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Neil Howe: “The Fourth Turning Has Arrived”
In 1996, demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe published the book The Fourth Turning. This study of generational cycles (“turnings”) in America revealed predictable social trends that recur throughout history, and warned of a coming crisis (a “fourth turning”) based on this research.
Fourth turnings are defined by disorder and great changes brought on by a breakdown of the systems and operating principles that dominated the prior three turnings.
Our society has entered a fourth turning (consisting of the twenty-year periods leading up to and out of it immediately.)
It is a season you have to move through before you are born again — so to speak — as a society, and regain institutional confidence. You have to go through a crucible to get there.
I think the fourth turning started — probably, if I were to date it now — in 2008: the realigning election in that year of Barack Obama against John McCain. And, obviously, simultaneously with that, as we all recall, an epic, historic crash of the global economy from which we still have not recovered.
We are sort of hobbling along in kind of a low-earth orbit, with continued high unemployment and excess capacity — not just in the United States, but around the world. And, of course, all the rules of economic policy seem broken and lie in fragments on the floor. People are wondering what the heck do we do in this new era.
Each of the generational cohorts living within this turning (e.g. Boomers, Gen X, Millennials) have roles to play.
This is a period when, in each of these turnings, each generation is moving in their new phase of life. Boomers are beginning to retire, they are beginning to redefine the senior phase of life. X’s are beginning to assume mid-life roles as the dominant parent generation and leaders. These are people born in the ‘60s and ‘70s. And, Millennials are fully beginning to come of age and redefine young adulthood. And, meanwhile, a very small generation is just beginning to come on stream, which remembers nothing before 2008.
We can already see these generational divisions forming, and it is interesting how each generation is to some extent defined by the thing they have, they just have no memory of, they just barely have no memory of (e.g., Boomers are defined by the World War II that even the oldest of them cannot remember).
History gives us patterns that predict how these generational archetypes will collaborate, compete and collide with one another as we enter into crisis. Understanding these in advance will give us a big advantage on the types of policies and solutions most likely to yield success. And we sorely need these, as the problems we’re heading into have no easy answers:
There are patterns here which we recognize, and it is very important not to have historically amnesia. To look back and see where we have been, see where we are going, and more importantly, to understand the dynamics behind these social trends have familiar parallels. We just need to have the historical imagination to look far enough backwards and forward to see where else they have happened or to see where they possibly will happen again.
I am nervous. I am nervous about the future right now. I think we have a lot more deep issues, deep crises to save in the economy. I am also very nervous about what I see geopolitically.
We cannot possibly afford the government we have promised ourselves. And, that will be a painful process of deleveraging, and it is not just deleveraging the explicit debt that we have already actually formally borrowed, it is all the implicit debt. And, I think we will deal with it, because we have no other choice.
But, my point is this: No one simply solves a terrible problem on a sunny day when they can afford at least for the time being to look the other way. Problems like that are faced when people have no other choice, and it is a really grim day. And, it is white-knuckle time and horrible things are happening with markets around the world, or horrible things are happening, at least historically, we have seen that geopolitically around the world. And, that is when people are forced to act.
Strauss and Howe’s research provides another lens through which to view how the next twenty years will be remarkably different from life as we’ve been used to. It’s one worth looking through.
7 Comments on "Neil Howe: “The Fourth Turning Has Arrived”"
BillT on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 3:51 am
Sounds like an interesting book. Obviously we go in cycles. Each of us has a life cycle unique yet similar to everyone else’. And we are definitely into a disastrous cycle now. Nothing is working and the end result can only be a total remake of civilization. A civilization without plentiful energy as we have enjoyed over the last 60 years.
The realignment is going to mean that a few billion of us have to die early. Those who are left will have to adjust to a lifestyle much like their grandparents enjoyed during the last 4th turning, the 1920s – 1940s. Wars, depression, upheaval all over the world. We have at least 15 more years to go if they are correct. enjoy the ride!
Plantagenet on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 4:43 am
1. The boomers are so optimistic they promised themselves generous social security and Medicare benefits that Gen X will have to pay for
2. Gen X is so demoralized because they promised themselves that they would have a higher standard of living than the boomers, but they won’t if they have to pay extra high taxes to suppor the boomers when they retire
3. The Millenials are so stupid they voted en masse for Obama, who in turn instituted policies that will make all them pay back their huge student loans for the rest of lives while working at jobs for which they are grossly overqualified and at salaries much lower then either the boomers of Gen. x received.
Airwicky on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 5:46 am
Plant I don’t know if I’m speaking for everyone else but I for one am tired of ur comments always blaming Obama. If i didnt know better and was an alien then i would think this Obama guy must be a god, responsible for everything. Comon dude, it’s the whole system and our way of life that’s got us in this … not one person
Anyways, I personally think this article is bull .. it’s basically pulling at strings and trying to find trends in history. I say any generation is bound to mess up royally not just a ‘fourth” one
mo on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 6:13 am
I read this book when it first came out in96 or 97 and it left a lasting lmpression on me. A great read, don’t pass it by.
Arthur on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 9:30 am
Plant is right about the unsustainability of all sorts of handouts, but he is wrong about attributing too much influence to Obama, or any influence at all. Obama, like Bush are total nobodies, who are merely hired for a few photo opps and to read aloud in a microphone a policy paper, that is written behind the scenes, by all sorts of political bodies, the shadow government, the real government with institutions like the CFR, the FED, AEI, and so on. There is a perfect continuity between Obama and Bush, democracy is fake and it probably cannot even exist in a political entity of 330 million, even if you wanted it. Far more important than the current guy in the White House is upholding the Constitution, which represents the real America of the Founding Fathers. The Constitution is the difference between the US and the USSR. And since a century or so, the US government, with ups and down, acts as a thinly guised opponent of the Constitution, essentially a limited government document. And if the constitution is destroyed, the US will be the next USSR. The ugly pictures of the NSA and that Orwellian CGHQ building in Britain, that according to the courageous Snowdon is even more intrusive than the NSA:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/GCHQ-aerial.jpg
…represent a foreboding of what is coming: the end of liberty in Anglosphere and the death of the Constitution.
“Boomers are beginning to retire, they are beginning to redefine the senior phase of life.”
Dream on, the boomers are in for a nasty surprise and probably will be forced to readjust their expectations.
“We cannot possibly afford the government we have promised ourselves.”
You better beware that you are not going to become the population that the government has promised itself.
rollin on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 11:35 am
Since we were at a bubble, deflation should have occurred but did not. Real estate fell but not far enough for a true correction.
As far as the social security funding goes there was no need to raise the tax, only move the maximum income level upward to make up any needed difference.
PrestonSturges on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 7:45 pm
I can’t go along with the argument that the two parties are the same since Romney had already hired many of Dubya’s foreign policy team. Mittens would have almost certainly would have had us in a conflict with Iran by now, which would have gotten another generation of Iranian hardliners elected.