Past, Present & Future
Per­fectly Merged

The 1964–1967 oppo­si­tion brings three waves of con­se­quence into the pic­ture: Uranus-Pluto, Saturn-Uranus, Saturn-Pluto

Mad­Men, the TV series that por­trays the lives of employ­ees work­ing for Sterling-Cooper, a 1960s Madi­son Avenue ad agency, per­fectly mixes past, present and future on many lev­els: cul­ture, gen­der, race, pol­i­tics, class and tech­nol­ogy. Watch­ing it reminds one to look for­ward and back at the same time. Where will we be in 50 years? We com­pare the char­ac­ters’ time to ours, while also look­ing at two lev­els of the past. Mad­Men con­stantly car­ries us from the past-present–we imag­ine our­selves in their time–to a more dis­tant past–the 1960s still had fresher views of the 30s, 40s and 50s than we do. The many top­ics this com­par­i­son gen­er­ates typ­i­fies a Mea­sur­ing His­tory trait: a non-linear, holis­tic view of his­tory and the future. Luck­ily, Mad­Men, the instant clas­sic from Matthew Wiener, presents itself as an enter­tain­ing entry into this view of his­tory that offers infi­nite possibility.

The Plan

First, please know that this sur­vey will heav­ily lever­age the capa­bil­i­ties of Apture. When you see a box next to a link, mouseover or click on it and it will open to new win­dows while you remain on the page. This fea­ture pro­vides rich con­text, while keep­ing on topic. Best part? Your surf as you nor­mally do.

The Struc­ture

The ani­ma­tion above high­lights the the inter­ac­tion between the three plan­ets noted in red on the right, Sat­urn, Uranus and Pluto. The process of mea­sur­ing his­tory uses a wave metaphor to explain the outer planet cycles con­nected to these inter­ac­tions. For now, this is as com­pli­cated as the process gets–explanation comes by sim­ply point­ing and clicking.

The Mad­Men Outer Planet Tour uses these waves to detail influ­ences that date as far back as the French Revolution.What? You expected a short, sim­ple read? If you like the way Mad­Men works your brain, you’ll love the outer planet tour.

1960s & The Outer Planets

Details all outer planet activ­ity, their con­nec­tion to his­tory and to Mad­Men. It includes links to waves con­nected with the Sat­urn oppo­si­tion to the Uranus-Pluto con­junc­tion, the most impor­tant outer planet event of the decade. By this plan we get

Look­ing Back:1849–1965
1849Uranus-Pluto1965

((Uranus-Pluto)) waves vary between fre­quen­cies of 111 and 141 years, respec­tively. Their legacy includes Caesar’s life and death; the birth of mov­able type; the Fall of Con­stan­tino­ple, the Age of Rea­son, the French and Indus­trial Rev­o­lu­tions and the birth of the Internet.

Look­ing Forward:1966–2100
1966Uranus-Pluto2100

Con­junc­tions begin one wave as another ends. This offers clues to why 1960s changes was often painful as well as mon­u­men­tal. Look­ing for­ward begins by iden­ti­fy­ing its rel­e­vance, espe­cially since we now reach the end of its first quad­rant, 1966–2012. This wave con­tains eas­ily iden­ti­fi­able to Inter­net and packet com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­ogy. Expect ram­i­fi­ca­tions equal to or greater than the impact of mass pro­duc­tion of printed mate­r­ial. Many con­nec­tions to the future of the nation state are also likely.

Uranus-Pluto: The Legacy

Uranus-Pluto waves carry us from the Fall of Con­stan­tino­ple and the Gut­ten­Berg Bible around 1455, through Coper­ni­cus Rev­o­lu­tions to the French Rev­o­lu­tion through the cre­ation of the Arpanet that led the equally rev­o­lu­tion­ary net­works of which the Inter­net is the most well known. The analy­sis pro­vides con­text that expands per­spec­tive in many directions.

The Superpowers:1943–1988
1943Saturn-Uranus1988

((Saturn-Uranus)) waves of 45 years speak to how the inter­de­pen­dent forces of com­merce and gov­er­nance play against one another across time. Each rep­re­sent essen­tial poli­cies of soci­ety and require the other to exist. As we see with under the present argu­ment about ‘Free Mar­ket’ poli­cies, main­tain­ing bal­ance between the two rep­re­sents a cen­tral chal­lenge in all cul­tures. From the long view, ((1943Saturn-Uranus1988)) fea­tured the rise and fall of the con­sumer in western-oriented soci­eties. The next wave ((1948Saturn-Pluto1983)), which coin­cides with the Cold War, inter­mixes with this one, par­tic­u­larly as they inter­sect dur­ing the decade of MadMen.

Cold War & Post War
1948Saturn-Pluto1982

As you’ll see, I really grok ((Saturn-Pluto)) waves. These vary­ing peri­ods of 31 and 38 years con­nect to every major episode in his­tory. ((1617Saturn-Pluto1648)) tran­scribes the Thirty Years War. ((1786Saturn-Pluto1819)) takes us from begin­ning of the French Rev­o­lu­tion to the advent of the nation-state that the episode engen­dered. ((1948Saturn-Pluto1983)) coin­cides with the very begin­ning of the Cold War to is inevitable end­ing episode that starts the next Saturn-Pluto wave, ((1983Saturn-Pluto2020)). But the post-war period con­tained much more than Iron Cur­tain treach­ery and nuclear scares. Social change pent up since before the first major war of the cen­tury. Women, minori­ties and con­sumers had been sti­fled in many ways; mass pro­duc­tion tooled for war had to find new uses in the world of com­merce. Addi­tion­ally, the empire sys­tem of the pre­vi­ous cen­tury still creaked in some places, while implod­ing in oth­ers. On top of these changes, ones delayed since the Great War, burst back on the scene par­tic­u­larly in the Mid­dle East, but also in East Asia. for these rea­sons, 19

Cold War, Start to End:1948–1982
1948Saturn-Pluto1982

I really cover a lot of ground in this sec­tion, fur­ther break­ing down the wave by quad­ra­ture align­ment, show­ing step-by-step how post-war tran­si­tion turned into a 24/7 rou­tine of processed para­noia of Mad­Men Sea­son Two and Three. The Cold War peaked soon after, but the con­flict lived on in Viet­nam and other proxy wars, both covert and stated. Points along this Saturn-Pluto that extend past the 1965 peak show the crit­i­cal junc­tures along the way to the end.

Rise and fall of the Post-War Con­sumer
1948Saturn-Pluto1982

Pent up demands and ten­sions burst forth after the war. Women proved they could do ‘man’s work’ dur­ing the war, but were once again expected to serve mens careers first. Tru­man deseg­re­gated the armed forces, but restric­tive covenants pre­vented peo­ple of color from qual­i­fy­ing for FHA loans  that helped build wealth home own­er­ship offered. Brown vs Board of Edu­ca­tion addressed another issue of equal impor­tance.
Changes around the world related to post-war adjust­ment also jumped forth. Petro­leum entered diplo­matic strat­egy. France and Britain adjusted to los­ing global influ­ence, resus­ci­tat­ing dreams of Euro­pean Union. Japan and Ger­many rebounded quickly from war’s dev­as­ta­tion. On a wider level, the dream of nation­hood jumped for­ward with var­i­ous effects.

Saturn-Pluto and the Long 20th Century

The Saturn-Pluto waves that con­nect with 1948Saturn-Pluto1983 help define the back story that leads to and away from the Cold War/Postwar period.

The Really Big Pic­ture
Mad­Men & 1893Neptune-Pluto2384

Can’t wait to get to this one. Neptune-Pluto waves, with a fre­quency of 495 years, make great com­ple­ments to the ages of his­tory. Find out more about the Neptune-Pluto wave Mad­Men belongs to.

1960s A Review

Mis­cel­la­neous MadMen

Matt Weiner rec­og­nized demand for intel­li­gent enter­tain­ment when he birthed Mad­Men. The actors, set design­ers and crew work out of a dis­cernible labor of love. The cre­ator lays out a rich land­scape for their tal­ents and only demands full com­mit­ment in return. He makes the same demand on his audi­ence. You don’t watch Mad­Men, you immerse your­self in it. A work of such impor­tance, espe­cially since I use as entry deserves a review dis­con­nected from outer planet analy­sis. Reviews and analy­sis of all types will help reveal why Mad­Men breaks so many molds and lays a foun­da­tion for bet­ter television.

Why We Like MadMen

Mad­Men touches on so many top­ics across mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions. This review exam­ines why this retelling of the ‘60s goes where none has gone before.

The Natal Chart of
Gene Scott Draper

The first of ‘Gen­er­a­tion X’, Gene Draper comes of age as the ‘Me Decade’ of the 80’s begins. Birth charts are snap­shots in time. What hap­pens when look at how the mir­ror the outer plan­ets pro­vide his­tory help shape the life of our would be character.

Putting Mad­Men Back Together Again
The Wrap

Yes, there’s more. Why write this much and leave with­out conclusions?