1843. This is pretty close (about four years distant) to S&H's 1822-1844 dates. This is enough for now, the post is already pretty long with all these figures.

I know that for the Third Great Awakening you see the religious graph line track later than S&H would have predicted. What about the composite graph of all those indices? Does it lag too, or do the other variables drag the composite line back into S&H's parameters?

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

I know that for the Third Great Awakening you see the religious graph line track later than S&H would have predicted. What about the composite graph of all those indices? Does it lag too, or do the other variables drag the composite line back into S&H's parameters?

Here is the composite graph:



It's not where S&H put the Awakening. The composite shows a rise over about 1900-1922. The associated economic cycle spans 1896-1917. The consensus of the two is 1898-1919. This is 12 years spaced from S&H, with a shorter saeculum. This is not such a good match. However if you assume the the Civil War anomaly didn't happen and that Reconstruction is part of the Civil War Crisis so that it runs 1860-77, then there would have to be three turnings in the 52 years between 1877 and 1929, each ~17 years long. Thus the High would be around 1877-1895, the Awakening around 1895-1912 and the Unraveling around 1912-1929. The 1895-1912 putative Awakening is only 5 years different from the consensus dates above, which is about as close as the others. I take this as evidence that the Civil War anomaly did not temporarily shorten the saeculum to below 80-85 years, but that the saeculum permanently shortened to about 72 years after ~1820.

One thing I have not shown is the big picture. Here is a plot of the unrest and religious moving averages over 600 years:



Here you can visualize the saeculum undulating through history as waves of spirituality and social tension. The waves are shown by the periodic peaks in religious events that correspond to the ends of Awakenings. They correspond to the ends because they are trailing moving averages. That is, a peak represents the end of a 25-year period* in which the most religious events occurred over a period of about a saeculum in length. The black line is the same sort of plot only for unrest events. Each Awakening has an unrest peak too. Awakenings for which I have data also so the peaking behavior in crime and alcohol as the "blowup" figures show.

*Before 1820, after 1820 I use an 18 YMA

Crises are much harder to see. I point out a few in the figure. So you see, my method is very Awakening-centric.

Mike,

Have you approached S&H with your thought on the CWA and turning length, your placements of the subsequent turnings, and your data concerning the Third Great Awakening??

If so, what did they say?

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Mike,

Have you approached S&H with your thought on the CWA and turning length, your placements of the subsequent turnings, and your data concerning the Third Great Awakening??

If so, what did they say?

Neil reviewed a copy of my second book in manuscript (and provided comments) so they are aware of my view. George Modelski reviewed a copy too and we discussed it a bit. I haven't discussed this issue with Neil

Their cycle is about generations and it is entirely possible that the generations came out like they say they did. Maybe there is no Civil War Hero generation. But there still are four turnings that span 1860-1929. S&H have a short turning for the Civil War, but they still list four of them. I simply hold that the four turnings are of more even length, that is I hold the 69 years from 1860 to 1929 is not abnormally short. The post-1929-saeculum could also be around 70 years long as opposed to 80-85 years. That is, the next crsis would start around 2000 instead of around 2010. Note that S&H "split the difference" and picked a date (2005) in the middle of the projections of the 18 and 20-year models.

The acid test is when has (or will) the Crisis start? If my 18-year length is right the crisis should start about 144 years after 1860 and 72 years after 1929, or 2001-2004. According to my economic cycle alignment observations, the Crisis should start around the time of the secular bull market peak. Back in August 2000, I forecast it was going to start soon if the March peak was the peak (which I thought it was). Thirteen months later 911 happened and my view got a lot more credibility.

I know you don't think the crisis started in 2001, but I will point out that interest rates are both very low and are in a long-term falling trend. The last time rates were at this level and were in a falling trend (they were rising in the 1950's) was in the early 1930's. So both the stock market and the bond market think its the crisis. Alan Greenspan takes his cues from the markets and so he's in crisis mode too.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

I know you don't think the crisis started in 2001, but I will point out that interest rates are both very low and are in a long-term falling trend. The last time rates were at this level and were in a falling trend (they were rising in the 1950's) was in the early 1930's. So both the stock market and the bond market think its the crisis. Alan Greenspan takes his cues from the markets and so he's in crisis mode too.

Bears make a $killing$ in a Crisis. Stock Brokers selling apples and their "wreckless cars" for a dime on the dollar come to mind. The Montgomery Ward vs. Sears retailing clash is another good example.

So, if we be 4T, who, and where, are the bears getting rich?

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Bears make a $killing$ in a Crisis.

Bear traders did make a killing over 2000-2002 (and will do so again). Bull traders made a killing during in the last Crisis (and will do so in this one): the largest broad-based bull market in history occurred from 1932 to 1937.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Neil reviewed a copy of my second book in manuscript (and provided comments) so they are aware of my view. George Modelski reviewed a copy too and we discussed it a bit.

But what did Neil have to say about your data? Did he have an explanation for the late religious activity in the 1910's? Did he question your criteria? Do tell.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

I know you don't think the crisis started in 2001, but I will point out that interest rates are both very low and are in a long-term falling trend. The last time rates were at this level and were in a falling trend (they were rising in the 1950's) was in the early 1930's. So both the stock market and the bond market think its the crisis. Alan Greenspan takes his cues from the markets and so he's in crisis mode too.

I will take that into serious consideration. Again, I'm still in the Doozy Camp (for good or ill) and I haven't observed the required dooziness just yet.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

But what did Neil have to say about your data? Did he have an explanation for the late religious activity in the 1910's? Did he question your criteria? Do tell.

He didn't say anything. I didn't press him. S&H do not claim that religious activity would correlate with their generational cycle. The real test is prediction. If S&H eventually come to the conclusion that the Crisis did indeed begin with 911, that would be the time to start a discussion about whether or not the idea of the CWA is valid. If it turns out the crisis starts in 2010 or later, the 18-year turning idea is wrong, it doesn't matter what the religious event data shows. In this case the saeculum after 1929 will be considerably longer than the one before, consistent with its truncation by a skipped generation.

I will take that into serious consideration. Again, I'm still in the Doozy Camp (for good or ill) and I haven't observed the required dooziness just yet.

Suppose you finally see the requisite "dooziness", but then ten years later you see what appears to be the start of a new High (the troubles over, the sun is shining, markets soaring, prosperity fills the land, yada yada yada). You won't want to call the ten year span after the "doozy" event the entire Crisis (its too short), especially if the preceding Unraveling is like 25 years long. You will more likely extend the start of the crisis back so it starts 17-18 years before the beginning of the High, and 911 will look mighty handy as a start point.

We have to keep in mind that all previous turnings have been determined with the benefit of hindsight. None have every been detected in real time (this is the first one). What we don't know is the future and this is important to how the current period is interpreted.

I am not saying that today "feels" like a Crisis. It doesn't. I employ "rulers". Using 18-year rulers gives a projection of right around 2001: 1984+18=2002, 1964+36=2000, 1946+54=2000, 1929+72=2001, 1912+90=2002, 1894+108=2002, 1877+126=2003, 1860+144=2004, 1844+163=2006, 1822+180=2002 (average is 2002 +/-2).

I also employ aligned cycles:
Secular Bear Market 1929-1949 --> 1929-1946 [Crisis]
Secular Bull Market 1949-1966 --> 1946-1964 [High]
Secular Bear Market 1966-1982 --> 1964-1984 [Awakening]
Secular Bull Market 1982-2000 --> 1984-2001 [Unraveling]
Secular Bear Market 2000-???? --> 2001-???? [Crisis]

These are the two bases. A second economic indicator has failed to give a confirmatory signal (I've been waiting for 2 1/2 years). Analysis of past election results has shown this to be a not very useful indicator. Bush is likely to win regardless of which turning we are in. So if Bush wins it says nothing about what turning we are in. On the other hand, Kerry is unlikely to win if it be 3T, so a Kerry win might say something. But then Clinton was unlikely to win in 1992 for the same reasons, yet he did, and that didn't mean that the 3T was over. Unlikely does not mean never.

Two years ago my gut feeling was that the 2004 election would be more of a bellweather. It made sense. But I can't back this feeling up by looking at the track record.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Here you can visualize the saeculum undulating through history as
> waves of spirituality and social tension. The waves are shown by
> the periodic peaks in religious events that correspond to the ends
> of Awakenings. They correspond to the ends because they are
> trailing moving averages. That is, a peak represents the end of a
> 25-year period* in which the most religious events occurred over a
> period of about a saeculum in length. The black line is the same
> sort of plot only for unrest events. Each Awakening has an unrest
> peak too. Awakenings for which I have data also so the peaking
> behavior in crime and alcohol as the "blowup" figures show.

> *Before 1820, after 1820 I use an 18 YMA

> Crises are much harder to see. I point out a few in the figure. So
> you see, my method is very Awakening-centric.

If you have a cycle-independent way of identifying awakenings, and I
have a cycle-independent way of identifying crisis wars, perhaps the
two methods can be used together.

I suppose such an attempt would founder with the English Civil War,
as usual.

Out of curiosity, at what point in your timeline do you switch from
English to American (colonial) data?

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

But what did Neil have to say about your data? Did he have an explanation for the late religious activity in the 1910's? Did he question your criteria? Do tell.

He didn't say anything. I didn't press him. S&H do not claim that religious activity would correlate with their generational cycle. The real test is prediction. If S&H eventually come to the conclusion that the Crisis did indeed begin with 911, that would be the time to start a discussion about whether or not the idea of the CWA is valid. If it turns out the crisis starts in 2010 or later, the 18-year turning idea is wrong, it doesn't matter what the religious event data shows. In this case the saeculum after 1929 will be considerably longer than the one before, consistent with its truncation by a skipped generation.

I will take that into serious consideration. Again, I'm still in the Doozy Camp (for good or ill) and I haven't observed the required dooziness just yet.

Suppose you finally see the requisite "dooziness", but then ten years later you see what appears to be the start of a new High (the troubles over, the sun is shining, markets soaring, prosperity fills the land, yada yada yada). You won't want to call the ten year span after the "doozy" event the entire Crisis (its too short), especially if the preceding Unraveling is like 25 years long. You will more likely extend the start of the crisis back so it starts 17-18 years before the beginning of the High, and 911 will look mighty handy as a start point.

We have to keep in mind that all previous turnings have been determined with the benefit of hindsight. None have every been detected in real time (this is the first one). What we don't know is the future and this is important to how the current period is interpreted.

I am not saying that today "feels" like a Crisis. It doesn't. I employ "rulers". Using 18-year rulers gives a projection of right around 2001: 1984+18=2002, 1964+36=2000, 1946+54=2000, 1929+72=2001, 1912+90=2002, 1894+108=2002, 1877+126=2003, 1860+144=2004, 1844+163=2006, 1822+180=2002 (average is 2002 +/-2).

I also employ aligned cycles:
Secular Bear Market 1929-1949 --> 1929-1946 [Crisis]
Secular Bull Market 1949-1966 --> 1946-1964 [High]
Secular Bear Market 1966-1982 --> 1964-1984 [Awakening]
Secular Bull Market 1982-2000 --> 1984-2001 [Unraveling]
Secular Bear Market 2000-???? --> 2001-???? [Crisis]

These are the two bases. A second economic indicator has failed to give a confirmatory signal (I've been waiting for 2 1/2 years). Analysis of past election results has shown this to be a not very useful indicator. Bush is likely to win regardless of which turning we are in. So if Bush wins it says nothing about what turning we are in. On the other hand, Kerry is unlikely to win if it be 3T, so a Kerry win might say something. But then Clinton was unlikely to win in 1992 for the same reasons, yet he did, and that didn't mean that the 3T was over. Unlikely does not mean never.

Two years ago my gut feeling was that the 2004 election would be more of a bellweather. It made sense. But I can't back this feeling up by looking at the track record.

Thanks Mike.

Curious. What do you call your Civil War cycle Hero generation (Blue & Grey Generation?), what would be their birth years (1839-1857?), and what indications in history do you have of them being seen in the same light as the Republican and GI generations?

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Curious. What do you call your Civil War cycle Hero generation (Blue & Grey Generation?), what would be their birth years (1839-1857?), and what indications in history do you have of them being seen in the same light as the Republican and GI generations?

I have a set of generations associated with 18-year 19th century turnings. One of them is the "Civil War Hero" generation (1839-56) that I list in my third book. Dave McGuinness calls his Civil War heroes the "Bloody Shirt" generation, which I like, but it's his name for slightly different generation dates. My "generations" have no independent existence, I did not perform any cohort biography-type work like S&H did. They are based solely on the turnings, sort of like S&H's turnings are based on their generations. So if I my position is that S&H might have the wrong turnings because they do not determine them directly, but rather obtain them indirectly from their generations, then how can I claim that there exist a set of alternate generations indirectly derived from my turnings?

So now I believe that S&H got the generations more or less right, but the turnings wrong. I think my turnings are closer to right, but accept S&H's generations. The mismatch between generations might be what screws up the analysis of the late 19th century. Here is the 1860-1930 period in terms of unrest.



Notice that after 1878 unrest stops rising for a while, but doesn't fall, instead it picks up rising again after 1897. This flattish region correlates with when I place the High. But unrest is supposed to fall during a High. This didn't happen, it just didn't rise further for a while. Thus, what we have is an unusually stressful High, with a peak year in 1886 during which I have 10 events recorded, more than any other year except 1916, 1919, 1934 and 1946.

If we accept S&H's view that Prophets were starting to be born in 1860, this means that halfway through what should be a High, we had a generation of prophets starting to raise hell (in 1886). S&H naturally would label 1886 the start of the next awakening and thus must truncate the Civil War Crisis to just five years to make room for a High of normal length before 1886.

But as the unrest plot shows although things were tumultuous in the 1880's and 1890's, it gets worse after 1897 and ended in a veritable explosion of unrest in 1916-1919. Only after 1919 did unrest finally start to fall. We can hardly call the entire 1860-1919 period one long Crisis. Hence call it a Crisis-High-Awakening, with the flattish stretch between the late 1870's and 1890's as a High. But this spot is still plenty active, feeling the impact of spirit-fired Missionaries.

My paradigm model holds that Awakenings require that a Hero-type paradigm, forged during a Crisis, be operative amongst people in positions of power (i.e. around age 50). In 1886, the holders of Civil War & Reconstruction-forged paradigms were too young to generate the political conditions for an Awakening to develop. They were the same age as holders of Depression-forged paradigms in 1955. Thus labor unrest in 1886 might be thought of as similar to Civil Rights agitation in 1955 (e.g. Birmingham bus boycott). Nine years after 1955 successful action on Civil Rights was taken (1964 Civil Rights Act) and the Awakening began. Ten years after 1886 unsuccessful action was taken on the Labor issue (1896 critical election) and the Awakening began.

Thus, although the Misisonaries were active in the late 1880's, an Awakening did not develop at that time because the older generation was not yet in position.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

If you have a cycle-independent way of identifying awakenings, and I have a cycle-independent way of identifying crisis wars, perhaps the two methods can be used together....I suppose such an attempt would founder with the English Civil War, as usual.

The problem comes from the period of the 30yrs war and the English Civil War. This certainly was a typhoon-like time, not just for England, but throughout Europe. Historians call it the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. It shows up in the unrest plot (black line). Because the ECW is an internal war, it counts in my event counting. On the other hand, the Napoleonic Wars, as external wars, do not show up as unrest events and this war shows up as a High in my scheme. The rising red line during the early 17th century crisis makes it an awakening. If religion wasn't rising it would be the Crisis you see.

Our approaches are quite different. You have the period of high casualty warfare as the "active" period. It is from these periods that Crises are selected based several criteria. For me, after the financial revolution, it is the aftermath of the great wars that produce the active period that denote social moments. Before the financial revolution, my social moments do correspond to war-filled eras, just as your Crises do.

Out of curiosity, at what point in your timeline do you switch from
English to American (colonial) data?

I count European and American events up to 1800, Anglo-American data up to 1875 and solely American data afterward.

The reason for using a broad-based region at the early dates is to have enough events to analyze. I don't go out of my way to find non-Anglo American events, but if a largely American-based timeline shows strikes, peasant revolts or slave uprisings from Continential Europe or the non-British Carribean I'll include them if before 1800.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

>

> The problem comes from the period of the 30yrs war and the English
> Civil War. This certainly was a typhoon-like time, not just for
> England, but throughout Europe. Historians call it the Crisis of
> the Seventeenth Century. It shows up in the unrest plot (black
> line). Because the ECW is an internal war, it counts in my event
> counting. On the other hand, the Napoleonic Wars, as external
> wars, do not show up as unrest events and this war shows up as a
> High in my scheme. The rising red line during the early 17th
> century crisis makes it an awakening. If religion wasn't rising it
> would be the Crisis you see.

> Our approaches are quite different. You have the period of high
> casualty warfare as the "active" period. It is from these periods
> that Crises are selected based several criteria. For me, after the
> financial revolution, it is the aftermath of the great wars that
> produce the active period that denote social moments. Before the
> financial revolution, my social moments do correspond to
> war-filled eras, just as your Crises do.

Actually, it just dawned on me that we don't have a conflict after
all. We're been focusing so much on England and the colonies that
Western Europe hasn't been considered as a separate unit.

Look at the crisis periods that I've developed for France, Germany and
England:

<pre>
. Germany 1540-55 1618-38?
. France 1562-72 1635-48
. England 1559-88 1638-60
</pre>

If you look at the 1600s crisis dates, you see that an awakening in
the time frame predicted by your model is correct. In other words,
what you're modeling is an awakening in the Germany and France. If
we bring in other regions of Europe, then we may have an even closer
match. At any rate, we no longer have a conflict over the ECW.

A great deal of the theory I've developed in GD is based on stuff
that you and S&H and others have developed. The thing I bring to the
table is that different time series must be modeled separately.
Generational cycles are local, and each region must be modeled
separately. Technology cycles are global, and must be modeled
separately from generational cycles. Financial cycles can be local
or global.

In your graph, you use unrest events to model awakenings. By
modeling awakenings, which are generational events, then you're also
modeling generational wars, or crisis wars, and you're avoiding
non-crisis wars. Thus, your methodology here accomplishes the goal
of separating crisis from non-crisis wars.

I'm sure that there are some additional details to be worked out, but
this means, finally, that our separate models are beginning to
support one another.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Look at the crisis periods that I've developed for France, Germany and England:

. Germany 1540-55 1618-38?
. France 1562-72 1635-48
. England 1559-88 1638-60

If you look at the 1600s crisis dates, you see that an awakening in the time frame predicted by your model is correct. In other words, what you're modeling is an awakening in the Germany and France. If we bring in other regions of Europe, then we may have an even closer match. At any rate, we no longer have a conflict over the ECW.

I don't see this. They overlap my Awakening era from ca. 1620 to 1650

A great deal of the theory I've developed in GD is based on stuff
that you and S&H and others have developed. The thing I bring to the
table is that different time series must be modeled separately.
Generational cycles are local, and each region must be modeled
separately.

I don't see that this is necessarily so. Why can't the conditions of a turning spread through trade and cultural contacts? For example, the Reformation started in Germany and spread from there eventually enveloping much of Europe.

Here is a plot of the trailing 10-year average of unrest events per year for the 17th century.



This graph shows that unrest rose everywhere in Europe (signifying a social moment) during the 1621-1649 period that S&H label as an Awakening. I have already shown the rising religious events that make this social moment of the Awakening type. Now it looks like unrest started heading up earlier in France (in the 1620's) than elsewhere, but America, Britain and Non-French Europe seems to show rising unrest from the 1630's on, and French unrest stays high until the 1640's. All the countries seem to be on pretty close to the same schedule here.

In your graph, you use unrest events to model awakenings.

No, I use relgious events to identify (not model) awakenings. Unrest events are used to identify social moments, that is both Crises and Awakenings. Because two indicators exist for Awakenings, they are easier to detect. Furthermore, after 1800, alcohol and crime become Awakening indicators, they do not rise during Crises. Prior to 1800 they rose for both Crises and Awakenings. Since I don't have alcohol data from before 1700 and my crime data is sparse before 1740, these two aren't too useful for most pre-1800 Crises. The net result is Awakenings are easier to detect by foucusing solely on the social tension trends data (unrest, religon, alcohol crime). I also have the economic cycle characterization that identifies Crises just as well as Awakenings. But I cannot present everything at once on a mesage board. Besides I thought you have a copy of The Kondratiev Cycle, its all in there.

By modeling awakenings, which are generational events, then you're also modeling generational wars, or crisis wars, and you're avoiding
non-crisis wars. Thus, your methodology here accomplishes the goal
of separating crisis from non-crisis wars.

No it doesn't. I don't consider wars as a rule, unless they are internal. But even then they simply play a role in the unrest cycle (just one of several ways of characterizing the saeculum).

Wars do play a theoretical role in the War-powered Cycle (see page 26 in The Kondratiev Cycle). The combination of the Kondratiev cycle with the social trend data I am describing here is done in Table 5.1. In table 6.4 I show that the saeculum and the K-S cycle are the same cycle.

Hence we have a war cycle causing the Kondratiev cycle which causes the saeculum. This mechanism holds from ca 1675 to 1860. After 1820 the paradigm model (this isn't in The Kondratiev Cycle) explains the saeculum. Before ca. 1675 the population model (see page 16 of The Kondratiev Cycle) explains the saeculum.

So we have

Before 1675: Population Cycle --> Kondratiev Cycle --> Saeculum
1675 - 1860: War Cycle --> Kondratiev Cycle --> Saeculum

1820-1920:
Paradgim development --> Political Cycle
Political Cycle <--> Economics --> Kuznets Cycle
Political Cycle <--> Economics --> Saeculum

1920-present:
Paradigm development --> Political Cycle, Saeculum
Saeculum, Political Cycle <--> Economics --> Stock Cycle, Kondratiev Cycle

Before 1820, the Saeculum was economically-determined (material cause)

After 1860, the saeculum was politically-determined (pyschological cause)

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Curious. What do you call your Civil War cycle Hero generation (Blue & Grey Generation?), what would be their birth years (1839-1857?), and what indications in history do you have of them being seen in the same light as the Republican and GI generations?

I have a set of generations associated with 18-year 19th century turnings. One of them is the "Civil War Hero" generation (1839-56) that I list in my third book. Dave McGuinness calls his Civil War heroes the "Bloody Shirt" generation, which I like, but it's his name for slightly different generation dates. My "generations" have no independent existence, I did not perform any cohort biography-type work like S&H did. They are based solely on the turnings, sort of like S&H's turnings are based on their generations. So if I my position is that S&H might have the wrong turnings because they do not determine them directly, but rather obtain them indirectly from their generations, then how can I claim that there exist a set of alternate generations indirectly derived from my turnings?

So now I believe that S&H got the generations more or less right, but the turnings wrong. I think my turnings are closer to right, but accept S&H's generations. The mismatch between generations might be what screws up the analysis of the late 19th century. Here is the 1860-1930 period in terms of unrest.



Notice that after 1878 unrest stops rising for a while, but doesn't fall, instead it picks up rising again after 1897. This flattish region correlates with when I place the High. But unrest is supposed to fall during a High. This didn't happen, it just didn't rise further for a while. Thus, what we have is an unusually stressful High, with a peak year in 1886 during which I have 10 events recorded, more than any other year except 1916, 1919, 1934 and 1946.

If we accept S&H's view that Prophets were starting to be born in 1860, this means that halfway through what should be a High, we had a generation of prophets starting to raise hell (in 1886). S&H naturally would label 1886 the start of the next awakening and thus must truncate the Civil War Crisis to just five years to make room for a High of normal length before 1886.

But as the unrest plot shows although things were tumultuous in the 1880's and 1890's, it gets worse after 1897 and ended in a veritable explosion of unrest in 1916-1919. Only after 1919 did unrest finally start to fall. We can hardly call the entire 1860-1919 period one long Crisis. Hence call it a Crisis-High-Awakening, with the flattish stretch between the late 1870's and 1890's as a High. But this spot is still plenty active, feeling the impact of spirit-fired Missionaries.

My paradigm model holds that Awakenings require that a Hero-type paradigm, forged during a Crisis, be operative amongst people in positions of power (i.e. around age 50). In 1886, the holders of Civil War & Reconstruction-forged paradigms were too young to generate the political conditions for an Awakening to develop. They were the same age as holders of Depression-forged paradigms in 1955. Thus labor unrest in 1886 might be thought of as similar to Civil Rights agitation in 1955 (e.g. Birmingham bus boycott). Nine years after 1955 successful action on Civil Rights was taken (1964 Civil Rights Act) and the Awakening began. Ten years after 1886 unsuccessful action was taken on the Labor issue (1896 critical election) and the Awakening began.

Thus, although the Misisonaries were active in the late 1880's, an Awakening did not develop at that time because the older generation was not yet in position.

That's a good argument. My only problem with is that I don't see a Hero archetype (unless it's attenuated to the point of near irrelevance) moving up the generational diagonal between the Civil War and the Great Depression. The Progressives were certainly being raised in the Hero mold as children, but I must agree with S&H that they seem much more Artist-like in the final analysis, if an unusually empowered Artist generation.

When you mentioned that "flat-lining" of unrest in S&H's putative High, it brought to mind the flat-lining of birth rates during that time that was "the exception that proved the rule". Birth rates were in structural decline from the 1840's through the 1930's, with a leveling off during the S&H's Gilded High. Thus relatively speaking the Missionaries overall were a baby boom type generation as Prophets should be.

Perhaps we are dealing with a structural rise in the data for unrest during roughly the same period, due to the effects of industrialization, better data collection, or what-have-you. The mere leveling off of unrest, rather than decline, during the Gilded High could be one of those rule-proving exceptions.

The peaking of violence during the Lost's coming-of-age could be the result of a Nomad generation being raised by a particularly robust Artist generation (as mentioned above) intensifying Nomad traits, adding one more generational example of the saecular damage left in the wake of the CWA: Dominant Nomads, emboldened Artists, attentuated Prophets, and finally ultrafrenetic Nomads.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> I don't see that this is necessarily so. Why can't the conditions
> of a turning spread through trade and cultural contacts? For
> example, the Reformation started in Germany and spread from there
> eventually enveloping much of Europe.

But what are the conditions for an awakening?

What were the conditions for America's awakening in the 1960s?
Martin Luther King didn't invent racial equality on the Mall in 1963,
and Mark Rudd didn't invent the pacifist concept. Those ideas were
around for centuries, and are used in all awakenings. These ideas
don't cause awakenings; they're used as tools during awakenings.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Here is a plot of the trailing 10-year average of unrest events
> per year for the 17th century.



> This graph shows that unrest rose everywhere in Europe (signifying
> a social moment) during the 1621-1649 period that S&H label as an
> Awakening. I have already shown the rising religious events that
> make this social moment of the Awakening type. Now it looks like
> unrest started heading up earlier in France (in the 1620's) than
> elsewhere, but America, Britain and Non-French Europe seems to
> show rising unrest from the 1630's on, and French unrest stays
> high until the 1640's. All the countries seem to be on pretty
> close to the same schedule here.

All I'm saying is that we're talking here about judgments made on the
basis of very few events per year. If there were just one or two
more unrest events in England a little earlier, then we'd have the
English awakening beginning in 1610, which is the date that
McLoughlin gives. I see from your book that "Fisher reports so many
revolts in the early 17th century that they were assembled into
groups and treated as single events to keep this event peak from
dwarfing all the others." This kind of data grouping could have a
big effect when all we're talking about is three or four events every
five years. I'm sure there must have been some Puritan-based unrest
events in England in the 1610s, and even one or two of those would
change the graph significantly.

I just don't understand how you can even count unrest events when the
English Civil War was going on. It just doesn't make sense to me to
talk about a strike as an unrest event when the context of massive
slaughter going on all around. It's like the draft riots during the
American Civil War and using those as evidence of an awakening. I
just don't understand it.

Is it your belief that the Thirty Years War was an awakening? Here's
a description:

Originally Posted by Peter N. Stearns

> THE LEGACY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR: This war left two legacies --
> massive destruction of land and population and the end of Catholic
> supremacy in Europe. Armies moved back and forth across Europe,
> destroying crops and routing people from their homes. Estimates
> indicate that European population declined by as much as 30
> percent in some areas. The war also resulted in major dislocation
> and migration throughout Europe. Even countries largely untouched
> by armies suffered loss of trade. The Baltic grain trade was
> devastated. The Peace of Westphalia not only ended the war and
> established territorial boundaries, it codified the principle that
> the prince would choose the religion (Calvinism, Lutheranism, or
> Catholicism) of his territory. This principle weakened the Holy
> Roman Empire because it recognized princely sovereignty. It also
> furthered the gradual decline of the Catholic Church in the 17th
> and 18th centuries.

> THE GENERAL CRISIS OF THE 17TH CENTURY has sparked intense debate
> among historians. The term "crisis," originally used in the
> medical sense, refers to an economic and political turning point.
> Historians cite the shift of economic growth in Europe from the
> Mediterranean (especially Spain and Italy) toward western Europe
> (particularly England and France) in demonstrating this turning
> point. They also recognize the repeated challenges to political
> authority. The 17th century witnessed numerous revolutions
> (England, the Fronde, the Dutch Republic, etc.) and revolts.
> Peasant revolts regarding taxes spread throughout the 17th
> century. These revolts focused either on new taxes or on
> extensions of old ones but were characterized by a desire to
> return to the status quo.

From your graph, I gather you'd have to call all this an awakening
event also. And there were indeed religious elements to all of this.
But to do so ignores the context of a massive genocidal slaughter
going on, with huge masses of people being slaughtered, starved and
raped. It's like counting a few raindrops in the midst of a raging
typhoon.

All I'm saying is that there's another way of looking at this. The
30 Years War began in 1618 in Germany and ended in 1648. Because of
it's length, it could not have been a crisis war for the entire 30
year period in all regions. Instead, it must have been a "rolling"
crisis war, with the crisis period ending in some regions earlier
than in others.

That means that the following awakening would also be a "rolling"
awakening. Furthermore, if we change your 20 year rule to a 10 year
rule (since we're using a trailing 10-year average of unrest events),
then it makes sense to talk about an awakening on the Continent in
1640-1660, and that would match your data. Then by adding a couple
more unrest events to England in the 1610s and 1620s, then we would
have the English awakening starting in 1610. So from that point of
view our results would match completely.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> >>> By modeling awakenings, which are generational events, then
> you're also modeling generational wars, or crisis wars, and you're
> avoiding non-crisis wars. Thus, your methodology here accomplishes
> the goal of separating crisis from non-crisis wars.

> No it doesn't. I don't consider wars as a rule, unless they are
> internal. But even then they simply play a role in the unrest
> cycle (just one of several ways of characterizing the saeculum).

My point is that if you're identifying days, then you're also
identifying nights. If you're identifying winters, then you're also
identifying spring, summer and fall. If you're identifying awakening
periods, then you're also identifying crisis periods through
negation.

This methodology for identifying awakening periods is very similar to
the Generational Dynamics methodology as follows:

As I've said before, S&H use a "bottom-up" methodology of reading
histories and diaries and using them to construct the generational
turnings.

Generational Dynamics is "top-down." It starts by taking S&H's
description of a crisis period, and uses that description to identify
crisis periods throughout history. Then the generations and turnings
cam be reconstructed from the crisis periods.

Your awakening methodology is remarkably similar. You've started by
taking S&H's description of an awakening period, and you use that
deescription to identify awakening periods throughout history. Then
the generations and turnings can be reconstructed from the awakening
periods.

So you have a "top-down" methodology which is very similar to mine,
and both are based on S&H's descriptions of the different turnings.

So if your methodology and mine were to produce similar results, then
it would provide validation for everyone.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

> That's a good argument. My only problem with is that I don't see
> a Hero archetype (unless it's attenuated to the point of near
> irrelevance) moving up the generational diagonal between the Civil
> War and the Great Depression. The Progressives were certainly
> being raised in the Hero mold as children, but I must agree with
> S&H that they seem much more Artist-like in the final analysis, if
> an unusually empowered Artist generation.

I'd like to repeat an argument I've made before, because I believe
it's the crux of the matter here.

The main thing about a Hero generation is that they're called heroes,
but they don't believe themselves to be heroes.

These are people who fight in a crisis war. These are people who
slaughter huge massives of enemy soldiers and civilians. These are
people who commit the most vile and despicable crimes that any human
being can commit. And they commit these crimes on themselves (D-Day)
just as they do on others. The heroes are completely traumatized by
what they do and what others do to them. That trauma dominates the
rest of their lives. That's why it doesn't make any difference what
generation they were in before the war started. In the case of the
Civil War, that trauma is even worse, because these heroes were
committing these atrocities on their own brothers.

That's why the generational diagonal always reconstructions itself
very quickly after a crisis war -- within two generations.



If you scramble the generational archetypes in the first column of
this diagram, it wouldn't make any difference because the crisis war
completely overwhelms all other considerations. By the time the
awakening occurs, everything is always in place for the continued
diagonal flow leading to the next crisis war.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

That's a good argument. My only problem with is that I don't see a Hero archetype (unless it's attenuated to the point of near irrelevance) moving up the generational diagonal between the Civil War and the Great Depression. The Progressives were certainly being raised in the Hero mold as children, but I must agree with S&H that they seem much more Artist-like in the final analysis, if an unusually empowered Artist generation.

I don't think I was clear. What I am saying is there were no Civil War heroes as S&H said. Thus there is no Hero archetype to move up the generational diagonal. The reason why S&H don't think there were any Heroes is because what should have been Civil War heroes "seem much more Artist-like in the final analysis".

But when prophets came of age in 1886 we didn't get an Awakening. The data clearly show that the Awakening occured later. Why? The paradigm model that I currently favor offers an explanation.

It says an Awakening could not begin in 1886 because the political environment was unfavorable. The paradigmic generation associated with the Civil War era (b 1835-1852) was too young (at age 42) to bring about the political characteristics (a liberal era) needed for a social moment. There was no critical election at that time. The 1884, 1888 and 1892 elections saw the same Democrat (Grover Cleveland) run for office, winning twice (1884, 1892) and winning the popular vote, but not the election in 1888 (just like Gore in 2000). By 1896, the Civil War paradigmic generation was (at 52) old enough to have their influence. So we got the critical election and Awakening then.

Now a paradigmic generation is not the same as an archetypical generation (the kind S&H talk about). Archetypical generations are born during turnings, they reflect the nurture typical of that turning. The environment from age 4 to coming of age produces their respective archetype. Paradigms reflect belief systems, not personality type, they are created in young adults, who can be of any archetype.

The older paradigmic generation responsible for the 1828 critical election during the Transencental Awakening had their paradigm forged during the 1800-1816 liberal era. These "young Jeffersonians" were born in 1775-1791, and so were members of an Artist archetype generation, but paradigm-wise they had the sort of paradigms typically held by Heroes. Politically, the young Jeffersonians were empowered by the complete eclipse of the Federalists by Jefferson's Democrat-Republicans, which after 1816 resulted in the only period of one-party rule in US history. Paradigmic generations with empowered, unifying paradigms permit Awakenings when they become old. Paradigmic generations with disillusioned, divisive paradigms produce Crises when they get old. The first kind are usually created by the political zeitgeist of Crises and will tend to be held by people having the Hero archetype (although not always). The second kind are created by the political zeitgeist of Awakenings and tend to be held by people having the Prophet archetype. So there is an approximate correspondence between paradigmic and archetypica generations, but they are not the same thing.

Now if the post-1800 liberal era can create a paradigmic generation of non-Heroes that produced the political characteristics of an Awakening (i.e. a liberal era) in 1828, then the Civil War liberal era can produce a paradigmic generation of non-Heroes that produced the political characteristics of an Awakening in 1896.

In both the 2nd and 3rd Awakenings there were no Heroes around. For the first, the Republicans were too old. Look at page 50 of T4T. The average age of Republicans at the 1831 climax of the Transendental Awakening was 77. The average age of the GIs at the 1974 climax of the New Consciousness Awakening was 62. Obviously the GIs were young enough to play a role, whereas the Republicans were not. For the 3rd GA there were no Civil War Heroes.

Now compare the average ages of the paradigmic generations. In 1831 the Jeffersonian paradigmic generation was collectively 49. In 1974 the New-Deal paradigmic generation was 62. Considering the change in life expectancy betwen 1831 and 1974, these two generations are at the appropriate ages to exert their effects.

When you mentioned that "flat-lining" of unrest in S&H's putative High, it brought to mind the flat-lining of birth rates during that time that was "the exception that proved the rule". Birth rates were in structural decline from the 1840's through the 1930's, with a leveling off during the S&H's Gilded High. Thus relatively speaking the Missionaries overall were a baby boom type generation as Prophets should be.

I am not sure this claim can be made.