Moses, Moses, Moses!

In their book Generations, in Appendix A, Strauss & Howe take a look a the story related in Exodus to show that the generational cycle had been around for a while. Moses  - a literal Prophet - is protected by his mother and takes on the powers that be; Joshua enters Canaan and leads a war against the local residents to take over the land.  This interpretation, though, requires looking at what happened in a different way than many people learn. Moses is not fighting to keep the Hebrew slaves alive in the face of Pharoah's cruelty, he is doing what he can to get them tossed out. Passover and the Exodus are not outward-facing Crisis events,  but inward focused Awakening.

It's a different way to look at the books in the Bible, not as a people young and old scrambling to escape, but as young and old departing on a gorgeous day, ready to take on anything for the glory of God.

1534

Before the Spanish pushed the Moors out of Europe, they weren't exactly Spanish, since Spain wasn't exactly Spain. Preceding the Grenada War was a period of internal warfare, the War of Castilian Succession.  This ended when Queen Isabella of Castille overcame the other potential Castilian monarchs, and then married a fellow monarch in a union that cemented control over most of what we call Spain. The other monarch was King Ferdinand of Aragon. Ferdinand and Isabella's youngest surviving daughter, born in 1485, was Catherine of Aragon.

Henry VIII didn't have much choice in marrying Catherine: He was only 11 when they were engaged. She had been the wife of his brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales for only a short time when he died. His father, Henry VII, probably wanted to continue in alliance with the powerful kingdom of Spain...but may also have wanted to avoid paying back her dowry.  Her first marriage did complicate this goal, since being related (i.e. brother- and sister-in-law) was a lawful impediment to being married. As Henry's father and Catherine's mother were in favor of it, Pope Julius II granted a dispensation to allow the engagement and eventual wedding.

Henry married Catherine in 1509, soon after he became king. For nearly 20 years the marriage worked well in most respects. However, it ultimately yielded only one surviving child, a daughter, Mary (born 1516). While the laws of succession gave the preference to males, females were not prohibited from inheriting the throne. Henry nonetheless became focused on the need for a male heir. This may have been because of the recent end of the War of the Roses, which was fought largely over questions of succession. A legitimate male heir would ensure that such a war would not be required again. 

It was not uncommon for marriages to be ended, despite official Church teaching to the contrary. There were rather significant problems in this case. Catherine was naturally opposed to an annulment and divorce that would remove her as Queen. The dispensation granted two decades before would have to be overturned by the current Pope, potentially weakening the image of the papacy as an unbiased (and infallible) observer. And when Henry sent his representatives to Rome in 1527, the Pope himself was a prisoner there. The city had been invaded by the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V - a nephew of Catherine.

Adding insult to injury, many of the invaders were followers of Martin Luther. Henry was certainly aware of the new Protestant movements that were throwing the continent into turmoil. Soon after Martin Luther had posted his 95 Theses in Wittenberg, Henry had written a rebuttal that  earned him the title "Defender of the Faith" from Pope Leo X. It is rich in irony to the modern reader, particularly sections where Henry chastises Luther for actions resembling what Henry would do only a few years later.  It also raises the question: What turned that devoutly Catholic king so strongly against the Church?

Those who wish to see Henry in a positive light could point to the ideal of a country free from foreign influence. While writing in defense of the Church, his eyes may have been opened to the very real corruption that Luther righteously opposed. Perhaps his reasonable concern over his heirs became an obsession, or he may have truly believed that his will was the Will of God. It does seem worthwhile to at least consider what was said by him (or in his name) as the simple truth: His marriage to Katherine was against God's law, and was the reason for the lack of a male heir. Those who are religious can view good times as God's favor, and bad times as God's punishment. Henry may have truly believed that he was being punished, that the most likely reason to be punished was his admittedly non-traditional marriage,  and that the appropriate resolution was annulment.

It's also worth noting that the marriage was another indication of corruption: With enough money and influence, the Pope himself can be convinced to support the ruling class in their minor squabbles.   Henry VIII would have been open to rebelling against the previous generations' corrupt practices. If these justifications are insufficient, however, there were also some definite  secular  advantages to the King being head of his own church: The ability to marry as he wished, to keep for the royal treasury payments previously made to Rome, and the option to confiscate Church property.

In any case, Parliament soon passed a series of laws separating the Church of England from Rome, culminating in the 1534 Act of Supremacy. This confirmed that the King, not the Pope, was "supreme head on earth of the Church in England."

Ultimately, Henry's desire for a male heir would be fulfilled by his third wife, Jane Seymour. After Edward's short reign, Mary would follow him to the throne, but it would fall to another daughter, Elizabeth, to finish the battle with Spain. She would be the one who helped fight them off when her fleet, the British Navy, took on the Spanish Armada some fifty-four years after the break with Rome.

Prevail

The famous high-water mark description in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas shares an important word with the 1984 commercial for Macintosh. And it turns out that's an early word in Al Gore's Turning Point article in Rolling Stone as well:

Our energy would simply PREVAIL.

...we will ultimately prevail...

We shall prevail!

While Hunter Thompson (born 1937) was Silent, that bit of prose was all about the counterculture and What The Sixties Meant.  Al Gore is practically the Platonic ideal of the Boomer. While Steve Jobs didn't write the 1984 commercial, it's still such a dose of revolutionary exuberance that it seems very much a Prophet sentiment. Even if (or because?) Big Brother is saying those words, scant moments before a sledgehammer flies through his telescreen.

"Prevail" carries the tone of inevitability and eternal success. It takes confidence to pull it off - people may think you are bluffing, unless you really believe it. Gore, at least, seems to have that confidence, only a few years after An Inconvenient Truth.

Solarization

In a recent article in Rolling Stone, Al Gore notes some good news with regards to climate change: Solar energy is being used more and more as generation costs decrease. Some countries are "skipping" the carbon-based part of energy generation as they go from burning wood and manure directly to installing and using solar cells for electricity.

(Yes, certainly, those are carbon-based energy forms. They don't release previously sequestered carbon dioxide, though, but only what was stored when the grass-which-became-manure and the trees were grown, in the recent past. They are carbon neutral over a short time period.)

There is actually quite a bit in there to mention. To start, Dick Morris, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore had all read Generations in the lead-up to the 1992 election. Dick Morris specifically mentions that Clinton choosing Gore as a way to solidify their appeal as a generational bloc. It seems at least possible that Gore is incorporating a generational perspective here.

One possible reason for the sudden drop in solar prices: Investment in solar companies by people who either thought it was important, or thought other people thought it was important. That Solar Bubble started in the early days of the 21st century as governments in Europe and elsewhere supported green energy.  When it popped, companies went bankrupt, investors lost money, but the equipment had been purchased and was available for reuse.

While this is speculative, it does seem likely that equipment for creating solar cells is very specific to that use, not easily repurposed. If so, anyone purchasing that equipment (at a discount) from bankrupt companies would have used it to create solar cells. If the price for the equipment was lower, the effective cost of creating the cells was lower, and the minimum sales price as well.

This can be tied together to note that simply having enough people willing to invest, in a sufficiently efficient market, can bring about change - even if those people lose money, on companies that can't manage to continue as going concerns.  The generational model gives a way in which that might happen - and might have happened in this case.

Ahab

MOBY DICK AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY

(as related by Eneasz on LessWrong)

"Revenge?" said the peg-legged man. "On a whale? No, I decided I'd just get on with my life."

The above is the complete text of Moby Dick if the primary characters were rationalists. The link has excerpts from other literature similarly written as if the characters involved were, similarly, thinking about what they were doing, and about how they were thinking, and about what they know.  Besides its brevity, this one sticks out because of the relationship between Nomads, Prophets, and rational thinking. 

Herman Melville’s (b 1819, Prophet) most famous novel was released in 1851. That point in history is three years after the start of the California Gold Rush, ten years before the start of the Civil War, a few years before Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, and Harper’s Ferry - in the Third Turning, that is. There isn’t quite the same feeling of easy riches that one might remember from the dot-com era or The Great Gatsby. (Although it’s fun to note that the crew of the Pequod are paid with the shipboard equivalent of room, board, and stock options.) And while Ishmael notes that his recompense will barely replace the clothes that will wear out by the voyage’s end, it seems as if he values the less tangible benefits of adventure and excitement on the open seas, of traveling around the world. Ishmael, that is, seems like a Nomad. And Captain Ahab acts like a Prophet.

Doing the math on Ahab, who is 58 years old when the novel begins, we can estimate that he is probably also a Prophet, like Melville, of the same Transcendental generation that includes Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Lloyd Garrison. This depends on when one wants to estimate the start of the novel, however: 58 years back from 1851 is 1793, near the start of the Transcendental cohort. Assuming Ishmael took some time to set down the events he survived, it could be in 1848 or earlier, which has Ahab born in 1790 - near the end of the Compromise (Artist) generation. While there is probably another post’s worth of comparisons to be made with Ahab as an Artist (or someone very close to the Artist/Prophet line) this post will work with the Captain as a Prophet. 

Prophets, in the regular (non-archetypical) sense, aren’t rational. They speak on behalf of God, are unwilling to accept alternative explanations, and often aren’t bearers of glad tidings. In the Strauss & Howe sense, they reject the status quo, and are willing to take on entrenched institutions - even when those institutions are willing and likely to fight back. John Brown (b. 1800, Prophet) turned 51 the year Moby Dick was published, and one could certainly imagine Captain Ahab on the ground at Harper’s Ferry, as easily as Brown might be seen exhorting the crew of the Pequod to find and kill the white whale. 

The short version of Moby Dick above, then, could be seen as not only what Captain Ahab would do if he was a rationalist, but if he was a Nomad.  Eliezer Yudkowsky, the man behind HPMOR and Less Wrong,  is Gen X (b. 1979) and one might predict that the rise of rationalism parallels the move of Generation X into Young Adulthood and Mid-Life. The idea of reacting to a whale as the equivalent of God, of taking on the whale to attempt to undo fate - well, it all boils down to the short summary above.

Playing around with this a bit more, Captain Ahab has been played by Boomer (William Hurt, Barry Bostwick), Silent (Patrick Stewart), G.I. (Gregory Peck) and Missionary (John Barrymore) actors.  It’s not surprising that it skips Generation X (none of whom is quite Ahab’s age) but it is interesting that it skips the (also Nomad) Lost Generation.  Khan Noonien Singh similarly goes for vengeance - and spits out Ahab’s last words for his own - well, he was in suspended animation for a while, so the math could fail us, but he similarly appears to be a Prophet:  In his mid-40s during the Eugenic Wars, so he was born in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Prison

Was the Stanford Prison Experiment different because of when it was run? It depends when it was run, of course -- I recall it was the 1960s and so almost certainly Boomers with a Silent in charge.

Actually it was 1971, although the person in charge, Philip Zimbardo, was in fact a Silent (b. 1933)  I’ll avoid the rest of the details for a second to make unencumbered predictions, but it would still make sense (based on year and age) that the students were Boomers (Prophet archetype).

What I recall (very quickly)  was that they divided students into prisoners and guards. Immediately upon being placed in their sections, they took on their roles: The prisoners became subordinate, the guards sadistic. That seems possibly related to what they THOUGHT the roles should be, so not only might it have been about what archetype they belonged to, but also to the current state of prisons in 1971 - not to mention then-ordinary perceptions about that state. Plus the socio-economic views of the participants, who happened to be Stanford students,and very well could have expected that the lower-class prisoners should act a certain way and the guards needed to keep them under control.

Leaving  the role-playing and that aside for a moment, what might we predict of a straight Boomer view, that might be different today? 

• Reactives might take on gangsta roles, with the guards more concerned about keeping themselves safe than keeping the inmates down.
• Civics might resist the roles, wanting to see themselves as a team working together. 
• Silents could see it as keeping order - Tom Hanks in The Green Mile, say, or the warden in Shawshank Redemption. (Which have the disadvantage of being not only fictional but also both written by Boomer Stephen King and directed by Reactive Frank Darabont, so possibly a bit of bias there.)
• And (bringing it back around) Prophets (like the young Boomers in the original experiment) might see themselves as the only saviors of the entire prison, and if they don’t do their job perfectly, everyone would be in trouble.

What's (if anything) can we find to support or counter this? Or even the basic assertion that the results indicate a tendency among Prophets more than people in other generational groups?

To start, Zimbardo acknowledged that he was unable to keep scientific controls. According to Wikipedia, at least, there are concerns that the experiment was not reproducible - that is, there's no guarantee that the guard and prisoner tendencies are applicable to any group besides those in the original experiment.

Although it may be worth noting that the prisoners didn't immediately accept their subservient roles. They resisted, symbolically and literally, almost from the start. It wasn't until the "guards'" reactions (which included making going to the bathroom a privilege, not a right) that they began accepting their place.

One possible real-life example is the incidents at Abu Ghraib. Most of those named were Reactives. Lynndie England is the only Millennial, born in 1982  - the first Millennial year. The above prediction assumed reproducing the experiment more directly - that the Reactives chosen as prisoners would act like then-current views of prison. In any case, what was predicted doesn't appear to have been the outcome. However, it could be seen as controlling (more or less) for socio-economic status (enlisted military and Stanford students might have little in common but age) and actual expectation of safety . 

It's probably worth comparing this with the outcome of The Third Wave (not the Toffler version). A high school teacher introduced a student activity that was actually modeled on fascist techniques, in order to show how easily people accepted and even encouraged what had happened in Nazi Germany.  That was also in Palo Alto, although 4 years earlier in 1967. Being high school students, the participants were definitely Boomers.

X

Generation X has actually been used to refer to several generations, depending on which reference is meant:

The original Generation X was a 1965 book about post-war youth in England. The older ones (up to mid-20s, say) would have been Blitz - "born in the war," the equivalent of America's Silent generation - while the younger ones would have been Prophets, like American Boomers.

Billy Idol's first band used that book's title for its name - an appropriate one for a punk band. Mr. Idol (born 1955) is solidly in that Prophet generation - whatever the equivalent is of the Boomers in England, anyway - although too young to have really been a part of the earlier X.

Douglas Coupland used the band's name for his book, Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture. (Well, really he acknowledges Billy Idol for the term, while saying it actually was based on references in a book called Class by one Paul Fussell.) Mr. Coupland (born 1961) is in fact the Nomad generation by Strauss & Howe's definition, although he has since disavowed the idea that there Generation X even exists.

Strauss & Howe did not use Generation X in their books: The post-Boomer Nomad generation was called 13th Generation in both Generations and The Fourth Turning. They use it currently on their websites, though, acknowledging that it is the dominant and preferred term.

Blaze

I saw Joe Jackson in concert in 1989, when he was touring to promote “Blaze of Glory.” It’s a concept album, originally an LP record, with each side being a continuous “suite” of songs that segue one to another. During the concert, that entire album was completely performed, beginning to end, with a break for intermission. It was phenomenal.

When introducing it, I remember him talking about his generation - a funny joke, that, considering what comes later - as the inspiration for the album. Maybe that’s not quite it, but more of their journey, from the hope of the 1950s (“Tomorrow’s World”) through the craziness of the 60s (“Down to London,” which I realized much more than 8 years later, was all about the exact “Swinging London” that Austin Powers lives in) to the various disappointments that followed soon after: The romantic death of romanticized fame in “Blaze of Glory,” the corruption of idealism into violence in “Rant and Rave,” the poseurs and hopeless youth-lovers of “19 Forever,” the yuppie dreams of “Discipline.” I don’t know if he realized the journey was still continuing, although I certainly expect that he did - he’s no dummy. And “The Human Touch,” which closes the album, is about the realization that there is something more, and more to come, in an ultimately hopeful denouement. 

Still, he saw that it hadn’t worked out as he expected, and maybe not even close. No cities on the moon, no endless party, no society remade in their image, no superstar philosophers changing the world with a well-spoken word. And in the 1980s, the gusto with which people had embraced the joys of making money - because they could - had to rankle more than even now.  While it ends on a hopeful note, it’s probably because Joe is ultimately hopeful, and wasn’t willing to accept that it was going to end, then, in that way.

It’s one of my favorite albums, ever, by anyone. Which is probably in no small part because it came along at that point in life when the music you hear is going to stick. It’s not because I identify with the content, as I was born too late for that '50s hope and on the wrong continent for Swinging London. And I'm just plain the wrong generation for the death of Idealism to matter much to me. On the other hand, I fully appreciate the cunning irony of “Evil Empire,”  have known the “Me and You (Against the World)" feeling since meeting my wife, and, what can I say, just “get” everything about the title track. While “19 Forever” has grown up/with/past me, from being just past 19 (I was 25 at that concert), zooming past 35, and finding myself, here, where all those ages are practically historical for their relevance to my current daily life. And perhaps it is that final hopefulness that makes it appealing, and has made it appealing for the last 24 years or so. Even if I’m projecting my hopefulness onto it, it’s easy to see from here that he was right: Whether you consider 1989 a low or a high point, there was still a lot left to come. (The concert was in August, incidentally, a few months after Tiananman Square, a few months before the Berlin Wall fell.)

At the concert, Joe also mentioned getting dinged a bit by the Los Angeles Times’ music critic, who thought “19 Forever” was, well, mean. Note that at the time, The Who were on a don't-call-it-a-farewell tour that was considered to be much more about selling out than making music, that they were further being ridiculed at the time for singing songs about youth while well into their 40s, and that the last verse of “19 Forever” ends with “But I won’t get fooled again.” Joe sang the end of this song with a huge pompadour wig, further mocking those who cling to their youth far too long. I didn’t think it was mean, myself, but I can see how someone would.

Change

Friends on Facebook recently posted photos of the thoroughly frozen Great Lakes, and also of the great city of Atlanta gridlocked by unexpected snow. This is certainly not sufficient to disprove climate change: Salt and ice can be used to freeze ice cream, but that's because the ice is being melted by the salt. Conversely, the reconstructed climate record shows variability that to this (admittedly) untutored eye could mean this is as natural as the last million years of Milankovitch cycles.  Although I will agree with Dr. Pournelle that running an open-ended experiment in the only atmosphere available should probably be scaled back if feasible.

However. 

None of that matters with regards to the Crisis. The Strauss and Howe model is ultimately sociological, and within it “Perception is Reality” is a tautology.  If there are enough unusual weather events, people will think it is happening and if enough think it is happening, they will expect and support change. Alternatively, if the events are mostly cooling in nature, the previous claims that pronounced “warming” as the main danger will result in people discounting what happens. Hopefully this would only mean the warnings are ignored.  In the worst case, they could be reversed - say, via a revolt against opaque science, wherein only things explainable to the populace are considered worthy of democratic debate. “If you can't explain it simply you don't understand it,” said Einstein .... in a poster I saw at work once ... and Congress has trouble enough with what it does understand. The S&H model predicts only that a Crisis will occur, and that it is due to people reacting to a (perceived) national threat. There’s no guarantee that the “threat” is the most dangerous one, much less that the people will choose the best response.

For future Prophet generations, let me recommend holding off on demanding immediate change unless the facts are incontrovertible. (Not necessary, of course, for moral claims, as they are normally undecidable - and besides, you wouldn’t listen in that case anyway.) That will help avoid people ignoring ALL early wild claims when SOME of them are proven false. Jenner proved that vaccination worked in 1796 but it took until 1979 for enough support to eradicate smallpox. Roosevelt held off until the Japanese themselves revealed their expansionist aims. It might seem like another second will be too late. Unless you are sure, though, that early pronouncement may do more harm than good.

Humor

In The Little Golden Book “The Good Humor Man,” we see the title character go out into the world, doing only what he was sent to do: Deliver ice cream.  He succeeds, and so much more.

When he arrives, people come out, leaving their work behind. He pulls in everyone, from boys and girls to mommies and daddies. He walks among the working class at the garage and the construction site, helps the elderly in the  name of Grandma Griggs.  He saves Johnny Slowpokes puppy, and brings together Johnny Slowpoke and Dick Griggs. 

Where does he fit? He does fit in best as a Prophet as someone who is inherently Right. He is not himself Redeemed, not does he succeed only through sacrifice or teamwork. He succeeds by pulling people together and showing them what’s going on around them. While he’s not the most exceptional Christ figure ever, the narrative does work in that direction. 

Famous

Does Almost Famous work for my theory of generational stories? If the idea is that a writer naturally writes from the point of view of his or her generation, and further if a story is semi-autobiographical, it should work well. Although Cameron Crowe seems to get my generation very well....

The Prophet story - Cameron Crowe and his alter ego William Miller being Boomers, born in the late 1950s -  is

• There are good guys and bad guys, and the good guys win.
• The good guy wins through sheer moral superiority

William Miller doesn’t redeem himself, or win because of working with his friends, or sacrifice much of notice (unless you want to count his virginity). His “final battle” is aboard the plane, where he accuses the members of Stillwater - and Russell Hammond in particular - of hypocrisy for removing Penny Lane from the tour.  (A very Prophet thing to do: Shouting Truth to power.) He Wins, even if the Bad Guys aren't as clearly defined as they might be elsewhere.

It works, then: Cameron Crowe’s movie fits the Prophet story.

Bodhi

What’s less necessary than a Point Break remake? A socio-historical discussion of why it might not be such a good idea.

However, this continues with my recent theme of Reactives vs. the Awakening posts, so I’m rolling with it.

Easy stuff first: It’s a 1991 movie set in the then-modern day, with Keanu Reaves’ (1964, Nomad) Johnny Utah up against Patrick Swayze’s (1952, Prophet) Bodhi. Johnny is an FBI agent investigating a group of bank robbers whose cycle of activity strongly suggests they are surfers. The laid-back intense nature boy and the ex-quarterback FBI agent makes for an inherent generational contrast - and c’mon, it’s “Bodhi,” short for “Bodhisattva,” incarnation of the Buddha.  Bodhi is Taking On The Man, as if it’s still 1967.  Except now it’s the Man who is under 30. 

Ultimately, Johnny is defending the status quo, the current social structures, while Bodhi is rebelling against it. A few years earlier, it might have been possible to set up a story making Bodhi an unequivocal good guy. By 1991, though, the thought of bank robber being appealing BECAUSE he was rebelling wouldn’t fly. Even if you wanted to believe in what he said, there was too much knowledge of where these things lead for the lessons to hold. And Bodhi’s philosophizing is inherently loaded with self-justification:  it’s clear that he’s robbing banks not to change the world, but because he thinks it’s fun.

Following on from my previous posts, an important part of the movie is that young Reactives can’t help but find Awakening ideals appealing, at first. Johnny takes up surfing to infiltrate the local surf scene, quickly falling in with Bodhi’s gang.  Surfing becomes his life, until one professional high point is “I caught my first tube today... Sir.” Bodhi starts to become a spiritual guide, his friends a cult, with surfing their sacrament.

(As I said, sometimes we Reactives can’t help being affected. A few of my friends took up surfing largely because of this movie. )

I’m strongly reminded of Captain Ahab and the crew of the Pequod through all this. Bodhi chases waves (and other thrills) like Ahab chases the white whale. Ahab has the crew all drink to the death of Moby Dick, and they respond whole-heartedly, excited by the prospect of a legendary quest and associated riches. While the crew’s fervor is diminished by the time the white whale is sighted, they continue to follow Ahab’s leadership, and it leads them where such things go. One could even say that the final shot of Johnny walking away from both Bodhi and the FBI is a cinematic equivalent of Ishmael’s “...and only I have escaped to tell ye.”

Enough on the old. What is going to be needed in the new? If Gerard Butler (1969, Nomad) is supposed to be Bodhi, now, his foil will presumably be a Millennial born in the early 1980s. He’s still the bad guy, although at least that’s more expected with a Reactive role. But the dynamic is ... what, exactly? More precisely, what sort of interaction works between an older bank-robbing extreme sports nut and a younger law-enforcing jock, if the old guy is unbelievable as a spiritual guru and the young guy is unbelievable as a lone wolf?  I’m thinking that the common thread they would have is a distrust of ideals.  While Bodhi might still spout eastern philosophy, it will be more obvious that he doesn’t believe it. That could be contrasted with Johnny’s initial enthusiasm for being part of law enforcement. By the end, it may be seen as just another cult, little different from Bodhi’s gang.  Which may be able to convince Johnny that being part of Team FBI is itself a problem, not a solution.

It’s an option. For that to work, though, the filmmakers will have to commit to a character who knows he’s a fraud. If they try to redo the same Bodhi as Swayze did, it’s likely to fail because Butler wouldn’t be convincing. If you must remake a movie, you need to be aware of what has changed in the interim.