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

by William Strauss

As self-absorbed Prophets replace Artists in young adulthood, they challenge the moral failure of elder-built institutions, sparking a societywide spiritual awakening. Having known firsthand only the High and not the Crisis, young-adult Prophet generations take for granted the comforts and indulgences of the new secular order. Nurtured to be creative thinkers, they cultivate a strong inner life. They burst forth with angry challenges to the older Heroes’ grand constructions, which they regard as intolerably deficient in moral worth. Young Prophets look upon themselves (and their culture) as beacons of a new spiritual authority and arbiters of a new values regime. Eventually, they persuade others to join the pursuit of individual autonomy at the expense of social cooperation. They thereby launch the entire society into a fever of renewal.