Fourth turning and generational crisis
It's been said we've entered the Fourth Turning.
Thanks to Neil Howe, we have a framework to understand the cycles of history that explains a lot about the world's behaviors, political views, institutions, and dominant ideologies.
Each generation of people is classified because of collective experiences and memories. As generations age, they reach points or turnings where they replace the generation above them, and the next one fills in and assumes the previous generation's position in the world. These turnings mark significant changes in society. There are four turnings in the framework, with the last one ending in a major crisis as the oldest generation that was alive to remember the last crisis dies out. For us, WWII was the last time we had a Fourth Turning in history, and as the generations alive then die out, society enters the Fourth Turning again.
Fourth Turnings are bad, the most chaotic. In Strauss-Howe generational theory, it is marked by a a period of intense social, political, and economic upheaval that dismantles old institutions and forces a complete societal transformation.
Do you agree with the theory that we’re on the verge of crisis before transformation? How do you see us navigating the next ten years?