Sort of a response to new deal democrats economic analysis of the shit hitting the deflationary fan...we are going to have to relearn the survival skills our Depression-era grandparents knew, and in my view, our Depression is going to be deeper, longer and more painful than theirs.
Several years ago, while researching Generation X (proud member, born in '73) for a class I was teaching, I stumbled on Neil Howe and William Strauss's work on generational theory.
Thought it might be useful to post some of the info here (written in April 2007 as part of a speech):
In 1992, Neil Howe and William Strauss published a groundbreaking book called Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069. In it, they argued that one helpful way to understand American history is to look at it through the lens of generations interacting with each other across time...
Generations by Howe and Strauss
Strauss and Howe designated the term "turnings" to refer to intervals, each lasting about 20 years and always arriving in the same order. Four turnings (about 80 years) make up a cycle of history, which is about the length of a long human life.
The first turning is a High, a period of confident expansion as a new order becomes established after old societal structures have been dismantled.
Next comes an Awakening, a time of rebellion against the now-established order, when spiritual exploration becomes the norm.
Then comes an Unraveling, an increasingly troubled era of strong individualism that increasingly undermines public institutions.
Last comes the Fourth Turning, an era of upheaval, a Crisis in which society redefines its nature and purpose.
Although it’s not something I’ve looked into in great detail, I know that individual personality differences – such as learning style, communication and conflict resolution style, leadership style and attitudes toward authority - are obviously highly significant to how members of a social group choose goals and work toward achieving them.
The point of Strauss and Howe’s work is that some of those individual personality traits tend to be shared by large numbers of people in a given generation, because of who their parents were, and how and when they were raised as children. Under this framework, there are four basic generational archetypes.
The Hero Archetype, whose most recent members are the GI Generation, born between 1901 and 1924, tend (as a demographic group) to be "conventional, powerful, and institutionally driven, with a profound trust in authority." They grew up as the increasingly protected children of an Unraveling, (during the World War I era of "reform and fundamentalism amidst a floodtide of crime, alcohol, immigration, political corruption, and circus trials," to quote from Strauss and Howe’s website www.fourthturning.com ), came of age as the Heroic, team-working youth of a Crisis (the Depression and World War II), became energetic and hubristic mid-lifers during a High (the New Deal/Post-war period) and became the powerful elders who were attacked during the most recent Awakening, the cultural revolution of the 1960s.
The Artist archetype includes members of, most recently, the Silent Generation – people born between 1925-1942. As a group, they tend to be "subtle, indecisive, emotional and compromising, often having to deal with feelings of repression and inner conflict." They grew up as the over-protected children of a Crisis (the Depression and World War II), came of age as the sensitive young adults of a High (the New Deal/Post War period), rebelled as indecisive midlife leaders during an Awakening (the cultural revolution of the 1960s), and have become the empathic elders of an Unraveling (our current cultural turmoil, with global warming and global wealth and power inequities.)
The third archetype is the Prophet archetype, most recently Baby Boomers born between 1943 and 1960. As a group, Boomers tend to be values-driven, moralistic, focused on self, and willing to fight to the death for what they believe in. They grew up as the increasingly indulged children of a High (the New Deal/Post-War period); came of age as the young crusaders of an Awakening (Woodstock, Summer of Love, Civil Rights Movment, Vietnam draft card burners); entered midlife as moralistic leaders during an Unraveling and have become the wise, elder leaders of the next Crisis.
I am a member of the most recent example of the Nomad archetype, Generation X, born between 1961 and 1981. As a group, we tend to be "ratty, tough, unwanted, diverse, adventurous, and cynical about institutions." We grew up as the underprotected children of an Awakening: the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 70s, with widespread birth control, legalized abortion, women entering the paid workforce in unprecedented numbers, and a divorce epidemic. We came of age as the alienated young adults of an Unraveling (growing job insecurity for our parents, AIDS, environmental disasters, political and social upheaval wrought by oil and water wars, and national and global wealth inequities). We are poised to become the pragmatic, midlife leaders of a Crisis and age into tough, post-crisis elders during a High.
Rounding out the cycle, we go back to the Hero archetype, the Millennial Generation of young people born between 1982 and 2003. Once again, as a group, they tend to be "conventional, powerful, and institutionally driven, with a profound trust in authority." They grew up (or are growing up) as the increasingly protected children of an Unraveling, our current environmental and socioeconomic breakdown. The oldest members of this cohort are coming of age as the Heroic, team-working youth of a Crisis, human efforts to develop ecologically and socioeconomically sustainable civil structures, aka "the global war on terror", will become energetic and hubristic mid-lifers during a High, perhaps the fruition of current efforts of the Global Justice and Climate Stabilization movements, and will become the powerful elders who will be attacked during the next Awakening.
Under Strauss and Howe’s theory, we are currently standing on the border between the end of an Unraveling period and the beginning of a Crisis period. As they describe it:
An UNRAVELING begins as a society-wide embrace of the liberating cultural forces set loose by the Awakening. People have had their fill of spiritual rebirth, moral protest, and lifestyle experimentation. Content with what they have become individually, they vigorously assert an ethos of pragmatism, self-reliance, laissez faire, and national (or sectional or ethnic) chauvinism.
While personal satisfaction is high, public trust ebbs amid a fragmenting culture, harsh debates over values, and weakening civic habits. The sense of guilt (which rewards principle and individuality) reaches its zenith. As moral debates brew, the big public arguments are over ends, not means. Decisive public action becomes very difficult, as community problems are deferred. Wars are fought with moral fervor but without consensus or follow-through.
Eventually, cynical alienation hardens into a brooding pessimism. During a High, obliging individuals serve a purposeful society, and even bad people get harnessed to socially constructive tasks; during an Unraveling, an obliging society serves purposeful individuals, and even good people find it hard to connect with their community. The approaching specter of public disaster ultimately elicits a mix of paralysis and apathy that would have been unthinkable half a saeculum earlier. People can now feel, but collectively can no longer do.
I want to emphasize that last point, that during an unraveling, "an obliging society serves purposeful individuals, and even good people find it hard to connect with their community. The approaching specter of public disaster ultimately elicits a mix of paralysis and apathy...People can now feel, but collectively can no longer do."
Strauss and Howe define a Crisis as follows:
A CRISIS arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice.
People support new efforts to wield public authority, whose perceived successes soon justify more of the same. Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside. A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline. A sense of public urgency contributes to a clampdown on "bad" conduct or "anti-social" lifestyles. People begin feeling shameful about what they earlier did to absolve guilt. Public order tightens, private risk-taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline. Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child-rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result.
Eventually, the mood transforms into one of exhaustion, relief, and optimism. Buoyed by a new-born faith in the group and in authority, leaders plan, people hope, and a society yearns for good and simple things.
GLOBAL HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Turning to the global historical context, having described the theoretical model, I think that the unique facets of our current historical moment in America, include both the incompetence with which government authorities have addressed the Crisis, which I take to be September 11 and the ensuing global upheaval around the purpose and legitimacy of corporate-led globalization, and the fact that an unprecedented global movement has emerged at the same time, first brought to wide U.S. attention during the 1999 protests at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.
In other words, the American generational cycle is, this time, intertwined with a global struggle between at least two forces: religious fundamentalists bent on either destroying or permanently solidifying military-capitalism’s hold on the world economy, and a popular movement to empower ordinary citizens to make decisions about their socio-economic conditions, alter individual consciousness and thereby change the basic relationships among different human cultures and between human civilization and nature.
This phenomenon is often described as an evolution of sort, by thinkers and writers like Thom Hartmann (The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight), James Redfield (Celestine Prophecy), and John Perkins, who wrote, in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (page 209):
Nearly every culture I know prophesies that in the late 1990's we entered a period of remarkable transition. At monasteries in the Himalayas, ceremonial sites in Indonesia, and indigenous reservations in North America, from the depths of the Amazon to the peaks of the Andes, and into the ancient Mayan cities of Central America, I have heard that ours is a special moment in human history, and that each of us was born at this time because we have a mission to accomplish.
The titles and the words of the prophecies differ slightly. They tell variously of a New Age, the Third Millennium, the Age of Aquarius, the Beginning of the Fifth Sun, or the end of old calendars and the commencement of new ones. Despite the varying terminologies, however, they have a great deal in common, and "The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle" is typical.
It states that back in the mists of history, human societies divided and took different paths: that of the condor (representing the heart, intuitive and mystical) and that of the eagle (representing the brain, rational and material). In the 1490's, the prophecy said, the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years later, in the 1990's a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and the eagle will have the opportunity to reunite and fly together in the same sky, along the same path. If the condor and eagle accept this opportunity, they will create a most remarkable offspring, unlike any seen before.
"The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle" can be taken at many levels — the standard interpretation is that it foretells the sharing of indigenous knowledge with the technologies of science, the balancing of yin and yang, and the bridging of northern and southern cultures. However, most powerful is the message it offers about consciousness; it says the we have entered a time when we can benefit from the many diverse was of seeing ourselves and the world, and that we can use these as a springboard to higher levels of awareness. As human beings we can truly wake up and evolve into a more conscious species."