Duration

One of the especially useful properties of Strauss & Howe is that it helps recognize the importance of duration when considering history. Yesterday’s postmentioned a certain fictional period of civil war of twenty years length. It’s hard to comprehend the idea of preparing for war for 20 years, of keeping a critical mass of people in support of the Cause even as the remainder that remembers The Time Before suffers the natural attrition that can be caused by so much time.  (A task even more difficult when no victories occur until the end of that time.) Before S&H, though, trying to make sense of it might not even have come up - might not even have been obvious it was an issue.

When keeping track of history in terms of Turnings and Generations, much time can be spent identifying start or end dates. The year 1968 was important to the Boomer generation, so how old were they when it started? Subtract 1943 (the first Boomer year) from 1968 to get 25 - that’s the oldest possibility.  Which means someone just out of college (or the military), starting a career and maybe a family. At the other end, the youngest Boomers were born in 1960 - they were 8 (1968 minus 1960), old enough to be aware of the news, perhaps not paying attention to it. Plus a good chunk - maybe half, 13-22 year olds - are in high school and college. It quickly becomes second nature to subtract someone’s age from an event date to see when they were born, or to consider the changes that are likely to occur over 20, 40 or 80 years. Alternatively, one may think in terms of terms of Child (minimally aware, easily affected by events), Young Adult (child raising, early career), Midlife (mostly post-child, late career), and Elder (retired or differently active).  Whether depending on mathematics or life events, the difference in effect between a 2 year gap and a 20 year one is more obvious, and the implications clearer.  

Some of this, of course, can be attributed to the effects of advancing age and having a longer outlook on life, from nothing more than the act of living longer. Still, it’s should be a learnable skill.