Strauss & Howe May Have Called It Again
Feb. 20th, 2016 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorI've mentioned before that I found William Strauss and Neil Howe's Generational Theory pretty darned compelling. I think I've found yet another place where it could be applied to help explain if not the actions of certain individuals, at least the words they use.
Strauss & Howe's theory can be summed up by taking everyone in society and noting when they were born. By their theory, the most important influence on us proves to be the people nearest us in age who share experiences and, critically, who remember the world similarly.
Every 20+ years or so, roughly, something changes. It could be a disaster like the Pearl Harbor invasion or the assassination of a President (Lincoln, McKinley, Kennedy). It could be the rise of a counter culture (the Hippie Boomers, the Puritans). Here are the cohorts as the authors define them:
"Idealist" refers to the cohort of counter-cultures, like the Puritans and Hippies. The authors later revise this description to "Prophet."
Here's Timothy Leary imploring all in the groovy audience to "turn on, tune in, and drop out." After that directive, the video features an interview where he called himself* and the rest of the Boomers "Holy Fools." Note how he says that they stopped Vietnam, that they did important things. Statements like this are typical of self-absorbed Boomers. (By the way, self-absorbed behavior is, according to the Generations theory, typical for an idealist cohort.)
I'd like to focus on how this message—one which resonated positively with the Boomers to the point of near obsession—focuses on people abandoning jobs and career paths to explore the world without such ties ... or havens.
Essentially, the Boomers were reacting against the world of their childhood. They were born right after WWII (but not old enough to remember the war or its deprivations). Their parents were (for the most part) those of the Civic Generation, later called the Hero cohort. They fought the war and won.
Civics tend to be team-oriented, focused on, well, civic involvement and building safe communities. When I was growing up—before Strauss & Howe proposed their theory—it was said the people who fought the war wanted their kids (the Boomers, let's remember) to be quiet and not make waves because they, the parents, had already lived through so much deprivation and suffering—the Depression, the War—that they just wanted to bowl in their league and get along.
Now, though, we have another generation of Civics coming of age. I posted this video some time ago.
This is how the Civic generation see their own parents (again, the Boomers). It's good sarcasm, born of growing up eye-rolling as their folks and those their folks' age reminisce about the good ol' days dropping acid and marching and bemoan how these kids don't do anything nearly as awesome as the Boomers did. What are they, lazy?
Which brings me to more recent college gatherings and protests.
This video shows a young woman berating the husband of a woman who wrote what the young woman found to be an offensive email. I won't go into the details of that email, one I—part of the Reactive, or Nomad Cohort—found pretty innocuous. What I find fascinating here is the language she uses.
According to her, that husband and wife team (who live with the students, I gather) are supposed to create a "safe space", a home at college. If they can't do that, what good are they? How can they sleep at night?
This is the same generation that focuses on "trigger warnings," lest someone see or experience something upsetting.
And this is exactly opposite behavior from what one expects from the groovy, groovy Boomers, the in-your-face, let's-change-the-world crowd.
Given her estimated age, she was born right at the tail end of the current Civic cohort, a generation Strauss & Howe coined the "Millennials."
And what she demands proves almost identical to what the Civic Heroes value. From Generations, we learn this of the Civic Generation (called by the authors "G.I.s"):
With me so far? What do many of the residents find so appealing in these communities of their cohorts?
The Civic G.I. generation developed the Jr. Executive programs Mr. Leary implored those groovy Boomers to drop. And far from just being tired from the deprivations of the war and all, I suspect that Civics, like today's Millennials, just wanted a safe space to call home, but had to band together and fight a war to get it.
What can we take from all of the above? Speaking for myself only, I am amused. You might note that the harshest criticism of that young Yale-ee comes from Boomer pundits and writers. They not only don't understand "safe spaces" and other priorities of Millennials, they abandoned those fuddy-duddy values way back in the '60s as totally uncool, Man. Those values would have been called something different, but no matter. They were probably exactly the same.
Me? I don't fit in either camp, meaning I don't understand the value of safe spaces or dropping out.
There's another lesson we might consider. Gather four cohorts together and one has (according to their book The Fourth Turning) what the Romans called a Saeculum. This was a period of between 85 to just over a hundred years, about the length of the oldest citizen. The end of a Saeculum would be marked by a great victory, usually military in nature.
Meaning we are right now in what the authors called "The Fourth Turning." Hang on to your socks, folks.
If you think "well, we've already had the financial crisis," think again. Everything I'm hearing indicates that the real financial crisis has yet to happen. Those "too big to fail" banks? They are now bigger, much bigger. And they managed to force Congress to keep the laws in their favor (you can do that when Congress must spend increasing amounts on re-election and you have all the money!). We probably just went through a preview of the coming attraction.
If you're thinking "Gosh, good thing we already went through some wars," think again, again. Those last ones were probably dressed rehearsals as well, similar to the Great War when compared to the Second just a few decades later.
I think the Millennials will get the safe spaces they crave, but we'll all have to wade through some nasty to get to the other side.
*Wrongly, Strauss & Howe would say; he was too old—but these generational boundaries are fuzzy at best, and there will always be overlapping individuals.
**There is some amusing irony in this statement. The Sun City retirement development, as I learned when I visited my folks near there, is located in the city of Surprise, Arizona. D'oh!
Strauss & Howe's theory can be summed up by taking everyone in society and noting when they were born. By their theory, the most important influence on us proves to be the people nearest us in age who share experiences and, critically, who remember the world similarly.
Every 20+ years or so, roughly, something changes. It could be a disaster like the Pearl Harbor invasion or the assassination of a President (Lincoln, McKinley, Kennedy). It could be the rise of a counter culture (the Hippie Boomers, the Puritans). Here are the cohorts as the authors define them:
- Idealist
- Reactive
- Civic
- Adaptive.
"Idealist" refers to the cohort of counter-cultures, like the Puritans and Hippies. The authors later revise this description to "Prophet."
Here's Timothy Leary imploring all in the groovy audience to "turn on, tune in, and drop out." After that directive, the video features an interview where he called himself* and the rest of the Boomers "Holy Fools." Note how he says that they stopped Vietnam, that they did important things. Statements like this are typical of self-absorbed Boomers. (By the way, self-absorbed behavior is, according to the Generations theory, typical for an idealist cohort.)
I'd like to focus on how this message—one which resonated positively with the Boomers to the point of near obsession—focuses on people abandoning jobs and career paths to explore the world without such ties ... or havens.
Essentially, the Boomers were reacting against the world of their childhood. They were born right after WWII (but not old enough to remember the war or its deprivations). Their parents were (for the most part) those of the Civic Generation, later called the Hero cohort. They fought the war and won.
Civics tend to be team-oriented, focused on, well, civic involvement and building safe communities. When I was growing up—before Strauss & Howe proposed their theory—it was said the people who fought the war wanted their kids (the Boomers, let's remember) to be quiet and not make waves because they, the parents, had already lived through so much deprivation and suffering—the Depression, the War—that they just wanted to bowl in their league and get along.
Now, though, we have another generation of Civics coming of age. I posted this video some time ago.
This is how the Civic generation see their own parents (again, the Boomers). It's good sarcasm, born of growing up eye-rolling as their folks and those their folks' age reminisce about the good ol' days dropping acid and marching and bemoan how these kids don't do anything nearly as awesome as the Boomers did. What are they, lazy?
Which brings me to more recent college gatherings and protests.
This video shows a young woman berating the husband of a woman who wrote what the young woman found to be an offensive email. I won't go into the details of that email, one I—part of the Reactive, or Nomad Cohort—found pretty innocuous. What I find fascinating here is the language she uses.
According to her, that husband and wife team (who live with the students, I gather) are supposed to create a "safe space", a home at college. If they can't do that, what good are they? How can they sleep at night?
This is the same generation that focuses on "trigger warnings," lest someone see or experience something upsetting.
And this is exactly opposite behavior from what one expects from the groovy, groovy Boomers, the in-your-face, let's-change-the-world crowd.
Given her estimated age, she was born right at the tail end of the current Civic cohort, a generation Strauss & Howe coined the "Millennials."
And what she demands proves almost identical to what the Civic Heroes value. From Generations, we learn this of the Civic Generation (called by the authors "G.I.s"):
G.I. first wavers sparked the modern "senior citizen" movement, and G.I. last-wavers have benefited the most from it. America's first (and now largest) retirement community, Sun City, was founded in 1960.
(William Straus & Neil Howe, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069, William Morrow & Company, 1991, p. 268.)
With me so far? What do many of the residents find so appealing in these communities of their cohorts?
"Sun City is secure," [Ken Dychtwald] concludes. "A resident may stroll the streets without fear of surprise**, of unpleasantness, or unsightliness. The streets are uncommonly clean."
(Ibid, p. 276, I emboldened.)
The Civic G.I. generation developed the Jr. Executive programs Mr. Leary implored those groovy Boomers to drop. And far from just being tired from the deprivations of the war and all, I suspect that Civics, like today's Millennials, just wanted a safe space to call home, but had to band together and fight a war to get it.
What can we take from all of the above? Speaking for myself only, I am amused. You might note that the harshest criticism of that young Yale-ee comes from Boomer pundits and writers. They not only don't understand "safe spaces" and other priorities of Millennials, they abandoned those fuddy-duddy values way back in the '60s as totally uncool, Man. Those values would have been called something different, but no matter. They were probably exactly the same.
Me? I don't fit in either camp, meaning I don't understand the value of safe spaces or dropping out.
There's another lesson we might consider. Gather four cohorts together and one has (according to their book The Fourth Turning) what the Romans called a Saeculum. This was a period of between 85 to just over a hundred years, about the length of the oldest citizen. The end of a Saeculum would be marked by a great victory, usually military in nature.
Meaning we are right now in what the authors called "The Fourth Turning." Hang on to your socks, folks.
Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire. Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth. Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes—and a resolute new consensus about what to do. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.
(William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny, Broadway Books, 1998, p. 6.)
If you think "well, we've already had the financial crisis," think again. Everything I'm hearing indicates that the real financial crisis has yet to happen. Those "too big to fail" banks? They are now bigger, much bigger. And they managed to force Congress to keep the laws in their favor (you can do that when Congress must spend increasing amounts on re-election and you have all the money!). We probably just went through a preview of the coming attraction.
If you're thinking "Gosh, good thing we already went through some wars," think again, again. Those last ones were probably dressed rehearsals as well, similar to the Great War when compared to the Second just a few decades later.
I think the Millennials will get the safe spaces they crave, but we'll all have to wade through some nasty to get to the other side.
*Wrongly, Strauss & Howe would say; he was too old—but these generational boundaries are fuzzy at best, and there will always be overlapping individuals.
**There is some amusing irony in this statement. The Sun City retirement development, as I learned when I visited my folks near there, is located in the city of Surprise, Arizona. D'oh!