Analog SFF, November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The authors summarize these four kinds of turnings starting on page 2 in chapter one:

  IN FACT, AT THE CORE OF MODERN HISTORY LIES THIS REMARKABLE PATTERN: OVER THE PAST FIVE CENTURIES, ANGLO-AMERICAN SOCIETY HAS ENTERED A NEW ERA—A NEW turning—EVERY TWO DECADES OR SO. AT THE START OF EACH TURNING, PEOPLE CHANGE HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT THEMSELVES, THE CULTURE, THE NATION, AND THE FUTURE. TURNINGS COME IN CYCLES OF FOUR. EACH CYCLE SPANS THE LENGTH OF A LONG HUMAN LIFE, ROUGHLY EIGHTY TO ONE HUNDRED YEARS, A UNIT OF TIME THE ANCIENTS CALLED THE saeculum. TOGETHER, THE FOUR TURNINGS OF THE SAECULUM COMPRISE HISTORY'S SEASONAL RHYTHM OF GROWTH, MATURATION, ENTROPY, AND DESTRUCTION:

  THE First Turning IS A High, AN UPBEAT ERA OF STRENGTHENING INSTITUTIONS AND WEAKENING INDIVIDUALISM, WHEN A NEW CIVIC ORDER IMPLANTS AND THE OLD VALUES REGIME DECAYS.

  THE Second Turning IS AN Awakening, A PASSIONATE ERA OF SPIRITUAL UPHEAVAL, WHEN THE CIVIC ORDER COMES UNDER ATTACK FROM A NEW VALUES REGIME.

  THE Third Turning IS AN Unraveling, A DOWNCAST ERA OF STRENGTHENING INDIVIDUALISM AND WEAKENING INSTITUTIONS, WHEN THE OLD CIVIC ORDER DECAYS AND THE NEW VALUES REGIME IMPLANTS.

  THE Fourth Turning IS A Crisis, A DECISIVE ERA OF SECULAR UPHEAVAL, WHEN THE VALUES REGIME PROPELS THE REPLACEMENT OF THE OLD CIVIC ORDER WITH THE NEW ONE.

  EACH TURNING COMES WITH ITS OWN IDENTIFIABLE MOOD. ALWAYS, THESE MOOD SHIFTS CATCH PEOPLE BY SURPRISE.

  This last point is an important one, the mood shifts coming as a surprise. Linear extrapolations from the recent past into even the near-term future can be far off the mark. For instance, extrapolating the nature of society ten years into the future from the world of Leave It to Beaver would not have led to a prediction of the “Summer of Love” or the Watts riots. Similarly, extrapolating from the speakeasy and flapper era of the 1920s would not have led to a proper characterization of the 1930s that actually happened. It isn't simply a matter of failing to predict specific events, like the market collapse of 1929 or Kent State. As Strauss and Howe put it on page 16, “It's not just that the experts missed the particular events that lay just ahead—(several events from period listed—JK). It's that they missed the entire mood of the coming era."

  Expert predictions were wrong for this reason: “When the forecasters assumed the future would extrapolate the recent past, they expected that the next set of people in each phase of life would behave just like the current occupants."

  Long before I'd read the book, I noticed that my parents had what I called a “Depression Era mindset” about money. Having spent most of their formative years enduring shortages brought on by the Great Depression, followed by sacrifices mandated by the needs of World War II, they had a deeply ingrained sense of “pay as you go” and don't over-extend yourself. Our world of easy credit and “no interest for two years” was to them self-evidently irresponsible, bordering on insane.

  It's no great stretch of the imagination to figure out that a generation raised in an age of plenty will differ from one raised in an age of want. But what is very interesting is that this process should be cyclical, that after four generations we should come full circle to an age of similar mood and temperament. Yet that is exactly what Strauss and Howe say happens, as one generation hands off its national role to the next. Here is an example of this role changing taken from recent history:

  THIS DYNAMIC HAS RECURRED THROUGHOUT AMERICAN HISTORY. ROUGHLY EVERY TWO DECADES (THE SPAN OF ONE PHASE OF LIFE), THERE HAS ARISEN A NEW constellation OF GENERATIONS—A NEW LAYERING OF GENERATIONAL PERSONAS UP AND DOWN THE AGE LADDER. AS THIS CONSTELLATION HAS SHIFTED, SO HAS THE NATIONAL MOOD. CONSIDER WHAT HAPPENED, FROM THE LATE 1950S TO THE LATE 1970S, AS ONE GENERATION REPLACED ANOTHER AT EACH PHASE OF LIFE:

  IN ELDERHOOD, THE CAUTIONARY INDIVIDUALISTS OF THE Lost Generation (BORN 1883-1900) WERE REPLACED BY THE HUBRISTIC G.I. Generation (BORN 1901-1924) OF MATERIAL AFFLUENCE, GLOBAL POWER, AND CIVIC PLANNING.

  IN MIDLIFE, THE UPBEAT G.I.S WERE REPLACED BY THE HELPMATE Silent Generation (BORN 1925-1942), WHO APPLIED THEIR EXPERTISE AND SENSITIVITY TO FINE-TUNE THE INSTITUTIONAL ORDER WHILE MENTORING THE PASSIONS OF YOUTH.

  IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD, THE CONFORMIST SILENT WERE REPLACED BY THE NARCISSISTIC Boom Generation (BORN 1943-1960), WHO ASSERTED THE PRIMACY OF SELF AND CHALLENGED THE ALLEGED MORAL VACUITY OF THE INSTITUTIONAL ORDER.

  IN CHILDHOOD, THE INDULGED BOOMERS WERE REPLACED BY THE NEGLECTED 13th Generation (BORN 1961-1981), WHO WERE LEFT UNPROTECTED AT A TIME OF CULTURAL CONVULSION AND ADULT SELF-DISCOVERY. KNOWN IN POP CULTURE AS GENERATION X, ITS NAME HERE REFLECTS THAT IT LITERALLY IS THE THIRTEENTH GENERATION TO CALL ITSELF AMERICAN.

  The authors also name the archetypes born in each era. A Prophet generation is born during a High, Nomad generations are born during Awakenings, Heroes are born during an Unraveling, and Artists during a Crisis. So an era in which Heroes are running things and Prophets are young adults sowing their wild oats is far different from a period in which the reverse is true: think the 1930s and ‘40s versus the 1960s and ‘70s.

  Now we come to the Analog audience participation part of this column. The book was published in 1997, during what the authors assert was a period of unraveling. The prophecy they wished for their readers to look at was whether or not in a few years we transitioned to a fourth turning. They estimated that 2005 would, given the average length of a turning, be that year.

  What big event happened between then and now? 9/11. The authors even published a letter in USA Today on Oct. 29 of 2001, suggesting that Americans may have become a changed people almost overnight ("may have"—they hedged their bets).

  I read the book a year before 9/11, so I was interested to see that letter from the authors, but I was skeptical that 9/11 would mark the actual entry into the fourth turning. It was too soon by five years for one thing. And when all was said and done—the wreckage was cleaned up, the bombs were dropped on Afghanistan—the US continued to just sort of muddle along, every bit as divided and self-absorbed as before.

  Indeed, it is now 2008 and I still don't see that any corner has been turned. Perhaps the divided state of the nation this year, made all the more obvious by the current campaigning for president of the US, will lead to the “precipitating event” that future generations will say marked the beginning of the fourth turning crisis. It might be fun for Analog readers to keep a look out for that arrival of the fourth turning, but I can't offer a prize to the reader who spots it first. And come to think of it, a year or two from now maybe we'll look back at something that has already happened and decide that it was the turning point.

  * * * *

  The book is certainly worth a read. Most of the supporting evidence for their hypothesis is, of necessity, anecdotal, and descriptions of mood in a given era are highly subject to perception. Nevertheless, the book does offer a theory of societal evolution that I think is a worthy alternate view to the linear evolution idea. I do doubt that, even if Strauss and Howe are correct about the US and its cyclical evolution, it will be applicable to a space-faring civilization. Even in the next hundred years, space will be populated by a great many folk who were never American in the first place, nor ever had ancestors there. It may still be cyclical, but with different generational constellations and archetypes.

  Still, the book provides a justification for my use of characters that seemed 1950ish to Stan. Unfortunately, nothing in the book invalidates Stan's other criticisms, which were spot on.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Jeffery D. Kooistra

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Short Story: RECREATION by Oz Drummond

  Wherein “success beyond wildest dreams” takes on a new meaning....

  Gale sought his scent in her system. She arrowed through fiber and copper networks, everything behind and around her a blur; she hadn't bothered to visualize any of it. She could do that. She was just a face right now. It took too much concentration to imagine more than that. She was arrowhead and shaft. Her hair fletched the shaft and directed her course. She was the here
and now of her search for him.

  Mouth slightly open, a hint of snow-covered, glacier-carved valleys rolled across her tongue like the bouquet of a fine wine. Gale held the scent in lungs newly created until she had to let go or burst as it froze her at the cellular level. She flicked her hair onto the left side of her shaft-body and changed direction, accelerating toward him, missile to target. No matter where or what he was, he smelled like snow and ice. Playing hide and seek, she always won.

  Gale liked to win.

  He had changed something again. She found his scent in the new logic infiltrating her system. She felt her way through the changes, rolled like a seal in the new currents and drank in some of his new program. She choked as it leapt down her throat and coursed through her. Her body morphed from a sleek seal with flippers to a petite brunette with hair loose to her hips and legs all the way up.

  Impractical, she thought.

  Her eyes were his cold blue, her skin as pale as if it had never been tanned by the summer sun, her hair as dark as midwinter night. She wore a mint green sheath that sparkled and clung from bust to knees as she moved, outlining a well-rounded shape. She wore strapless four-inch spikes with improbably long pointed toes on her tiny feet.

  No way could she fight in this outfit. What was he up to?

  And then he was there. Inside her head. She shivered. He looked through her eyes that were his eyes and formed her thoughts as his own. She felt tingly, warm and wanted. He moved around inside her until she was set to his liking. He adjusted her height, her hair, brought her hemline up to her thighs.

  Could I braid my hair at least?

  No, I like it this way, all loose and flowing.

  It was like talking to yourself, only better. Two voices in the same head. He walked her around, gazed into a set of mirrors that appeared when he wanted them to, held one of her hands on her hip, flipped her hair with the other. Gale would have preferred to stride along in boots or even to fly, but when he was inside her she wanted to keep him there as long as she could, prolonging the intimacy. If she changed her appearance he might leave suddenly. He had before.

  Through a newly formed door was The Nightclub with its loud music and men and women dancing. He walked her to the bar and ordered a fruity frozen daiquiri. She was expected to drink it. She held the stem with both hands, elbows on the bar and watched the room through the mirror.

  He didn't like that.

  He turned her around and sat her on a tall chair facing the dance floor, her glass in one hand while he flipped her hair back with the other. One leg crossed the other and he threw her chest out. He made her free hand play on her hip and thigh, smooth the dress over her skin, before coming back to curl her hair idly around her fingers.

  Gale waited for him to choose one of the other patrons.

  He began to flirt with a tall, dark, and handsome man sitting next to her.

  Tall, dark, and handsome was interested.

  Gale was amused. Is it the way I look or is it his charm?

  And then he was gone, abandoning her in midsentence with tall, dark, and not very interesting. Without him, The Nightclub was a stupid game, as stupid as the leggy brunette body. She left that body behind in the bar, still talking to tall, dark, and boring, who didn't seem to notice. Her body's conversation had become empty headed without either of them to provide dialogue.

  Must have been my looks after all.

  * * * *

  Gale went off to play Alien Insurrection. She had found it buried under various circuits and pathways, a forgotten piece of gaming software. She was updating it and linking it to her system as a surprise for him.

  "Surrender, Alien-That-Gestates-Genetic-Copies,” the translator boomed.

  "Never!” she screamed as she punched the little fighter's rockets and accelerated on a trajectory to intercept the enemy's mothership.

  "There is no logic in your further resistance to our superior weaponry."

  "Die, alien scum!"

  The interface skipped, creating jumps in her field of vision. The battle noises fed through the speakers also paused for the same fraction of time. Half the controls in her small fighter didn't do anything, no matter how much she pulled or pressed at them. Aside from winning, little details were the best part of a game.

  The interface skipped again. It could be that the bridge she built to her own system still had a few bugs in it or it could be the game was simply too old and slow to keep up with her. She needed to find and fix whatever it was before he found this game on his own. Maybe if she switched to another ship, it would have more power. Gale switched to a Kikitle ship and watched her previous fighter explode in the enemy's shields with little effect.

  The Kikitle ship was better. Gale should have needed four hands and opposable toes to work all the controls. The opposable toes maneuvered, but she could have managed with only two hands on all the other controls. Too few of the knobs, protrusions, and panels did anything. The ship was also underpowered. The Kikitle were pacifists. She wouldn't get enough points to win if she relied on the weapons system alone.

  Blowing up her ship would significantly damage the enemy's mothership, if she could combine it with a ramming action. It was poor sportsmanship, but she might rack up enough points to win. Or maybe the game would just give her another life and continue play. That would be disappointing. She hated games that didn't make you start all over when you died.

  This game would be a lot more fun when she was finished with it. She would make knobs and buttons actually do something, create lots of confusing visuals, maybe a few smells, and plenty of distracting noises. Even with badly simulated engine noise and alien communications translated in her head, the game was too quiet. It lacked a good noise level. She liked to hear blips, bleeps, whirrs, splats, and the occasional ka-chunk that might mean something was seriously wrong.

  Gale instructed the onboard computer to start its destruct sequence. How would the program interpret her suicide? Would she do enough damage to the alien ship to win? Would she feel pain on impact or would she simply be jerked out of play? She tightened her crash cocoon and closed all her Kikitle eyes. She hoped the game was programmed for pain.

  "Howdy, Pilgrim,” a voice drawled from the speaker. “You look like you could use a little help fightin’ off those Injuns."

  "Hey! You spoiled my surprise!” Now that he was here, the real fun would start.

  She searched her two-dimensional displays. An unmarked allied ship, which must be his, had locked onto her Kikitle craft and used a beam to adjust her trajectory to miss the mother ship.

  Another screen at the lower left edge of her display area filled with his pale face, its planes as sharp as the leading edge of snowdrifts. His eyes were the same glacial blue as the leggy brunette's had been. Instead of his usual single braid, he had on a cowboy hat. He smiled and his face was softened by the laugh lines around his eyes.

  "Don't worry, li'l lady. The cavalry is here."

  "You sound pretty stupid as John Wayne in the middle of a space battle. Or do you want to play Cowboys and Indians instead?"

  He cut the connection.

  He was up to something.

  Massive laser artillery lanced from his ship and sliced through the enemy's weapons. The alien mothership bucked and lost its spin as his weapons disabled its gravitational field generator. The saucer-shaped ship lost altitude over the planet below and screamed into its atmosphere. It burned on its way to creating a satisfying crater on the planet surface.

  And then Gale realized she wouldn't be around to see the mothership explode on impact. Her computer had continued the self-destruct countdown. A white hot flash seared her eyes as she was ejected from the game in her own miniature explosion.

  It wasn't painful enough, but she could fix that.

  * * * *

  Game over. All points forfeited to Player Two for rescue operation. Score = 0. Would you like to play again?

  * * * *

  Gale puzzled that out. She was winning
when he entered her game. He had won, even though he had just entered the game. He took all her points when he bumped her trajectory. Cool. Now she knew a new way to beat him the next time they played. That tactic should work in lots of games.

  He was gone again, as abruptly as he had arrived. She couldn't detect even a hint of winter in Alien Insurrection, no damp feeling of impending snow. Why didn't he stay? She had so much to ask him. Did he like the game? Did she do a good job? Did she alter it the way he would have? How did he enter the game in a ship with weapons that weren't part of the original parameters? She had so much to ask him and not a sign of him anywhere. But he would be back. He always came back.

  She went to look for him.

  * * * *

  Her yellow-black avian eyes could spot movement a mile away. She was thinking of him as a snowshoe hare. It was easier to locate him when she thought of him as prey. She spread her black wing feathers to soar on the current, buffeted by turbulence.

  There.

  A bit of movement in Victorian London.

  He was on Baker Street.

  She dipped the edge of her wings to spill some air and began to dive. Faster and faster she fell through the system into the smog and murk of London.

  He was at number 221B, a smoking jacket stretched across his shoulders and biceps. He wasn't very convincing as Sherlock Holmes. The shoulders and thighs of a warrior were at odds with Sherlock's wiry build. No wonder she could find him anywhere. He just couldn't get into character.

  Gale lengthened and thickened into a middle-aged Watson with his dark tropical complexion and distinctive military air. He looked up and removed his pipe from his mouth as she solidified in front of him.

  "Why do you look like Watson?” he asked. “Don't you want to look like yourself? I gave you a sexy body to use."

  "But I do look like myself. I always do. What a silly question. How do I win this game? Do I solve the mystery before you do?"

  "Actually, it's not a game. It's more of a test."