Generational American Dynamics in Anglo-American Society

[BainbridgeShred]

I posted this on another forum, so some of the references might not make sense to you, but it's something I figured the general's on here could understand.

Something that has interested me a lot lately is a theory proposed by sociologist's Strauss and Howe in their 1991 book "Generations". The theory follows that their are four dynamic archetypes in the Anglo-American generation cycle (Breaks off into two distinct cultures in the 19th century, could debate when), and they constitute what is termed a Saecleum (SP) from start to finish. The four generations, in the order they come in are as follows: Idealist, Reactive, Civic, Adaptive. Examples of an idealist generation would be the Purtian generation in the Renaissance era (Born between 1584-1614), the Transcendental generation in the era of good feelings (Born 1792-1821), or in the Boomer generation during the American Superpower generation (1943-1960). Another set of examples, would be for the Civic archetype, including the generations that fought the revolutionary, second world war, and also the generation that most of us, if not all, belong to, born between 1982 and 2001 (Though I have reservations about those dates). What this means for our generation, if the theory holds, in that we're in for the era type termed "the crisis", and it will be us who bears the brunt of the supposed economic fallouts/all out wars. As it stands at this point, the world seems ripe for great conflict, and 9/11 in my mind stands parrell to Black Tuesday, while the rest of the crisis will come at a later date, as it did with WW2 in the 40's.

This might seem like bad science to some of you, putting forth a theory and then checking to find if their is evidence for it, like pulling stuff here and there, but the more I analyze it, the more apparent it seems. Parellel's I see on this board itself inlcude how people like Plaz and Die are generally ridiculed for their racist beliefs, because our generation is usually one who stresses teamwork regardless of race, and race to our generation doesn't really mean anything. People like Plaz and Die are just holdovers, people who keep racism alive, just like their are racial tensions inside the country right now, just as in the 30's, but when the crisis bears its full brunt this will be even more wiped out than before. The reason for this type of tension in the country right now is due to the boomer (idealist) generation, who are the main culprits throughout America history of causing culture wars and awakenings (There have been three "Great Awakenings" in America, all played out through the same archetpye that brought you the consciousness era in the 60's with hippies ect. The Transcedentalists were viewed much in the same way culturally as the hippies were, because they dressed and acted strange in comparison with the civic generation that gave birth to them. Also, most Americans don't realize that the greatest campus riots in American history actually occured in the 1830's when the Transcedentalists were in college, not in the 1960's with the boomers).

This is a lot to say in one post, and their definitely is a lot more I could fit in, but a good summary can be found here, with a list of speculative generations since 1584:

http://www.timepage.org/time.html


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Also, modified, since this board has a lot more posters of a bit older generation than the one I was adressing in the above post, I will say that your generation (Generation X to be exact) shares an archetype with the "Lost" generation, born 1883-1900, and the "Gilded" generation, born 1822-1842. Your generation produces a lot of good artists, generals, and entrupenuers. Sadly, in the broad historic scale, you are forgotten about between the idealist and civic generations who get most of the credit for everything, while only few standouts from your generation will be remembered. Your presidential control as a generation should also be fairly short, switching off from boomer to my generation along with most of the other posters on this board, the so called "millenial generation. One difference between these two generations is that your reactive generation (Generation X) is born right after the religious awakening event, and are forgotten about and ignored as children. Such a childhood results in young adults who raise the crime and drug rate, divorce rate, minor sex rate ect ect. The civic generation that I belong to actually sees a sharp drop in all of these things, as can be seen in the recent study that found drug use amongst teens going down, while up for adults (X'ers and Boomers).

Also, my generation is generally very strongly Democratic which I think can be seen fairly plainly and will increase as the crisis ensues, while the reactive generation, the X generation, is much more Republican in party. This has been predicted in the books "The Coming Democratic Majority" published sometime after 2000, by the same authors who wrote "The Coming Republican Majority" in the 70's, when the Xer generation was on the rise as kids, teens, and young adults. Clearly the prediction turned out true with 12 years of GOP with Regan/Bush, and as it stands right now the Democrat's are ready to make a big push beggining now with the 2006 elections, and culminating into longer Democratic control most likely in 2008, 2010, 2012.

Also, one last thing is that the rise of the neo-conservative movement from 1994, beggining with the Republican takeover of congress, to roughly 2004 with the apparent detirioration of their policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, can be viewed as an outlet of the general idealist view point, which is that their ideals are higher than anyone elses, and should be spread onto others through sometimes rough means. The Democrat's too are also victim of this, and it's being seen in the extremely partisan politics of our time. An idealist generation usually differs back and forth between conservative and liberal, and hate eachother for it and produce silly culture wars that divide us. My generation, the civic generation, will rebel from this viewpoint, and focus on teamwork instead.