McCain vs Obama. A "Fourth Turning" Phenomenon?

[dreamshark]

As anybody who has heard me rant about Generations and The Fourth Turning might guess,  I say, "Hell, yes!"

So does this guy.

Comments

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Same guy ("Kruse"), several links into his website:

The Fourth Turning is Here.


This is the opening sentence to Chapter 10 of Strauss and Howe’s book The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, as they begin to discuss their expectations of the future. The book was written in the mid-1990s. The authors go on to say,

“A spark will ignite a new mood. Today [c. 1996], the same spark would flame briefly but then extinguish, its last flicker merely confirming and deepening the Unraveliing-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 succession of small events in which the ominous, the ordinary, and the trivial are commingled.” (p. 272)

Speculating on what might trigger the fourth turning, Strauss and Howe list five scenarios simply to give some example of the kind of things that could happen. Their second scenario was,

“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.” (p. 273)

Terrorists attack using aircraft? A threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists? Preemptive strikes? War declared? President's opponents charge the president concocted the emergency? Is any of this sounding familiar?

The events of September were undoubtedly the initiation of the fourth turning. That doesn’t mean the war in Iraq will be the defining issue that will bring the fourth turning to its climax...


And that's because the real crisis always turns out to be very different from the initial spark that sets off the Turning. Anyway, that's how it's played out in earlier cycles.

A little further down, Kruse quotes Howe and Strauss further, with a suggested list of possible turns that the Crisis might take after the initial spark. Several of the items on this list match up nicely with the list of challenges facing our new president.

[emerdavid.livejournal.com]

The World Trade Center attack on 9/11/2001 was the kind of spark that might have precipitated a Crisis (4th turning) era; but it seems evident from all the controversy and resistance to Bush's war, that 2001 was still solidly in an Unraveling period.

Now, however, the economic situation since last summer may be leading us into the real Crisis period. Fortunately we have elected a pragmatic, bipartisan GenX leader just in time.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Remember, the real Crisis, when it finally arrives, ALWAYS turns out to be completely different from what it looked like the crisis was going to be when the Catalyst occurred.

The main thing I remember from the aftermath to 9/11 was people repeating, "Everything has changed. The world is completely different now." There was some confusion about exactly HOW it had changed and what it was going to be like in the future, but the sense of a horrible shock that changed everything was pretty much universal.

I was sure that 9/11 was The Catalyst. What I was having a hard time imagining was what the real crisis was going to be, knowing only that it WOULDN'T be the threat of international terrorism or war. Somehow, a replay of the Great Depression didn't occur to me, perhaps because it reverses the catalyst/crisis pair that triggered the last Fourth Turning.

Suddenly, it all makes perfect sense. The Crisis is going to be a combination of ecological and economic collapse. War and terrorism was just a red herring. The solution to the crisis, assuming we find one, will lie in winning over the warring parties (worldwide and within our own country) and getting them all to cooperate in dealing with the larger crisis.

Gosh, it's nice to have you on LJ, David! Even if nobody else knows what I just said, you will. :-)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Doesn't this period also have some kind of sexual puritanism as one of its components? That would explain a lot of things, like the various marriage state constitutional amendments, and even the slighting of the Bishop Robinson.

K.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

The pattern identified by Howe and Strauss includes:
* a reaction against the perceived degeneration of moral values in the preceding period
* a general movement back towards more traditional values, typically family and community centered
* a return to more traditional sex roles

Also, the early part of the Fourth Turning is characterized by increased polarization between the political extremes. This usually involves deep conflict of moral values, which may very well include sexual mores. It certainly has this time round. However, in the Fourth Turning that culminated in the Civil War, the biggest issue was abolitionism. The distinguishing feature is moral fervor, not the exact cause. But sexual puritanism certainly fits the pattern.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I was hoping you'd get to this. :-)

K.