I don't particularly like Strauss and Howe theory on the basis that it's sufficiently vague as to apply to both nothing and everything. It encourages cherry-picking in terms of analyzing human behavior. With that said, this is an interesting observation.
There has certainly been a dramatic cultural bifurcation. I think that when looking at these scenarios in a long-term lens, one cannot ignore the effects of demographics. Historically, Strauss and Howe theory was built around a number of cultural and economic assumptions. One of the most important assumptions is an ever-growing economy and population. One could reasonably argue that the Millennial generation was the first to properly recognize that they live in a time that is culturally unprecedented for around 500 years: a shrinking population and economy. The demography plays a critical role as civilizations with older populations demonstrate less vitality and less propensity to change. This calls into question many of the assumptions of Strauss and Howe theory to begin with.
Further, demography will play a critical role moving forward. The "woke" portion of the millennial population is far less likely to pass on their beliefs to the next generation. The dissident right frequently see child-rearing as duty while the Woke left sees it as a nuisance. From demography alone, the Millennial dissidents and zoomer-Right are going to dominate cultural discourse. What we're observing is a cultural phenomena and strife quite similar to the appearance of the printing press and the protestant reformation. Coincidentally, also the last time that a major demographic collapse took place in Western nations (that time due to war and famine). This is a period of instability in human history that we're going through now... sufficient instability that more short-lived deterministic theories that may have held true for the previous half-millennium are inapplicable.
You are right - that is the feeling I got about it, especially when applied to the deterministic cycles, however I felt the 'archetypes' more compelling - probably given I am studying psychology (though I'm sure they would argue the archetypes and the deterministic 'turnings' are supposed to go hand in hand, you cannot have one without the other etc). It's possible generations - just like people from different cultures - have slightly different personality traits to the point where you can draw out a psychological type, distinguished from other generations.
Demographics, as you've written on your Substack, will likely be a huge issue - and of course, are always linked with generations. But did they rely on that assumption? I might have missed it, but I was under the assumption that economies and population size could fluctuate - at least when I was reading it. I'll have to search this up - because you make a great point if it is the case. However, you could argue Millennials (if they react the right way) would be judged as heroes precisely because of a shrinking economy and population size.
You are right about the transmissibility of the 'woke ideology', in the sense the dissident part of Millennials are more likely to pass their own rejection of it 'down' to their children. However, as many have argued, Wokeness became popular - just like Marxism and Socialism before it - because of its 'sideways' transmissibility: It's utopian vision is intuitively attractive to young people, because it requires no effort to hold, unlike the sacrifices one needs to make for other worldviews. In this way, and because the Woke still control many institutions, even after the shift right-ward, I am tentative to suggest the dissident branch will 'dominate'. Remember, all those crazy wokeist Millennials you know - in ten/twenty years they might have large cultural power. Despite saying all that, I hope you're right.
The archetypes are interesting, and your introduction of nuance to what was hitherto an overly simplistic model, to explain divergent behaviour in our generation is intriguing. It's good theory-crafting from you. But their theory is kinda fanciful and overly deterministic. Using a sample size of four generations to predict the future. Reminds me a bit of Alan Lichtman's 'keys'. If world events didn't play out the way they did, would these archetypes have any merit?
Cheers bro appreciate it. Never can have enough theories. I have like four for cutting an onion, so obviously we need to have heaps for human behaviour. Onions are like people after all. That's a pretty good analogy. You know with the layers and all. I reckon I should trademark that.
But yeah you're right, as I suggested above with the 'cycles'. However, although I didn't include them above, they go way back to medieval era, so it's quite a few generations. For America, they explain every generation to the 'thirteenth' generation, which is Gen X. They also do suggest it's possible for generations to skip - though they say it's only happened once (the civil war), can't remember what the generations were. So, I was probably being a bit harsh on them there.
That's an interesting question. They suggest, just using the example of war (and more generally crises), that free societies go through social strengthenings and unravellings partly because generations have either forgotten about crises and war or never experienced them (which causes unravelling), or when generations have experienced major social division (which causes unification and a high). They measure roughly 40-50 years from crisis - to high - to crises again, roughly the same time it takes for a generation to never experience a crisis - or have come-to-age inside a crisis, which reflect and thus determine some of their personality traits. I hope that made sense.
Also, been thinking about how people criticise theories and models more generally, and I'm guessing you're similar, as a science bro we're almost brainwashed with two competing theories of cultural time: Complete randomness and chaos (atheist God), and progressive (it's getting better God, like obviously). One is indeterministic to the point its non-sensical to humans, and the other one essentially rejects all of biology, and at the very extreme, even physics. (There's also the other neuroscience Sam Harris bro theory, where we don't have free-will and all our micro-decisions aren't our own, which ironically, is often used with randomness theory.) So, anyway, when one says 'its a bit deterministic', I have started thinking - by what measure is it deterministic? By the randomness theory? Or by progressive it's getting better theory? Because in some ways, they are two poles of cultural time.
Strauss and Howe's is cyclical, which, compared to those to other theories, as they state, is far closer to nature. They cite seasons, circadian rhythms, all that shit - and ask the question, like many cultures have before, whether social phenomena repeats - and then of course, start applying it to generations. Whether or not it has any merit, it is compelling reading.
I think there's something there in terms of the cyclical nature of history, and though it's oft repeated enough to be cliche, history seems replete with examples of hard times creating resilient people, who in turn create periods of prosperity. And just as much, it is not hard to observe how our period of relative abundance has led to a distinct lack of resiliency among the general populace, with the upshot being a greater liability for crises. And I think the insight that subsequent generations tend to forget the lessons of the past is broadly true, hell it's broadly true of people in general without the lens of generations. It frustrates me sometimes how little the average intelligent person knows of history, let alone the average person. But anyway. I don't think it's meritless to add that 'generational lens' to that observation, it is interesting.
So it's not so much the cyclical nature of our macro-history that I take issue with, but rather the rigidity of the model, even if, as you say they give themselves some minor amount of wiggle room. I haven't read the book, so tell me, does their theory apply equally well to say China? India? Russia? Japan? I pick these four because they are all civilizations with very long histories, and if the authors theory is true of human nature then it should apply equally well to these examples.
I think these things are fascinating, but much like terror management theory, it would seem, if @copurnicus99 is speaking true, that the authors may fall into some of the same pitfalls as TMT. If that's the case, the predictive value of their claims could be pretty low. Just like Alan Lichtman. He was right, until he was wrong. Then everyone sobered up.
"I'm guessing you're similar, as a science bro we're almost brainwashed with two competing theories of cultural time: Complete randomness and chaos (atheist God), and progressive (it's getting better God, like obviously)"
- Were we? Is that the dichotomy? I'm not really convinced. Who exactly is making the argument that cultural time is completely random and unstructured? Feels to me like the common position is more that the underlying structure of civilization and a randomness effect interact. "Events, dear boy, events!"
Progressives would probably argue in some ways things have gotten better and in other ways they have gotten much worse (a position I would argue the average person probably holds, including myself, but probably with large divergence in the particulars as to what has gotten better and what has gotten worse). However, perhaps to your point, not that I'm sure I understand it, they would argue if things had all just gone their way, everything would be better.
But when I say too deterministic, I am saying that history is far too complex, with far too many interacting factors to be neatly reduced to ~80 year cycles with any substantive degree of confidence. It is a flaw of the western mind, that we so very much love our neat and tidy boxes.
I cannot remember exactly how they phrase it, but generations that lacked freedom of mind and movement, like those of authoritarian regimes, have less ability to express these archetypes - at least with the speed and the extent of Western generations. I think they talk briefly about those ones, but I can't quite remember sorry.
Well, they admit that much of their prediction might not hold, but that the bones will. One could look back, as I say, with Millennials reunifying and rebuilding the West., after a crisis period - and be like, well fuck - that's basically what they said - or not (the prophet millennial) or both (the bifurcation because of technology) or neither or all or whatever.
Yeah, to me it is. Part of the point is it's not an argument. Vary rarely in science do we ever discuss the philosophy of science, we just assume shit. Those are the two main assumptions, and they're often contradictory. Beside from Jamin a couple of times, and my 3rd year Massey Professor, we never talked about these assumptions, unless they were refined on a level these point and click brains could manage - like stats (sick bro). You're right that many professors might hold that 'common' position individually, but as group propagandists, there seems to me a subliminal brainwashing of either way, or really both, without ever really discussing them.
We need to separate the people holding onto progressivism and the historicism of progressivism itself, influenced by Hegel and then Marx. That's what I'm talking about, the denial of biology - transgenderism and then of course, transhumanism.
Yeah, and I would agree - only with the caveat that I think I have changed my approach to such theories. I think many people, just like when engaging with conspiracies, pretend like they're open to ideas, but just don't want to get behind something that has a large chance of being wrong; not saying I am getting behind their theory, as such - just that I respect they're predicting something - not like all of us grandstanding shouting 'deterministic', you know? (not saying you are, just getting a point across)
When in the past I would dismiss something if It was labelled as 'deterministic', now I engage with it. I used to be pretty hardcore Popperian, unfalsifiable dude, and have realised the limits of this position. But that's another onion theory piece.
"Vary rarely in science do we ever discuss the philosophy of science, we just assume shit."
That's a bit of a broad brush statement to be making, perhaps there's something to it within our local example, but neither have either of us been exposed to all courses where it might have been discussed.
Philosophy of science isn't really a fringe area of academic inquiry, it's been there since the jump and it's a growing field in terms of journal articles, journals catering towards it, and citations. You can make the point that it should be taught in more depth at undergrad, but neither should we make the assumption that it's not taught at depth in undergrad in all programmes, unless of course we have some of the maligned statistics to support the contention. Otherwise all we're going on here is vibes.
"Those are the two main assumptions"
Restating your point isn't providing any more support that might convince me that what you're saying is true though bro. Are they the two main positions people hold? On what grounds do we know that to be true? Or are they just the most salient positions for you?
It's one of the books I was thinking about when I wrote this, even though I linked to a Philip Dick book. Chose to link to Dick to send a message to certain politicians I know - though I doubt they'll get it.
Interesting Read. I am curious if millennials are uniquely bifurcated compared to previous generations or if the divisions amongst millennials are more obvious due to the Internet. There have always been people who did not conform to mainstream culture in the past but only significant subgroups could exert cultural pressure.
With the Internet, tiny subgroups can exert massively outsized cultural pressure that can derange the culture as a whole. Much of transgender culture and ideas started on Tumblr before metastasizing to the rest of the Internet.
Yeah that's a great point. It can be hard to ascertain whether today's bifurcation is superficial artifact of the internet, or something real actually affecting people.
Your second point kid of supports it - that Tumblr, a weird online space for girls and their cute pictures and boy stories, manifested in the real world a bizarre movement. Could say the same for 4chan, I suppose.
I don't particularly like Strauss and Howe theory on the basis that it's sufficiently vague as to apply to both nothing and everything. It encourages cherry-picking in terms of analyzing human behavior. With that said, this is an interesting observation.
There has certainly been a dramatic cultural bifurcation. I think that when looking at these scenarios in a long-term lens, one cannot ignore the effects of demographics. Historically, Strauss and Howe theory was built around a number of cultural and economic assumptions. One of the most important assumptions is an ever-growing economy and population. One could reasonably argue that the Millennial generation was the first to properly recognize that they live in a time that is culturally unprecedented for around 500 years: a shrinking population and economy. The demography plays a critical role as civilizations with older populations demonstrate less vitality and less propensity to change. This calls into question many of the assumptions of Strauss and Howe theory to begin with.
Further, demography will play a critical role moving forward. The "woke" portion of the millennial population is far less likely to pass on their beliefs to the next generation. The dissident right frequently see child-rearing as duty while the Woke left sees it as a nuisance. From demography alone, the Millennial dissidents and zoomer-Right are going to dominate cultural discourse. What we're observing is a cultural phenomena and strife quite similar to the appearance of the printing press and the protestant reformation. Coincidentally, also the last time that a major demographic collapse took place in Western nations (that time due to war and famine). This is a period of instability in human history that we're going through now... sufficient instability that more short-lived deterministic theories that may have held true for the previous half-millennium are inapplicable.
You are right - that is the feeling I got about it, especially when applied to the deterministic cycles, however I felt the 'archetypes' more compelling - probably given I am studying psychology (though I'm sure they would argue the archetypes and the deterministic 'turnings' are supposed to go hand in hand, you cannot have one without the other etc). It's possible generations - just like people from different cultures - have slightly different personality traits to the point where you can draw out a psychological type, distinguished from other generations.
Demographics, as you've written on your Substack, will likely be a huge issue - and of course, are always linked with generations. But did they rely on that assumption? I might have missed it, but I was under the assumption that economies and population size could fluctuate - at least when I was reading it. I'll have to search this up - because you make a great point if it is the case. However, you could argue Millennials (if they react the right way) would be judged as heroes precisely because of a shrinking economy and population size.
You are right about the transmissibility of the 'woke ideology', in the sense the dissident part of Millennials are more likely to pass their own rejection of it 'down' to their children. However, as many have argued, Wokeness became popular - just like Marxism and Socialism before it - because of its 'sideways' transmissibility: It's utopian vision is intuitively attractive to young people, because it requires no effort to hold, unlike the sacrifices one needs to make for other worldviews. In this way, and because the Woke still control many institutions, even after the shift right-ward, I am tentative to suggest the dissident branch will 'dominate'. Remember, all those crazy wokeist Millennials you know - in ten/twenty years they might have large cultural power. Despite saying all that, I hope you're right.
The archetypes are interesting, and your introduction of nuance to what was hitherto an overly simplistic model, to explain divergent behaviour in our generation is intriguing. It's good theory-crafting from you. But their theory is kinda fanciful and overly deterministic. Using a sample size of four generations to predict the future. Reminds me a bit of Alan Lichtman's 'keys'. If world events didn't play out the way they did, would these archetypes have any merit?
Cheers bro appreciate it. Never can have enough theories. I have like four for cutting an onion, so obviously we need to have heaps for human behaviour. Onions are like people after all. That's a pretty good analogy. You know with the layers and all. I reckon I should trademark that.
But yeah you're right, as I suggested above with the 'cycles'. However, although I didn't include them above, they go way back to medieval era, so it's quite a few generations. For America, they explain every generation to the 'thirteenth' generation, which is Gen X. They also do suggest it's possible for generations to skip - though they say it's only happened once (the civil war), can't remember what the generations were. So, I was probably being a bit harsh on them there.
That's an interesting question. They suggest, just using the example of war (and more generally crises), that free societies go through social strengthenings and unravellings partly because generations have either forgotten about crises and war or never experienced them (which causes unravelling), or when generations have experienced major social division (which causes unification and a high). They measure roughly 40-50 years from crisis - to high - to crises again, roughly the same time it takes for a generation to never experience a crisis - or have come-to-age inside a crisis, which reflect and thus determine some of their personality traits. I hope that made sense.
Also, been thinking about how people criticise theories and models more generally, and I'm guessing you're similar, as a science bro we're almost brainwashed with two competing theories of cultural time: Complete randomness and chaos (atheist God), and progressive (it's getting better God, like obviously). One is indeterministic to the point its non-sensical to humans, and the other one essentially rejects all of biology, and at the very extreme, even physics. (There's also the other neuroscience Sam Harris bro theory, where we don't have free-will and all our micro-decisions aren't our own, which ironically, is often used with randomness theory.) So, anyway, when one says 'its a bit deterministic', I have started thinking - by what measure is it deterministic? By the randomness theory? Or by progressive it's getting better theory? Because in some ways, they are two poles of cultural time.
Strauss and Howe's is cyclical, which, compared to those to other theories, as they state, is far closer to nature. They cite seasons, circadian rhythms, all that shit - and ask the question, like many cultures have before, whether social phenomena repeats - and then of course, start applying it to generations. Whether or not it has any merit, it is compelling reading.
I think there's something there in terms of the cyclical nature of history, and though it's oft repeated enough to be cliche, history seems replete with examples of hard times creating resilient people, who in turn create periods of prosperity. And just as much, it is not hard to observe how our period of relative abundance has led to a distinct lack of resiliency among the general populace, with the upshot being a greater liability for crises. And I think the insight that subsequent generations tend to forget the lessons of the past is broadly true, hell it's broadly true of people in general without the lens of generations. It frustrates me sometimes how little the average intelligent person knows of history, let alone the average person. But anyway. I don't think it's meritless to add that 'generational lens' to that observation, it is interesting.
So it's not so much the cyclical nature of our macro-history that I take issue with, but rather the rigidity of the model, even if, as you say they give themselves some minor amount of wiggle room. I haven't read the book, so tell me, does their theory apply equally well to say China? India? Russia? Japan? I pick these four because they are all civilizations with very long histories, and if the authors theory is true of human nature then it should apply equally well to these examples.
I think these things are fascinating, but much like terror management theory, it would seem, if @copurnicus99 is speaking true, that the authors may fall into some of the same pitfalls as TMT. If that's the case, the predictive value of their claims could be pretty low. Just like Alan Lichtman. He was right, until he was wrong. Then everyone sobered up.
"I'm guessing you're similar, as a science bro we're almost brainwashed with two competing theories of cultural time: Complete randomness and chaos (atheist God), and progressive (it's getting better God, like obviously)"
- Were we? Is that the dichotomy? I'm not really convinced. Who exactly is making the argument that cultural time is completely random and unstructured? Feels to me like the common position is more that the underlying structure of civilization and a randomness effect interact. "Events, dear boy, events!"
Progressives would probably argue in some ways things have gotten better and in other ways they have gotten much worse (a position I would argue the average person probably holds, including myself, but probably with large divergence in the particulars as to what has gotten better and what has gotten worse). However, perhaps to your point, not that I'm sure I understand it, they would argue if things had all just gone their way, everything would be better.
But when I say too deterministic, I am saying that history is far too complex, with far too many interacting factors to be neatly reduced to ~80 year cycles with any substantive degree of confidence. It is a flaw of the western mind, that we so very much love our neat and tidy boxes.
I cannot remember exactly how they phrase it, but generations that lacked freedom of mind and movement, like those of authoritarian regimes, have less ability to express these archetypes - at least with the speed and the extent of Western generations. I think they talk briefly about those ones, but I can't quite remember sorry.
Well, they admit that much of their prediction might not hold, but that the bones will. One could look back, as I say, with Millennials reunifying and rebuilding the West., after a crisis period - and be like, well fuck - that's basically what they said - or not (the prophet millennial) or both (the bifurcation because of technology) or neither or all or whatever.
Yeah, to me it is. Part of the point is it's not an argument. Vary rarely in science do we ever discuss the philosophy of science, we just assume shit. Those are the two main assumptions, and they're often contradictory. Beside from Jamin a couple of times, and my 3rd year Massey Professor, we never talked about these assumptions, unless they were refined on a level these point and click brains could manage - like stats (sick bro). You're right that many professors might hold that 'common' position individually, but as group propagandists, there seems to me a subliminal brainwashing of either way, or really both, without ever really discussing them.
We need to separate the people holding onto progressivism and the historicism of progressivism itself, influenced by Hegel and then Marx. That's what I'm talking about, the denial of biology - transgenderism and then of course, transhumanism.
Yeah, and I would agree - only with the caveat that I think I have changed my approach to such theories. I think many people, just like when engaging with conspiracies, pretend like they're open to ideas, but just don't want to get behind something that has a large chance of being wrong; not saying I am getting behind their theory, as such - just that I respect they're predicting something - not like all of us grandstanding shouting 'deterministic', you know? (not saying you are, just getting a point across)
When in the past I would dismiss something if It was labelled as 'deterministic', now I engage with it. I used to be pretty hardcore Popperian, unfalsifiable dude, and have realised the limits of this position. But that's another onion theory piece.
"Vary rarely in science do we ever discuss the philosophy of science, we just assume shit."
That's a bit of a broad brush statement to be making, perhaps there's something to it within our local example, but neither have either of us been exposed to all courses where it might have been discussed.
Philosophy of science isn't really a fringe area of academic inquiry, it's been there since the jump and it's a growing field in terms of journal articles, journals catering towards it, and citations. You can make the point that it should be taught in more depth at undergrad, but neither should we make the assumption that it's not taught at depth in undergrad in all programmes, unless of course we have some of the maligned statistics to support the contention. Otherwise all we're going on here is vibes.
"Those are the two main assumptions"
Restating your point isn't providing any more support that might convince me that what you're saying is true though bro. Are they the two main positions people hold? On what grounds do we know that to be true? Or are they just the most salient positions for you?
Here's a downloadable link to The Fourth Turning.
https://archive.org/details/the-fourth-turning-an-american-prophecy-what-the-cycles-of-history-tell-us-about
It's one of the books I was thinking about when I wrote this, even though I linked to a Philip Dick book. Chose to link to Dick to send a message to certain politicians I know - though I doubt they'll get it.
https://craighutchinson.substack.com/p/covid-19-the-deadliest-fraud-ever
Good essay.
Oh nice, yeah I got the book on my shelves. Is the Philip K Dick the science fiction writer haha?
Interesting Read. I am curious if millennials are uniquely bifurcated compared to previous generations or if the divisions amongst millennials are more obvious due to the Internet. There have always been people who did not conform to mainstream culture in the past but only significant subgroups could exert cultural pressure.
With the Internet, tiny subgroups can exert massively outsized cultural pressure that can derange the culture as a whole. Much of transgender culture and ideas started on Tumblr before metastasizing to the rest of the Internet.
Yeah that's a great point. It can be hard to ascertain whether today's bifurcation is superficial artifact of the internet, or something real actually affecting people.
Your second point kid of supports it - that Tumblr, a weird online space for girls and their cute pictures and boy stories, manifested in the real world a bizarre movement. Could say the same for 4chan, I suppose.