Title:
Generations
Subtitle:
The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069
Author:
William Strauss & Neil Howe
Publisher:
William Morrow & Co, 1991
ISBN
0-688-11912-3

In his classic "Foundation Trilogy" Isaac Asimov proposed the invention of "psychohistory", a science that could be used to exactly predict events over the course of hundreds of years. Asimov's speculations reflect a popular notion that human behavior, when considered in large enough groups, is predictable.

Most people have observed at one time or another that the past seems to repeat itself, if only in the sense of George Santayana's warning that "those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." Many historians have made the additional observation that certain significant events in the history of the North American people - those, at any rate, who immigrated here since the 17th century - have occured in remarkably regular cycles.

It is observations like this that drive apocalyptic myths, and have serious people trying to predict the future. Strauss and Howe believe that they have discovered the reason for these cycles, and in Generations they lay out their evidence.

Supposing there are four different kinds of generations, they argue. Each generation is treated as a coherent group, growing older together through four distinct age locations. The interactions between the generations are in turn defined by their generational character and their age location at a given point in time. The result is a historical cycle that repeats every four generations.

Even supposing that there are only four different generations, why would they reoccur in the same pattern? Strauss and Howe suggest that a given generational "constellation" creates a consistent child rearing atmosphere, so that the follow-on generations are a consistent product of their parent generations.

But most of the history of North America is determined by events from the outside. Isn't it overbearing even for Americans to take credit for events like World War II? Strauss and Howe argue that the events themselves are not as important as our response to these events. One generation might respond to a provocation by withdrawing and ignoring outside events. A generation later similar events would provoke national outrage and involvement.

That's the argument in a nutshell. There are problems, of course. For example, the authors identify generational characteristics that to me seemed fairly haphazard, drawn ad hoc to suit their thesis. Pretty much the same critique might be brought to bear on their characterization of significant events. Was the conclusion to WWII, a war that continued into the Cold War, Korea, and Vietnam, really so much more satisfactory than the end to the USAn Civil War?

Another problem arises from the nature of cyclical events themselves. Even supposing that cycles do exist in history and in the generational composition of the people of a region, the incidental overlap of these cycles doesn't constitute sufficient evidence for a causal relationship, particularly over a period of time as short as the four hundred years that Strauss and Howe are considering. In fact, Strauss and Howe give the generational makeup of the Civil War period as missing one of their key generations, exactly the sort of thing one might be expected to find if one sequence of events was being made to fit another. Moreover, in a suspiciously USA-centric view of history, Strauss and Howe discount any such cycles in Europe, where they are unable to discern strong generational personalities, and they don't even bother to mention South America, Africa, Asia, or Australia. It isn't terribly clear from their book why the USA, or North America, should be such a unique social system.

If the thesis of Generations is supportable, then the events of the next seventy years will test it, as the book's subtitle suggests. Strauss and Howe weave a persuasive argument for their theory of historical determination. Moreover, there are some substantive predictions that they make, using their model, and which seem to be bearing out, now that the book is just seven years old.

Of course, the theory will never be able to predict specific events, nor their timing. Strauss and Howe do not attempt to fix the length of time that defines a generation: that is determined by defining events. Then there is the problem of the events themselves. Strauss and Howe argue that the generational personalities depend on meeting these events at the right time. If the events arrive too early, or if they work out badly, then the generational personalities of an entire generational constellation may leave the typical pattern. This is what would have happened around the USAn Civil War.

Strauss and Howe are not the first to theorize about the cyclical nature of history, nor the first to observe the cyclical pattern of generations. Their book discusses parallels that they strike with a number of their predecessors. One pair of infamous predecessors, whom they do not mention, are of course the authors of Das Kapital, Marx and Engels. Like Marx and Engels, Strauss and Howe see history moving through cycles or spirals, meeting crisis point after crisis point. Unlike Marx and Engels, Strauss and Howe see the crisis points as a consequence of generations of personalities meeting significant events leading to a catharsis that starts a fresh cycle of generations, where Marx and Engels write of conflicting ideals colliding on a straight-line path towards a better future.

While reading the book I particularly enjoyed the retrospectives at the generations of my grandparents and my parents, at my generation, and at my children. As an immigrant, my perspective is that of an outsider, and my experiences as an American don't necessarily parallel those of my USAn born peers. I've written elsewhere that I often do not feel part of the "Boomers", and the generational portraits painted by Strauss and Howe point out the differences.

I did notice an interesting consequence of being exposed to this theory of generations. If generations are in fact identifyable entities in our society, then their interactions might be identifyable, as well. I now find myself looking at the products of popular media - books, movies, and plays - as the products of their generations. Sometimes I find myself noticing a dialog between the generations. Whether or not this is a useful perspective, it is as exciting as it was when I found myself looking for moral messages after reading Moral Politics.