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.
