Dating the Fourth Turning - 12 views
-
Pending stunning new developments, I believe the catalyst occurred in 2008.
-
First, the economy. Yes, the U.S. recession technically started in December of 2007, but neither the public nor the market felt it until the spring and summer of the following year. In fact, if I had to give the catalyst a month, I would say September of 2008
-
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson later recounted (in On the Brink) that in the last two weeks of September, 2008, they were only “days away” from “economic collapse, another Great Depression, and 25 percent unemployment.”
- ...11 more annotations...
-
And, to add even greater edge to this catalyst, we were at that time just six weeks away from the election of Barack Obama, who brought a new party to power and was America’s first African-American President. Would he have won without the meltdown? Who knows. It would have been a much closer election.
-
As a rule, a new turning starts a few years (typically 2 to 6) after each living generation (especially the new youth generation) enters a new phase of life. 2008 was 4 to 6 years after the oldest Millennials reached age 21 and graduated from college—and 3 years after the oldest Boomers (born in 1943) started to receive their first Social Security retirement checks. In terms of phase of life, this is right on.
-
9/11 will go down as one of the more famous crisis precursors in American history. A crisis precursor is an event that foreshadows a crisis without being an integral part of it. Other such precursors in American history include the Stamp Act Rebellion (1765), or Bleeding Kansas (1856), or perhaps the Red Scare (1919).
-
We may like to imagine that there is a definable day and hour when America, faced by growing danger and adversity, explicitly decides to patch over its differences, band together, and build something new. But maybe what really happens is that everyone feels so numb that they let somebody in charge just go ahead and do whatever he’s got to do.
-
The regeneracy cannot always be identified with a single news event. But it does have to mark the beginning of a growth in centralized authority and decisive leadership at a time of great peril and urgency. Typically, the catalyst itself doesn’t lead directly to a regeneracy. There has to be a second or third blow, something that seems a lot more perilous than just the election of third-party candidate (Civil War catalyst) or a very bad month in the stock market (Great Power catalyst).
-
When it happens, I strongly suspect it will be in response to an adverse financial event. It may also happen in response to a geopolitical event. It may well happen over the next year or two. Given the pattern of historical 4Ts, it is very likely happen before the end of the next presidential term (2016).
-
Which means we already know who will be President at that time: Either Obama or Romney. (Or at least this is high probability: According to Intrade, it is now over a 96 percent bet, so if you disagree you can make 25-to-1 by betting against global future traders.) It’s interesting that both men are temperamentally similar—cool, detatched, capable of gravitas–and that one could imagine either playing a Gray Champion role if history required it.
-
When will the 4T climax take place? To be honest, I have no idea. On timing, let me toss out my guess based on the typical pattern of historical 4Ts: The climax may arrive around 2022-2025.
-
The point here being that 4Ts are pretty chaotic. During 4Ts, the future seems much less certain than in retrospect. They are mostly defined not so much by how much institutions provide order, but by how much people want order. Here’s where the Millennials will play a key role.
-
Readers of The Fourth Turning already know that 4Ts in history are dated and internally subdivided into stages by four critical events. The first event, the catalyst, triggers or starts the 4T. It is "a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood." The second, the regeneracy, marks the beginning of "a new counter-entropy that reunifies and re-energizes civic life." The third, the climax, is "a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and triumph of the new." The fourth is the resolution, "a triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order."