Talking 'bout Regeneration

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
- Yogi Berra

I'll risk looking stupid and make some predictions about the upcoming years. Not only that -- I'll give you a new way to view US history.

No extra charge.

William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called Generations about fifteen years ago which made the following general statements:

• American generations can be broken down into a four-part cycle
• American history itself follows a four-part cycle

I'll explain, starting with history. Here's the four-part cycle, with examples from our recent history:

1. Crisis Era - e.g. the Great Depression and World War II -- Society's problems reach such a state that they can't be ignored or put aside any longer. Now all generations work together to face them head-on. This equates roughly to Winter.
2. Outer-Driven Era, e.g. the postwar (1950s) era -- Society has successfully faced its crisis and now it's time to enjoy life. And conform. Springtime.
3. Spiritual Awakening Era, e.g. the Flower Power (1960s/70s) era -- Youth find the culture of their parents unbearably bland, so they reinvent it. Summer.
4. Inner-Driven Era, e.g. the current era -- Society largely ignores and puts aside its tangible problems as it struggles to define itself in the wake of the Spiritual Awakening. Autumn.

That's a very simple version of the cycle.

Now for the players. Here are the four generational types, in above order:

1. Civic -- They do great deeds, but struggle with 'the vision thing.' This generation comes of age (i.e. reaches adulthood) during a Crisis Era.
2. Adaptive -- With the great deeds all done, they work to make society fairer. They come of age an Outer-Driven Era.
3. Idealist -- They dream the great visions, but have trouble with 'the reality thing.' They come of age during a Spiritual Awakening Era.
4. Reactives -- We play hard, but we also work hard; we get most of the blame and little of the credit -- and we call bullshit when we see it. We came of age during the current Inner-Driven Era.

By "we/us," I mean Generation X, those of us US Americans born between about 1961 and about 1982. Working backwards from us, the Baby Boom generation (birthyears 1943-1960) is Idealist; the Silent generation (1927-1942) is Adaptive; and the GI generation (aka the 'Greatest Generation,' 1900-1926) is Civic.

The next Civic generation is waiting in the wings of history. Their moment is almost here, but they don't have a good name yet. Some say 'Generation Y'; Strauss and Howe call them 'Millenials,' but whatever (they tried to call us 13ers -- because we're USA's 13th generation -- feh). The next generation's approximate birthyears are 1983-2001. Only time will tell for sure.

Predictions

What's likely to happen in the next few years?

Right now, we're figuratively in late Autumn, heading for Winter (not, I hope, a nuclear one). We're where we were circa 1915 in the last cycle. 9/11 is roughly analagous to the sinking of the Lusitania. I hope. More on that later.

Over the next few years, the Global War on Terror will likely be fought to a half-assed conclusion, with a lot of loose ends.

After that, we're due for an era similar to the 'Roaring 20s,' a period of economic prosperity and hedonism. The Baby Boomers will continue to argue amongst themselves about which Utopia to pursue: Pepperland, or Jesusland? There's likely to be some harsh cultural repression, a la Prohibition, and society will be even more fragmented than it is now.

Then, after several 'crazy' years, something big and terrible will happen. The funny thing is, it doesn't much matter exactly what terrible thing. Last time around it was a stock market crash, followed by a global economic Depression, followed by World War II.

This time, who knows? China invades Taiwan? North Korea strikes Japan? Nuclear Terrorism? Global Climate Change? Peak Oil? All of the above?

What's important is our reaction to the event(s). In the last Crisis Era, we united behind a strong, capable leader, fought our way through the Depression and then through World War II -- and emerged the world's leading power at the end of it.

We surmounted those great challenges well, partly because we were able to reach a national consensus, but mainly because all the living generations were 'aligned' correctly. In 1932, the Missionary Generation (that cycle's Idealists) were entering elderhood, and were perfectly positioned to provide moral guidance and big-picture vision; the Lost Generation (Reactives) were in midlife, just the right age to provide pragmatic tactical leadership; the GI Generation (Civics) were young, strong and eager for great collective challenges (the very young Silent Generation (Adaptives) obediently stayed out of the way).

That alignment comes along only once every 90 years or so, and it's due again around 2015. If we face a great crisis then(or a series of crises), we should do very well.

However, if history forces us deal with an earth-rending crisis much sooner than that, we could be in some trouble. It might be more accurate to say 'if we choose to treat events as earth-rending crises' -- because again, it's not so much what happens, as how we deal with it.

The classic US history example of a crisis that came too soon is the Civil War. The Transcendental Awakening (that cycle's equivalent to our Flower Power era) began in 1837. The Civil War started in 1860, only 23 years later. And ended Very Badly, with our country devastated both physically and spiritually. Obviously, the country hadn't reached any sort of consensus on the major 'values' issues of the day, especially slavery. Given a few more years, they probably would have reached some consensus and solved the problem much less destructively.

Less obviously, the generational alignment was completely dysfunctional. Yes, an Idealist generation (Transcendentals) provided the big picture, but instead of working together, the best minds of that generation worked against each other. Instead of pragmatic Reactive generals (who fight simply to win), we had Idealists there, too -- and winning wasn't enough for them -- they demanded the savage annihilation of the enemy. Insead of team-playing, Civic foot soldiers, individualist Reactives fought the battles.

Contrast that with the WWII cycle: the Missionary Awakening started in 1883; the Great Depression began 46 years later, in 1929.

1967 was the Summer of Love; it's already been 38 years since then, so our society should be ready for something major in just a few years. But we're not ready yet. We're still a deeply divided nation, with only the faintest hints of consensus starting to emerge. That's why I said earlier that I hope we treat 9/11 like the Lusitania, as opposed to Pearl Harbor.

I hope the GWOT doesn't turn into a WWI-style bloodbath, and I can't wait for flapper dresses to come back in style.

Just kidding.