What exactly is the “Fourth Turning” envisioned by William Strauss and Neil Howe?
We revisited this book — in light of recent events — and found the subject both timely and prophetic.
The following article was originally published in “What I Learned This Week” on February 23, 2017. To learn more about 13D’s investment research, please visit our website.
Written in 1997, the book’s full title says it all: The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy-What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. In light of Steve Bannon’s “obsession” with the thesis, we recently re-read the book.
Howe and Strauss observe that American history shows a new era, or “turning” about every 20 years. In simplest terms, the “First Turning” is an upbeat era of strengthening institutions. The “Second Turning” is an awakening, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the old order comes under attack. The “Third Turning” is an unraveling — a time when individualism is strengthened and institutions are weakened. The “Fourth Turning” is a crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval — the old order is toppled and a new one put in its place.
As America’s most recent “Third Turning” began in the mid-1980s, it was due to expire in the first decade of the 21st century. If we accept Howe and Strauss’ thesis, America has already entered its next “Fourth Turning”. The consequences are immense. We quote as follows:
“History is seasonal, and winter is coming. Like nature’s winter, the saecular winter can come early or late. A Fourth Turning can be long and difficult, brief but severe, or (perhaps) mild. But, like winter, it cannot be averted. It must come in its turn. . .
The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire. . .The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.
The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort — in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.”
Howe and Strauss caution that Americans can be expected to encounter personal and public choices that are equal to the harshest ever faced by prior generations. “And it will require us to admit that our faith in linear progress has often amounted to a Faustian bargain with our children. Faust always ups the ante, and every bet is double or nothing. Through much of the Third Turning, we have managed to postpone the reckoning. But history warns that we can’t defer it beyond the next bend in time.”
This article was originally published in “What I Learned This Week” on February 23, 2017. To subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit 13D.com or find us on Twitter @WhatILearnedTW.
