Talk:Strauss and Howe

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I'll go along with most of the edits. Tweaked for grammar. However with regard to S&H making specific predictions for the future (as opposed to general predictions) I think that does belong in the criticisms. Maybe I should've included examples. S&H have written for example that one of the 13th Generation's first big political issues will be to eliminate no-fault divorce; and mandatory national service will be inevitable in the near future due to the wishes of the Baby Boomers. Those are pretty specific predictions that go far beyond the scope of the the general gist of their generations/turnings theory. Either S&H have a crystal ball or (more likely) they are injecting their own political wishes for the future into their writings with the hope of them becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. That itself could be another criticism. Kaibabsquirrel 22:08, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The way I read the book, when they made specific predicitions, they qualified it by saying these are examples of what could happen, to help illuminate the archetype, not that these things would happen (or that they wished it would happen). In fact I think they went out of their way to address the nature of their prediction making, I could dig up the specific passage. Also I think it would be good to provide the reader some reference on who these critics are.. "critics say" can be used by editors to mask their own POV. Im not saying thats the case here, in particular the criticism of archetypes is an old and long standing one that goes beyond S&H to any theoreatical/philosophical metanarrative of history (Hegel and Marx dialectic being two most famous examples, but also Toynbee and other [[Universal History]). Stbalbach 01:22, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Allegation 2 Generations, Howe and Strauss deserve their own articles 3 Anon additions 4 Removal of criticism section 5 Tone down article

[edit] Allegation

This potentially defaming allegation, added by an anon user, needs a verifiable source:

Both Strauss and Howe have accepted money from the Bush Administration to sell the largely unpopular and ineffective No Child Left Behind legislation. Neither reasearchers openly admit that they are being paid for specific results in their testing, nor will Howe admit that he is one of the architects of NCLB. This brings up major ethical problems with their work.

--Stbalbach 06:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Generations, Howe and Strauss deserve their own articles

Howe and Strauss and Generations deserve distinct articles on the Wikipedia. Howe and Strauss are a research team who have written several books and have their own histories as demographers. Their individual thesis, Generations, is however such a seminal work in demographics as to deserve its own page.

Notably, throughout the wikipedia, authors have pages that list all of their works, in addition to having seperate pages for their magnum opus, or even secondary works.

[edit] Anon additions

Anon added this, moved to here:

One other small thing about the work of Strauss and Howe is that contradictions of theirs come about due to their very conservative political leanings. This is why they often contradict themselves by saying that the current crisis in which Gen X plays a pivotal part (fourth turning) will see the erasure of collective goods such as social security and other entitlements, while they also point out that historically the fourth turning crisis point is usually solved through an increase in collective goods and that the nomad generation (currently Gen X) typically strengthenes collective institutions. This is because THEIR solution to current economic and political problems involves the erasure of entitlements whereas Gen X (aka Nomads, who will actually solve this crisis) react against such babyboomer ideas by acting much more collectively. Sadly, as they point out, the wrong way to think and act in the current crisis is in the old ways of older generations such as blindly using ideology over what is practical and what really works. They are guilty of this themselves because they are baby boomers and doomed to their generational proclivities? (the above pharagraph is by D. Tyler McKay, University of Minnesota).

This is interesting but it is original research. -- Stbalbach 17:42, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of criticism section

Anon user recently remove the criticism section. I agree with this move. Not that there can't be a criticism section, but the one we had was unsourced and opinionated. Proper criticisms simply re-cap what other notable critics have said, including names, dates and publications. These free-handed anything goes unsourced criticisms are a real problem across Wikipedia in general. -- Stbalbach 23:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tone down article

If you want to tone down some of the language that is fine, but your negative attack on S&H is totally uncalled for. -- Stbalbach 03:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

it's uncalled for in a publisher's blurb, but it's appropriate in an encyclopedia. Readers need to hear that few experts take any of this seriously. It's all designed to sell motivational lectures that allow people to predict the future. Rjensen 05:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Many articles have a "criticisms" section, if you want to create one, fine, but you'll need to do it with credible and verifiable sources which is not original research. The article does a pretty good job of describing what S&H are about, that is the primary purpose of an encyclopedia article, there is no reason to seed negative critical stuff throughout the article sowing FUD about S&H. -- Stbalbach 05:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The article started out as a publisher's blurb--an advertising piece--and makes no mention of its reception except they sell a lot of stuff. Perhaps we should add some critical reviews that lambast the amateur work. Rjensen 05:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with your characterization of this article, I watched it being edited, this was not a cut and paste job. I agree some of it was market-speak but that is easily fixed and for the most part it describes their theories fairly well. As for criticisms, quoting other people is the only way to do it, you can't make negative statements without attributing it to someone else. The context of who said it and where and why is just as important as what is said. The reader needs to be able to make an informed decision on their own, not blindly told what to think by an anon wikipedia editor. --Stbalbach 05:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)