4 ms·
Strauss–Howe Generational Theory
- rabidrat 7y agoWe thought the Crisis that impelled the Fourth Turning would be 9/11, or the 2008 financial crisis, or the election of DJT. But those potatoes are too small, turns out. Let's hope that the Coronavirus is actually the catalyst that spurs us on to a more positive collectivism.
- IIAOPSW 7y agoMaybe the theory is just bunk because you can always post hoc fit a crisis to a prominent figure. Crisis occur with statistical regularity. I'll be impressed when SHG theory makes a testable prediction.
- pmiller2 7y agoWhat predictions does it make at all, testable or not? I was not able to glean any useful information from the Wiki article, and I am not otherwise familiar enough with the work to know.
- omeze 7y agoFirst inspection of this made it seem like a modern reskinning of Ibn Khaldoun's Kitab al Ibar which also attempted to explain the rise and fall of empires[1]. Turns out the wiki page calls this out as an explicit source of inspiration. It seems like it might have more work around the causal mechanism but I'm not familiar enough with the prior art. It also seems like they reject the notion of technology shortening their proposed cycle time, again citing human life spans & social standing as the primary mechanism for institutional change. While I buy the intuition behind the ideas I'm not sure what useful properties such an identification has. To instill confidence that newer generations, in a healthy society, can reshape the institutions they interact with reliably? To identify when this is not happening? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun#Kit%C4%81b_al-%CA%BBIbar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun#Kit%C4%81b_al-%CA%...
- rabidrat 7y agoMaybe to give us hope that now is not the beginning of the end of our country/society, but merely another turning of the cycle, that will ultimately yield more robust institutions and another 'high' that we have to look forward to?