The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny

by William Strauss

As Nomads replace Prophets in childhood, they are left underprotected at a time of social convulsion and adult self-discovery. Nomad generations have the misfortune to be children in an era when adults are persuading each other to shed social discipline and rediscover their deeper selves. Struggling to cope with the harsh underside of cultural upheaval, Nomad children acquire a cynicism about moral crusades and a fatalism about weak adults apparently unable to make simple things work. They are expected to grow up fast and learn to be independent, resourceful, and competitive at an early age. As they do, however, these qualities earn their fledgling generation a negative reputation among adults. By the end of the Awakening, as adults survey the damage done to the child’s world, young Nomads become metaphors of society’s newfound pessimism about the future.