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

by William Strauss

To apply these lengths to real birth years, you have to locate an underlying generational persona. Every generation has one. It’s a distinctly human—and variable—creation, with attitudes about family life, gender roles, institutions, politics, religion, lifestyle, and the future. A generation can think, feel, or do anything a person might think, feel, or do. It can be safe or reckless, individualist or collegial, spiritual or secular. Like any social category (race, class, or nationality), a generation can allow plenty of individual exceptions and be fuzzy at the edges. But unlike most other categories, it possesses its own personal biography. You can tell a lifelong story about the shared experiences of the Silent Generation in ways you never could for all women, all Hispanics, or all Californians. The reason, to quote Ferrari, is that a generation “is born, lives, and dies.” It can feel nostalgia for a unique past, express urgency about a future of limited duration, and comprehend its own mortality.