For those of you interested in Estonia (about zero of you) I have been inspired to look back at some history recently.

I think that the Estonian crisis began in 1934, when Konstantin Päts headed off the establishment of a 'fascist' government (like the Lapua movement in Finland or Blue shirts in Ireland) by disbanding the parliament and becoming a de facto dictator. The 'regeneracy' came in 1938 with a new Constitution and the resumption of elections, plus the freeing of many Commie prisoners (involved in a 1924 coup attempt). Unfortunately, the soft, neutral Päts government was overthrown by a Moscow-orchestrated coup in June 1940, after which Estonia 'joined' the USSR.

The first year alone saw thousands of people arrested and executed through an NKVD order aimed at 'state decapitation.' This process was sped up in June 1941 when 10,000 civilians were deported to Siberia. 32,000 men were then forcibly drafted into the Red Army. Estonia was then occupied by Nazi Germany, then the Soviets again. Before the Soviets reooccupied Estonia, a new government was formed in Tallinn in September 1944. On Sept 22 the Red Army took Tallinn, tore down the Estonian flag, and reasserted their occupation of Estonian territory.

Most of the government ministers were arrested and executed. However, several escaped to Stockholm where they continued to operate in exile. Jüri Uluots, the last pre-occupation prime minister acted according to the constitution and appointed that government. He was able to make it to Sweden before he died.

In 1949, 20,000 civilians were deported to Siberia for being to slow in forming collective farms. During the late 40s and early 1950s period, a guerilla war was fought by partisans in the forests of Estonia.

I choose 1953 as the end of the crisis because a) Stalin died as well as Lavrenti Beria, bringing an end to the era of direct genocidal activities against Estonians and b) that was the year that the Estonian government in exile formally convened in Oslo, setting up the diplomatic channels that would eventually lead to the restoration of independence in the 1988-1991 period.

The Gray Champion of the Estonian Crisis, I think, was Jaan Tõnisson (1868-?).

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

Although he was tried and executed by the Soviets, he remained committed to democracy throughout the first half of the Estonian crisis and is treated as a sort of 'Holy Ghost' of Estonian politics, a 'light of the past' with which to see the future. He is the idealist. I believe the current president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, borrows from him -- and quotes him -- often.

Uluots (1890-1945) is the Reactive general. He did the dirty work -- including making symbolic concessions to the Nazi occupants so that he could continue to operate underground without being arrested -- in order to try and save the republic.

Your typical 'Hero' would be August Sabbe. He was a partisan who remained in hiding until 1978! He drowned himself, rather than be taken alive by the KGB.

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

Originally Posted by Uzi

For those of you interested in Estonia (about zero of you) I have been inspired to look back at some history recently.

I think that the Estonian crisis began in 1934, when Konstantin Päts headed off the establishment of a 'fascist' government (like the Lapua movement in Finland or Blue shirts in Ireland) by disbanding the parliament and becoming a de facto dictator. The 'regeneracy' came in 1938 with a new Constitution and the resumption of elections, plus the freeing of many Commie prisoners (involved in a 1924 coup attempt). Unfortunately, the soft, neutral Päts government was overthrown by a Moscow-orchestrated coup in June 1940, after which Estonia 'joined' the USSR.

The first year alone saw thousands of people arrested and executed through an NKVD order aimed at 'state decapitation.' This process was sped up in June 1941 when 10,000 civilians were deported to Siberia. 32,000 men were then forcibly drafted into the Red Army. Estonia was then occupied by Nazi Germany, then the Soviets again. Before the Soviets reooccupied Estonia, a new government was formed in Tallinn in September 1944. On Sept 22 the Red Army took Tallinn, tore down the Estonian flag, and reasserted their occupation of Estonian territory.

Most of the government ministers were arrested and executed. However, several escaped to Stockholm where they continued to operate in exile. Jüri Uluots, the last pre-occupation prime minister acted according to the constitution and appointed that government. He was able to make it to Sweden before he died.

In 1949, 20,000 civilians were deported to Siberia for being to slow in forming collective farms. During the late 40s and early 1950s period, a guerilla war was fought by partisans in the forests of Estonia.

I choose 1953 as the end of the crisis because a) Stalin died as well as Lavrenti Beria, bringing an end to the era of direct genocidal activities against Estonians and b) that was the year that the Estonian government in exile formally convened in Oslo, setting up the diplomatic channels that would eventually lead to the restoration of independence in the 1988-1991 period.

The Gray Champion of the Estonian Crisis, I think, was Jaan Tõnisson (1868-?).

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

Although he was tried and executed by the Soviets, he remained committed to democracy throughout the first half of the Estonian crisis and is treated as a sort of 'Holy Ghost' of Estonian politics, a 'light of the past' with which to see the future. He is the idealist. I believe the current president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, borrows from him -- and quotes him -- often.

Uluots (1890-1945) is the Reactive general. He did the dirty work -- including making symbolic concessions to the Nazi occupants so that he could continue to operate underground without being arrested -- in order to try and save the republic.

Your typical 'Hero' would be August Sabbe. He was a partisan who remained in hiding until 1978! He drowned himself, rather than be taken alive by the KGB.

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

Fascinating. Thanks. Where did Sabbe hide all those years?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

What is with the ridiculously long turnings?

From what I can tell, Mexico had long turnings in the 19th century. They are no longer than the Anglo-American turnings of the 17th century. Mexico was quite behind in industrialization (a key factor of shortening turnings) until well into the 20th century, when turnings shortened noticeably (a 19-year 4T, 17-year 1T, 22-year 2T, 20-year 3T, etc.).

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

1990, what we may need is a 'post-unraveling' era. Do you read me?

Exactly. A turning in which decay continues at an accelerating pace and tempers get hotter and patience shorter...but no 4T release occurs.

Originally Posted by 1990

From what I can tell, Mexico had long turnings in the 19th century. They are no longer than the Anglo-American turnings of the 17th century. Mexico was quite behind in industrialization (a key factor of shortening turnings) until well into the 20th century, when turnings shortened noticeably (a 19-year 4T, 17-year 1T, 22-year 2T, 20-year 3T, etc.).

The industrialization claim doesn't appear to make much sense intuitively and is certainly not supported by history.

Umm.. A quick look indicates a Mexican 2T during the run-up to the Mex-Am. war before ending in the early-mid 1860s. Please check this out?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

The industrialization claim doesn't appear to make much sense intuitively and is certainly not supported by history.

Umm.. A quick look indicates a Mexican 2T during the run-up to the Mex-Am. war before ending in the early-mid 1860s. Please check this out?

That includes La Reforma, the resistance to the European monarchy, and much of the Juarez presidency, which is the crux of my Mexican 2T.

I will look into it, however, I still don't think that 2T began in the run-up to the Mexican-American War. Mexico's conduct of the war was not at all 2T. No high-profile resistance or "antiwar" movement, no real controversy...instead it was a unifying war for the country, even to the extent that people backed returning Santa Anna from his exile in Cuba for the sake of unity. Even in resounding defeat, with disastrous loss of life and treasure, feelings of national pride were high. (I've read this from multiple sources, including Wikipedia, Encarta, and a couple history of Mexico textbooks.) This was hardly the frenetic soul-searching of a 2T - that mood shows up in 1855 with the liberal takeover and the beginning of La Reforma.

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> 1. Merge the Climax and the Resolution. When I read John Xenakis'
> second book, he listed the Climaxes of Crises next to the
> beginning, without any regard for the resolution. This puzzled me,
> since I figured that the Resolution would begin the process where
> you can say, "Oh, 60 years until the next catalyst." My mind was
> changed when I reasoned that the post-climax period of a 4T may
> actually have more in common with a 1T, since it is a change in
> trend, making it completely different than the other parts of the
> crisis. It is falling action, and represents a yearning for return
> to normalcy. To seal this up, 1990 and I looked at some wars that
> spanned years and years. It often became clear that the war
> started in an Unraveling and ended in a High, thereby ruling out a
> "Resolution." These wars had clear climaxes, after which the
> energy was sapped, and would remain at that level until its
> completion, years after the Crisis. So I would make the concept of
> a Resolution defunct.

I believe that this is correct. In a sense, the entire first
turning, which we're now calling a "Recovery Era," could also be
called a "Resolution Era," since much of it is spent by the war's
survivors in trying to figure out how to protect themselves and their
kids from another crisis war. By the time that the Prophets come of
age, the Resolution is pretty much in concrete.

The critical issue about the crisis Climax is that, when it's over,
the people start saying to each other, "Ohmigod, what the hell have
we've been doing!" There's no more panic, no more fear of being
exterminated, even if low-level violence is continuing. It's that
change of attitude that makes the search for a resolution possible,
and it's that change of attitude that begins the Recovery era.

Sincerely,

John

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

Dear David,

Originally Posted by David Krein

> I registered a complaint about this some months ago. You cannot
> call what you are doing generational analysis if you don't analyze
> the generations. You can call it turning analysis, but you can't
> have S & H style turnings without generations, and vice versa. It
> is not a luxury. It is absolutely essential. For example, the only
> way to verify a 4th Turning is if it produced an Adaptive
> Generation and the only way to verify a 1st Turning is if it
> produced an Idealist Generation. If you can't do that, then you
> are speculating.

> I can appreciate all the hard, thoughtful work you guys have put
> into this project. And it will be a good starting point for
> generational analysis, but what you have so far is not
> generational analysis, which, interestingly, you actually admit in
> your exchange.

Oh David, how can you possibly write garbage like this. This reeks
of intellectual snobbery. You should be ashamed of yourself.

You specialize in 19th century England, where there are huge amounts
of written materials in English available for study.

Do you look down your nose at historians who study countries or eras
where few written materials are available? Do you automatically
discard a historian's work because he had to look at secondary
sources and draw inferences?

Do you look with contempt at the work of archeologists who determine
history from artifacts, but have no written materials to use? Do you
consider their work to be worthless because they don't have the
luxury of reading huge amounts of written materials in English?

Every field of study requires findings by indirection.

For example, once upon a time all that people knew of the universe
was what they could see with the naked eye, and Aristotle proposed
that the universe rotates around the earth.

Then Galileo came along and used his little telescope to discern four
moons circling around Jupiter.

Is it fair to use a telescope? Do you turn your nose up at the moons
of Jupiter because you can't see them with the naked eye? The
telescope gives you an indirect means of seeing them.

Then Newton came along and provided the mathematics necessary to
understand how objects rotate around each other. This provided the
theoretical support that combined with the data collected by Galileo
and others. It's this combination of new theory and new data that
made new discoveries possible.

Then along came Einstein and his Theory of Relativity. That provided
new theoretical tools to "see" even more of the universe. Today,
astronomers can measure tiny perturbations in the movement of distant
stars to infer the existence of planets rotating around those stars.
You need new theory (Einstein) and new data (perturbations) to reach
those conclusion.

And yet, no can even see those new planets. Do you treat those
discoveries with contempt?

Strauss and Howe developed their theory in the 80s and early 90s using
the tools they had available. I've commented frequently how
brilliant their work was.

But that was 15-20 years ago. There's new stuff around. We have
lots of new data, thanks to the Internet. And we have lots of new
theory, thanks to Generational Dynamics. Combining data and theory
gives us new ways to discover generational timelines.

And of course this is still generational theory. Here's how I know
this - and this is an experience of a type that I've probably had
several hundred times in the last few years. Theoretical
considerations indicate that something must have happened -- a crisis
war or an awakening or a financial crisis -- around a certain period
of time. I then dig into the history and find that the theory is
supported by the data.

In fact, that's how you go about proving the validity of generational
theory. As I'm sure you know, generational theory as developed by
S&H does not have a great deal of respect in the academic community.
However, thanks to the combination of their work and Generational
Dynamics theory, it's now possible to prove rigorously that a
generational cycle exists.

Take a look at my analysis of the Russian timeline in a subsequent
message for an example.

Generational theory did not stop in 1995. There have been new tools,
new data and new theory. If I hadn't done it, or if this thread
didn't exist, then someone else will do it. Even if I drop dead
tomorrow, I believe that generational theory will be a major
scholarly topic within 10-15 years, and will incorporate most or all
of the ideas of Generational Dynamics.

In fact, there will be new technologies coming along soon, and I
mentioned them in my response to you when you last posted your little
"complaint."

First, more and more historical written materials are getting posted
on the Internet. This provides huge amounts of additional data to
analyze and to use to determine generations and turnings.

And second, within a few years there'll be reliable language
translation available, and all those historical written materials
will be available to anyone in any language.

You've been around long enough to know that I'm right. You know that
the world doesn't stand still for anyone, and that there are always
new ways of looking at things and new ways of discovering things. I
remember seeing a cartoon decades ago. It pictured an old man, and
he was saying, "I've seen lots of new-fangled things in my day, and
I've been against every damn one of them!" Hoping that they'll go
away, or holding new ideas in contempt will not stop those new ideas
from blossoming.

Sincerely,

John

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

Dear Joel,

Originally Posted by Nomad64

> Not off-hand. There would have to be a much more obvious
> commerical opportunity. I have a few friends who I am trying to
> persuade do small aspects of the effort.

> In addition, that number seems absurdly high considering we should
> be able to leverage cheap programming, graphic design and project
> management talent from all over the world at a fraction of the
> price of NorAmericans.

Perhaps you've forgotten your own words in your previous posting:

Originally Posted by Nomad64

> And this brings me to the next issue: We need to have
> sub-political border maps.....ethno-liguistic-sectarian-endogamous
> caste divisions would be helpful as well so we could watch these
> dynamics as nations form out of clans and tribes and mass
> migrations to form towns and cities, and as they break apart
> through ethnic cleansing, annihilations, invasions/colonialism and
> are spliced onto other population groups.

If you want that kind of detail, then a great deal of data has to be
collected, assimilated and collated. That may be "absurd," but it's
the only way that you're going to get a complete world model.

And while I'm fielding "project size" kinds of questions, let me
answer this one:

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> Well I'd like to fund it.

> This sounds like a project that would take many many years, huh.

That's true if I'm the only one working on it, but with proper
funding it could be done pretty quickly.

I've already been working on this project for several years. My web
site has been a prototype of the World Model. My personal specific
goal in 2003, particularly starting with my first major prediction on
the Mideast, was to develop a forecasting methodology and to use my
web site as a means of proving that it works. That was my very first
major prediction:
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...ww2010.i.may01

There were a few stumbles at the beginning, especially in the wording
of some predictions, but over the last 4-5 years, I've been refining
and improving the forecasting methodology, so that now I can solid
record of hundreds of articles, almost all of which contain specific
Generational Dynamics predictions that have turned out to be true or
are trending true - none have turned out false.

When people say to me, "That so-called prediction was obvious. I
knew that years ago," I can (and do) respond, "Show me in writing
where you made that prediction years ago. Or at least show me any
credible pundit or analyst on the internet who made the prediction
years ago." It turns out that most people have very poor memories
about past predictions, and don't remember what they used to think.

I on the other hand can point to my articles on the Internet, which
are available for anyone to read.

So at this point, I can make a case that I can do this "World
Generational Model" project, and right now I'm the only person in the
world who can do it. (Unless maybe the Chinese have picked it up.)

So in response to your question, if I'm left to myself, then I'll
continue working on my web site. If I can get a small project
funded, then I could probably have something a solid prototype working
for a few countries / regions in 6-12 months. If I could get a large
project funded, then I could get the a solid prototype done in 6
months, and a complete world model in 18 months.

Originally Posted by Nomad64

> But if you'd like to run your technical plan and budget by me,
> I'll make some calls. you know how to reach me on email.

Here's a brain storm type summary:

There are two sides to this project -- algorithmic development and
data collection.

Right now, I'm the only person who fully understands the algorithmic
side. Outside of myself, Matt seems to be a natural at it, and there
are others (yourself and Nathaniel included) who have potential but
need additional training.

So the first major task will be finding people and training them to do
the other tasks. Training is going to be an issue because there are
many people for whom this is simply too abstract to learn, and they
will have to be eliminated. (If that seems snobbish, remember that
understanding algorithmic generational theory is not a prerequisite
for happiness or for money, and that many people who could never
understand this subject are nonetheless far better off than I am in
other areas. In the end, it all balances out.) Over the years, I've
learned from teaching various advanced programming courses that most
people can understand things like assignments, conditionals, loops
and subroutines, but when you get into subjects like using list
processing for data manipulation or dealing with a large
object-oriented solution, the level of abstraction is simply too
great for even many experience programmers to understand.

The second major task will be computer implementation of the
algorithms. This is something that only I can do right now, but
hopefully some people who get trained will, in time, be able to help
me with some of the ancillary coding.

Now let's turn to the data collection side -- and this is the side
developed by S&H.

It will be necessary to collect and analyze huge amounts of data on a
continuing basis. Access to government intelligence data would be
extremely valuable for this, if the project is funded by the
government. For purely commercial use, data will have to be collected
from online sources -- newspapers, blogs, etc. -- and from polling.

With regard to polling, I would like to have polling done
continuously in dozens or perhaps hundreds of cities and towns around
the world. This polling need not be expensive; if I could identify a
few hundred high-school students in cities around the world who would
be able to receive e-mail questions and spend a day at the mall or
the local farm stand) getting answers to the questions, then I would
have the information that I need. I've been told that guru.com is
good for handling problems of this kind.

The next major data collection task is translating, assimilating and
collating the data. This will require a bunch of people, and they'll
require a moderate amount of training to understand what to look for,
and how to handle it. The collated data must then be fed into the
computerized World Model, which will perform automated analysis and
make predictions as required. The methodology for doing this is the
same as has been illustrated on my web site for the last five years.
The intent will be to identify specific generational archetypes and
sub-archetypes and turnings and sub-turnings in each region.

I hope that provides an adequate response to your remark about
requiring "absurdly high" amounts of funding. Perhaps we can use
offshore talent for some things, like graphic design which I haven't
even mentioned above, but if you're thinking of getting a bunch of
cheap kids together to do a "coding bee," then you're wasting your
money. (As you may recall from conversations on a different subject,
I have a pretty good sense of when a programming project is going to
succeed or fail.)

If all someone wants is a market study on some particular country,
then my recommendation is to hire LifeCourse Associates. This is
their specialty, and they do an excellent job of it.

Sincerely,

John

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

To all:

I've read the give and take on the discussions of Russia's
generational timeline, and I note that nobody is mentioning the most
important factor: That Russia viewed itself as the true successor to
the Roman Empire, the Russian Orthodox Church as the true successor
to the original Christianity from the days of Jesus, and the Russian
army as the true protector of the Holy Lands in Jerusalem.

A major issue was that Russia was also, by previous treaty, the
protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. All of these
roles played a part in failed negotiations leading to the Crimean
War.

The Crimean War was a VERY BIG DEAL, and I note that some comments
seem to imply that it was a tiny bump in the road. When it was all
over in 1856, it was a humiliating disaster for Russia, which had to
give up its protection of the Jerusalem and the right to intervene in
the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Orthodox Christians. Possibly even
more important, Russia had to give much of the control it had over
the Black Sea.

During the Recovery Era, Russia was looking for ways to regain some
of what it had lost in the Crimean War including, by 1874, imposing
universal military conscription. This is the most logical point to
begin the Awakening Era. Students were furious at the military
demands, and the anger only grew with the Russian-Ottoman war, during
which Russia did regain some lost territory. A violent revolutionary
anti-Tsar movement was spawned by the late 1870s, climaxing with the
bombing of the Winter Palace on February 5, 1880, almost killing Tsar
Alexander II.

He was assassinated the next year anyway, and his son, Alexander III,
began a brutal repression of the revolutionary movement.
Particularly, anyone not a member of the Russian Orthodox Church was
persecuted.

A good place to locate the Unraveling era is 1901, with the formation
of the Social Revolutionary Party, which formalized the revolutionary
movement and employed terrorist tactics, including assassinations.

Now if you look at the above history, you can see the threads that
led to the Bolshevik Revolution. On the one hand, you had the Tsar,
head of the Russian Orthodox Church, a symbol of massive repression,
following the disastrous pursuit of ancient religious goals in the
Crimean War.

And you have the revolutionary movement, born with student radicals
in the 1870s. There was a clear generational split between the old
folks, representing the Orthodox Church, and the kids, the
revolutionaries being oppressed by the Orthodox Church.

Hence, a Bolshevik Revolution committed to atheism.

And incidentally, for those looking for signs of an Awakening era in
the 1940s, look again at the Russian Orthodox Church.

You know folks, you can't do this stuff by mechanically applying some
formula and expecting a timeline to come out. You have to dig into
the history and put yourselves into the minds of the people you're
studying. You've got to identify fault lines and figure out why the
fault lines existed. In this case it was easy: Start with the
destruction of the Orthodox Church by the Bolshevik Revolution and
work backwards, and you'd have no trouble at all figuring out the
timeline.

And by the way, there's ALWAYS an Awakening Era. And turnings are
ALWAYS driven by generations. Nothing happens by magic.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by 1990

That includes La Reforma, the resistance to the European monarchy, and much of the Juarez presidency, which is the crux of my Mexican 2T.

I will look into it, however, I still don't think that 2T began in the run-up to the Mexican-American War. Mexico's conduct of the war was not at all 2T. No high-profile resistance or "antiwar" movement...

Hold it right there pal! This may have been an Awakening, but not all Awakenings are like the 1960s. Secondly, from their point of view, huge section of the country was being claimed by the Americans. This is not Vietnam, but still remember, what was the vote on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964?

Still, there were those who opposed any sort of war, such as President Herrera.

Originally Posted by 1990

no real controversy...instead it was a unifying war for the country, even to the extent that people backed returning Santa Anna from his exile in Cuba for the sake of unity.

That's not the feeling I get. Here's wikipedia on the conflict:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Political divisions inside Mexico was another factor in the victory by the United States. Inside Mexico, the centralistas and republicanos vied for power, and at times the two factions inside Mexico's military fought each other rather than the invading American army. Another faction called the monarchists, whose members wanted to install a king(some even advocated rejoining Spain) further complicated matters. This third faction would rise to predominance in the period of the French intervention in Mexico.

The feeling of Unity was missing since 1936, no?

Originally Posted by 1990

Even in resounding defeat, with disastrous loss of life and treasure, feelings of national pride were high. (I've read this from multiple sources, including Wikipedia, Encarta, and a couple history of Mexico textbooks.) This was hardly the frenetic soul-searching of a 2T - that mood shows up in 1855 with the liberal takeover and the beginning of La Reforma.

Here's from history.com

Originally Posted by History Channel

Mexico was confronted with a grave reconstruction problem after the war. Finances were devastated, and the prestige of the government, already weak, had considerably diminished. Santa Anna, compelled to resign after the war, returned from exile in 1853 and, with Centralist support, declared himself dictator. Early in 1854 a liberal revolt began, and after more than a year of intensive fighting, Santa Anna fled from Mexico.

Hmm.. I don't know 1990, I'm getting mixed messages from you here. It seems to me, naturally, that La Reforma is a result of the mood that began before the Mexican-American War, and was exacerbated in the aftermath. My knowledge of Mexico ain't that good, but I'm seeing problems with your conclusions.

I looked into this because I don't see how turnings can be so long. Industrialization was a major technological advancement, but the heart of society didn't change.

You've been talking about the work and the need for huge amounts of financing because of the overwhelming amount of data collection and processing that must be done. It struck me that this is a perfect example of a distributed computing, amateur run project in which large numbers of people all do their bit, rather like the SETI project. The Internet is set up for that, and we're already seeing it happening with the Map Project. So maybe instead of chasing down grants or donord or (heaven forbid) government funding and making a huge project out of it in the 20th Century manner, it's better done in the 21st Century manner as described above.

Just a thought,

Pat

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

You know folks, you can't do this stuff by mechanically applying some
formula and expecting a timeline to come out. You have to dig into
the history and put yourselves into the minds of the people you're
studying. You've got to identify fault lines and figure out why the
fault lines existed.

No kidding. It's kind of hard to get into the minds of 19th century Russians in one day though. Did we miss some sort of deadline in our ignorance?

And by the way, there's ALWAYS an Awakening Era. And turnings are
ALWAYS driven by generations. Nothing happens by magic.

Maybe. You certainly assume a lot.

BTW, interesting analysis. Perhaps you'd care to share more.

Originally Posted by Uzi

For those of you interested in Estonia (about zero of you) I have been inspired to look back at some history recently.

Hi. I have assumed Estonia was on the Russian timeline. What do you consider the Crisis before 1934?

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Hi. I have assumed Estonia was on the Russian timeline.

Why? The Revolution was long over in Russia by the time it was imposed on the Baltics.

Originally Posted by Mustang

No kidding. It's kind of hard to get into the minds of 19th century Russians in one day though. Did we miss some sort of deadline in our ignorance?

As a matter of fact there is a lot of access to the minds of 19th Century Russians. Let's start with "The Brothers Karamozov" and move on to "War and Peace" - Chekov for the Progressive/Edwardian period equivalent - at any rate, there was a great flourishing of literature in Russia in the 19th Century, all of it available in really decent translations, so read away.

And BTW, a lot of it shows us quite an alien world, even more so than Dickens in England.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

As a matter of fact there is a lot of access to the minds of 19th Century Russians. Let's start with "The Brothers Karamozov" and move on to "War and Peace" - Chekov for the Progressive/Edwardian period equivalent - at any rate, there was a great flourishing of literature in Russia in the 19th Century, all of it available in really decent translations, so read away.

Yes, of course. I am fairly confident that everybody on the thread has been exposed to 19th century Russian literature in school, or is otherwise aware that such a flourishing literature existed. But I am somewhat less confident that anybody on the thread could thumb through enough of it in only one morning, even if only to refresh, and walk away with a keen sense of 19th century Russian turning boundaries. Xenakis' assumptions are absurd. That was the point.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Why? The Revolution was long over in Russia by the time it was imposed on the Baltics.

In the early 18th century, Estonia was incorporated into Russia. It usually takes some time in this sort of situation for the timelines to merge, but I figured it would have by the time of the Revolution. I was thinking the Estonian War of Independence was a Crisis War, but I haven't looked into it much. I could be wrong on all of this, though.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

To all:

I've read the give and take on the discussions of Russia's
generational timeline, and I note that nobody is mentioning the most
important factor: That Russia viewed itself as the true successor to
the Roman Empire, the Russian Orthodox Church as the true successor
to the original Christianity from the days of Jesus, and the Russian
army as the true protector of the Holy Lands in Jerusalem.

A major issue was that Russia was also, by previous treaty, the
protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. All of these
roles played a part in failed negotiations leading to the Crimean
War.

The Crimean War was a VERY BIG DEAL, and I note that some comments
seem to imply that it was a tiny bump in the road. When it was all
over in 1856, it was a humiliating disaster for Russia, which had to
give up its protection of the Jerusalem and the right to intervene in
the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Orthodox Christians. Possibly even
more important, Russia had to give much of the control it had over
the Black Sea.

During the Recovery Era, Russia was looking for ways to regain some
of what it had lost in the Crimean War including, by 1874, imposing
universal military conscription. This is the most logical point to
begin the Awakening Era. Students were furious at the military
demands, and the anger only grew with the Russian-Ottoman war, during
which Russia did regain some lost territory. A violent revolutionary
anti-Tsar movement was spawned by the late 1870s, climaxing with the
bombing of the Winter Palace on February 5, 1880, almost killing Tsar
Alexander II.

He was assassinated the next year anyway, and his son, Alexander III,
began a brutal repression of the revolutionary movement.
Particularly, anyone not a member of the Russian Orthodox Church was
persecuted.

A good place to locate the Unraveling era is 1901, with the formation
of the Social Revolutionary Party, which formalized the revolutionary
movement and employed terrorist tactics, including assassinations.

Now if you look at the above history, you can see the threads that
led to the Bolshevik Revolution. On the one hand, you had the Tsar,
head of the Russian Orthodox Church, a symbol of massive repression,
following the disastrous pursuit of ancient religious goals in the
Crimean War.

And you have the revolutionary movement, born with student radicals
in the 1870s. There was a clear generational split between the old
folks, representing the Orthodox Church, and the kids, the
revolutionaries being oppressed by the Orthodox Church.

Hence, a Bolshevik Revolution committed to atheism.

And incidentally, for those looking for signs of an Awakening era in
the 1940s, look again at the Russian Orthodox Church.

You know folks, you can't do this stuff by mechanically applying some
formula and expecting a timeline to come out. You have to dig into
the history and put yourselves into the minds of the people you're
studying. You've got to identify fault lines and figure out why the
fault lines existed. In this case it was easy: Start with the
destruction of the Orthodox Church by the Bolshevik Revolution and
work backwards, and you'd have no trouble at all figuring out the
timeline.

And by the way, there's ALWAYS an Awakening Era. And turnings are
ALWAYS driven by generations. Nothing happens by magic.

In Soviet times the Soviet Union either repressed, controlled, or co-opted the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia. Not until Gorbachev did it become something other than a spy-infested puppet of the Soviet Union.

I have contrasted the Soviet Union to other countries -- most obviously the United States, but also to most countries of western Europe. Rock-and-roll, psychedelic art, and political dissent associated with a generation gap existed as much in Britain, France, (West but less obviously East) Germany, and Italy as in America. In Spain, a special case existed because Franco's dictatorship was able to defer the 2T until he died... but then Spain went quickly onto the cultural timeline of western Europe. Greece likewise because of the Colonels' regime. In Chile and Argentina, military dictators put an abrupt and brutal end to any dissent and counterculture in the mid-1970s.

Chinese Communists perverted their 2T with the Red Guards duped into becoming stoolies of Mao. But even in some commie countries some tolerance existed for western counterculture -- Hungary and Yugoslavia... and Czechoslovakia (if only until 1968). In East Germany and Poland the 2T might have been more strictly a religious awakening.

So... if there was a 2T in the Soviet Union, what was it? There were scattered dissidents; there were people who rediscovered religion (Judaism caused more problems with authorities). Was there a non-government 'peace' movement? Anything related to Afghanistan came too late for a 2T on the Western European/North American time line.

The "Thaw"? That itself was a power struggle, much as the McCarthy Era implied a power struggle between primitives and modernists in America. Khrushchev's Secret Speech denouncing Stalin opened a major reduction in State terror (terror that probably could not have been sustained after Stalin's death) -- which is about on the same time line as the discrediting of Senator McCarthy, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, and the integration of Little Rock Central High School. (I think that we Americans had our own Thaw in a way).

The late 1960s through perhaps the early 1980s should have been the right time for a 2T in Russia... but any 2T seems to have been severely muted. I question whether the most significant result of a 2T -- the creation of new moral and cultural attitudes to be sorted out in a 3T and forged into the basis of a New Order in a 4T -- could happen. Even if he is a slimy hypocrite, the current President of the United States has promoted a fundamentalist-plutocratic ethic for a supposed New Era. Vladimir Putin, a contemporary of American Boomers, seems never to make a moral pronouncement. That's not to say that he is an evil man; evil persons have frequently posed as representatives of aggrieved parties (as did AH, who frequently used such contentions as pretexts for aggression and genocide).

Question: how much does Putin represent the generational realities of Russia as opposed to... France?

John - I don't write garbage, in large part because I don't think garbage. And, while I relish my intellectual elitism, I don't think I'm a snob about it, and shame (much to my late mother's chagrin) is foreign to my nature.

My research focus turned out to be 19th century Britain, but my speciality is modern Europe. My master's thesis was on French foreign policy in 1924-1925, and I was hired as a Russian expert for my first teaching position. In order to advance my abilities to pursue my interests I learned how to read French, German, Russian, and Italian, and I taught Russian, German, French, and British history as well as the history of Japan, India, and China (I even taught Women's History back in the 70s when it was still possible for a man to do so). All historians learn the languages of that which they research and write about. I even learned statistics so I could analyse data relevant to my studies. I fail to see how lack of English sources would be an impediment to any scholar pursuing a topic of interest. I am also perplexed at your continued insistence that there is a lack of written sources. Don't you have access to the Widener or MIT's library? Go look and see how much is available in a decent research library. There may be not be written sources for pre-literate societies, but there are precious few of those left and those that are have been studied extensively by anthropologists for which there is a written literature. And, no, I don't have problems with inferential reasoning.

Now much of your post is a rant about archeology and Galileo and Einstein and I fail to see what that has to do with anything. I think the problem between us comes down to your penchant for prognostication and my interest in history qua history. You want to predict the future, and I want to understand the past. I'll leave prophecy to Prophets while I try to figure out if the saeculum is real. I think generations are real, and I think turnings may drive them. I believe I have demonstrated this for Britain in the 1840s and 50s, but beyond that I am unsure. In other words, I am agnostic about turnings over the long haul, but I am reasonably sure generations make history and history makes generations. In this regard, I much prefer Strauss & Howe's Generations to their Fourth Turning. I see the latter as a kind of pop sociology while the former is history at its provocative best.

Now you insist what you (and the young men posting on this thread) are doing is generational theory. Perhaps it is, but it is not generational analysis which is what interests me. I still insist you cannot do generational analysis without analyzing generations and I fail to see how you can speak of generational theory without generational analysis to underpin it. It reminds me of the trap that many academic historians of the last thirty years have fallen into, where they revert to discussion of theory when they don't have enough facts to support a reasoned argument. People, and people's behavior, come first, and theory must follow after the fact, and it attempts to explain, or extrapolate from, these facts. If you surmise from this that I am an empiricist and a nominalist, you would be correct.

Finally, I do not know that you are right about anything, much less this. I am, so far, convinced that you are wrong about a lot of things, whether it is how Russia fought their Great Patriotic War or Malthusianism being the driving cause of what you call Crisis Wars or that I should sell my house. And I do think I am going to live long enough to see that you are wrong about the unnatural deaths of 2/3rds of the world's population in the next decade or so.

You know, what I have been around long enough for is to understand that, fundamentally, there really is nothing much new under the sun, only our understanding of it.



Pax,

Dave Krein '42

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

So... if there was a 2T in the Soviet Union, what was it?

Well. At least you're consistent.

If it's art that interests you, a bit of investigation would dig up the fact that the late 40s was the beginning of a major flowering of the arts in Russia (both in depth and breadth). composers like Kabalevskiy or Abramskiy or Muradeli; directors like Tarkovskiy or Braun or Ivchenko; writers like Kazakov or Panova.
What? Never heard/read/seen anything by those guys?

That's exactly my point. What are you doing commenting on culture in the USSR without even the barest of knowledge about what there was??

Even if he is a slimy hypocrite, the current President of the United States has promoted a fundamentalist-plutocratic ethic for a supposed New Era. Vladimir Putin, a contemporary of American Boomers, seems never to make a moral pronouncement.

Exactly. You could not have demonstrated better the difference between a Prophet and a Nomad leadership. If you looked back a mere handful of years, you would see a very clear Russian analogue to the ideologues who will be in power in the US for the next 1.5 decades -- Boris Yeltsin.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Well. At least you're consistent.

If it's art that interests you, a bit of investigation would dig up the fact that the late 40s was the beginning of a major flowering of the arts in Russia (both in depth and breadth). composers like Kabalevskiy or Abramskiy or Muradeli; directors like Tarkovskiy or Braun or Ivchenko; writers like Kazakov or Panova.
What? Never heard/read/seen anything by those guys?

That's exactly my point. What are you doing commenting on culture in the USSR without even the barest of knowledge about what there was??
Exactly. You could not have demonstrated better the difference between a Prophet and a Nomad leadership. If you looked back a mere handful of years, you would see a very clear Russian analogue to the ideologues who will be in power in the US for the next 1.5 decades -- Boris Yeltsin.

I have heard of Tarkovsky and have heard some Kabalevsky.

Crisis eras are often eras of great art. It may be propagandistic and without nuance... but the leadership generally allows artists to do anything so long as it serves the cause of the time. Zhdanov put an end to that, and largely-dreadful Socialist Realism was re-imposed.

... I look at Boris Putin and I see a generation that generally experienced little indulgence in childhood unless born into the Soviet elite. World War II may have been a victory, but the nature of the Soviet victory was quite different from that in America. The Soviets were picking up the pieces after a catastrophe both human and material, and the rebuilding of a ravaged economy took precedence over the production of consumer goods. Children would have to endure material hardships in the postwar years.

The contrast between a Soviet childhood and one in the United States could have hardly been more different during the first twenty years after World War II. American children were generally enjoying the benefits of parents making good wages in industry, no shortages, and of course new suburban developments of spacious suburbs with houses that allowed children... their own rooms! Soviet kids were living in the same sorts of dingy and cramped apartments that existed before World War II. Privacy of course was non-existent.

To be sure, material poverty in childhood does not preclude children from becoming conscience-driven, culture-challenging, self-asserting young adults; after all, all prior Idealist generations in American history were much poorer than Boom kids. There would be practically no 2T in the 1960s and 1970s in the Soviet Union. Isolated as most of the USSR, the system could block off almost all foreign influences upon culture, Estonia possibly excepted (Finnish television).

The dynamics of the generational cycle ordinarily cause the birth of an Idealist generation after a Crisis because of the optimism normal in a post-Crisis time, cultural structure allows no-nonsense education, and prosperity generally allows kids to get more food, better toys, and nicer clothes than children did in the previous Crisis. That might not have happened in the immediate postwar era in Russia. In contrast to the situation in America, wartime losses destroyed family structures to an inordinate degree, creating many unstable families. The educational system was making radical changes to fit the political currents. Finally, as the postwar Soviet kids approached childhood the new repression of the Brezhnev era that allowed practically no assertion of any unorthodox ideas or new culture.

An Idealist generation is not a certainty to develop immediately after a Crisis Era. Enough prosperity must exist to allow the indulgence of children so that they have some self-confidence when they reach adulthood. Family structures must be intact. Education must not change frequently to fit new fads or changes of political rule. Finally, when the children approach adulthood they must have some means of expressing themselves. All of those conditions were at best suspect for Soviet postwar youth.

An unqualified and unsolvable wreck of a world would likely create Nomads. Such would be the result of a Crisis that ended in a world of famine, child neglect, or crushing poverty, as after after a nuclear winter, a great comet impact, or a supervolcano explosion -- or a war of excessive destruction.

Can a cycle lack an Idealist generation much as the Civil War Cycle precluded a true Civic generation in America? Perhaps such happened in the first fifty years after World War II. Accepting that Yeltsin, Gorbachev, and their contemporaries were an Adaptive generation, one would expect the following generations to be

Idealist-Reactive-Civic-Adaptive, an Adaptive generation forming about now as in most of the West...

we might instead see

Reactive-Civic-Adaptive-Idealist,

the first Idealist generation since Lenin's time beginning to be born.

By the way -- S&H seem to see Gorbachev and Yeltsin as part of an Adaptive generation that tended to be overprotected and to grow up confused and muddled.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

... I look at Boris Putin and I see...

Tell me you're joking...

pbrower.

Now that I'm over my first-take reaction to your post, I look over it again to try to extract your main point. It appears to me to be something along the lines of:

Soviet children (or more generally, children in any country following a destructive war) were not raised in an optimistic, wealthy environment (with, it appears you are saying, lots of toys and various other goodies). You make this statement based on your guess as to what a 1940-1950s Soviet child's environment was like. Apparently your guess of it comes up wanting when compared against the environment in which an American Baby Boomer child would have been raised.

There is a very good chance that, in fact, the Soviet child did have a significantly lesser amount of toys. Of course, compared against the Boomers, so did every other American Prophet generation. And in fact, compared to the wealth and prosperity of the Millenials, the Boomers were deprived. So the causality you offer doesn't hold water.

(As for social indulgence, it would make sense that Vladimir Putin wasn't born into a society with much of that for kids. I -- and pretty much every other Nomad gen -- was born into a society with that same characteristic. Of course, he was born in Russia, in 1952; the early middle of their 2T. I was born in the USA in 1977; the tail end of our 2T.)

Dear David,

Originally Posted by David Krein

> Now much of your post is a rant about archeology and Galileo and
> Einstein and I fail to see what that has to do with anything. I
> think the problem between us comes down to your penchant for
> prognostication and my interest in history qua history. You want
> to predict the future, and I want to understand the past. I'll
> leave prophecy to Prophets while I try to figure out if the
> saeculum is real. I think generations are real, and I think
> turnings may drive them. I believe I have demonstrated this for
> Britain in the 1840s and 50s, but beyond that I am unsure. In
> other words, I am agnostic about turnings over the long haul, but
> I am reasonably sure generations make history and history makes
> generations. In this regard, I much prefer Strauss & Howe's
> Generations to their Fourth Turning. I see the latter as a kind of
> pop sociology while the former is history at its provocative
> best.

First you post a screed saying that everything that I and Matt and
Nathaniel have been doing, for six years in my case, is full of crap.
When I respond, you say that I'm the one who's ranting. You sure have
a lot of balls, in addition to being without shame.

It's as if someone had picked up one of your own research papers and,
not understanding it, or disliking the conclusions, published an
article saying that "David Krein is not a historian, but is no better
than a cheap gossip columnist." Maybe what you do isn't history
either.

And now we learn that you think that Strauss and Howe's TFT is full of
crap as well. Perhaps you should have posted that opinion to Strauss
and Howe when they held their recent online session.

Since you say that you didn't understand my last message, as well as
not liking or understanding generational theory at all, I'll try to
explain to you again.

Strauss and Howe collected a bunch of data by reading diaries and
histories. They INDUCED a set of rules and patterns about how
generational cycles work. Then, from those rules and patterns, they
DEDUCED relative facts about other eras.

In my case, I took S&H's rules and patterns, organized them
differently, and added some things to create the Generational
Dynamics theory. Then I used that theory (which is still mostly
S&H's rules and patterns) and applied it to current events to DEDUCE
relevant facts about what's coming. Matt and Nathaniel, who have
also added some ideas of their own, are using that theory (which is
still mostly S&H's rules and patterns) to dozens of countries to
DEDUCE their generational timelines. For example, if there's an era
fulfilling certain conditions, including massive student riots for
example, we can DEDUCE the existence of a Prophet generation, even
though we haven't read 100 diaries and histories from that particular
generation in that particular time and place.

The analogy with astronomy is this: Galileo and Kepler and Newton
collected data and INDUCED rules and equations about how one
celestial object circles another. Einstein used data to INDUCE a
theory about how light travels. Using that theory, modern
astronomers can take data about perturbations in the light we receive
from a distant star and DEDUCE the fact that there are planets
circling that star, even though we can't hope to ever see those
planets.

Now, your first posting was a nasty, offensive rant; my response, as
summarized above, was not a rant. When I rant, you'll know it, and
the above ain't no rant.

Your remark about Widener library evinces your ignorance about S&H's
methodology. S&H read hundreds of diaries and histories just for ONE
timeline, the Anglo-American timeline. There is no such volume of
diaries and histories available for other countries, and certainly not
in English.

The fact that you dislike something, whether it's S&H's TFT or work
that I've spent years on, does not, in my mind, give you the right to
make a completely unprovoked attack expressing open contempt for it.
I and everyone else on this forum, dislike things that you and others
have said and done, but we keep our contempt to ourselves unless
attacked first. Exactly what perversion you have that drives you to
make unprovoked attacks is beyond me.

This of course is not the first time you've done this. Your
perversion led you to launch other vicious unprovoked, and highly
personal attacks at me in the past. I'll respond to you now in the
same vein as I did the first time, in 2004:

I believe that Generational Dynamics is a worthwhile and significant
scholarly development, and that it is history qua history. I
realize that many people, perhaps yourself included, hold any kind of
Comparative History in contempt, but I believe that generational
theory provides the key to making it rigorous, and plugs that holes
that other people have criticized.

Originally Posted by David Krein

> Should I live as long as my parents did, I will still be here in
> 2027 which should be enough for me to see another 1st Turning. If
> this happens, I shall look back with glee at the absurdity of the
> mordant prognostications of Mr. Xenakis.

In the spirit of your comment here, I would like to suggest that you
simply enjoy your glee and reveling in your certitude that
generational theory is wrong, even though you don't understand it at
all, and just sit back and wait for me to fall on my face.

In the meantime, if you have something to contribute, or constructive
criticism to provide, then I would find your postings welcome. But
if all you're capable of is spewing venom, hatred and contempt, then
we'd all be better off if you kept to yourself.

Pox.

Sincerely,

John

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