The 16th century will return!

 The 16th century will return!

In the previous series, I compared the centuries of the 20th, 21st, and upcoming 22nd to the maiden, mother, and the crone. 

I think it’s only fair to compare this to their masculine counterparts, the centuries of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries using a similar but contrasting format.

What we can call the father, the son, and the holy ghost or just the grandfather. 

Interestingly, this time it is reversed. Instead of the maiden aging into the mother and then the crone, the holy ghost or the grandfather gives way to the father, which then begets the son.

The 16th century is the grandfather era, the 17th century is the father era, and the 18th century is the son era. 

People often complain about the 20th century for how it caused “the death of the father”, setting up incentives to make fathers seem irrelevant. 

This “death of the father” theme is very much present in 20th century media and symbolized the end of the masculine coded eras.

I think the 16th century mirrors this by having a theme representative of “the death of the mother” symbolizing the end of the feminine coded eras which of the past cycle was the 10th century, 11th century, and 12th century. 

In my “stages of modernist grief” series, I began with the 16th century, but was rather surface level with my analysis at that time.

I called the 16th century the “shock era” in reference to the stages of grief. 

And I believe this “death of the mother” is what initiates the shock.

A good example of this is the story of Henry VIII and his six wives, where Henry VIII sets up an entire church of England just to divorce his first wife and marry Anne Boleyn - all for the sake of providing a son, not just a child, just a son. 

Henry VIII after Anne failed to provide him with a son, uses rumors surrounding her and orders her to be publicly beheaded. 

Henry then marries Jane Seymour who dies from childbirth.  

A more overt example of the “death of the mother”. 

He is changed by this event and becomes much more ruthless and uncaring.

He shuts himself off from becoming the more nurturing and loving family man side of himself. You could argue his more “feminine side” and became now cold and distant.

Interestingly, how in the 20th century, there was another eighth monarch, Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne of England because the church wouldn’t let him marry Wallis Simpson, and potentially be a father to a kid born to her. 

There are strong parallels between the themes of the death of the mother and the death of the father. And a lot of the 16th century is mirrored in the 20th century.

Another quick example would be how during the age of exploration in the 16th and 20th centuries which have pretty striking parallels.  

But whereas Christopher Columbus and his men would notice large amounts of babies willingly abandoned by their mothers to avoid getting killed and raped by Columbus and his men, Vilhjalmur Stefansson instead noticed large amounts of babies willingly ordered to be abandoned by their fathers for survival pressures in extreme environments.

Very similar stories, but one is in the death of the mother era and the other is in the death of the father era. 

The same general tale told from opposite sides of the cycle.

When I previously talked about the shock stage of the 16th century, I painted a rather pretty picture of it. 

I describe the 16th century as a time of innovation. 

The era where Protestantism broke out. 

The century when William Shakespeare released his plays in theaters indicating that large, tragic, comedic, and historical plays were becoming a cultural sensation. 

And where the Heliocentric model emerged which changed how we viewed ourselves in the universe and revealed we may not be both the literal and figurative center after all. 

The 16th century was ground zero for basically our entire modern society and pop culture or at the very least that and the late 15th century as well as the centuries bleed together a bit as I have said

Cultural artifacts from before say 1455 are basically considered irrelevant.

Generally speaking, nobody really listens to music that was made before 1455.

Nobody really reads books or adapts plays made before 1455. 

And of course, Protestantism straight up didn't exist before 1455.

For various reasons, all of the stuff that the people from the Renaissance grew up with seems to be the benchmark for pop culture and the world as we know it.

For generations, you are viewed as essentially illiterate and as living under a rock if you've never heard about Christopher Columbus or have never read or seen “Romeo & Juliet”.

However, that stigma does not seem to apply to works made before the 16th century.

No one really cares if you've listened to 12th century music or have read The Song of Roland. At best, they are considered optional oddities and at worst they are ignored completely.

Despite being culturally significant in their time,they really have not had the same staying power in the same way with the generations who grew up after the era where these were new.

People in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries alike often grew up knowing things like Christopher Columbus and Romeo & Juliet, but only the people of the 16th century really grew up with things like Gregorian music or The Song of Roland. 

The later generations may recognize something resembling music from the 12th century or understand something that sounds like a Medieval ballad, but they have probably never bothered to see actual ballads and likely couldn't name you even three stories from the 12th century. 

But this is exactly why I view the 16th century as the Holy Spirit. It was the animating force of our modern history. 

Being the first of the three masculine centuries, it makes sense that there would be a boom in creativity as that masculine essence had long been absent.

Remember, according to my cycle, the last masculine era prior to the 16th century was the 8th century, the previous son era. 

The 8th century was the end of the fight against Arab conquest and with the arrival of Vikings, the death of the idea of masculine heroism in general, or at the very least, the idea that masculinity is always heroic. 

From about 855 to 1455, there was a void of this masculine energy in the culture. 

Finally, it returned in the late 15th century, ushering in an explosion of creative forces, forming a new culture and a new era. 

This masculine energy era lasted from about 1455 until about 1915. 

Right now, we are smack in the middle of the feminine energy era, which is from about 1915 until presumably around 2455, which I'm predicting will have a similar cultural and historical renaissance to what happened in the late 15th and 16th centuries, a new cultural and historical ground zero for our descendants.

I know that masculine and feminine are loaded terms and that people will no doubt have a knee-jerk reaction to me using them so casually, but both of them are valuable and necessary. 

Put plainly, I mostly mean that the masculine era was one of productivity and the feminine era is one of consumption. 

You can notice this shift around 1915 when the entertainment started becoming more meta and self-referential.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, people watched plays and read books. 

From 1915 onwards and throughout the 21st century, many people had to write essays about plays and books. They had to analyze them and understand their meanings. 

In the 20th century, it became clear that the well had run dry as people couldn’t be explorers, or playwrights, or found new doctrines as so much red tape and regulations and paperwork prevented them from doing so.  Productivity was burnt out. 

The 16th century was the exact opposite. It was the beginning of the productivity after centuries of stagnation. 

The death of the father was the death of productivity, but the death of the mother was the death of consumption.

And while people might be inclined to view productivity as inherently positive and consumption as always negative, that’s not necessarily true.

Productivity is creative but unaware and consumption is reflective. It actually processes things. 

The masculine is outward focused and the feminine is inward focused.

You can even see this contrast with the “Eighth” monarchs. 

With Henry VIII everything is physical and blunt and direct. 

When tragedy strikes, Henry does not contemplate and dwell on things. He just beheads and butcher people and blows things up. 

When Henry VIII is dissatisfied with a wife, he just simply beheads or divorces them. 

They try to plead and beg Henry to stay with them, but Henry, however, does not care, does not reflect, does not doubt himself for even a second. He just executes or annuls them anyway. 

And on top of that, in a very cruel and ironic way, giving one wife, Anne, a special swordsmen from France as “special treatment”. 

This is the shock era in a nutshell. Crude and blunt. No time for reflection, just mindless action, the end of consumption. No absorbing of information, just doing things. Actions speak louder than words after all.

You'll note that people in the 16th century tend to be very dismissive of things, especially in relation to mental illness.  And I think this stems from this way of being. 

To them, just going out and doing things is always a superior option to contemplation, reflection, or rationalization.

Anything, anything at all that explains inaction is just considered “making excuses”.

The 20th century monarch Edward VIII is very different. The struggle that Edward goes through is internal. He longs to be with Wallis Simpson, and believes his love for her functions as his only real will to live.

When Edward discovers that the Church of England won’t let him be with Wallis, he goes out and resigns as monarch. He no longer has a reason to keep going. 

This is the depression era in a nutshell. Introspective and unsure how to act.

Even the monarch succeeding Edward, George VI, reflects this. He’s not a strong larger than life monarch. He appears weak and has a speech impediment. He had to go to speech therapy to give his address as king. 

And that is why no one is comfortable with the current state of affairs. The old world no longer exists, but the new one has yet to arrive. We are dealing with the birthing pains of the mother era.

People of the 16th century were like Henry, the mindset of just doing things without any self-reflection. Just “shut up and get a son. Don't think about things too much.”

And people of the 20th century were like Edward. They see the system won’t let them do things if they take the 16th century advice and therefore they actually have to stop and reflect.

The 16th century had productive people who are doing things with their lives but they have no self-awareness whatsoever. 

And the 20th century had people who are very contemplative and self-aware. But they either just sit around doing nothing all day or they are constantly working their asses off in the same dead end office corner job and feeling like they’re getting no results at all which makes them question why they are even bothering.

The 16th century people would be puzzled by the inaction and lack of progress of 20th century people, and just assume they are all lazy or heretics and the people of the 20th century are baffled by how oblivious 16th century people are to the changing world around them. 

But both people are just reacting to the needs of the time. 

While the 20th century had to face the death of productivity, the reality that the juice is not worth the squeeze and that there's no real incentive to do anything productive. 

The 16th century faced the death of consumption. 

For people in the 16th century, there was very little incentive to just sit around consuming things, and all the incentive in the world to do something productive. Their efforts yielded more tangible results. 

Back in the 16th century, it just made much more sense to shut up and do things. There was far less of a need to question things and reflect. 

There's something I heard a while back and I can't remember what it's from, but it goes like this. “If you are hammering in a nail and you find yourself thinking about the hammer a lot and you stand there staring at the hammer and analyzing the hammer, there's a very good chance there is something wrong with the hammer. It's faulty and not functioning as you would expect it to. If it were functioning properly, you wouldn't even pay attention to the hammer or give it a second thought.” 

The same goes for other things. The reason why everyone in the 20th century were are all acting like existentialist philosophers is because life is not functioning for them the way they were told it was supposed to. They are trying to figure out what's wrong.

They are staring at the faulty hammer they've been given and their conclusions fall on deaf ears.

Everyone in the 16th century had a perfectly functional hammer and they would just wonder why everyone in the 20th century would be complaining so much. 

The people of the 16th century never needed to think about much beyond a surface level, so they never bothered. 

But this post isn't strictly about making fun of the 16th century, as they merely adapted to their own circumstances. 

The century prior to the 16th century was the 15th century, the former rebirth era, and the time during the 15th century was surprisingly similar to the 20th century. 

The reason why it's the rebirth era, is because it was more withdrawn and introspective being the transition century being the Medieval and Modern world.

The 15th century, at least in the beginning, was also rather dower and doomerismish as it was the aftermath of the death era of the 14th century, having lived through or knowing people who lived through the Black Death, Great Famine, and the Hundred Years War. 

The people of the 15th century were knowledgeable and wise to what was wrong with society and attempted to revitalize society and usher in the Renaissance. 

And these are the people the first generations of the 16th century grew up with. 

These first generations had access to a plethora of knowledge that the 15th century had attained. 

However, they took it for granted and didn't really value this information or pass it on to the upcoming generations in a meaningful way. 

Life and culture in the 12th and 13th centuries, even if it was seen as safer and stable, was also seen as a bit boring. 

I imagine many people in the 16th century grew up reading books they didn't understand, forced to memorize things they didn't care about, surrounded by older people they would have perceived as stern and uptight. 

Sometimes I see people lament the loss of intelligence over the last half a millennium and how people in the previous centuries were much more articulate than they are today. 

But to people who grew up in the 16th century, a lot of them just saw boring inactive adults who just sat around and discussed scholarly matters all day, everyday. 

The people of the 16th century were just aching to go out and do physical things in the physical world like going to see a raunchy play at the theater or  jousting on horseback, not discussing classical mythology or reading stoic philosophy like in the 15th century. 

It's like the virgin and the chad meme. The 15th century was like a giant wall of text that no one wants to read and the 16th century replies with “Ha ha, jousting go brrr”. 

While today it's very trendy to mock people from that time, I think that most people would have done the exact same thing that the 16th century did had they grown up back then. 

I think many are quite envious of the people of the 16th century who got to live much simpler and more straightforward lives. 

Again with the hammer comparison, the reason why everyone in the 20th and 21st centuries spend all their time thinking about political parties and the economy is because there's something deeply wrong with those things. 

By comparison, most people in the 16th century didn't have to dwell on these things that much. 

This is not to say that everyone in the West in the 16th century had a perfect existence or that they lived in some flawless utopia, but many people could have a job and a family without having an existential crisis and a billion steps to follow every other day. 

And that seems pretty damn ideal to the average person 400 or 500 years later. 

That said, the 16th century was known for its own mass conflicts and economic hardships, so it makes sense that it would parallel the 20th century in some respects. 

However, people were less atomized back in the 16th century and the culture was much more cohesive. So, the solutions to these hardships were much more straightforward. 

It was the beginning of a new period of atomization and therefore the benefits of that atomization could be there for the taking. 

Today the pool has run dry and people only feel impacted by the negative aspects of this atomization 

And thus in the 2020s, society is being drawn towards more collective ways of being, for better or worse. 

My prediction is that the 26th century will mirror the 16th century in many ways and will be the next shock stage, the end of this era of consumption that we are in currently, the next wave of atomization. 

And the people born by then, those who will grow up in the century or the first few decades before it, they might just be the next variation of those 16th century people. 

Much like the 10th to 15th centuries, the media of the 20th to 25th centuries will be looked at as stuff made by a bunch of overthinkers analyzing nonsense. 

And people in this upcoming century will simply do things. They will be productive, but they won't have much self-awareness at all. 

And this will be the animating force that ushers in a new era of productivity and creativity. 

It may seem strange that I consider this to be “the old man” or “grandfather" era, but this is because there is a strange wisdom to the art and events of the 16th century. 

Whether it's a painting, sculpture, piece of literature or even a real life event, the 16th century has an almost mythological quality to it. 

And I think the reason this is is because people who made these pieces of media or shaped these events grew up aware of things like Greek mythology or lofty philosophical concepts due to growing up with those older generations from the 14th century but hadn't necessarily spent hours upon hours dwelling on meaning or overthinking it.

So even though a lot of this art was made by people who would laugh at you for having a deep interpretations of their work, there's perhaps a subconscious wisdom that shines through nevertheless.

The stories of the 16th century, both fictional and real, seems both profound and simultaneously overly simplistic.

Which I think makes it the perfect foundation for the modern era. 

Later works can then expand upon the concepts introduced in this era.

The 16th century was like the mania of an old man who doesn't care what anyone thinks of him anymore and he just does things for the sake of it. 

All while sharing his accumulated wisdom along the way even if by accident.

And this crazy old ghost may one day haunt people again.

Our modernity continues…