generations

Sir John Bagot Glubb’s remarkably insightful paper The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival may provide a useful context for understanding recent history.

Dates for the Ages of American Empire

(based on Glubb’s 250 year average lifespan / 6 ages = 41.67 years per age)
(note: ancient peoples considered 40 years to be a generation)

1776–1817 Age of Outburst (Founding Fathers)
1817–1859 Age of Conquests
1859–1901 Age of Commerce
1901–1942 Age of Affluence
1942–1984 Age of Intellect
1984–2026 Age of Decadence

Recent Generations

(as determined by marketing and demographic models)

born 1901–1926 The Greatest Generation
born 1927–1945 The Silent Generation
born 1946–1964 The Baby Boom Generation
born 1965–1980 The Slackers (Generation X)
born 1981–2000 The Millennials (Generation Y)
born 2001–20?? The Boomlets (Generation Z)

Post Greatest Generation labels are likely based on 18 years as the legal age to assume adult responsibilities (debt) and reproductive rights. Interesting note: the 25 year length for the Greatest Generation and the 1901–1926 date would exactly match the sixth generation of Glubb’s ten 25 years per generation model. Twenty five years of age being thought of as the optimal age for starting a family.

power

Dominance & Submission

Power may be said to be the ability to force a desired outcome in spite of resistance. Pride is a necessary quality of those who dominate. Pride may be said to be a feeling of being more important, better than, others. Pride will usually be perceived by others as conceit and arrogance accompanied by resentments toward a power viewed as tyrannical by those forced to submit to it.

Respectful co-operation among peers

Humbleness may be said to be the quality of having an honest understanding of one’s genuine abilities; and corresponding capacity to forge right relationships with the abilities of others to manifest desired outcomes through consensual agreement.

American Empire 1776 — 2026?

XXXIX Summary
As numerous points of interest have arisen in the course of this essay, I close with a brief summary, to refresh the reader’s mind.
(a) We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced.
(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness.
(c) This average has not varied for 3,000 years. Does it represent ten generations?
(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great nations seem to be:
The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
The Age of Conquests
The Age of Commerce
The Age of Affluence
The Age of Intellect
The Age of Decadence
(e) Decadence is marked by:
Defensiveness
Pessimism
Materialism
Frivolity
An influx of foreigners
The Welfare State
A weakening of religion
(f) Decadence is due to:
Too long a period of wealth and power
Selfishness
Love of money
The loss of a sense of duty.
(g) The life histories of great states are amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.
(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external causes.
(i) History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student’s own country.

The Age of Decadence

Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving.

Decline & Collapse

It is unnecessary to labor the point, which we may attempt to summarize briefly. Any regime which attains great wealth and power seems with remarkable regularity to decay and fall apart in some ten generations. The ultimate fate of its component parts, however, does not depend on its internal nature, but on the other organizations which appear at the time of its collapse and succeed in devouring its heritage. Thus the lives of great powers are surprisingly uniform, but the results of their falls are completely diverse.
— Sir John Bagot Glubb

The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival

History

‘The only thing we learn from history,’ it has been said, ‘is that men never learn from history’, a sweeping generalization perhaps, but one which the chaos in the world today goes far to confirm. What then can be the reason why, in a society which claims to probe every problem, the bases of history are still so completely unknown?

When we read the history of our own nation, we find the actions of our ancestors described as glorious, while those of other peoples are depicted as mean, tyrannical or cowardly. Thus our history is (intentionally) not based on facts. We are emotionally unwilling to accept that our forbears might have been mean or cowardly.

Alternatively, there are ‘political’ schools of history, slanted to discredit the actions of our past leaders, in order to support modern political movements. In all these cases, history is not an attempt to ascertain the truth, but a system of propaganda, devoted to the furtherance of modern projects, or the gratification of national vanity.

Men can scarcely be blamed for not learning from the history they are taught. There is nothing to learn from it, because it is not true.

To derive any useful instruction from history, it seems to me essential first of all to grasp the principle that history, to be meaningful, must be the history of the human race. For history is a continuous process, gradually developing, changing and turning back, but in general moving forward in a single mighty stream. Any useful lessons to be derived must be learned by the study of the whole flow of human development, not by the selection of short periods here and there in one country or another.
— Sir John Bagot Glubb

The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival