Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, in the Context of r/K Theory

I periodically hear in emails how grateful readers are to find this site. The realization that things will swing back towards K-selected,Conservative psychologies allows them to see that this current slide towards leftism is not a one way trip. Things go r, until leftists screw things up so badly that K returns by force. I am not the first to have noticed these cycles, even if I am the first to have associated them with r/K Theory and Reproductive Strategies.

Strauss Howe Generational Theory has been around for some time, and Strauss and Howe have made a pretty penny consulting with Hedge Funds over it’s predictions. It was first detailed in their 1991 book Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, and subsequently refined in 1997’s The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy – What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. The theory states that our history has four phases which repeat endlessly. The phases are Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Here, Crisis is r-psychologies confronted by the shortage of K-selection. This turmoil produces an adaptive shift in the population’s psychology towards a more K-selected, politically Conservative psychology. High is the environment of r-selected resource excess that is produced by a majority K-selected populace, living in an environment where these rewards are enjoyed by those who produce them. Awakening and Unraveling are just the leftists gradually increasing in number due to the r-selection, and fucking up a good thing until it all falls apart, and the Crisis returns.

There is one huge difference this time, and that is our use of public debt to increase resource availability and extend the period of r-selection. This has allowed for a slight increase in the population’s shift towards the r-psychology in this cycle, and lengthened the period of Unraveling. That all will increase the magnitude of the Crisis we will face. This would have been predictable, if you had viewed the increases in national debt which began around 1980 in the context of this work . The disturbing aspect of this is that when the collapse comes, the hardcore Left will be particularly loony, since their amygdalae have essentially no adaptation to a more free, competitive environment. Today, not having free government healthcare, and free cellphones is the same to them as being tossed into Lord of the Flies. When things get so bad that there is no food or housing, they will be capable of anything. The coming Crisis will be epic.

Of course, today’s K’s are another breed, and unlike in the Roman Empire, they have not all been shipped off to foreign lands and distant garrisons for the last fifty years. There has been no removal of their genes from our gene pool. They have selectively bred, and produced a very aggressive breed of principled warrior, who likes his military hardware, views killing as an occasionally necessary evil, and who views those who transgress against him personally as sub-human. Even in this r-environment, through sheer force of will the American warrior has increased concealed carry rights, as well as created Castle and Stand Your Ground Laws. Although Europe’s warriors haven’t made those advances, it is only because they have just begun to rise. Today’s carefully bred K’s are a special breed, and they are beginning to awake, even before the Crisis begins.

It is tough to make a concrete prediction about exactly what is coming, beyond the fact that it will probably be more unusual in degree and scope than our past history. The conflict between r and K at the collapse will be unprecedented, and may yield an outcome we have not seen before, such as splits along ideological-geographic lines, with cities becoming like micro-countries, surrounded by hostile warrior nations which hold them in contempt, and refuse to allow them a say in how those outside the cities will live and behave. r’s will dive for the cover and safety of universal control afforded by the cities, as K’s migrate out, to escape the insanity.

r’s will not want to peacefully cede to the freedom and lack of government restrictions on behavior which will be all but unavoidable once the ability to draw debt is gone and the currency is inflated to oblivion. K’s will not like what r’s will want to do. Absent the intervention of disease or major war (both of which also eliminate r from the environment), something wild is coming.

The bright side is an epic Crisis phase will shift the populace much more towards K (and probably purge r from our societies more than it has been purged in the past). That will make for a High which will carry those of us who survive into some really nice golden years. We just have to meet the challenges which will face us shortly.