The Fourth Turning

The book The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe makes the following observation (pages 5 and 6):

During each of these previous Third Turnings[The authors go to length to show that we are currently in a "Third Turning" as they call it.], Americans felt as if they were drifting toward a cataclysm.

And, as it turned out, they were.

The 1760 were followed by the American Revolution, the 1850s by Civil War, the 1920s by the Great Depression and World War II. All these Unraveling eras were followed by bone-jarring Crises so monumental that, by their end, American society emerged in a wholly new form.

Each time, the change came with scant warning, As late as December 1773, November 1859, and October 1929, the American people had no idea how close it was. Then sudden sparks (the Boston Tea Party, John Brown's raid and execution, Black Tuesday) transformed the public mood swiftly and permanently. Over the next two decades or so, society convulsed. Emergencies required massive sacrifices from the citizenry that responded by putting community ahead of self. Leaders led, and people trusted them. As a new social contract was created, people overcame challenges once thought insurmountable – and used the Crisis to elevate themselves and their nation to a higher plane of civilization: In the 1790s, they triumphantly created the modern world's first democratic republic. In the late 1860s, wounded but reunited, they forged a genuine nation extending new guarantees of liberty and equality. In the late 1940s, they constructed the most Promethean superpower ever seen.

The Fourth Turning is history's great discontinuity. It ends one epoch and begins another.

I know there are some who will say that 9/11 was the cataclysmic event spoken of above. But it's not. This event could have been, and if it were our Fourth Turning would have been very mild. But it was not. Rather than the United States examining itself to determine the real cause, the United States simply used the same old warn-out solutions that it has many times in the past. "They attacked us, so we attack them," very much appropriate for the last covenant, the 1940s and 1950s. Indeed, the Bush apologist have harped on trying to "return to a simpler time," but that time is past.

The 2004 election points to the coming cataclysm. It is now two months since the election, when the American people put their trust in the old ways, and the old leaders, but many are not yet satisfied with the results. Was the election rigged? This cannot be answered, and the politicians have passed laws and practices that make it impossible to answer this question to everyone's satisfaction. Just as prior to the civil war there was much dissatisfaction with the status quo, and it looked like the slavers were winning. Look at John Brown's raid (as cited) but also the Dred Scott decision. There were many abolitionist working covertly via the underground railroad, or overtly in the case of abolitionist publications.

Currently the government sides with the "old school." That is, airport security, the patriot act, etc., just as the Dred Scott decision sided with the slavers. There are publications, many books, favoring a new covenant, not involving such a dependence on war and violence, just as previously there was abolitionist literature, such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, and much more.

Not being a prophet, I cannot say how this will end, but one can see the cataclysm, and also the following era of calm.