Brownian Notions
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Wars and the Generations which fight them.
One of Wrechard's recent posts about what he sees as a sea change in American politics brought to mind Strauss and Howe's book "Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069." In their book they try to quantify this vague notion we have of a generational changing of the guard. In a nutshell the thesis of Generations is that America goes through cycles of roughly 82 years during which four generational cohorts each with a distinct outlook and characteristics mature in the shadow of older generations, lead with the excesses of the previous generation in mind, recede to the role of elders and finally pass into obscurity. Of course these are generalizations
I think it rather more plausible that the shared impressions of the societal conditions which a new generation is about to inherit are a more likely influence than the much more variable family nurturing. The most comforting aspect to this view is that the generation which we are raising is a Civic cohort an analogue to WWII's Greatest Generation. In this view Wrechard's hypothesis of a conservative revival is only marginally correct. It would be more correct to say that a new generation of people who define themselves in opposition to the old statist liberal establishment have taken the bit in their teeth. An interesting hypothesis but how to test it?
In my mind the litmus of the day is the attitude toward 911 and the war on terror. I took this page detailing the specific generations and compared the cohort start date to the start date of each war listed wars with > 1,000 American deaths.
The numbers represent the age of the leading edge of each generational cohort. The striking thing about this table is that the domestically most unpopular wars (Spanish American, Philippines and later Vietnam Wars) have occurred during the prime of the Idealist cohort, of which the Boomer's are the latest manifestation. In fact today's generational make up more resembles that of WWI than that of the Vietnam war. Austin Bay comments via instapundit that the nation may be suffering from "excitement fatigue," too much news and upheaval in too short a time. Historical analogies are a poor substitute for understanding but there is a call to caution here. I don't want to see the West to take a 20 year breather just to leave the job to the coming generation of Civics. Little Notions is in that cohort and I do not want to leave him to deal with the next Austrian corporal.
update: Read this by James Glassman I think the hat tip goes to instapundit
posted by Y.H.N.
One of Wrechard's recent posts about what he sees as a sea change in American politics brought to mind Strauss and Howe's book "Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069." In their book they try to quantify this vague notion we have of a generational changing of the guard. In a nutshell the thesis of Generations is that America goes through cycles of roughly 82 years during which four generational cohorts each with a distinct outlook and characteristics mature in the shadow of older generations, lead with the excesses of the previous generation in mind, recede to the role of elders and finally pass into obscurity. Of course these are generalizations
"At the same time we need to understand that obviously not everyone born into these generations is the same. The personality type of each generation is an amalgam of all of it's members, molded by a shared set of experiences in their youth, and reflecting a world view of the group as a whole. S&H base their theory on a cycle of nurturing/parenting (or lack thereof) from generation to generation."
I think it rather more plausible that the shared impressions of the societal conditions which a new generation is about to inherit are a more likely influence than the much more variable family nurturing. The most comforting aspect to this view is that the generation which we are raising is a Civic cohort an analogue to WWII's Greatest Generation. In this view Wrechard's hypothesis of a conservative revival is only marginally correct. It would be more correct to say that a new generation of people who define themselves in opposition to the old statist liberal establishment have taken the bit in their teeth. An interesting hypothesis but how to test it?
In my mind the litmus of the day is the attitude toward 911 and the war on terror. I took this page detailing the specific generations and compared the cohort start date to the start date of each war listed wars with > 1,000 American deaths.
The numbers represent the age of the leading edge of each generational cohort. The striking thing about this table is that the domestically most unpopular wars (Spanish American, Philippines and later Vietnam Wars) have occurred during the prime of the Idealist cohort, of which the Boomer's are the latest manifestation. In fact today's generational make up more resembles that of WWI than that of the Vietnam war. Austin Bay comments via instapundit that the nation may be suffering from "excitement fatigue," too much news and upheaval in too short a time. Historical analogies are a poor substitute for understanding but there is a call to caution here. I don't want to see the West to take a 20 year breather just to leave the job to the coming generation of Civics. Little Notions is in that cohort and I do not want to leave him to deal with the next Austrian corporal.
update: Read this by James Glassman I think the hat tip goes to instapundit
posted by Y.H.N.
Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
