How long do the memories of a generation last?

Two weeks ago, I was in Seoul and wrote about South Korea’s 386 Generation. This anti-American, anti-Japanese, pro-communist generation is, as I see it, the half sibling of the New Left generation that dominated Japan in the 1970s, with its pro-communist, anti-American and anti-Japan-U.S. security alliance stance.

In Japan, this cohort is now retiring from the forefront, while in South Korea, the 386ers are still in their 50s and will dominate the country’s politics for two more decades. This is the main reason why I am ambivalent — neither optimistic nor pessimistic — about the future of Japan-South Korea relations.

When I mentioned this to a friend the other day, he immediately brought up the hypothesis about human history working in 70-year cycles. This theory posits that the dominant culture, philosophy or ideas of an era are created and then destroyed repeatedly in cycles of about 70 years. Over the course of 70-odd years — or four generations, each about 17 or 18 years long — cultures, philosophies and ideas are created, inherited, mature and eventually become obsolete and are rejected.

This hypothesis can explain Japan's modern history, which saw the two major reforms of Kyoho and Kansei to strengthen the Edo shogunate in 1716 and 1787 respectively, followed by the Meiji Restoration in 1867 and the defeat in the Pacific War in 1945. According to the theory, in the 2010s or 2020s, we entered a new period of great change.

The idea may be dubious — the stuff of urban legends rather than a real rule. At the very least, one does not hear of scholars trying to prove it.

That said, a similar theory exists in the United States. Political scientist George Friedman posits that the country's federal government has transformed in 80-year cycles from its founding to the present.

The first cycle went from the American Revolutionary War to the Civil War, the second extended until World War II and the third, which began in 1945, will end around 2025, leading to a new chapter. While this may seem plausible at first glance, it sounds questionable to me.

It is hard to scientifically prove these theories. It may be true that we seem to enter a new period every 70 or 80 odd years. However, although discussions about why these transitions occur are happening in the social sciences — why feudalism became egalitarianism during the Meiji Restoration and why imperialism transformed into democracy about 70 years later — I have never heard a statistical explanation for the 70-year cycle in Japan. The same is true for 80-year cycles in the U.S.

But for some reason, however shaky these hypotheses, there seems to be some truth to them. During the Cold War, the Europeans, trapped between the U.S. and Soviet Union, succeeded in creating a united, free and open union. Memories of World War II, the Holocaust and the Cold War may not have been passed on to young 21st-century Europeans and it is difficult to convey to the younger generation the revolutionary, boisterous and politically fraught zeitgeist of Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.

The same can be said about the U.S. Those who witnessed the civil rights movements or the anti-Vietnam War protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago may find their memories fading into obscurity in the 2020s.

My grandfather never talked about his experience in Manchuria and, even if he had, I do not think I would have understood it as a child in grade school. It is a difficult intellectual task to convey the memories of a generation or, in other words, the mainstream culture, philosophy and ideas of a certain era, from one person to the next.

My generation, born after World War II, has accepted free, democratic, internationalist rules and institutions as a matter of course. We also took for granted the belief that Marxism was the standard for young people and that we should fight against inequality, defend human rights, help the needy in the developing world and work not for Japan alone, but also for the international community as a whole. Perhaps in our grandchildren’s time, internationalism and globalization may no longer be the ideals of youth.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan was in a period of high growth and everyone believed that salaries would rise every year, that people could buy whatever they wanted by saving money and that they could live comfortably after retirement. But now, instead of viewing Japan as “No. 1,” its economy has shrunk, as if in step with population decline. Eventually, my grandchildren's generation may be just as vocal in their opposition to, say, illegal migrants as people were in the 1930s or are today in Western societies.

In short, as I realized only after turning 70 years old, it is possible to pass on the thoughts and trends of one generation to the following one. However, after two generations, this is not only impossible, but those thoughts and trends may be lost entirely, drowned out by opposing currents.

The reason the 70- or 80-year cycles theories cannot be denied, even though they cannot be scientifically proven, is that such a mechanism is at work.

If so, the memories of the progressive 386 Generation that supported former South Korean Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in starting from the 1990s may not be passed on to their grandchildren — even though their children may inherit the historical background, culture, philosophy and ideology of their parents.

After all, my hunch that Japan-South Korea relations may start to change without having to wait for the 386ers to retire may not be far from the truth.