Month: July 2012

In the early months of 2002, I learned of a book called The Fourth Turning which proposed that history is not linear as we've been taught in the west, but rather cyclic—an idea that's actually been the norm throughout much of history and is exemplified by the Mayan calendar. That's not to say that specific events happen again and again, but the general "flavors" of history repeat like a well oiled machine. The radio interview I heard intrigued me enough that I added the book to my Amazon Wish List and then promptly forgot about it.

I was cleaning out the Wish List a couple weeks ago and rediscovered it. I went online to see if the Denver Library had the book. They did, so I checked it out. I'm slowly making my way through it, and a lot of what the authors have proposed is really resonating with me.

The world is descending into a global conflagration. Totalitarian leaders of nations that feel they have been humiliated by the US and its allies are becoming evermore vitriolic and threatening. An economic powerhouse is emerging in the Pacific rim. Americans are divided about how to respond. Some believe we need to aggressively get on to the world stage and bring tyranny to a halt. Others are appalled by our international adventurism and believe we should look for multilateral peaceful avenues of negotiation. They suspect the President of abusing his office and acting as an imperial president. They suspect he is taking liberties with our civil liberties and they suspect he is manipulating events behind the scenes to bring us into war. The president is deified by many and reviled by many more. Politicians are engulfed in rancorous arguments over divisive social issues as the economy is perceived to be stagnating. People worry about their economic future. Children are increasingly protected. Most institutions of society are weak and are struggling to regain health. Oh yeah. Did I mention I was writing about the 1930s?

William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote The Fourth Turning fifteen years ago, five years prior to 9/11. The authors make the case that there tends to be an eighty year cycle to our culture that is connected to a repeating sequence of four generational archetypes (Hero, Artist, Prophet, Nomad). Each generation consists of people born within roughly a twenty year period. As they go through the life cycle (child, young adult, middle age, elderhood) they tend to exhibit certain traits based on the table that was set for them by previous generations, just as they in turn set the table for the generations that follow. Therefore, approximately every twenty years the great bulk of one generation moves from occupying one life stage to the next older life stage. That kicks off the next in a sequence of twenty year eras called a "turning." Each of the four turnings has a distinct feel and tends to exhibit certain characteristics. The four turnings together make up a saeculum.

A key dynamic in Strauss and Howe's theory is the oscillation of crises. Each saeculum begins with a high sense of community and unity. Civic structures run effectively and efficiently. During the Second Turning a spiritual crisis emerges. The youth begin to feel that the social order is confining and stale. They become introspective as they search for deeper meaning. During the Third Turning there is a deepening and consolidating of the insights gained from introspection and spiritual quest. However, in the meantime, the cultural institutions are coming apart and the culture fragments. During the Fourth Turning a secular crisis emerges. It often (though I don't think necessarily) culminates in an armed conflict. There is a struggle to develop a common ground on which to rebuild and rejuvenate cultural institutions for the future. After the crisis climaxes, a new saeculum is born. During the First Turning, gains in community cohesion are deepened and consolidated which eventually gives birth to a new spiritual crisis. And so the cycle goes.

Many believe that 9/11 marked our transition into the Fourth Turning. The previous Fourth Turning began in 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression and climaxed with WWII. Many authors are drawing parallels between pre-war Europe and now. The subsequent First Turning (The High) ran from 1946-1964. The Second Turning (The Awakening) went from 1964-1984. The Third Turning (The Unraveling) ran from 1984-2001. We are now believed to be in the Fourth Turning (The Crisis) which will likely not play its way out until the early 2020s.

Because of the dynamics of the generations involved and the issues they face, there is a mood common to each of the turnings. In the table below, the Third Turning is italicized indicating the Turning that was current at the time the book was published in 1997.

This idea of cyclicity has also gotten me thinking about personal cycles. A human lifetime can also be divided into four "Turnings," or as I prefer to call them, seasons, each roughly 20 years (more or less) in length. This explains why Ben and I sometimes see things so differently. He is in the "summer" of his life—full of growth, vibrancy and expansiveness. I, however, am in autumn, whereby I'm in more of a "gathering" mindset, seeking security and a sense of stability against my approaching winter. Yet (thankfully) somehow our relationship works.

Many lives also experience the archetypal Turnings, although perhaps at an accelerated pace. I know that in my own case, I entered a personal Fourth "Crisis" Turning when I received the cancer diagnosis in 2003.  It literally turned my life upside down (as Strauss and Howe describe what happens to our culture every 80 years or so), but it also forced me to abandon old, outmoded ways of thinking and strike out anew, resulting in some incredible creativity.  As I've written about before, the Crisis showed me exactly who and what was really important in my life; everything else was discarded. I moved through that period and came out the other side a changed—and I would like to think, better—man for the experience.

The authors' description of the Fourth Turning explains so much of what I see happening in this country—as well as the general way people are feeling about life these days. We may be in for some very difficult times over the course of the next decade, but as a country we will come out better for it. That gives me hope.

And while I don't mean to get all political, I certainly trust Barack Obama to navigate us through these rocky waters far more than any personality those on the right would have govern us.

I'm only about a quarter of the way into the book, but at this point I highly recommend finding a copy and drawing your own conclusions.