Russia

The Los Angeles Times has an article about the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the secular rules of the country. The title -- "Russian Orthodox Church is in spiritual crisis, critics say" -- evokes the possibility of an Awakening beginning there, which might help solve the question some have about Russia's Saeculum: was the period from 1912 to 1945 one unusually long Crisis, or was it experiencing a different set of Turnings?

Besides that title, the indications of Russia's current turning include:

"Twenty years of democratic Russia" drawing the period since the fall of the USSR into a single box

Corruption - a strong sign of a First Turning - being openly discussed and opposed, specifically in terms of an expensive watch worn by the patriarch in an official photo - and then inexpertly erased. (An echo of Stalin there that suggests a unity between that 80-year-ago time and now.)

Indications of popular protest against the existing regimes, both secular and religious, with a group of young women "dancing" against the status quo.

Together, they suggest the imminent transition from a High to an Awakening. An obvious problem then is, when was their Crisis? It would have to have been from about 1970 to 1992. The peak would have started in the late 1980s, possibly as soon as Chernobyl. Which works, in its way, even if it's not the sort of Crisis we've seen in the United States. And it would indicate a previous Crisis around the time of the October Revolution. Further, this suggests that Stalin's regime was during the corresponding High. The Purges further support this view, as the search for enemies is a common post-Crisis occurrence, leading to witch hunts both literal (Salem, 1692) and metaphorical (McCarthy, 1950).

Howe

Neil Howe started a blog a while back. Good to get some up-to-date views on what he's doing. Or it was until he stopped abruptly late last year.

Fortunately enough, he started back up a few weeks ago. If you're looking at my blog, you should definitely be checking out his.

Summary

One of the tricky parts of the historical analysis that Strauss & Howe enabled is having a concise description of how it all works. Here's my attempt.


History can be seen as cyclical. One of the most obvious patterns is the ~90 year repeat of major conflicts - (... 1776, 1861, 1945... ) A less obvious but notable one is a similar repeat of spiritual upheaval that consistently happens halfway between these crisis periods (1740, 1820, 1896...) Starting from these, Strauss & Howe propose a theory of history as a two-step cycle, comprised of an ~80 year cycle called a Saeculum and a 20 year cycle called a Turning. There are four distinct Turnings in a Saeculum:

The First Turning, or High, follows a Crisis period. It celebrates (and attempts to perpetuate) the concerted effort that enabled victory - or at least survival. The most recent example in the U.S. was the post-World War II era.

The Second Turning, or Awakening, is a period of spiritual tumult as society rebels against the conformance of the High. These include the Great Awakening of the early 1700s and Protestant Reformation.

During the Third Turning, or Unraveling, the loss of social structures yields an abundance of individual freedom and innovation, albeit without a unified focus or interest in solving societal problems. The Roaring 20s and the 1990s "dot-com" era were part of Unravelings.

The Fourth Turning, or Crisis, is a period of secular upheaval as society attempts to fix problems that can no longer wait. It usually culminates in a war that defines the culture through the next Saeculum.

Driving and defining these cycles are the human participants that pass through them. A generation raised during a particular Turning has common experiences that will affect how they live the rest of their lives. The impact of Turnings results in generational archetypes that repeat with the Turnings.

The dangerous Crisis yields cautious Artists.

The static High brings forth rebellious Prophets.

The zealous Awakening spawns cynical Nomads.

The chaotic Unraveling raises united Heroes.

The archetypes active at a point in time then defines the Turning, resulting in these consistently recurring cycles. While exceptions occur (the best-known being the too-early American Civil War) these cycles have been traced back over the last 600 years of Anglo-American history, and have been identified in other modern cultures, as well as ancient civilizations like Rome and Greece.

Insight

I updated the blog description the other day. Being forced to be concise ("500 word limit") can yield useful insights. In this case it was about the nature of the Crisis as Strauss & Howe see it.

Their descriptions often point to a single huge event, and The Crisis Is That: The American Revolution, the Spanish Armada, the Civil War. This can lead to the impression that a Crisis is about a single Event. However, that is not only not the rule, it's really the exception.

The Crisis is a period of time during which culture-redefining changes happen. The changes may be primarily traced to a particular source, but that doesn't mean That is the real cause. Most of the time, the Crisis is a series of changes - some related, some not - implemented over the course of this two-decade-and-change period. They reveal a desire to fix pressing problems at hand. (Whether the problems are really THE most important ... well, it's not clear whether that is considered.) As one fix is implemented, another problem becomes evident. This reinforces the notion that Crises aren't thrust upon us, but are caused by the people at this point in history.

The American Revolution itself led to the organization of the Federal government - related problems. The Great Depression was followed by World War II - less related. And the Depression can be seen as separate periods where the resolution was handled in different ways: a few years under Hoover, an initial period of welcome change by FDR, a period in which change (such as "packing" the Supreme Court) was less welcome, and then the lead-in to the war.

Seeing reactions to Obama and his policies does suggest parallels to that period. Both he and those opposed to him initiate measures that they believe will resolve significant problems. They each may have larger goals they are pursuing, although those can easily be lost in the day-to-day tactical moves that all involved are making. We shouldn't expect to see a huge change, because we wouldn't necessarily recognize it as such. And one person's massive realignment is another's "What took you so long?" Even after the fact, tying together the different events is a matter of interpretation, not causation.

Evil

An early scene in Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light" has the title character giving a sermon on the nature of Evil. His audience consists of Buddhist monks with a worldview that doesn't recognize Evil or Good as independent concepts - or,at least, as concepts relevant to their spiritual goals. The sermon therefore describes the world to them in different terms, of Beauty versus Ugliness. Re-definition allows the same point to be made, avoiding their cultural blind spot.

An article in Forbes has a young (Millennial) developer at game developer OMGPop refusing to accept a job offer from mega-developer Zygna after the startup was acquired. He had specific job-related reasons to refuse, but eventually translated them into a more expansive moral reason: Zygna is Evil.

As the source article on Gamasutra points out, there is a willing rejection in business to describe businesses or the business world or the pursuit of profit as Evil. Indeed, a business and it's employees are pursuing survival, usually, and we do not want to punish that. With an insight that is just what might be expected from a Millennial, he defines Evil in terms of "destroying one's own ecosystem," endangering the survival of others and even of itself.

I call this a Millennial view of the world because of its assumption of interdependence, that everything has to work together for Good to happen. It's not a perspective that I would have come up with, certainly. I consider evil in terms of malice, of intentional effort in pursuit of personal goals where the well-being of others is disregarded or actively opposed. In his formulation, evil can be independent of active intention.

Which isn't to say that it's better nor worse than my definition. His could punish "Evil" based on unintended consequences; mine could ignore longer-term dangers because, hey, who could have known? (Was the 2008 financial crisis due to Evil? Discuss.) It is useful to consider alternatives, and the distinct shared experiences of each generation can yield new ways of examining old - ancient!- problems.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Crisis ending with some punished under a definition of Evil much like this Millennial one - or the next High defining its inevitable Enemies of the State in similar terms.

Games!

"Ludi Ludi Ludi!" said the announcement, posted in Rome at some point in the distant past. "Games Games Games!" I've been looking for where I saw it - online? in Rome itself? In one of those tourist books? - but I remember the exuberance, the repetition, the insistence of those three words. Bread and circuses, indeed.

A phrase, of course, that is central to the "Hunger Games" series of books and upcoming movie. The country there takes its name, Panem, from the Latin, "panem et circenses."
One might take the title of the first book as a dark inversion, as well: play the Games to get more bread. Each of the 12 Districts in Panem must send 2 teenagers to the Games. The 24 children thus gathered will fight to the death, last one alive the winner, earning glory for themselves and more food for their District. Fun stuff.

My relevant thought is that it feels like a change to how the Hero generation is portrayed. Not just indulged; beyond aimless; post-dependent: Now willing to dig in for the fight - and dangerous to those who threaten their peers. Not the first time for this: Harry Potter is transformed similarly, but over the course of seven novels. (An L.A. Times review invokes the recent "Hanna" and "Kick-Ass" as well.) The ubiquity of the marketing carries an implicit belief that this concept is becoming mainstream, that there's no reason NOT to believe in a deadly huntress taking on the system to protect her sister and District.

For Strauss and Howe, it's a given that the Hero generation is indulged (Third Turnings are associated with economic booms), protected ( more than Nomads, but not as smothered as Artists) and praised. And also that they are the ones who willingly take on the enemies of society, often making ultimate sacrifices up to and beyond their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. The jump from one to the other is difficult to comprehend, especially as they are coming of age. ("These spoiled, reckless kids are going to save our world?") That ignores what may be their most significant attribute, admittedly one that doesn't easily distill to a single word. They are close knit, work together - do all sorts of things together - stand as one, watch out for one another, and expect the same in return. Like Katniss, they will go into the arena for the sake of others - especially if it will help them keep what they currently have.

I may wait to confirm which of those incentives - helping peers or staying on top - has more impact, though, so check back in about 20 years.

Medicine

Dr Leo Spaceman on the "critically acclaimed"* comedy "30 Rock" once replied to a patient's inquiry with the observation "Medicine is not science."While meant to show that he is not the sharpest graduate of the Ho Chi Minh School of Medicine, it turns out to be more true than intended. Google "is medicine a science" and you'll get varied opinions on that subject. It's evidently a very real epistemological question for those who think about such things.

Brought into the Presidency just as the Crisis was becoming manifest, Obama's first policy focus was on reforming health care in the United States. There was plenty of reason to think that was needed, from people dying because they didn't have insurance, to massive Medicare fraud, to the crazy state of hospitals here.

That last being what sent me in this direction, after seeing the former site of the North Hollywood Medical Center. Google still shows the buildings, but it's currently a vacant lot in the process of becoming apartments. Before that, it was used for filming most of the seasons of "Scrubs." Which is to say that the next best valued uses for a decent sized medical facility were a) as a set for filming a medical comedy and b) as housing in an inflated but still lethargic market. Not as a hospital.

Which brings us to the Supreme Court spending three days on whether the healthcare reform passed - barely - two years ago is constitutional. The first day was concerned with whether they even could examine the question, under laws that require a tax to be paid before a suit can be brought. Tuesday, though, was the start of the big question: Can the federal government require people to purchase insurance? And if so, what is the constitutional justification?

Regulating interstate commerce, of course, is the go-to argument for this. And the precedent that said growing marijuana for your own medical use in a state that had legalized said use and without any crossing of state lines would seem to indicate that this is a wide-reaching power. I would hope this would be applied consistently, since otherwise it seems too much like these folks make up their mind on the outcome, then make the law fit.

The real problem, though, is that the American mindset doesn't like any of the options. The white-hatted cowboy wouldn't let the sick widow die for lack of funds, but he also knows that the free and open range is a place where not everything is able to survive. Americans like the idea that anything is possible, that nobody is stuck where they are and there's always a second chance, - that the town will always join together to help the unfortunate, and never for a lynch mob.

And even if you're a glass-half-full person, you have to acknowledge that's not true. Shifting back to the specific issue at hand, three people with equivalent- even identical - insurance options can have three radically different outcomes. One could go to a nationally-ranked facility, one to a local clinic, the other might do nothing -"it's just a cough." One doctor is an expert in this specific issue and the other dismisses it. Surgery usually cures it unless an infection happens; antibiotics administered are as good except with allergies; a radical treatment works perfectly unless you are in the unlucky 2%.

Maybe Dr. Spaceman is right: Medicine isn't science, since we can't run repeatable experiments well enough to KNOW just how to fix anyone who walks in for treatment. Perhaps no matter how we mess with the economics of the system, or the standards of the professionals, or the availability of preventative options, horror stories will happen.

* All bloggers are required to use "critically acclaimed" for this show. It's in the Terms of Service.