The book "The Fourth Turning", published in 1997, presents the theory that
modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a
human life, each composed of four shifts of mood or " turnings" that last
about twenty years, when a new generation reaches adulthood.
The turnings follow a set pattern and are labeled 1: The High,
2:The Awakening, 3:The Unravelling, 4:The Crisis.
The fourth turning, "The Crisis", occurs approximately every 80 years
and heralds cataclysmic events that result in a major restructuring of society.
The most recent fourth turnings were The Revolutionary War, The Civil War and
the depression combined with WWII.
The authors trace this cycle continuously back to 1435.
According to the theory, since the great depression started around 80 years ago we
are at the moment in time where the next fourth turning will erupt and turn our
world upside down.
Their predictions of what will happen in the U.S. are based on analysis of history
combined with knowlege of the country's mood in 1997.
When I read these predictions they struck me as being a little too close for comfort.
They also have predictions for what the future holds for us. It's not
pretty. If they are correct, better buckle your seat belts because we are in for a
terrifying rollercoaster ride that many of us may not survive.
Hogwash or prescient vision?
Here are excerpts from the 1997 book
---
Sometime around the year 2005, perhaps a few years
before or after, America will enter the Fourth Tuming.
---
A spark will ignite a new mood. Today, the same spark would flame
briefly but then extinguish, its last flicker merely confirming and deepening
the Unraveling-era mind-set. This time, though, it will catalyze a Crisis. In
retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary
as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. It could be a rapid succes-
sion of small events in which the ominous, the ordinary, and the trivial are
commingled
---
The following circa-2005 scenarios might seem plausible:
- Beset by a fiscal crisis, a state lays claim to its residents’ federal
tax monies. Declaring this an act of secession, the president
obtains a federal injunction. The governor refuses to back down.
Federal marshals enforce the court order. Similar tax rebellions
spring up in other states. Treasury bill auctions are suspended.
Militia violence breaks out. Cyberterrorists destroy IRS
databases. U.S. special forces are put on alert. Demands issue for
a new Constitutional Convention.
- A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it
possesses portable nuclear weapons. The United States and its
allies launch a preemptive strike. The terrorists threaten to
retaliate against an American city. Congress declares war and
authorizes unlimited house-to-house searches. Opponents charge
that the president concocted the emergency for political purposes.
A nationwide strike is declared. Foreign capital flees the U.S.
- An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The
president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a
near-total government shutdown. The president declares
emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and
bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social
Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling.
Default looms. Wall Street panics.
---
It’s highly unlikely that any one of these scenarios will actually happen.
What is likely, however, is that the catalyst will unfold according to a basic
Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will
trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies.
The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will
matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect
in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth
Tuming, this could accelerate the chain reaction.
At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fab-
ric at points of extreme vulnerability-problem areas where, during the Un-
raveling, America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.
Anger at “mistakes we made” will translate into calls for action, regardless
of the heightened public risk. It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into
a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert
the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while. The local rebellions
will probably be quelled, terrorists foiled, fiscal crisis averted, disease
halted, or war fever cooled. Yet even if dire consequences are temporarily
averted, America will have entered the Fourth Turning.
---
As the Crisis mood congeals, people will come
to the jarring realization that they have grown helplessly dependent on a tee-
tering edifice of anonymous transactions and paper guarantees. Many
Americans won’t know where their savings are, who their employer is, what
their pension is, or how their government works. The era will have left the
financial world arbitraged and tentacled: Debtors won’t know who holds
their notes, homeowners who owns their mortgages, and shareholders who
runs their equities-and vice versa.
---
Before long, America’s old civic order will seem ruined beyond repair.
People will feel like a magnet has passed over society’s disk drive, blanking
out the social contract, wiping out old deals, clearing the books of vast un-
payable promises to which people had once felt entitled. The economy could
reach a trough that may look to be the start of a depression.
---
From this trough and from these dangers, the makings of a new social
contract and new civic order will arise. In the initial, jerry-built stages, peo-
ple will not be entitled, but authorized to receive whatever they get from
government. This will lead to conflict, as people do battle to establish where,
how, and by whom this authority is to be exercised. This battle could be
peaceful, involving political processes-or violent, involving public and pri-
vate militias. Public needs will assume a new shape and urgency. Old polit-
ical alliances will be broken and new ones forged, and debates will
commence on laws that radically shift the balance between individual rights
and duties.
---
Soon after the catalyst, a national election will produce a sweeping po-
litical realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new public
demand for decisive action. Republicans, Democrats, or perhaps a new party
will decisively win the long partisan tug-of-war, ending the era of split gov-
ermnent that had lasted through four decades of Awakening and Unraveling.
---
Time will pass, perhaps another decade, before the surging mood propels
America to the Fourth Turning’s grave moment of opportunity and danger:
the climax of the Crisis. What will this be? Recall from Chapter 9 that a cli-
max takes a form wholly unforeseeable from the advance distance of
twenty-five years. Imagine some national (and probably global) volcanic
eruption, initially flowing along channels of distress that were created dur-
ing the Unraveling era and ftuther widened by the catalyst. Trying to fore-
see where the eruption will go once it bursts free of the channels is like
trying to predict the exact fault line of an earthquake. All you know in ad-
vance is something about the molten ingredients of the climax, which could
include the following:
- Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust
Hinds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade
wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or
deflation)
- Social distress, with violence fueled by class, race, nativism, or
religion and abetted by armed gangs, underground militias, and
mercenaries hired by walled communities
- Cultural distress, with the media plunging into a dizzying decay,
and a decency backlash in favor of state censorship
-Technological distress, with cryptoanarchy, high-tech oligarchy,
and biogenetic chaos
- Ecological distress, with atmospheric damage, energy or water
shortages, and new diseases
- Political distress, with institutional collapse, open tax revolts,
one-party hegemony, major constitutional change, secessionism,
authoritarianism, and altered national borders
- Military distress, with war against terrorists or foreign regimes
equipped with weapons of mass destruction
---
Decisive events will occur-events so vast, powerful, and unique that
they lie beyond today’s wildest hypotheses. These events will inspire great
documents and speeches, visions of a new political order being framed. Peo-
ple will discover a hitherto unimagined capacity to fight and die, and to let
their children fight and die, for a communal cause. The Spirit of America
will return, because there will be no other choice.
---
The prospect for great civic achievement-or disintegration-will be
high. New secessionist movements could spring from nowhere and achieve
their ends with surprising speed. Even if the nation stays together, its geog-
raphy could be fundamentally changed, its party structure altered, its Con-
stitution and Bill of Rights amended beyond recognition. History offers
even more sobering warnings: Aimed confrontation usually occurs around
the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This
could be any kind of war-class war, sectional war, war against global an-
archists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to cul-
minate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil-its
will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured. And if there is total war,
it is likely that the most destructive weapons available will be deployed.
---
The emergent society may be something better, a nation that
sustains its Framers’ visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be some-
thing unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.
----------
So?
Hogwash or prescient vision?
If you want to know more about this theory you can check out the website:
http://www.fourthturning.com/(or read the book of course)
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