Good arguments, thanks for your ideas!

Steven-

>>Hey Dragan,
>>Hmmmm, I see you're thinking about it. :-)
>
>Well, you posted a link, and the site was well organized (as in "no ads" :), and easy to read... so I took my time.
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>> While it's not impirical or 'hard' science, it isn't attempting to predict unrefutable destinies.
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>Of course not, they are trying to stay away from being too specific. I've read the part where they say what can take the whole big wheel off-balance, even off-the-axis.
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>> And hasn't claimed to either, rather just anticipate likelyhoods based on prior experiences. Here, "theory" means "workable hypothesis", not mere opinion. There are certainly behavior "patterns" in individuals as well a groups. Futher, they tend to be highly cyclic.
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>This is where I disagree - their assertion that generational types follow in a sure progression of the four types. And the other thing is that this is limited to USA, last few centuries only, without considering anything similar in the rest of the world (like, what was the successor of the European "lost generation"?), without considering the world getting smaller (via internet et al), the rapid propagation of ideas nowadays... i.e. couldn't the speed of today's life just slightly shatter the regularity of their four-score cycles?
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>> The authors appropriation of history into the model seems reasonable... although it's admittedly easy to predict the past. ;-) But, similary, while there's not a predictive "science" for investing in the stock market, the Rothchild's idea of "when there's blood in the steets, buy!" usually has proven to have pretty good results.
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>That's a cookbook recipe, not a theory. Which is generally my disappointment in most of humanities, that after a hundred or two hundred years, in many areas (including pedagogy, sociology, economy) they mostly have assorted recipes, not systematic theories.
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>> Do you know of "memes" and/or "memetics"? Seems relavant here.
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>Memes, yes - but I also disprove of the implication that we're just obedient hosts for them. It's rather the other way around, IMO - those memes which are fitting the mores of the times, have a chance to spread around. And, their spreading doesn't mean they've found victims or followers - just like an epidemic spreading of a disease, there may carriers which are actually immune. How often do people pass a story just to check its plausibility? Doesn't imply that they believe in it, right?