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butterflyI'm currently reading Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584-2069, which is very interesting.
Dude, the Puritans were so totally like the Boomers are now. It's freaky. This book seems pretty solid overall, actually.
The US generational theory as presented in the book is that there are four generations that cycle in a predictable pattern -- in fact, they cause each other. Idealistic parents (such as Puritans or Boomers) cause the Reactive (Cavalier and 13ers) generations by their focus on spirituality and by generally, well, ignoring kids in favor of themselves. Because of this, the parental grip tightens in the next generation, the Civic (there are still some living Civics from the last cycle -- the GI generation -- and the kids born post-'82 are the new Civics, of which I would be one). The parental hold continues to tighten over the next generation, producing the Adaptives (the Silent generation, most recently) who were suffocated by overly-strict parental control.
The book was written in '91, but it's fascinating to see how they predicted some of the general trends of the '90s.
With the fading presence of G.I.s, public confidence in old institutions will wane even further. Elder Silent leaders will discuss and debate -- but never rule out -- any perceived institutional inequity. Midlife Boomers will come of remission trumpeting moral rectitude. Coming-of-age 13ers will game the system without any pretense of higher principle. Meanwhile, public life will become more zealous, less friendly. Social intolerance will grow, respect for privacy decrease. New 'values' coalitions will arise while older voting blocks based on economic, class, and racial self-interest weaken. Child nurture will become stricter, and the protective fuction of schools and neighborhoods will attract growing public support. The senior citizen movement will weaken and the child lobby strengthen. The widening gap between the haves and have-nots will be increasingly recognized as a problem -- and people at both ends of the economic spectrum (the intractably poor and the greedy rich) will be attacked for lacking acceptable civic virtue. Boomer-retooled justice will punish aberrant behavior with growing severity and overtones of moral retribution; Boomer-retooled instituations will strictly regulate conduct (from drug use to parenting) formerly regarded as matters of personal choice.
The book predicts the moment of social crisis coming around 2020. The one time in our history when the crisis came early, the Civil War, it ended horribly, causing intra-country conflict and a bitterness that lingers to this very day (as well as making the cycle of generations skip half a step).
What if the Millenium -- the year 2000 or soon thereafter -- provides the Boomers with the occasion to impose their 'millennial' visions on the nation and the world? The generational cycle suggests that the risk of cataclysm would be very high. During the 2000-2009 decade, the Boomers will be squarely in midlfe and nearing the peak of their political and instituational power. From a lifecycle perspective, they will be exactly where the Transcendentals were when John Brown was planning his raid on Harper's Ferry. Boomers can best serve civilization by restraining themselves (or by letting themselves be restrained by others) until their twilight years, when their spiritual energy would find expression not in midlife leadership, but in elder stewardship.
In other words, if we are experiencing our social crisis now, it may end as badly as the Civil War.
Dude, the Puritans were so totally like the Boomers are now. It's freaky. This book seems pretty solid overall, actually.
The US generational theory as presented in the book is that there are four generations that cycle in a predictable pattern -- in fact, they cause each other. Idealistic parents (such as Puritans or Boomers) cause the Reactive (Cavalier and 13ers) generations by their focus on spirituality and by generally, well, ignoring kids in favor of themselves. Because of this, the parental grip tightens in the next generation, the Civic (there are still some living Civics from the last cycle -- the GI generation -- and the kids born post-'82 are the new Civics, of which I would be one). The parental hold continues to tighten over the next generation, producing the Adaptives (the Silent generation, most recently) who were suffocated by overly-strict parental control.
The book was written in '91, but it's fascinating to see how they predicted some of the general trends of the '90s.
With the fading presence of G.I.s, public confidence in old institutions will wane even further. Elder Silent leaders will discuss and debate -- but never rule out -- any perceived institutional inequity. Midlife Boomers will come of remission trumpeting moral rectitude. Coming-of-age 13ers will game the system without any pretense of higher principle. Meanwhile, public life will become more zealous, less friendly. Social intolerance will grow, respect for privacy decrease. New 'values' coalitions will arise while older voting blocks based on economic, class, and racial self-interest weaken. Child nurture will become stricter, and the protective fuction of schools and neighborhoods will attract growing public support. The senior citizen movement will weaken and the child lobby strengthen. The widening gap between the haves and have-nots will be increasingly recognized as a problem -- and people at both ends of the economic spectrum (the intractably poor and the greedy rich) will be attacked for lacking acceptable civic virtue. Boomer-retooled justice will punish aberrant behavior with growing severity and overtones of moral retribution; Boomer-retooled instituations will strictly regulate conduct (from drug use to parenting) formerly regarded as matters of personal choice.
The book predicts the moment of social crisis coming around 2020. The one time in our history when the crisis came early, the Civil War, it ended horribly, causing intra-country conflict and a bitterness that lingers to this very day (as well as making the cycle of generations skip half a step).
What if the Millenium -- the year 2000 or soon thereafter -- provides the Boomers with the occasion to impose their 'millennial' visions on the nation and the world? The generational cycle suggests that the risk of cataclysm would be very high. During the 2000-2009 decade, the Boomers will be squarely in midlfe and nearing the peak of their political and instituational power. From a lifecycle perspective, they will be exactly where the Transcendentals were when John Brown was planning his raid on Harper's Ferry. Boomers can best serve civilization by restraining themselves (or by letting themselves be restrained by others) until their twilight years, when their spiritual energy would find expression not in midlife leadership, but in elder stewardship.
In other words, if we are experiencing our social crisis now, it may end as badly as the Civil War.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 11:10 pm (UTC)This is basically a social extrapolation and embellishment of Plato's cycle of governments in the Republic, right? Generations are reactive to their predecessors...etc...
As for heading for a Civil War? Well...I'm not going to discount what I consider a very real possibility, at least socio-economically.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 11:14 pm (UTC)You should. It's very interesting.
This is basically a social extrapolation and embellishment of Plato's cycle of governments in the Republic, right? Generations are reactive to their predecessors...etc...
Right -- and it's also saying that while people in the past have judged generations based only on rising adults and midlifers, the people in the government, that it's just as important to see the elder and youth sections. About how history is about people moving in time, which is why parents and their kids never understand each other -- they're opposite generational types. Peer personality and social groups and such.
As for heading for a Civil War? Well...I'm not going to discount what I consider a very real possibility, at least socio-economically.
Yeah. And the mood of the country is not stable. There are a lot of people who are very unhappy.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 11:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 11:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-22 01:04 am (UTC)So I certainly see action and reaction, but -- I'm a Boomer. My parents weren't. But my... mini-generation, I guess... was reactive against the Boomers? Because we sure weren't Puritans or idealists. A few years made the difference. Where does one "generation" end and the next begin? Or is "generation" being used in some other sense?
And then, if you slice the decades up -- 1940s was civic responsibility, perhaps not so much because of the character of young adults as because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and a World War was going on. The 50s, silent conformity. Late 60s, early 70s, social unrest and questioning authority. Eighties, wealth and personal fulfillment. Nineties, wealth and personal fulfillment. 2000, wealth and personal fulfillment. 2001, 9/11 comes and the shock of it brings forth the civic responsibility that was, perhaps, always there.
I guess what I mean is, it doesn't seem to fall neatly. Maybe? I'm just trying to wrap my head around this. Perhaps unfairly, since, obviously, it took a book to explain it in the first place.
I will explain... no, it will take too long...
Date: 2004-12-22 09:48 am (UTC)Reactives are ignored or critized as children and then the Idealist parents are horrified when they turn out to be little monsters ala 13ers. So, the parental grip tightens and the Civic generation is nurtured, under tighter parental controls.
Just when the Civics become adults, a moment of social crisis, such as the Revolutionary War or World War II occurs. If the social crisis is successfully averted, we get our heroes, the Generation of Generations, ala the G.I.s.
But the parents continue to tighten their grip on children, thus creating the Adaptive generation ala the Silent (ex. Walter Mondale), which is protected and suffocated as children. They tend to be the wafflers of history, and go the 'midlife crisis' route instead of the youthful wastrel route of the Reactives. After parents see the results of 'coddling' children, their grips being loosen, creating a new Idealist generation that has its material needs well enough taken care of to start worrying about its soul.
Generations tend to last about twenty-two years as these authors gage it -- the birth of the last-wave of the generation coincides with the 'coming-of-age' of the first wave.
I haven't actually reached the Boom section yet (I'm in the Civil War, which is fascinating), but I will skip ahead (as I did to find out what it said about my generation) and sum up some things.
The Boom era was marked by Woodstock and events like it, a seventeen-year slide in SAT scores, draft-dodging, and a huge focus on morality. Idealists are always inner-based, always 'Me' generations. Idealists tend to focus on faith, while Civics think about good works.
Idealists focus on religion, education, and principle. Reactives on liberty, survival, and pragmatism. Civics on community, technology, and affluence. Adaptives on pluralism, expertise, and social justice.
The Boom generation is special because it was unusually bunched -- both the early Boomers and later Boomers have the characteristic focus on the inner, but they have very different ways of viewing it. This still does distinguish from the 13ers, who are another 'lost' generation of children abandoned by parents who focus on the inner view.
But yeah, if you are at all interested, I would suggest the book. Because it's way more complicated than everything that I just wrote.
Re: I will explain... no, it will take too long...
Date: 2004-12-23 04:38 am (UTC)