The Fourth Turning

[Fredkc]

Just an interesting social theory.

The whole piece is at:

http://theburningplatform.com/econom...tury-breakdown

Political leaders and the mainstream media have been blindsided by the sudden mood shift of the country in the last few years. The reason they have been blindsided is they believe world history is linear. Liberals have now begun referring to themselves as progressives. These people think the world only progresses. The facts indicate otherwise. History is cyclical. History is replete with grand empires like Rome, Spain and Britain. It is also replete with Dark Ages, depressions and wars. Strauss & Howe have established that history can be broken down into 80 to 100 year Saeculums that consist of four turnings: The High, The Awakening, The Unraveling, and the Crisis.

The First Turning is a High, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays.

The Second Turning is an Awakening, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime.

The Third Turning is an Unraveling, a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants.

The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.

This isn’t some variety of mystical Nostradamus conjecture trying to foretell the future. Strauss & Howe have been able to link the human life span to generational shifts in mood. This makes logical sense. As generations progress through the four stages of life their attitudes and views change. When you are born within the four cycles will greatly sway the course of your life. History forms individuals and generations as individuals and generations shape history. In this age of individualism, Americans are highly insulted by being lumped into a generational category. The fact is that a generation is composed of individuals who share common experiences, music, literature, and economic circumstances. This shared time frame leads to recurring attitudes and reactions to events. Generations come in four archetypes, always in the same order, whose phase-of-life positions comprise a constellation. They are:

The Prophet archetype is born in a High, enters young adulthood in an Awakening, midlife in an Unraveling, and elderhood in a Crisis.

The Nomad archetype is born in an Awakening, enters young adulthood in an Unraveling, midlife in a Crisis, and elderhood in a High.

The Hero archetype is born in an Unraveling, enters young adulthood in a Crisis, midlife in a High, and elderhood in an Awakening.

The Artist archetype is born in a Crisis, enters young adulthood in a High, midlife in an Awakening, and elderhood in an Unraveling.

During a Fourth Turning, the constellation contains all four archetypes born in the current saeculum. We are now in the midst of the fourth Crisis period in U.S. history:

• The American Revolution,
• Civil War and
• Great Depression/World War II

all required immense sacrifice and entailed great danger.

There are only a few Americans alive who experienced and recall our last Fourth Turning. This is one of the foremost reasons the country seems surprised when the next Turning arrives. Just think about the response of politicians, mainstream media pundits, supposedly brilliant economists, and the elite thought leaders during the last five years. They have been blindsided by the housing collapse, worldwide financial crisis, election of Barack Obama, and furious rage of the Tea Party movement.

This is because they prescribe to the belief the world only moves forward, never backward. They failed to identify the signs of Crisis. Threats that have been ignored and/or deferred for decades are now coalescing into a once in a lifetime emergency that will require public consensus, aggressive action, and personal sacrifice.

Leaders who think the old way of governing will continue to work are learning a difficult lesson. This is why so many old time politicians like Chris Dodd are fleeing Washington DC. A maelstrom of government debt, unfunded liabilities, looming energy catastrophe, and consumer collapse is about to hit the United States. There is no politician in Washington DC willing to stand up in front of the American people and tell them the truth about the storms on our horizon.

[bigmo]

Thanks for posting Fredkc. I read that book or essay a few years back and found it to be quite fascinating and factual. Much thought and energy was put into it and is a great read for anyone interested in cycles of humanity.

Peace

[Céline]

Hmm...this is very interesting dear fred..

[Fredkc]

One of the things that make this interesting;

The idea that, should this cycle theory prove accurate, we have "lost something" with our current system of passing on generational information.

It points out a weakness in our higher dependence on the written word, to the exclusion of oral tradition.

Oral tradition gets a bad rap as being "primitive" in nature, yet....


Fred