skews13
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- Mar 18, 2017
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The pundits are mystified by Tuesday’s election outcome: they were certain a red wave was on its way.
They missed the Zoomers.
They missed the Fourth Turning.
It’s been 76 years since the Silent Generation birthed the first Boomers after World War II in 1946. That’s exactly four times nineteen years per generation (4 x 19 = 76).
From 1901 to today, we call these generations: Greatest, Silent, Boomers, Xers, Millennials, Zoomers, Alpha.
Each lasts roughly 17-20 years, before the next generation steps onto the world’s stage.
And there’s something extraordinary about every fourth generation (those bolded above).
On September 6, 1789, US Envoy to France Thomas Jefferson, who would be America’s first Secretary of State in a mere six months, sat down at his desk in Paris to write to his protégé James Madison.
Working from a mortality table published by the French scientist M. de Buffon, he proposed his take on a science of history based on the study of generations. Each generation’s influence extended over 19 years, he believed, then gave way to the next generation.
Thus, Jefferson proposed, every 19 years a new generation rose to power and that new generation had both the ability and the obligation to make the world anew. So completely, he believed, that they could even reinterpret and rewrite the American constitution.
But, like Jefferson, they posited that every generation influenced the course of history in their own unique way.
Most important, they pointed out that with every fourth generation — every 80 years — a generation would come into a world confronted by massive crises caused by preceding generations. Rising to those crises, that generation would lead a “turning” of society and politics for the better.
Each of these turnings then transformed America and the world.
We became a democracy after the Revolutionary War. Eighty years later we ended slavery and crushed much of the Southern oligarchy with the Civil War. Eighty years after the Civil War we fought World War II and built the great American middle class, the first in world history. In three short years, it’ll have been 80 years since we won WWII.
Why every fourth generation? Arnold Toynbee, it is said, had the answer to that:
We repeat mistakes we don’t remember. Or make even worse mistakes.
If there had been a single senator from 1933 in the Senate in 1999 when Phil Graham suggested doing away with Glass-Steagall, arguing that it was no longer needed because it had worked so well, they would’ve laughed him out of the building. But all the people in the Senate in the 1930s — when Glass-Steagall saved our nation from the banking crisis of the Republican Great Depression — were long dead. Almost 80 years had passed.
Step back and you can see how each fourth generation confronts an historic time.
Eighty years ago, humanity was plunged into World War II. Eighty years before that was the American Civil War. Eighty years before that (Lincoln’s “four score”) was the American Revolution
Your 80 years is up.
They missed the Zoomers.
They missed the Fourth Turning.
It’s been 76 years since the Silent Generation birthed the first Boomers after World War II in 1946. That’s exactly four times nineteen years per generation (4 x 19 = 76).
From 1901 to today, we call these generations: Greatest, Silent, Boomers, Xers, Millennials, Zoomers, Alpha.
Each lasts roughly 17-20 years, before the next generation steps onto the world’s stage.
And there’s something extraordinary about every fourth generation (those bolded above).
On September 6, 1789, US Envoy to France Thomas Jefferson, who would be America’s first Secretary of State in a mere six months, sat down at his desk in Paris to write to his protégé James Madison.
Working from a mortality table published by the French scientist M. de Buffon, he proposed his take on a science of history based on the study of generations. Each generation’s influence extended over 19 years, he believed, then gave way to the next generation.
Thus, Jefferson proposed, every 19 years a new generation rose to power and that new generation had both the ability and the obligation to make the world anew. So completely, he believed, that they could even reinterpret and rewrite the American constitution.
Two-hundred-eight years (or eleven generations) later, in 1997, William Strauss and Neil Howe published The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny. They only slightly disagreed with Jefferson’s observation, arguing that a generation was 20 years long instead of 19.
But, like Jefferson, they posited that every generation influenced the course of history in their own unique way.
Most important, they pointed out that with every fourth generation — every 80 years — a generation would come into a world confronted by massive crises caused by preceding generations. Rising to those crises, that generation would lead a “turning” of society and politics for the better.
Each of these turnings then transformed America and the world.
We became a democracy after the Revolutionary War. Eighty years later we ended slavery and crushed much of the Southern oligarchy with the Civil War. Eighty years after the Civil War we fought World War II and built the great American middle class, the first in world history. In three short years, it’ll have been 80 years since we won WWII.
Why every fourth generation? Arnold Toynbee, it is said, had the answer to that:
It takes 80 years, he argued, for what Daniel Quinn called a “great forgetting” to happen, forcing a society or nation to learn its lessons all over again.
We repeat mistakes we don’t remember. Or make even worse mistakes.
If there had been a single senator from 1933 in the Senate in 1999 when Phil Graham suggested doing away with Glass-Steagall, arguing that it was no longer needed because it had worked so well, they would’ve laughed him out of the building. But all the people in the Senate in the 1930s — when Glass-Steagall saved our nation from the banking crisis of the Republican Great Depression — were long dead. Almost 80 years had passed.
Step back and you can see how each fourth generation confronts an historic time.
Eighty years ago, humanity was plunged into World War II. Eighty years before that was the American Civil War. Eighty years before that (Lincoln’s “four score”) was the American Revolution
Has the Fourth Turning Begun?
The pundits are mystified by Tuesday’s election outcome: they were certain a red wave was on its way. They missed the Zoomers. They missed the Fourth Turning. It’s been 76 years since the Silent Generation birthed the first Boomers after World War II...
m.dailykos.com
Your 80 years is up.
