The Fourth Turning
The Fourth Turning is a book about social/political cycles in American and pre-American history. Specifically, that book focuses on the next cycle due up in American history: Crisis #7.
Now, a number of folks study social/political cycles. Some look to cycles based on economics. Others look at cyclical attitudes towards immigrants. Still other theories are based on cycles of oscillating political valence – i.e. “liberal” versus “conservative”. For example, Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., and his son Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., have proposed a theory of swings between liberal and conservative phases in American history dating back to the 18th century.
The theory of Strauss & Howe is based on the notion of generations. Actually, I believe their theory is so fundamental, it subsumes all of the other theories just mentioned. That is, economic, immigration, and political cycles in American society are simply "special cases" of the fundamental generational cycles identified by Strauss & Howe.
The notion of "generations" starts with the observation is that the full lifespan of a human is about 80 to 100 years. The authors break this lifespan up into phases of 20 years or so: childhood, youth, maturity, and old age. These phases are analogized to the Springtime of childhood, the Summer of youth, and Fall of maturity, and the Winter of old age.
This description of the lives of individuals seems straightforward enough. Indeed, these 20-year phases can probably be tracked by our lifetime patterns of hormone production and brain development. But I am unaware of any such research. I am interested in looking closer at these questions in the future. But today, to my knowledge, no tracers of these phases have been identified in the human body. So today, Strauss & Howe’s theory is just that – a theory subject to debate.
In addition to individuals undergoing cycles of 20-year phases, the authors claim that society also goes through its own cycle of 20-year phases. In fact, society’s phases are also Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
While cycles in the life of a single human seems a relatively non-controversial notion, the jump from individual cycles to social cycles seems trickier. By definition, the two cycles – individual and social – don’t line up.
For example, let’s say that you are 30 years old and that American society is, as Strauss & Howe claim, on the verge of leaving social Fall and heading into social Winter. But you, at 30, are smack in the middle of your own personal Summer. Others are just entering their own Spring. Still others are nearing the end of their own Winter. With all of these individuals at different points in different personal “seasons”, how do these individuals collectively come together to form a single point in the social “season”? After all, society is simply the collection of individuals.
If Strauss & Howe answer this question, I didn’t find their answer. I believe that the answer will come from neuroscience. This is the study of the brain. Strauss & Howe’s theory is a social theory. Human are social animals. And brain scientists are hot on the trail of how our social “instincts” manifest in the brain. But as of today, nobody seems to be working on this particular take. I’m interested in it.
The reason I’m interested is that my “gut” tells me Strauss & Howe’s theory is sound. Below, I'll address why that is. But I’m not going to use this weblog to debate the validity of Strauss & Howe’s theory. Absent the sort of research mentioned above, I don’t believe there’s any way to prove the theory at present. So for the purposes of this weblog, I’m just going to assume that the theory is true.
Starting from that assumption, I’m going to explain how the theory predicts the coming People vs. Corporations battle. After that, I’m going to point to current events, and the theories of others, and suggest that they corroborate this prediction.
In some ways, this approach of mine resembles the citing of Astrology, Revelations or Nostradamus, and trying to connect those predictions with current events. The similarity is that, just as there is no “hard” scientific proof of Astrology, Revelations or Nostradamus, neither is there of Strauss & Howe’s theory.
But the difference between Strauss & Howe and the others is, I believe, that Strauss & Howe’s theory is “tight”. It’s not metaphorical. It points to actual historical events, and it makes relatively crisp, non-ambiguous predictions. Moreover it is founded in something prosaic and reasonably subject to informal self-confirmation: namely, phases in our own lifespan.
Now, calling Strauss & Howe’s theory “unambiguous” may seem like a stretch. I mean, here I am saying that the theory predicts the next crisis to be between People and Corporations. Yet Strauss & Howe didn’t say that (actually they didn’t even make any such prediction). And most people who post on Strauss & Howe’s message boards seem to believe the theory predicts the crisis to be the obvious one currently being portrayed on the nightly news – i.e. “Freedom” and “Democracy” vs. “Terrorism” and “Chaos”.
How could that be? How can I assert that the theory is unambiguous when others draw a different conclusion? Well, let me suggest that one or both of us – i.e. me or these folks -- ain’t reading the book close enough.
In defense of my reading of the book, I’ll explain that Strauss & Howe seem to have pointed readers in the wrong direction. That is, the authors seem to have made a statement that obscures a clear pattern in their own theory. A pattern even they described. You’ll see what I mean a few postings from now.
But first, we need to drill down further into the theory. That’s up next.
[posted: 12/13/03]