Posted On: Wednesday - December 24th 2025 7:00PM MST
In Topics: Music History The Future Books Muh Generation
(Continued from Strauss & Howe - Generational Theory.)
Here's a little bit of psychology of memory to chew on: Do all people use location to pin down their memories and even thoughts? I have found that I usually remember when I read a book, or even when I had a certain important thought, by where I was at the time. For this post, I was trying to pin down when I read these books to be reviewed first. I got a pretty good idea this way.
Where I lived at the time is important, but it was a wider range than I wanted. I know that I first took out William Strauss & Neil Howe's book Generations; The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 in the mid/late 1990s. The book was published in '91, but I took it out of the library later, going by where I was and what I was generally doing then. I can pin it down to '97 because that's when I realized the www was becoming a big thing, and this is related to my thoughts after reading the book. Hey, if it works - easier than Michael Scott's technique (go to 02:55).
The book was interesting enough that I recall I took out their 2nd book (from '96), The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy—What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny soon afterwards. OK, that was fun, but, wait a minute, what is this crisis of which you speak? Crisis, what crisis? (Yes, a Supertramp song is long overdue on Peak Stupidity.)
Hell, in '97 I didn't see how we could even be in an Unraveling "turning". I mean, the internet was the next big American-made thing, and everything important with it was going on in America. The President at the time, Bill Clinton, being nothing but a pussy-hound and lover of power, didn't really have the kind of destructive ideals that one can see in the ctrl-left of today. Congress had him somewhat restrained, the Hildabeast was back in the Whitehouse kitchen baking cookies, and politically, things were still under control. Economically, the Globalists were in the process of outsourcing manufacturing to China, but this was early on. Things did not look bad at all 28 years ago, but I was 28 years younger too, it so happens.
By chance, I found one of these 2 books, I'm pretty sure The Fourth Turning, at the library in the early '00s, with that time not being so easy to pin down - say somewhere from '05 to '08. The funny part here is that I took the book out from the library with no recollection of my having read it or its companion book before until I was a chapter or so into it! Anyway, upon this reading, well, yeah, I could see how we were in a late-3rd or early 4th turning alright. That made the books seem pretty dang prescient. Remember, Strauss & Howe got the first one, Generations, published in '91, now over a third of a century back. "Hey, this saecula, turnings, and archetype crap just might work!" I figured. OTOH, was it just luck though?
I've been involved before with people who were into horoscopes. All manner of things can be explained by various and sundry movements in the night sky, and what, with the stars, planets, sun, moon, hell, maybe asteroids now, how you are doing can be "determined" on a daily, if not hourly, basis due to what's up there, depending on what or who is in conjunction with Uranus at the moment. The Chinese, with their 12-year cyclical calendar, are on a much longer time-scale with their Year of the Whatever silliness. What year you are born (within a lunar, not Gregorian calendar) supposedly has something to do with something. Really, the Chinese way is: so long as you get into a good school and buy a house with a view of some water, NOBODY CARES!
As I wrote in the previous post, there's a whole lot to this Generational Theory. There are many concepts explained that don't involve anything like astrological or Chinese silliness.
Firstly, let me bring back that note about the whole theory being made to fit Anglo-American history. Oooops, well, though immigration was brought up, IIRC, it was not in a critical fashion, just that some of the disunity during the current (at the time of writing) UNRAVELING involved that issue as one of many. No kidding, it's an issue! The thing is, if America has changed its demographics this much, does Strauss & Howe's Generational Theory mean anything? Should they write revisions for some one-third Hispanic/other foreigner saecula? Let's get past that for now, as otherwise this review would be over!
It could become somewhat tedious for the reader of these books, but I think many readers would really like that the examples of this cyclic history are thorough - each saeculum is covered, and each turning within is discussed, from the 1400s to the present, with some near future predictions based on the theory. The archetypes are explained thoroughly, and each named generation - all 25 of them - are covered, with discussion of how they fit their archetypes. The birth years of these cohorts are laid out, which is kind of nice if wants to know exactly what "muh generation" is. As I wrote, and as one can see in the big table shown in the last post, it's all very neat and tidy.
The examples, well, those are where I'll start getting critical. Peak Stupidity has mentioned this Strauss&Howe cherry-picking before, so we're FINALLY getting to it here in the very book review. The examples of why this turning occurred on schedule, how this generation became the type of people they are, all that is reliant on snippets of the culture at the time. Often, especially recently, since there's so much more documentation, it's pop culture references that are used. See, the G.I. Generation was permissive with their children, as noted by these couple of quotes by these politicians, these movie lines, these lyrics in the popular songs.
The problem with this is that millions of quotes, movie lines, song lyrics, etc. can be found every year to explain ANYTHING. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it was fun for the writers, and for the readers it rings very true if one lets it. I imagine the writers believed they were on the right track, but one could find quotes, movie lines, song lyrics, etc. to prove exactly the opposite for every turning and generation. In this way, it's not THAT unlike horoscope predictions and that time we (with a girlfriend) went to that fortune teller one day, and man, how'd she know all that?! This all reminds me of that financial newsletter email scam that I really wish I'd thought of. (I'll put that in another quick post.)
Another problem with the entire "Muh g-g-g-generation" thing is, again with another post coming, that the scores of millions of people in each of these generation do NOT all think alike. Even if you just discuss the generalities, when it comes to politics, no, not all Boomers voted for this and not all the Millennials voted for that. On important issues, 60-40% is considered overwhelming. Yet, that's 4 in 10 people born in those years that are NOT like this (whatever).
I wrote in the previous post that I don't have these books on me as I write. In this review then, I may have missed a few things I didn't like, but one big one just came to me (see, my memory can be pretty good at times). These two writers are big Statists. In all their discussion of the history with their examples to back up the theory, government seems to be a factor in way too much of it. I could see that being the case for the last couple of generations with this Feral Beast we are subject to, but that was certainly not always the case. Many American lived their lives without dealing with the US Gov't at all for much of the history of the country. The examples in these books lean way to heavily on what this government department did and how this election went and so on. Nah, there's been a whole lot more to life, affecting the raising of children and other aspects that have "made" the archetypes and turnings what they were that have NOTHING to do with government. As a part-time Libertarian, this was a big turn-off for me.
Back to the prescient predictions of this Fourth Turning, now, I doubt any Peak Stupidity readers would deny that America is in some kind of Crisis stage. These books are fair, or they are hedging, in that they note that not every Crisis stage will end up in a new First Turning HIGH. It may be that the country just goes a different direction, as in, it all ends. In that case, Strauss & Howe will have still not been wrong... so there's that...
I may get ahold of The Fourth Turning yet again, just to see what matches what between 1996 and 2026. I can't expect specifics about smart phones, AI, and the like from 30 years back, but I'm curious if much of the predictions about the now-already-passed UNRAVELLING turning and this current CRISIS turning at least conform to the theory with the set up we got: You've got your Baby Boomer Prophets in old age, as your 13th Generation Nomads are in mid-life "running"(?) things, your Millennial Heroes (I know, right?) are in Young Adulthood, and those Homeland Generation Artists, none of them born yet during the writing of The Fourth Turning, are mostly done being born and are from toddlers to college students.
It's thoughtful and fun. It's probably a bunch of hooey. No matter what, you'll get a little bit of history out of these books, and if you don't realize we're in a CRISIS by now, you
Now, since I read and wrote "Nomads", I've got a song in my head from earlier that decade I first read these books. This Nomad archetype was enjoying Indigo Girls music, before and after they had to be known as Lesbians. The following song from their excellent Nomads, Indians, Saints album has a really great melody and a good acoustical guitar riff with great harmony with lyrics from the title, AND it kind of fits all this heavy thinking.
Here you go...
I'm coming home with a stone strapped onto my back.
I'm coming home with a burning hope turning all my blues to black.
I'm looking for a sacred hand to carve into my stone,
a ghost of comfort, angel's breath,
to keep this life inside my chest.
This world falls on me.
Dreams of immortality.
Everywhere I turn
the beauty just keeps shaking me...
The Indigo Girls were (basically):
Emily Saliers
Amy Ray (lead singer on this song)
PS: Don't forget that William Strauss & Neil Howe, wrote these 3 other books based on their Generational Theory: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?, written with also one R.J. Matson) back in 1993, Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation*, written by William Strauss only in 2000 and The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End from just 2 years, back, '23) written by Neil Howe only. Mr. Strauss died 18 years ago. I'll have to check out these books.
I'm sorry, no offense to William Strauss or that whole generation of upcoming HEROES, but this is an excerpt from the goodreads site by reviewer Lesley Reed on Millennials Rising:
A sampling of their potential influence in this decade: pop music will become more melodic and singable and sitcoms more melodramatic and wholesome; there will be a new emphasis on manners, modesty, and old-fashioned gender courtesies; and they'll resolve the long-standing debates about substance abuse. "They will rebel against the culture by cleaning it up, rebel against political cynicism by touting trust, rebel against individualism by stressing teamwork, rebel against adult pessimism by being upbeat, and rebel against social ennui by actually going out and getting a few things done."Wait, WUT?
Comments:
The Alarmist
Thursday - December 25th 2025 4:43PM MST
PS
The problem with using generations is the change over time of lifespans and fertility windows, but it is not a wholly flawed rationale.
I wonder how natural cycles, like the 11-year solar cyclet or longer cycles, like the Milankovitch cycles influence human activity.
The problem with using generations is the change over time of lifespans and fertility windows, but it is not a wholly flawed rationale.
I wonder how natural cycles, like the 11-year solar cyclet or longer cycles, like the Milankovitch cycles influence human activity.
The natural cycles may have some real causation on human . Astronomically, the moon is the biggie of course, but we're only talking 28 day periods. Woman have been controlled by the moon since I don't know when. Sometimes I wish the moon would slow the hell down, as I ponder that verse in Proverbs about "better to live on the corner of a roof." Easier done in ancient Biblical times and places when/where the roofs were flat ..