Perhaps the most fascinating, yet controversial, `generational theory` to emerge in the last two decades or so is the Strauss-Howe generational theory.

Generational theories determine how generations form and share similar values and characteristics.

These are shaped by the political, economic and social/cultural paradigms in which a generation exists. These are then critiqued by a new generation to formulate a new set of values and ethos that may have been missing or undermined in the lives of the previous generation.

According to the architects of the Strauss-Howe generational theory American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe this process is cyclical.

Strauss and Howe first unveiled their theory in 1997 in the book The Fourth Turning. After studying societal shifts in the West from the 15th century onwards, Strauss and Howe posited that history repeats itself after every 70 to 80 years.

This period is often referred to as a saeculum`. According to Strauss and Howe, within every saeculum, are four `turnings` or stages: High, Awakening, Unravelling and Crisis. The fourth turning, Crisis, marks the end of a saeculum and the beginning of a new one. Every stage/turning lasts approximately2Oyears.

The `High` stage is a time of confidence, relative prosperity, feeling of security and a consensus or conformity, enacted to safeguard collective economic and politicalgains and a sense of security. Strauss and Howe give the example of the US between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963.

The `Awakening` stage is when political, economic and social `norms` established during the High stage begin to be questioned, and a new generation begins to assert individualism and new forms of creativity and `spiritualism`. Imagine the US from the assassination of Kennedy in 1963 till the early 1980s. During the Awakening stage, the emphasis of society shifts from collective good to individual advancement both material and `spiritual`.

During the `Unravelling` stage, individualism hardens. Cynicism, hedonism and pragmatism completely sideline the consensual collectivism of the High stage. Whatever emerged during the Awakening stage is critiqued and viewed in a cynical manner. The critique does not call for collective action, though. This produces its own kinds of politics, economics and cultural products that are individualistic, detached and uninterested.

This leads to the `Crisis` stage.

The Wall Street crash of 1928 that plunged the world into an unprecedented economic crisis is an example. The crash was preceded by an Unravelling stage.

The Crisis stage is destructive.

It produces intense tensions and conflicts. It is a time of severe instability and uncertainty. But, eventually, it reorients and regroups society towards rebuilding institutions and strikes anew consensus of collective existence.

This marks the beginning of a new saeculum. The Second World War was the cataclysmic event during a Crisis stage, but one that led the West to regenerate itself and reach a new stage of High.

Howe has repeatedly insisted that the theory can be applied to nonWestern societies as well. If so, then what if we view Pakistan`s history from the lens of this theory? Pakistan is about to complete its first saeculum.

Its High stage can be slotted in the years between the country`s creation in 1947 till when a `modernist` dictatorship began to come apart in 1967. These 20 years encompass the early euphoria of the creation of the country, two economic `booms`, rapid industrialisation, and the state`s emphasis on creating a single collective identity by undermining ethnic and sectarian identities and promoting a `modernist` variant of Islam.

The Awakening stage kicked in when the national ethos developed between 1947 and 1967 began being questioned. This was manifested by a protest movement that toppled the `modernist` dictatorship and made way for parliamentary democracy.

The once repressed ethnic identities surfaced and so did interest in various leftist and rightist ideologies. The country lost a war in 1971 to India and Pakistan`s eastern wing broke away on an ethnic basis.

The Awakening stage then saw a growing interest in Islam within the polity and an increasing mixing of politics and religion. By the early 1980s, this mixing led to an `Islamisation` that merged material self-interest with individual `spiritual improvement.` Prosperity and piety became two sides of the same coin.

In 1988, the Awakening stage came to a close followed by the Unraveling stage. The material and `spiritual` tendencies of the Awakening stage began to mutate.

The `ideological` facades of themerger of prosperity and piety melted away, replaced by the cynical usage of faith as a business.

Islamic sects and sub-sects fought pitched battles to secure their piece of this enterprise. Tensions developed between `old money` and new money` [nouveau riche], and between the old middle classes and the new middle classes.

These sowed the seeds of the outcomes of the Crisis stage, which Pakistan entered in 2007. So far, the 18 years of this stage have witnessed severe polarisation, the rise of messianic populism and unprecedented Islamist and ethnic terrorism. Yet, according to the Strauss-Howe generational theory, the Crisis stage produces a major event which sees the state and society revive itself and enter a new High.

In Pakistan, maybe that event is its recent short but intense armed conflict with India, which saw large segments of Pakistan`s polarised polity unite behind its armed forces and government.

But the state and society have to be mindful of the fact that a Crisis stage, if mishandled, doesn`t always produce a High. The Soviet Union collapsed during the Crisis stage of its first saeculum. Therefore, Pakistan`s major stakeholders have to carefully navigate the recent events that have produced outcomes that may see the country successfully complete its first saeculum and produce a new High.

For this,history will have to be treated as a teacher, ideological moderation adopted, and a more robust `unity in diversity` ethos developed.