Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Xenakis' "Generational Dynamics", if applied without his whimsical exceptions, states the Napoleonic Wars predicted that Britain and France would have a "genocidal" conflict 50-100 years later.

But one must add a few Ptolemaic epicycles to postpone that conflict to the 21st century. It makes total sense.

Is he still advertising 100% certainty these days? I haven't paid attention in a while. I am certain he will take credit for accurately predicting the current eco-financial implosion -- the same one that was going to happen very shortly after 2001, then 2002, then 2003, then 2004, then 2005, then 2006 . . .

The mid-19th-Century puzzled even Toynbee, let alone Strauss & Howe. Was it an extra-long cycle? Or a regular cycle with a Crisis Era so mild we missed it? Or perhaps, for Britain, did it take place in India? There surely was a Crisis about that time on the Continent: the Franco-Prussian War, which kicked off German unification and the German Empire. And in France, the, what? Third Republic? And there certainly was one in the States. I'm going to guess Britain's took place abroad, especially since we get Rudyard Kipling, such a quintessential Artist Gen type, in due season. And the rest of the overly-genteel Edwardians. So something happened there, generationally.

A datum potentially missed -- the history books never mentioned this!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fronde

The Fronde (sling) was an internal revolt/civil war in France, breaking out immediately upon the Peace of Westphalia (and probably precipitated by it). It was the direct cause of the absolutism of the Sun King 1T (Louis XIV / Cardinal Mazarin), as it involved crushing the nobility and middle class. It lasted until 1652, although normality was not fully restored until 1653. The point here is that while simplified history texts imply that the 1T began across Europe in 1648... it ain't necessarily so.

Only once the Fronde was done was France sufficiently exhausted to go into 1T. There was still theoretically 'war' with Spain on the Pyrenees and Belgian borders, but nobody really tried to do anything. This, too, is a 1T signal.

It should be noted that the last major move in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms -- the surrender of Galway, Ireland -- also took place at this time. The English/Scottish/Irish civil wars that broke out in 1637 exhausted themselves without establishing any real structure for the Commonwealth so created -- which reverted within two years of Cromwell's death back to the House of Stuart. (The Glorious Revolution was thus the apex of a 2T movement for better governance; note how bloodless it was, where their own parents and grandparents had slaughtered each other over the same issues.)

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

The mid-19th-Century puzzled even Toynbee, let alone Strauss & Howe. Was it an extra-long cycle? Or a regular cycle with a Crisis Era so mild we missed it? Or perhaps, for Britain, did it take place in India? There surely was a Crisis about that time on the Continent: the Franco-Prussian War, which kicked off German unification and the German Empire. And in France, the, what? Third Republic? And there certainly was one in the States. I'm going to guess Britain's took place abroad, especially since we get Rudyard Kipling, such a quintessential Artist Gen type, in due season. And the rest of the overly-genteel Edwardians. So something happened there, generationally.

Oh, I wasn't questioning wheter Britain had a 19th century 4T. They certainly did. Most here call it the "Reform Crisis" but disagree on the extact dates. Starting estimates on the board have ranged from 1857 to 1865 and ending dates are in the 1875-1885 range. I don't consider myself knowledge enough on the time and place to have a strong opinion of exact dates.

What I am questioning is GD's "predictive powers" which were once touted as having "100% certainty". If one goes back and applies the same logic he is applying now you end up with a genocidal war between Britain and France 50-100 years after the Napoleonic Wars. Didn't happen.

Originally Posted by catfishncod

> A datum potentially missed -- the history books never mentioned
> this!

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fronde

> The Fronde (sling) was an internal revolt/civil war in France,
> breaking out immediately upon the Peace of Westphalia (and
> probably precipitated by it). It was the direct cause of the
> absolutism of the Sun King 1T (Louis XIV / Cardinal Mazarin), as
> it involved crushing the nobility and middle class. It lasted
> until 1652, although normality was not fully restored until 1653.
> The point here is that while simplified history texts imply that
> the 1T began across Europe in 1648... it ain't necessarily so.

> Only once the Fronde was done was France sufficiently exhausted to
> go into 1T. There was still theoretically 'war' with Spain on the
> Pyrenees and Belgian borders, but nobody really tried to do
> anything. This, too, is a 1T signal.

> It should be noted that the last major move in the Wars of the
> Three Kingdoms -- the surrender of Galway, Ireland -- also took
> place at this time. The English/Scottish/Irish civil wars that
> broke out in 1637 exhausted themselves without establishing any
> real structure for the Commonwealth so created -- which reverted
> within two years of Cromwell's death back to the House of Stuart.
> (The Glorious Revolution was thus the apex of a 2T movement for
> better governance; note how bloodless it was, where their own
> parents and grandparents had slaughtered each other over the same
> issues.)

This is a really interesting analysis, and you've posted it at
exactly the right time for me to ask you another question about
France, assuming that your knowledge of French history extends beyond
the 1600s.

Here's my list of the French crisis wars, amended to incorporate the
information in your posting:

• Civil war between Catholics and Huguenots, climaxing in St.
  Bartholomew's Night Massacre on August 24, 1572.
  
• France enters Thirty Years' War in 1634, fights through
  Tulipomania crash in 1637 and through the Peace at Westphalia in
  1648, continuing with the genocidal "Fronde" civil war, climaxing in
  1652.
  
• War of the Spanish Succession, beginning in 1704, climaxing in
  the genocidal Battle of Malplaquet in 1709.
  
• The French Revolution, beginning in 1789, climaxing in the
  genocidal Reign of Terror in 1793-95.
  
• The French Commune, the genocidal Paris civil war of 1871.

But what comes next?

A couple of years ago, Mike Alexander raised the question that WW I
was a crisis war for France. I agreed that it was a possibility
worth considering, but haven't examined it since then.

A web site reader from Paris, France, sent me the following message a
couple of days ago:

> Another remark about WW1 and WW2. For quite some time I thought
> that these 2 wars form a counterexample to your generational
> crisis wars theory.

> But today I just understood that you are right. WW1 _was_ a
> generational war for the _French_ because it all happened within
> their borders. However it was not for the Germans because only
> their army had seen that war, not their civil population. WW2
> became a generational crisis war for the Germans because of all
> the bombings of their cities etc.. OTH the French did not even
> play the "game": I now understand why France lost WW2 so soon.
> THANKS A LOT (even if I possibly could have found this explanation
> in your web site or the forums, but I unfortunately never found
> time to read everything)

> I am interested by this as I have special roots. My paternal
> grandfather come to France in the 1920's after the Genocide by
> the Turks. My father is French, born in Paris in 1930. My mother
> is German born in July 1942. She never saw her father (my maternal
> grand father) because he was killed north of Stalingrad in January
> 1943. Strange mix, don't you think?

This raises the possibility that WW I was a crisis war for France,
and WW II would then be an Awakening war -- which would be consistent
with how the French acted during WW II.

However, this concept has theoretical problems in generational
theory, because WW I occurs only 43 years after the French Commune.

Now, 43 years is not an impossibility, as I've identified other
crisis wars that began so soon after the climax of the previous
crisis war. But I strongly resist it, because crisis wars that begin
so soon are very rare.

However, there's another possibility that would be quite consistent
with generational theory. This would be the "unexpected invasion"
scenario, when a country early in its saeculum is unexpectedly
invaded by another country, and that country is in a genocidal Crisis
era.

In that scenario, the country experiencing the early unexpected
invasion still behaves as appropriate to its generational era (in
this case, France would act as in an Unraveling era), but the
war is so horrible that the country experiences a "first turning
reset," which means that the country enters a 1T just AS IF it had
fought a crisis war.

(Another example of this would be the Palestinians in 1948.)

I do not wish to accept a first turning reset easily. A first
turning reset can only occur if the existing generational relations
are so obliterated that would-be Nomads and/or Heroes turn into
Artists instead. If that DOES happen, however, then generational
theory shows how the entire constellation of generations is re-created
within 20 years after the end of the climax of the unexpected
invasion.

But even if we accept the "first turning reset" theory for France, we
still have an issue with boundaries. Did ALL of France reset, or
only part? Obviously there must be a boundary somewhere, since
Germany itself didn't reset.

Do you have any thoughts about all of this?

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

This is a really interesting analysis, and you've posted it at
exactly the right time for me to ask you another question about
France, assuming that your knowledge of French history extends beyond
the 1600s.

Sorry; this was an incidental finding while researching the British wars of the time.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Nathaniel -- What about you? Do you want me to use your last name,
so that posterity will know who you are?

By all means. I am thrilled that you did this...college has been crazy busy and there has been little time for this sort of research, but one of these days I intend to get some more country profiles researched/written/done. This part of the site is off to a great start!

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

• The French Revolution, beginning in 1789, climaxing in the
  genocidal Reign of Terror in 1793-95.

You have always included the Napoleonic Wars. What gives?

The post-WWII French Awakening coincided with the U.S. one. Furthermore, France is acting like a country just entering the generational alignment of a 4T.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

This is a really interesting analysis, and you've posted it at
exactly the right time for me to ask you another question about
France, assuming that your knowledge of French history extends beyond
the 1600s.

Here's my list of the French crisis wars, amended to incorporate the
information in your posting:

• Civil war between Catholics and Huguenots, climaxing in St.
  Bartholomew's Night Massacre on August 24, 1572.
  
• France enters Thirty Years' War in 1634, fights through
  Tulipomania crash in 1637 and through the Peace at Westphalia in
  1648, continuing with the genocidal "Fronde" civil war, climaxing in
  1652.
  
• War of the Spanish Succession, beginning in 1704, climaxing in
  the genocidal Battle of Malplaquet in 1709.
  
• The French Revolution, beginning in 1789, climaxing in the
  genocidal Reign of Terror in 1793-95.
  
• The French Commune, the genocidal Paris civil war of 1871.

But what comes next?

A couple of years ago, Mike Alexander raised the question that WW I
was a crisis war for France. I agreed that it was a possibility
worth considering, but haven't examined it since then.

This raises the possibility that WW I was a crisis war for France,
and WW II would then be an Awakening war -- which would be consistent
with how the French acted during WW II.

Wars tend to become more severe late in a 3T. Soldiers are more likely to be seen -- and see themselves -- as expendable. The all-or-nothing attitudes that Nomad/Reactive generations show in other aspects of life are exploited to the fullest. Nomad/Reactive generations tend to see a war as an odd dichotomy: personal heroism results either in death (and the end of all earthly problems) or a catapult into success, and society on the whole (Artist/Adaptives finally getting some enthusiasm for war and Prophet/Idealists showing their worst vices of ruthlessness, arrogance, and selfishness -- since, during a 3T, Prophet/Idealists are not going to be cannon fodder). Civic soldiers are less likely to see war as deliverance from empty lives and more as real danger than a glorious opportunity before the war is underway; after the war is over, they find the war to have been less a danger and more glory than their Nomad/Reactive predecessors saw war.

World War I was a bungled war, one in which both sides thought themselves close to decisive victory at all but the latest stages. The war makes little rational sense; indeed, if contemporary leaders had shown more rationality, there might have been no war. The absence of rationality suggests in itself a 3T going into the war.

France and Germany had undergone the same Crisis War -- the Franco-Prussian War -- around 1870. The difference in results of the war was that between victor (Prussia, which was able to graft together a federative monarchy in which the Hohenzollern monarchy would dominate both other kings and check any democratic tendencies) and defeated (France, whose leadership failed). France would lose Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, have a political vacuum that radicals would exploit in the Commune, and become a shaky republic -- analogous in many ways to what happened in Germany in 1918 after the end of the "Great" War. (France, 1871, Germany 1918? Odd parallels).

However, this concept has theoretical problems in generational
theory, because WW I occurs only 43 years after the French Commune.

Now, 43 years is not an impossibility, as I've identified other
crisis wars that began so soon after the climax of the previous
crisis war. But I strongly resist it, because crisis wars that begin
so soon are very rare.

For France, the horrors of World War I were still largely felt by soldiers. French leadership still dreaded the prospect of the Commune -- especially after contemporary events in Russia (1917) suggested much the same. After one mutiny, the French general staff began to recognize the need to rotate troops in and out of battle... about when the German government had no chance of doing so. France did not wage WWI as a Crisis War even if it endured Crisis-like losses.

However, there's another possibility that would be quite consistent
with generational theory. This would be the "unexpected invasion"
scenario, when a country early in its saeculum is unexpectedly
invaded by another country, and that country is in a genocidal Crisis
era.

World War II, which France waged ineptly, was a genuine Crisis-Era war. The French were ill-prepared for a Crisis because in part of their dearth of mid-life Reactives as military leaders, a domestic fifth column of native fascists and reactionaries who held contempt for a shaky French democracy and wanted France to be a Corporate state, and the absence of any strong allies on the opposite side of Germany. Poland fought hard against Germany but didn't have a chance; it lacked the resources and in any event was destroyed by Stalin's back-stabbing assault.

I am convinced that had Germany been at war only against France and Britain in 1914-1914, then France would have been defeated swiftly. I can imagine Wilhelm II "offering" himself as the only possible salvation of the French people... Kaiser=Caesar, establishing himself as the successor of Charlemagne, claimed by both France and Germany as founders of their nations.

In that scenario, the country experiencing the early unexpected
invasion still behaves as appropriate to its generational era (in
this case, France would act as in an Unraveling era), but the
war is so horrible that the country experiences a "first turning
reset," which means that the country enters a 1T just AS IF it had
fought a crisis war.

Unlike World War I, World War II was truly a genocidal war. Surrender to the Axis Powers may have put an end to the fighting, but then came the real horrors. Germany imposed no Holocaust in occupied countries during World War I -- but did so during World War II. German looting of occupied countries reached a level of barbarism not known for centuries. In parts of France, French freehold farmers were obliged to become serfs of German overlords. World War II brought revolutionary changes in human relationships that ended only with the defeat of the Master Race. To be sure, the despicable conduct of the Nazis reflects the perversity of Adolf Hitler, a man showing the worst characteristics of both an Prophet/Idealist (selfishness, arrogance, and ruthlessness) with those of a Nomad/Reactive (cynicism, perfidy, and revenge-seeking). [Note that I can say much the same of the Stalin!]

(Another example of this would be the Palestinians in 1948.)

Probably. The immigrant Jews had themselves endured what had to be the worst 4T that any nation (aside from "primitive" peoples utterly destroyed, no records kept, and perhaps Carthage after the Third Punic War) had ever endured. German Jews, Polish Jews, Hungarian Jews, Romanian Jews, Lithuanian Jews, and Yugoslav Jews found out the hardest way possible that they were no longer parts of any other nation; they were simply Jews who could not take refuge in some national entity other than as Jews. Under the Holocaust, Jews became a nation as they had not been since Titus. To salvage what was left of themselves, many would have to find a new homeland. It would call itself Israel, and Palestinians were in the way.

But Palestinians would be the cats' paws for an exaggerated nationalism of Arab political entities just achieving their own independence from colonial rule. One can argue that World War II was a crisis in North Africa and the Middle East because of the Free French/Vichy struggles over Syria and Lebanon, the British suppression of the pro-Nazi regime of Rashid Ali al-Gailani in Iraq, and of course the desert warfare between the Allies and Axis in North Africa. The release of a people from colonial rule tends to exaggerate nationalist pride, even if the reasons for independence (Syria and Lebanon became independent because the Free French believed that a free Syria would be one more ally against Hitler).

The Palestinians are still cats' paws for the exaggerated nationalism of Arab political entities.

I do not wish to accept a first turning reset easily. A first
turning reset can only occur if the existing generational relations
are so obliterated that would-be Nomads and/or Heroes turn into
Artists instead. If that DOES happen, however, then generational
theory shows how the entire constellation of generations is re-created
within 20 years after the end of the climax of the unexpected
invasion.

My pet theory remains that Crises are waves of potential calamities and horrors, of the danger of impending calamity. Some may result from internal rot (Russian Revolutions of 1917 and Civil War), internal despotism (Stalin's forced collectivization and Great Purge), and events from outside (Operation Barbarossa/Great Patriotic War) that could be interpreted as characteristically 4T behavior within a nation. There can be respites between waves of Crisis when exhaustion or partial solution (consolidation of the Soviet Union, the abatement of the Great Purge for lack of possible victims); exhaustion or partial solutions that resolve too little make possible another wave of Crisis.

Pathological leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein ensure calamity because of their character and the power that they wield. Does that surprise anyone?

But even if we accept the "first turning reset" theory for France, we
still have an issue with boundaries. Did ALL of France reset, or
only part? Obviously there must be a boundary somewhere, since
Germany itself didn't reset.

Is a reset possible? Unless a political entity is utterly and irredeemably destroyed, in which the defeated are absorbed into the dominion of the victors and their timelines (Poland after the Third Partition in 1796, the Baltic republics in 1940, the Incas and Aztecs, the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Sassanid monarchy in Iran at the time of the Arab conquest, the Roman Empire in 476, Carthage after the Third Punic War, the Trojans after the Trojan War?), a reset seems unlikely. But I can imagine a situation in which a reset would be likely: imagine Nazi Germany invading the Turkish Republic in 1941 and drawing British forces to the defense of an Ally that, for the first time, had a real chance to defend itself. Sure, the Germans take Istanbul (obviously a Crisis event) and cross the Bosporus, but they get mired in the rough terrain of Anatolia. American troops are drawn in by 1942... and the Turkish nation recognizes the liberation of Istanbul in 1943 as pivotal in Turkish history as the conquest of Istanbul in 1453. Turkey would be left, as the British and Americans had other objectives (such as the liberation of France and the Low Countries), as the dominant power in the Balkans as the Turkish Empire was until the mid-19th Century; Greek, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, Bulgarian, Romanian, Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Iraqi governments would likely become vassals of Turkey. That would be a reset for Turkey. Of course, Hitler wisely avoided invading Turkey -- and contrafactual history, however fascinating, is bunk.

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> You have always included the Napoleonic Wars. What gives?

Well, as time goes on and I look at more and more of these things, I
see things a little differently. Today, it seems to me that the
Reign of Terror was the genocidal climax to the French Revolution,
and the Napoleonic wars were first turning wars taking place outside
of France.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> The post-WWII French Awakening coincided with the U.S. one.
> Furthermore, France is acting like a country just entering the
> generational alignment of a 4T.

Are you sure of this? I raise the following question: The 68er
revolution was clearly very strong in Germany, but is it possible
that in France it was an Unraveling era "revolution," following in
the footsteps of the Germans? I don't know the answer - I'm just
asking the question.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> France and Germany had undergone the same Crisis War -- the
> Franco-Prussian War -- around 1870. ...

> For France, the horrors of World War I were still largely felt by
> soldiers. French leadership still dreaded the prospect of the
> Commune ...

> World War II, which France waged ineptly, was a genuine Crisis-Era
> war. ...

> German looting of occupied countries reached a level of barbarism
> not known for centuries. In parts of France, French freehold
> farmers were obliged to become serfs of German overlords.

I tend to agree with your final conclusion, but I find your reasoning
to be inconsistent in reaching that conclusion.

You say (in essence) that France and Germany fought the same
Franco-Prussian war and then they fought the same WW I, from which
you evidently conclude that WW I must be a non-crisis war for France.

But then you fall apart in your argument about WW II. You paint a
picture of barbaric genocidal behavior on the part of the Germans,
which indicates that WW II is a crisis war for Germany, but you make
no such parallel claim for France.

To the contrary, your description of French "serfs" sounds awfully
non-crisis-like.

In fact, there were clear differences, in that France "capitulated"
early in order to save Paris, but Germany never capitulated, even
when Dresden was firebombed and Berlin was being destroyed. If WW II
was a crisis war for France, then how could they conceivably have
"capitulated?"

Going back to WW I, you never address crucial differences there. In
that war, France kept fighting, but Germany capitulated -- long
before it was necessary. And you never address the central argument
of why a first turning reset might have occurred for France:
Something like 1.5 million casualties in just the Battle of Verdun
and the Battle of the Somme. And although the number of casualties
was fairly evenly split between France and Germany, they represented
a much greater proportion of France's population than Germany's. And
these great battles were fought on French soil, which could have
caused massive population relocations which could well have triggered
a first turning reset.

You know, writing the above paragraph is beginning to convince me.
It actually strikes me as a fairly potent argument.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Well, as time goes on and I look at more and more of these things, I
see things a little differently. Today, it seems to me that the
Reign of Terror was the genocidal climax to the French Revolution,
and the Napoleonic wars were first turning wars taking place outside
of France.

John and I agree on something for once!

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Well, as time goes on and I look at more and more of these things, I
see things a little differently. Today, it seems to me that the
Reign of Terror was the genocidal climax to the French Revolution,
and the Napoleonic wars were first turning wars taking place outside
of France.

When I considered the French Revolution Crisis, I couldn't help but wonder why the Crisis continued after the Reign of Terror.

But still, what happened in the Napoleonic Wars? An entire population mobilized behind their emperor and conquered of all across Europe like drunken lunatics, before going way too far and having their army destroyed. When defeat was certain, and they were against armies 5 times their size and greater, they fought on, all the way until Paris.

The World War Two comparison is uncanny.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I tend to agree with your final conclusion, but I find your reasoning
to be inconsistent in reaching that conclusion.

You say (in essence) that France and Germany fought the same
Franco-Prussian war and then they fought the same WW I, from which
you evidently conclude that WW I must be a non-crisis war for France.

But then you fall apart in your argument about WW II. You paint a
picture of barbaric genocidal behavior on the part of the Germans,
which indicates that WW II is a crisis war for Germany, but you make
no such parallel claim for France.

France and Germany had very different political systems and political cultures. Look at the gigantic difference between Charles de Gaulle (born 1890) and Adolf Hitler (born 1889). Charles de Gaulle knew, unlike Hitler, when to stop punishing the defeated. Hitler enjoyed punishing the defeated, robbing and killing those who fell under his power and could no longer defend themselves. It's easy enough to describe Hitler with one word: pervert.

To the contrary, your description of French "serfs" sounds awfully
non-crisis-like.

In fact, there were clear differences, in that France "capitulated"
early in order to save Paris, but Germany never capitulated, even
when Dresden was firebombed and Berlin was being destroyed. If WW II
was a crisis war for France, then how could they conceivably have
"capitulated?"

The difference after World War II was between being a punitive victor and a defeated opponent wishing to take back what it saw as its rightful place in the sun.

Going back to WW I, you never address crucial differences there. In
that war, France kept fighting, but Germany capitulated -- long
before it was necessary. And you never address the central argument
of why a first turning reset might have occurred for France:
Something like 1.5 million casualties in just the Battle of Verdun
and the Battle of the Somme. And although the number of casualties
was fairly evenly split between France and Germany, they represented
a much greater proportion of France's population than Germany's. And
these great battles were fought on French soil, which could have
caused massive population relocations which could well have triggered
a first turning reset.

The French people who had fled areas of German occupation returned to what had been the war zones. Refugees from war returned home. For the French who survived World War I, World War I was the anomaly in their lives. Life in France in 1921 was much as it had been in 1911; life in Germany in 1921 was very different from what it had been in 1911. There had been a huge discontinuity in German governance after the Kaiser fled. In 1940 -- the French were caught ill-prepared for a well-planned invasion that exploited the one great defect of the French defenses: that Hitler cleverly (and criminally!) chose to avoid a World War I-like combat by invading Holland and Belgium and bypassing the formidable Maginot line. The Maginot line didn't break until the French Army gutted it of troops to defend Paris -- too late.

End of the war? In World War I, the German political and military leadership panicked upon seeing no means of winning the war. Upon that the German people had little cause to continue fighting until Allied forces took over German countryside. In World War II, the German leadership recognized that it had nothing to look forward to but execution for war crimes. That reflects the views of Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and company. Perhaps it wasn't so much national character as it was the perceptions of leadership; I could imagine the plotters of July 20, 1944 (the Stauffenberg plot that would have overthrown Hitler). I can't imagine a leadership of their choosing continuing the war any longer than the formality of surrender; they would have likely gotten the Allies to concur to a settlement similar to a status quo ante 1936 with the restoration of countries under German occupation or satellization to independence with the overthrow of fascist rule everywhere. At the least -- Nazi mass killings would have stopped, and the war would have ended. The Americans and British would have been willing, I think, to cut a deal with the Germans so that they could concentrate their efforts on a shared enemy still fighting hard: Japan. The Soviets? They had good cause to stop -- casualties.

You know, writing the above paragraph is beginning to convince me.
It actually strikes me as a fairly potent argument.

History has its odd twists and turns. Personalities matter. So does the luck of the draw with geography and national character. Had Germany had very different leadership between 1933 and 1945 -- let us say Konrad Adenauer, then Germany would have behaved very differently. Germany might have had a Crisis War with Russia -- but not likely with Britain and France, unless with the latter as partners. I could imagine Germany using much the same technology of warfare and much the same tactics; I could also imagine the German armed forces re-opening synagogues as a means of winning support among ethnic and religious groups in a struggle against Stalinism instead of herding Jews (and others) to places of death.

We must ask why Germany and France responded differently to the calamity of World War I. Both countries took huge casualties. Both countries experienced severe inflation -- Germany far worse. Both had right-wing cliques intent on destroying democracy once and for all so that they could wallow in class privilege and profiteer from a constant state of war. France had its own fascist movements and barely avoided a fascist takeover from inside. The rise of Adolf Hitler was far from a certainty; that cranky, bitter, bigoted, vindictive person led a political party that in 1932 was actually losing support and going bankrupt. I am convinced that had the clique who asked Hitler to form a government in the mistaken belief that the clique could control Hitler, using his demagoguery as a cover for reactionary policies, either seen through him or waited until the NSDAP fell apart, then German history between 1933 and 1945 would have been very different.

As I see it, it's not simply defeat. Italy was a victor, and it got Mussolini. Poland, which got its existence in the aftermath of World War I went quickly to dictatorship and conducted a largely pro-Nazi foreign policy almost to the brink of World War II. Romania was as big a victor as any country, almost doubling its territory, and it ended up with the Iron Guard. Austria was transformed into a relic, and the conservative Dollfuss/Schuschnigg dictatorship was no more genocidal or militaristic than Switzerland.

I think that the French saw themselves on the brink of defeat throughout most of World War I; the Germans saw themselves on the brink of victory until almost the end of the war. The French wanted exorbitant reparations from Germany to punish a nation whose great resources had been used in an effort to subjugate France. An impoverished Germany would lack the means to inflict another defeat on France. That proved a huge misjudgment; Germany under Hitler was always close to bankruptcy. Even a democratic Germany was a threat to France because of some "national character" demonstrated in 1871 and 1914. That too proved a huge misjudgment; it wasn't the Weimar Republic that invaded one country after another, but instead the despotic Third Reich.

France got undue respect as the key victor of World War I, perhaps because it was the one Ally left standing (Russia of course fell to the Bolsheviks and became a pariah) that had endured the worst of the war. It got to force a vindictive settlement upon a defeated Germany and secured the means of kicking a defeated Germany long after the war was over. The vindictive settlement wasn't simply territory; the territory that Germany lost was only marginally German. Alsace-Lorraine was about half French; and Poznan and the Polish Corridor was three-quarters Polish. If anything, the reparations stimulated a hyperinflation (governments are always tempted to inflate currency to minimize "unjust" and "fruitless" debts -- including war debts). The hyperinflation transformed the traditional thrift of the German middle class into unproductive hoarding and ensured that when the Great Depression hit Germany, the Depression would hit harder than almost anywhere else.

It's unfortunate that France's allies couldn't restrain Clemenceau. World War I was an accident of history, a calamity that none could have wanted had they known its consequences, but also whose consequences were revolutionary in the restructuring of European boundaries and in introducing democracy, even if abortive, into places that had never had it before. Today the map of Europe looks far more like that of 1921 than that of 1913 and in some respects even 1989.

The generational cycle and your related Generational Dynamics don't explain everything. Howe and Strauss consider both George Washington and Adolf Hitler "Reactives" and "Nomads" -- but that categorization leaves much unsaid because of the obvious differences of personality, temperament, and moral values. Differing circumstances made the rise of George Washington in America -- and Hitler in Germany. The generational cycle does not dictate everything even if it offers some broad suggestions that no other theory dares offer. There's much of what many call "random noise", but not enough to repudiate the theories. It's far better than astrology that has so little structure that random noise (like free will) so overpowers it that astrology explains far less than it pretends to. Sure, astrology is largely a timing mechanism (the moon's orbit is a month, Earth's orbit around the sun is one year, two orbits (12 years each) of Jupiter or one of Saturn (29 years) suggests a generation, and one of Uranus (84 years) roughly a long human memory and a whole generational cycle. But generations aren't 24 years or 29 years in length, and the uncanny connection between Uranus' orbital period and a long human lifetime or memory looks like a coincidence at best.

I've been mulling over an idea lately that possibly explains the discrepancy between the "orthodox" conception of the Civil War saeculum and the hypothesis John and a few others have proposed that the Transcendentalist Awakening started during the War of 1812. IMO both sides are right, just for different parts of the Western world.

My hypothesis is that the more developed parts of the West (including New England, where there was, as some have pointed out, a very Awakening-like opposition to the War of 1812) shifted from 27-24 to 21-17 year-long turnings during the Revolutionary Crisis, while the less developed parts of the Western world only made this transition to shorter turnings during the Awakening, which started later (during the 1820s) then it did in the more developed parts of the West. The Civil War/Unification Anomaly was the result of the saeculum in less developed parts of the West becoming resynchronized with the more developed areas.

Thoughts?

Personalities matter in the shaping of the Crisis, but they are not the cause themselves. The great error is in assuming that leaders are solely to blame for atrocities, and that crises are the fault of the leaders. It's the population that drives the Crisis, but it's (usually) the leaders that steer it. I imagine that if Germany had different leadership, the Crisis would have been similar to what we saw in World War Two.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The French people who had fled areas of German occupation returned to what had been the war zones. Refugees from war returned home. For the French who survived World War I, World War I was the anomaly in their lives. Life in France in 1921 was much as it had been in 1911; life in Germany in 1921 was very different from what it had been in 1911.

This raises the issue of displacement. I've always considered mass displacement to be major indicator of a Crisis War. It was the reason I considered the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan to be a Crisis War. You raise the point that refugees who returned to their homes in France went on and continued with their lives they had before the war broke out. Do you have any source that describes this? If we can identify some criteria to determine a Crisis War based on reactions to mass displacement, it would go a long way.

Originally Posted by Odin

I've been mulling over an idea lately that possibly explains the discrepancy between the "orthodox" conception of the Civil War saeculum and the hypothesis John and a few others have proposed that the Transcendentalist Awakening started during the War of 1812. IMO both sides are right, just for different parts of the Western world.

My hypothesis is that the more developed parts of the West (including New England, where there was, as some have pointed out, a very Awakening-like opposition to the War of 1812) shifted from 27-24 to 21-17 year-long turnings during the Revolutionary Crisis, while the less developed parts of the Western world only made this transition to shorter turnings during the Awakening, which started later (during the 1820s) then it did in the more developed parts of the West. The Civil War/Unification Anomaly was the result of the saeculum in less developed parts of the West becoming resynchronized with the more developed areas.

Thoughts?

I'm opposed to the concept of a changing turning length due to modernization, since I think the fundamentals of generational theory should be independent from technological advances. Your hypothesis is interesting and would explain a lot if correct, but I can't get over the issue of shifting turning length.

If several mid-cycle periods in places before modernization occurred were under 65 years in length, then a new structure is needed. Here is an older list of crises identified by John. The major studies I've done have occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, but I've always assumed that this list wasn't all wrong, so I have in turn believed that the 5th turning hypothesis does a better job of explaining variable mid-cycle periods than shifting turning length. We have a common conception of what a saeculum is supposed to look like -- I think we can get to the truth by a joint analysis of a few of a these.

(Also, there was Awakening-like opposition in the years prior to the actual War of 1812. This has been discussed at length.)

Oh, and a good way of testing my hypothesis is to compare cohorts in different areas. A person born in NYC in 1818 would most likely grow up as a Gilded while a person born that same year in Illinois would grow up as a Transcendental.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

I'm opposed to the concept of a changing turning length due to modernization, since I think the fundamentals of generational theory should be independent from technological advances. Your hypothesis is interesting and would explain a lot if correct, but I can't get over the issue of shifting turning length.

If several mid-cycle periods in places before modernization occurred were under 65 years in length, then a new structure is needed. Here is an older list of crises identified by John. The major studies I've done have occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, but I've always assumed that this list wasn't all wrong, so I have in turn believed that the 5th turning hypothesis does a better job of explaining variable mid-cycle periods than shifting turning length. We have a common conception of what a saeculum is supposed to look like -- I think we can get to the truth by a joint analysis of a few of a these.

(Also, there was Awakening-like opposition in the years prior to the actual War of 1812. This has been discussed at length.)

Interesting. Could you give some examples of the possible Awakening-like stuff prior to the war? I hate looking through threads that are 1000s of posts long!

Originally Posted by Odin

Interesting. Could you give some examples of the possible Awakening-like stuff prior to the war? I hate looking through threads that are 1000s of posts long!

Best start is here:
http://fourthturning.com/forum/showp...8&postcount=25

What about the other paragraphs I wrote?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

I'm opposed to the concept of a changing turning length due to modernization, since I think the fundamentals of generational theory should be independent from technological advances. Your hypothesis is interesting and would explain a lot if correct, but I can't get over the issue of shifting turning length.

It's not necessarily about technology (at least not directly) but rather how society has defined "coming of age."

If a generation has no ability to exert itself, whether socially, politically, culturally, or militarily, in any sense, until age 30, how can a turning be 20 years?

In a feudal society, you wouldn't be able to effect war, culture, or politics until the previous generation was no longer capable. Elites were the ones who engaged in all of these, and it was only when they began to come into power en masse that a turning could take place.

That is why turning length can vary.

Originally Posted by Silifi

It's not necessarily about technology (at least not directly) but rather how society has defined "coming of age."

If a generation has no ability to exert itself, whether socially, politically, culturally, or militarily, in any sense, until age 30, how can a turning be 20 years?

In a feudal society, you wouldn't be able to effect war, culture, or politics until the previous generation was no longer capable. Elites were the ones who engaged in all of these, and it was only when they began to come into power en masse that a turning could take place.

That is why turning length can vary.

Fair enough, but theorists have defined it as being somewhere between the Revolutionary War and Civil War.

Out of curiosity, at what age did one become "elite" in feudal society?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Fair enough, but theorists have defined it as being somewhere between the Revolutionary War and Civil War.

Out of curiosity, at what age did one become "elite" in feudal society?

I think it was the fact that we shifted towards a society where people could exert political power by age 20 that created the shorter turnings, hence it occurred sometime during the 'high', which I would say occurred between 1790 and 1815.

The effect would basically be that starting with the hero generation, the length shortened from around 25 to around 20, the adaptives probably representing an inbetween stage.

And as for your research indicating awakening-style events during the 1810s, I do have a theory about that:

If the older generations were still of the long length (25 years), then the high might appear to continue on for what would be typical for those turnings: the liberty generation didn't lose power until 1815, and then there was a period just prior to the awakening where the eldest republican cohorts kept things running smoothly: like in the early 1960s, but a little longer because of the slightly increased generation length. This would explain the "Era of Good Feelings"

However, the prophets were still coming of age: those born in the 1790s and 1800s were transcendental cohorts. And they began to revolutionize culture, like your typical prophet generation does, while the liberty generation still held the reigns of power: so there's sort of a top-high, low-awakening thing going on, which can appear to be either one depending on the perspective. The material-oriented generations were keeping things in control politically, but the transcendentals and compromisers were making rumblings in cultural affairs.

The overall effect would be that the late-wave hero generation doesn't come into power until after the early prophets are old: and so the awakening fizzles out, it goes from 1969 to 1980, resulting in a late-wave prophet generation that doesn't come of age in that sort of revolutionary environment, which results, later on, in a truncated 4t.

It sounds kind of weird in words, but I'm sure I could show it better if I drew a diagram of what was happening.

As for your last question, given that turnings seemed to be about 100 years, probably 25 years would be the "coming of age" age.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> History has its odd twists and turns. Personalities matter. So
> does the luck of the draw with geography and national character.
> Had Germany had very different leadership between 1933 and 1945 --
> let us say Konrad Adenauer, then Germany would have behaved very
> differently.

Total nonsense. This is refuted by everything on my web site, as
well as by Strauss and Howe's books themselves.

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/showthread.php?p=178825&postcount=1184#post178825

The German people elected Hitler knowing full well what <i>Mein
Kampf</i> said. If Hitler hadn't been elected, then someone else
with similar policies would have been elected, because that's what
the people wanted.

What we know from Chaos Theory is that it's impossible to tell what
would have happened if someone else had been elected. Just as
butterfly flapping its wings in China might (or might not) cause a
hurricane in North America, a different leader would have had an
effect that can't be predicted. You assume that a different leader
would have been less "perverted," but it's also possible that a
differrent leader would have defeated Britain, or might have
developed nuclear weapons first. It's impossible to predict the
effects of chaotic events.

All you can be sure of, as I've demonstrated on my web site since
2003, is that trend events can be predicted and chaotic events
cannot. The xenophobic rise of violent anti-Semitism was an
unavoidable trend, as xenophobic trends are unavoidable today. The
attack on France was an unavoidable trend. What other details might
be different cannot be predicted.

Originally Posted by Silifi

> It's not necessarily about technology (at least not directly) but
> rather how society has defined "coming of age."

> If a generation has no ability to exert itself, whether socially,
> politically, culturally, or militarily, in any sense, until age
> 30, how can a turning be 20 years?

Also nonsense. 17-year-old college age children have absolutely no
trouble exerting themselves socially, politically, culturally or
militarily in any society at any time in history.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Also nonsense. 17-year-old college age children have absolutely no
trouble exerting themselves socially, politically, culturally or
militarily in any society at any time in history.

If you honestly think that's true, you're beyond reason.

If you can't vote, how do you exert yourself politically?

If there are no musical instruments or paint or even the right to express yourself, how can you exert yourself culturally?

If you don't have weapons, how can you exert yourself militarily?

The fact is that in medieval societies, the fighting was done almost entirely by older men who had built up years of skill, and it was only in the 19th century that militaries began to rely on sheer numbers rather than skilled fighters. The fact is that in medieval societies, cultural achievements like paintings and musical numbers were created by and for those older men, and it wasn't until the 19th century that culture was mass marketed so that everyone could have their say.

The point of coming of age is variable: in most societies it is around the age of 20, but this can vary, and depending on the society you're in, it might be lower or higher, creating different generational lengths.

I see no evidence to suggest that this age is anything other than an arbitrary cultural distinction. There's nothing special about the age 17, or 21, or 25, other than the fact that they're all somewhere near the point of biological maturity.

Total nonsense. This is refuted by everything on my web site, as
well as by Strauss and Howe's books themselves.

Strauss and Howe said that how people behaved mattered. That was their explanation for the Civil War Saeculum.

Generational theory explains broad strokes of history, and the broad sentiment at any given time, but pbrower is right that the personalities and national character have a lot to do with how those sentiments manifest themselves. A country with a peaceful character doesn't have war-like 4Ts. Do you see Sweden going into genocidal frenzies every 80 years? A country who happens to see their leadership roles filled by more level-headed people will find their 4Ts turning out a lot better than those who happen to end up with psychopathic killers for leaders.

Originally Posted by Silifi

It's not necessarily about technology (at least not directly) but rather how society has defined "coming of age."

If a generation has no ability to exert itself, whether socially, politically, culturally, or militarily, in any sense, until age 30, how can a turning be 20 years?

In a feudal society, you wouldn't be able to effect war, culture, or politics until the previous generation was no longer capable. Elites were the ones who engaged in all of these, and it was only when they began to come into power en masse that a turning could take place.

That is why turning length can vary.

Exactly!

S&H point out on page 57 of T4T:

Where a [climatic] season's length is determined by the time from solstice to equinox, the length of each life-cycle phase is determined by the span of time between birth and coming of age into adulthood.

And to even more support your point, they say on page 65:

Thus the length of a generation (in birth years) should approximate the length of a phase of life (in years of age). Before the nineteenth century, American generations should average about twenty-five years in length, since then they should average about twenty-one years. Necessarily, these lengths can vary somewhat for each generation, depending upon the vagaries of history and the precise timing of Great Events.

To my mind, phases of life shortened considerably in the industrial era. I have discussed this at length elsewhere, especially in the Multi-Modal Saeculum thread, but I can summarize here:

Basically, S&H state that it is the length of the Youth phase (i.e., pre-social-autonomy) that determines the length of all subsequent phases -- similar to how the distance between a solstice and an equinox give rough but solid perimeters to the length of seasons.

Regardless of how young people once were in regards to family development, military utility, and economic occupation, it was common for a man to not be considered a full, autonomous adult in agrarian societies until he was 25 or 30. With the advent of industrial social changes, the most important of which I argue is the greater emphasis placed on the nuclear family, this age threshold has dropped several years over the past centuries. I see it now around 20. Somewhere in there, certainly between 17 and 22, a boy or girl becomes a man or woman in the eyes of society. This is largely because their is no longer a family patriarch 20 to 30 years older living in the same village or even the same household hogging up authority. We "become or own man (or woman)" earlier than we used to.

There is a lot more to all of this than that. Accelerated physiogenic and ontogenic development (growing up faster physically, sexually, socially, and perhaps cognitively) also factors into this. Furthermore, the accelerated pace of overall change is involved. But I believe the aformentioned accelerated social autonomy plays the largest role.

This explains how 10-to-11 decade-long saeculums transformed into 8-ish decade long ones; and likewise why average generational length contracted as well. This, coupled with the extension of life span, also explains the recent development of lingering elders. This could end up resulting in the creation of a relevent fifth phase (80-99) that would change the character of each phase and maybe even their relationship to each other. The effects on the saecular cycle could be profound. We will see.

Therefore, if all societies experience such a shortening due to industrialization/modernization then we expect to see a transformation in saecular length, with possible resultant "hiccups" like our Civil War Anomaly, everywhere except perhaps sub-Saharan Africa and few smaller regions elsewhere. Such a transformation helps explain saecular pecularities in all the Western nations in the nineteenth century.