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

by William Strauss

The four turnings comprise a quaternal social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and rebirth). In a springlike High, a society fortifies and builds and converges in an era of promise. In a summerlike Awakening, it dreams and plays and exults in an era of euphoria. In an autumnal Unraveling, it harvests and consumes and diverges in an era of anxiety. In a hibernal Crisis, it focuses and struggles and sacrifices in an era of survival. When the saeculum is in motion, therefore, no long human lifetime can go by without a society confronting its deepest spiritual and worldly needs.

A High brings a renaissance to community life. With the new civic order in place, people want to put the Crisis behind them and feel content about what they have collectively achieved. Any social issues left unresolved by the Crisis must now remain so. The need for dutiful sacrifice has ebbed, yet the society continues to demand order and consensus. The recent fear for group survival transmutes into a desire for investment, growth, and strength—which in turn produces an era of commercial prosperity, institutional solidarity, and political stability. The big public arguments are over means, not ends. Security is a paramount need. Obliging individuals serve a purposeful society—though a few loners voice disquiet over the spiritual void. Life tends toward the friendly and homogeneous, but attitudes toward personal risk taking begin to loosen. The sense of shame (which rewards duty and conformity) reaches its zenith. Gender distinctions attain their widest point, and child rearing becomes more indulgent. Wars are unlikely, except as unwanted echoes of the recent Crisis. Eventually, civic life seems fully under control but distressingly spirit dead. People worry that, as a society, they can do everything but no longer feel anything.

An Awakening arrives with a dramatic challenge against the High’s assumptions about benevolent reason and congenial institutions. The outer world now feels trivial compared to the inner world. New spiritual agendas and social ideals burst forth—along with utopian experiments seeking to reconcile total fellowship with total autonomy. The prosperity and security of a High are overtly disdained though covertly taken for granted. A society searches for soul over science, meanings over things. Youth-fired attacks break out against the established institutional order. As these attacks take their toll, society has difficulty coalescing around common goals. People stop believing that social progress requires social discipline. Any public effort that requires collective discipline encounters withering controversy. Wars are awkwardly fought and badly remembered afterward. A euphoric enthusiasm over spiritual needs eclipses concern over secular problems, contributing to a high tolerance for risk-prone lifestyles. People begin feeling guilt about what they earlier did to avoid shame. Public order deteriorates, and crime and substance abuse rise. Gender distinctions narrow, and child rearing reaches the point of minimum protection and structure. Eventually, the enthusiasm cools, having left the old cultural regime fully discredited, internal enemies identified, comity shattered, and institutions delegitimized.

We believed that self-expression took precedence over self-control—even if we still assumed that large institutions would continue to cohere and function without much difficulty.

An Unraveling begins as a societywide embrace of the liberating cultural forces set loose by the Awakening. People have had their fill of spiritual rebirth, moral protest, and lifestyle experimentation. Content with what they have become individually, they vigorously assert an ethos of pragmatism, self-reliance, laissez-faire, and national (or sectional or ethnic) chauvinism. While personal satisfaction is high, public trust ebbs amid a fragmenting culture, harsh debates over values, and weakening civic habits. Pleasure-seeking lifestyles coexist with a declining public tolerance for aberrant personal behavior. The sense of guilt (which rewards principle and individuality) reaches its zenith. Gender differences attain their narrowest point, families stabilize, and new protections are provided for children. As moral debates brew, the big public arguments are over ends, not means. Decisive public action becomes very difficult, as community problems are deferred. Wars are fought with moral fervor but without consensus or follow-through. Eventually, cynical alienation hardens into a brooding pessimism. During a High, obliging individuals serve a purposeful society, and even bad people get harnessed to socially constructive tasks; during an Unraveling, an obliging society serves purposeful individuals, and even good people find it hard to connect with their community. The approaching specter of public disaster ultimately elicits a mix of paralysis and apathy that would have bee...

A Crisis arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice. People support new efforts to wield public authority, whose perceived successes soon justify more of the same. Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside. A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline. A sense of public urgency contributes to a clampdown on bad conduct or antisocial lifestyles. People begin feeling shameful about what they earlier did to absolve guilt. Public order tightens, private risk taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline. Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result. Eventually, the mood transforms into one of exhaustion, relief, and optimism. Buoyed by a newborn faith in the group and in authority, leaders plan, people hope, and a society yearns for good and simple things.

Timing aside, though, Schlesinger is right about the fundamental rhythm of American politics. Authoritarian government isn’t dead; it’s just hibernating, poised to return in the Fourth Turning, rested and refreshed.

In an Awakening, voters seek to disconnect from civic authority they increasingly distrust and don’t need. In a Crisis, by contrast, voters seek to rebuild civic authority they increasingly trust and need. Most Awakening-era elections can be called de-aligning to the extent that they reflect a loosening of party discipline; most Crisis-era elections can be called re-aligning to the extent that they establish or reinforce one-party rule.

In a High, people want to belong; in an Awakening, to defy; in an Unraveling, to separate; in a Crisis, to gather.

Over five centuries, every Fourth Turning has been marked by a fall in birthrates; thus, Artist generations (most recently the Silent) are typically baby bust generations. On the other hand, every High but one has been marked by a marked rise in birthrates; thus Prophet generations (most recently Boomers) are typically baby boom generations. The only exception was the Missionary Generation, born 1860 to 1882. Yet here the exception proves the rule, since the two decades after the Civil War mark the only fertility rate plateau along an otherwise steady downslope from the 1820s to the 1930s. Awakenings (when Nomads are born) and Unravelings (when Heroes are born) show a less pronounced bust-and-boom pattern. During the recent Consciousness Revolution, fertility plunged to its lowest rate in U.S. history but rebounded sharply when that era neared its end.

Since youth is the age in which most crime and drug experimentation occurs, these trends leave a special mark on the generation moving into adulthood. Young Prophets pioneer the dysfunctional slide while indulgent elder Heroes look on. Young Nomads, habituated to this slide as children, later suffer a reputation as undercivilized. Young Heroes reverse the bad trends while moralizing elder Prophets applaud. Young Artists, habituated to this reversal as children, later gain a reputation as overcivilized.

Even if a cycle of history does not violate free will, some troublesome questions remain: They go by the name of fortune, chaos, or accident. How can the saeculum coexist with all of history’s chance events and trends? Who could have predicted the steamship and locomotive? Or the stock crash on Black Tuesday? Or the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? Or the Watergate burglary? Or the invention of the microcomputer? How can any theory of social change predict such things? The answer is simple: The saeculum neither predicts them nor precludes them. Yes, history always dishes out accidents. But, for the saeculum, what matters most are not the accidents themselves, but rather society’s response to them. To understand how this works, select an accident, transport it to another decade, and try to replay its effect. Move the Watergate break-in back forty years: Would circa-1934 America have been receptive to a pair of G.I. reporters eager to bring down a Missionary president recently elected by an enormous landslide? Of course not. Or move the Great Depression forward forty years: Would circa-1974 Boomers have coped with economic bust by cheerfully donning uniforms, joining paramilitary public works programs, and building a TVA? Again, not likely.

A turning is a social mood that changes each time the generational archetypes enter a new constellation. Each turning is roughly the length of a phase of life. The First Turning is a High—an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays. (Nomads enter elderhood; Heroes, midlife; Artists, young adulthood; and Prophets, childhood.) The Second Turning is an Awakening—a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime. (Heroes enter elderhood; Artists, midlife; Prophets, young adulthood; and Nomads, childhood.) The Third Turning is an Unraveling—a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants. (Artists enter elderhood; Prophets, midlife; Nomads, young adulthood; and Heroes, childhood.) The Fourth Turning is a Crisis—a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. (Prophets enter elderhood; Nomads, midlife; Heroes, young adulthood; and Artists, childhood.)

A generation is composed of people whose common location in history lends them a collective persona. The span of one generation is roughly the length of a phase of life. Generations come in four archetypes, always in the same order, whose phase-of-life positions comprise a constellation. The Prophet archetype is born in a High and enters young adulthood in an Awakening, midlife in an Unraveling, and elderhood in a Crisis. The Nomad archetype is born in an Awakening and enters young adulthood in an Unraveling, midlife in a Crisis, and elderhood in a High. The Hero archetype is born in an Unraveling and enters young adulthood in a Crisis, midlife in a High, and elderhood in an Awakening. The Artist archetype is born in a Crisis and enters young adulthood in a High, midlife in an Awakening, and elderhood in an Unraveling. During a Fourth Turning, the constellation contains all four archetypes born in the current saeculum. During the first three turnings, the constellation includes one or more archetypes born in the prior saeculum.

Highs produce this mood because of the new life-cycle phase each archetype is then entering: Nomads into elderhood, Heroes into midlife, Artists into young adulthood, and Prophets into childhood.

As exhausted Nomads replace Prophets in elderhood, they slow the pace of social change, shunning the old crusades in favor of simplicity and survivalism. Tired of big causes and ideologies, elder Nomads calm society, accept the outcome of the Crisis, and build a functioning civic order out of its glory (or ashes). Believers in functional social rituals, they become old-fashioned elders who place a high priority on protecting children and safeguarding the society’s long-term future. They are less impressed than their juniors by swift progress or national triumph, and more fearful of where institutional hubris may lead. Still stigmatized, they strike other generations as burned-out, even reactionary. In old age, the Nomads’ reputation for shrewdness never wins them much public reward. They claim little for themselves at a time when the public mood is focused less on rewarding the old than investing in the young.

As powerful Heroes replace Nomads in midlife, they establish an upbeat, constructive ethic of social discipline. Their ears ringing with post-Crisis accolades, midlife Heroes become builders and doers, confident of their ability to make big institutions work better than their Lost predecessors. They energize and rationalize every sphere of life, from science to religion, statecraft to the arts. At their midlife peak of power, they expect to propel civilization over an unprecedented threshold of secular progress—toward wealth, happiness, knowledge, and power. Others regard them as the most-competent, if least-reflective, generation of their time.

As conformist Artists replace Heroes in young adulthood, they become sensitive helpmates, lending their expertise and cooperation to an era of growing social calm. An Artist generation comes of age just as the post-Crisis social order is solidifying. With little room to maneuver, they embark early on prosperous and secure life paths. They learn to excel at satisfying expectations and assisting the Heroes’ grand constructions. As they infuse the culture with new vitality, they probe cautiously for a more inwardly fulfilling role. This effort leads to a cult of professional expertise (refining the Heroes’ outer-world achievements) and to critical gestures of conscience and feeling (exposing the Heroes’ inner-world limitations).

As Prophets replace Artists in childhood, they are nurtured with increasing indulgence by optimistic adults in a secure environment. A High projects its optimism onto children, giving rise to a fertility bulge, a preoccupation with family life, and long investment time horizons. In the orderly post-Crisis world, parents can safely devote more time to child raising and offer new freedoms to a new generation. Nurtured by a well-ordered but spiritually depleted society, children are urged to cultivate strong inner lives. They form stronger bonds with mothers (their links to personal values) than with fathers (their links to civic deeds). Presumed to have a bright future, children are encouraged to demand much of life.

Toward the end of a High, strains begin to show: ■ The elder Nomads, now appearing less cautious than reactionary, begin impeding the Heroes’ expanding ambitions. ■ The midlife Heroes, now filled with the hubris of power, grow impatient to lead society toward ever-grander worldly constructions. ■ The young-adult Artists, now chafing at an unfulfilling helpmate’s role, yearn to break away and take down social barriers. ■ The child Prophets, indulged by adults who are confident in their future, begin sensing a dire spiritual void at the heart of the Heroes’ secular order.

Awakenings produce this mood because of the archetypes then entering a new life-cycle phase: Heroes into elderhood, Artists into midlife, Prophets into young adulthood, and Nomads into childhood. Generational differences come into sharp relief, as Prophets come of age assaulting the Heroes’ constructions.

As expansive Heroes replace Nomads in elderhood, they orchestrate ever-grander secular constructions, setting the stage for the spiritual goals of the young. At last unconstrained by the caution of older Nomads, aging Hero generations enter the Awakening at their height of public power. The threshold of old age does not slow down their energy and collective purpose; instead, it spurs them to ever grander constructions. When their hubris is attacked by young zealots, they first battle against the new values, then accede to them. Afterward, they retain institutional power, through which they seek and receive economic reward from the young. During the latter stages of an Awakening, public coffers shower benefits on the war veterans who once sacrificed themselves for posterity. Aging Heroes are associated with optimism, teamwork, and civic trust at a time when younger generations appear to lack those qualities.

As indecisive Artists replace Heroes in midlife, they apply expertise and process to improve society while calming the passions of the young. Caught in a generational whipsaw, torn between the inner mission of younger Prophets and the outer mission of older Heroes, Artist generations carve out a mediator’s role. They mentor new youth movements while sensitizing and pluralizing their elders’ constructions. As they patch together a midlife pastiche out of fragments of the Hero and Prophet personas, they compensate for their earlier conformism by engaging in high-risk institutional and family behavior. Tolerant of discord, Artists deflect argument by compromising or postponing unpleasant choices.

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.

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.

Throughout history, this layering of archetypes has produced Awakenings. The years between 1964 and 1984—the Consciousness Revolution—were no exception.

The midlife Silent discovered eros with the zest that comes to those who have missed it in their own youth. Fortyish men studied to become expert lovers, and “liberated” males pursued what John Updike called a “Post-Pill Paradise.” Barrier-busting impresarios launched Playboy clubs, R-rated movies, and nude plays on Broadway. Looking up and down the age ladder for cues, Silent men assembled a composite definition of masculinity. The result was a hodgepodge of role models who combined G.I. confidence with Boomer sensitivity (Merlin Olsen, Carl Sagan), G.I. machismo with Boomer judgmentalism (Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson), or a neurotic muddle (Alan Alda, Woody Allen). Others became America’s first “out of the closet” gay politicians (Harvey Milk, Barney Frank) and celebrity transvestites (Christine Jorgensen, Renée Richards). Thus whipsawed, many Silent felt like one of Gail Sheehy’s subjects who wished “somebody would let me be what I am, tender sometimes, and dependent, too, but also vain and greedy and jealous and competitive.” Many Silent women resented having allowed themselves to become Stepford Wives, limited to household chores and child care while their husbands’ careers soared. And many looked more skeptically upon vows of fealty in an era when many a midlife married man succumbed to what Barbara Gordon called “Jennifer Fever,” an attraction to sexually liberated younger women. The youngest- and most-married female generation in U.S. history began prefixing the...

Amid the gathering turbulence of 1964, baby making abruptly fell out of favor. In the spring of that year, American women were still giving birth at a record pace. But in the months that followed, conceptions plummeted—and by mid-1965 the U.S. fertility rate was entering its steep post-Boom decline. A national fertility study confirmed that a third of all mothers now admitted having at least one unwanted child. Stay-at-home moms began wearing buttons that read “Stop At One,” “None Is Fun,” and “Jesus Was an Only Child.” The reasons for this sudden turn included birth control pills, nascent feminism, and a new societywide hostility toward children. America’s new antichild attitude revealed itself most clearly in the media. By the mid-1960s, the production of smart-kid family sitcoms and creative-kid Disney movies slowed to a trickle. Replacing them was a new genre featuring unwanted, unlikable, or simply horrifying children. Rosemary’s Baby, a thriller about a woman pregnant with an evil demon, anchored a twenty-year period in which Hollywood filmed one bad-kid movie after another (The Exorcist, It’s Alive, The Omen, Halloween). Most came with sequels, since audiences couldn’t seem to get enough of these cinematic monsters. Moviegoers also lined up to see kids who were savages (Lord of the Flies), hucksters (Paper Moon), prostitutes (Taxi Driver), emotional misfits (Ordinary People), spoiled brats (Willie Wonka), and barriers to adult self-discovery (Kramer vs. Kramer).

divorce struck 13ers harder than any other child generation in U.S. history. Where Boomers had once been worth the parental sacrifice of prolonging an unhappy marriage, 13ers were not. At the end of the High, half of all adult women believed that parents in bad marriages should stay together for the sake of the children, but by the end of the Awakening, only one in five thought so.

Like father and son in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, adults became more childlike and children more adultlike.

Ask today’s young adults how they were raised, and many will tell you that they raised themselves—that they made their own meals, washed their own clothes, decided for themselves whether to do homework or make money after school, and chose which parent to spend time with on weekends (or side with in court). They grew up less as members of family teams, looking forward to joining adult teams, than as free agents, looking forward to dealing and maneuvering their way through life’s endless options. In their childhood memory, the individual always trumped the group. During the Consciousness Revolution, as older generations stripped away the barriers that had previously sheltered childhood, 13ers were denied a positive vision of the future—denied, indeed, any reassurance that their nation had any collective future at all.

Americans everywhere were listening to what Habits of the Heart coauthor Steven Tipton described as “their own little church in their own little mind.”

Toward the end of any Awakening, generational strains begin to show: ■ The elder Heroes, still leading institutions while vacating the culture, now worry about a society whose new spiritualism they find alien. ■ The midlife Artists, sensing that the old order has been repudiated, now plan to cast off community discipline and expand the realm of personal choice. ■ The young-adult Prophets, inspired by the discovery of personal truth, now want to change society from the inside out. ■ The child Nomads, cynical youths in a world of powerless adults, learn to distrust the rules and prepare to make their own way.

Yet polls also showed Americans awash in self-esteem. Not trusting government, people did trust the individual—as expressed through the marketplace, cultural diversity, interactive technologies, New Age spirituality, and evangelicalism. The old focus on policies and programs had receded, but the public vacuum was gradually being filled by a new politics of personal rootedness, inner values, and empathic gesture.

personal meaning started with the direct experience of the individual. These self-discovered meanings were then ratified by others attracted to the individual’s own niche group, people whose views had been authenticated by similar experiences. The niche could involve sex, race, religion, occupation, income, even—as with gun ownership—a hobby. As niche groups strengthened, they began erasing old (universal) worldviews and constructing new (particular) ones.

Any argument or observation coming from outside the group became suspect because it lacked the torch of pure belief. Every act thus had a meaning, every meaning a right and wrong, every wrong a victim, every victim a victimizer. From one niche to the next, this logic led to different sets of wrongs, victims, and victimizers. Unlike in the High, there was no such thing as “normal” public opinion.

As Senator Moynihan suggested, deviancy kept getting redefined downward. The people who in the Awakening had comprised the Silent Majority of Middle America now felt themselves engulfed in Blade Runner chaos and variance. On race, for example, polls showed Americans vastly overestimating the size and discontent of minorities and niche groups and underestimating the size and well-being of the majority. Fed by paranoia, public discourse became more tribal and less cordial with each passing year. Even mainstream Americans began to feel like Michael Douglas in Falling Down—that is, like an embittered minority. National parties weakened, incumbents were derided, and attack ads proliferated. Suspicion began to creep into dealings with strangers, with only three people in ten believing that “most people can be trusted,” eight in ten that “civility in America has declined in the past ten years.” As the 1980s ended, personal security became one of America’s biggest growth industries. By the early 1990s, America’s niche group conflict came to be known as the Culture Wars, defined by Irving Kristol as a “profound division over what kind of country we are, what kind of people we are, and wh...

All seven Third Turnings have followed a similar path of social entropy and disintegration. The Awakening complete, people are now fully immersed in their own purposes. The new social priority is to atomize, not to gather; people are harvesting, not sowing. Underneath, a new values regime grows and spreads. As large official entities continue to weaken, small informal ones (families, neighborhoods, small enterprises, volunteer groups, cultural niches) revitalize. The Unraveling is an equinox era, a transition toward shorter days and longer nights. Both the demand and supply of social order are falling. This is the autumnal quadrant of the saeculum, when vines luxuriate, fruit spoils, leaves fall, and respect for life’s fundamentals reappears.

As empathic Artists replace Heroes in elderhood, they quicken the pace of social change, shunning the old order in favor of complexity and sensitivity. Entering old age, Artists remain as other-directed as before—institutionally flexible, culturally sensitive, and committed to process and expertise. They seldom produce strong, decisive leaders. Just as they once took cues from Hero elders, they now adopt the agenda of younger Prophets while wishing to be accepted as full partners in the new values regime. Tolerant of diversity and discord, elder Artists generally accept (even celebrate) centrifugal social forces. Hesitant to impose their judgment, they prefer to let events take their course—sometimes regretting the consequences. Frustrated yet resilient, old Artists retain their sentimentalism, social conscience, and liberal belief in second chances.

As judgmental Prophets replace Artists in midlife, they preach a downbeat, values-fixated ethic of moral conviction. Entering midlife, Prophet generations display first a reflective distance and gradually a sober severity in a phase of life previously known for tolerance. In their own eyes, they are pillars of rectitude. To others, they are ineffective hypocrites—though they are also begrudgingly respected for their capacity to focus on core issues of right and wrong. Midlife Prophets begin reshaping institutions from the inside out, taking the insights they had earlier cultivated in private life and projecting them into public life. They come to political power slowly but resolutely, beginning with relatively weak leaders tolerant of their peers’ self-immersed impulses. As they resacralize institutions not in line with their values, passionate splits emerge between factions with competing moral positions.

As Heroes replace Nomads in childhood, they are nurtured with increasing protection by pessimistic adults in an insecure environment. The Hero archetype is made, not born, and the making begins in childhood at the hands of parents gripped with spiritual confidence and secular anxiety. Newly perceived as dangerous, the child environment is pushed back toward greater protection and structure. Children are urged to be obedient achievers and team players. They form more conspicuous bonds with fathers (their main link to civic deeds) than with mothers (their main link to personal values). To older Prophet parents, Hero children are instruments through which their inner visions can someday be achieved. To younger Nomad parents, they are beneficiaries of a hard-fought effort to rediscover and reclaim a close family life.

Like Bill Gates (whose ecofriendly mansion has a garage for twenty cars), the Cultural Elite will consume heavily while pretending otherwise.

As the 1990s have progressed, young adults have asserted more control over their own image. The generational TV shows have taken X from the glitzy Beverly Hills 90210 to the atomized Melrose Place to the ersatz community of Friends, whose cast resembles the people who watched those other shows. Many of the story lines depict youths as noncommittal, unattached, brazen about sex and work, obsessed with trivial things, and isolated from the worlds of older people or children.

In the years ahead, the well-being of the Millennial Generation will become a focal point for the renewal of America’s civic culture. Organized public places—athletic stadia, cinemas, parks, malls—will be newly segmented, isolating kid-friendly havens from coarser fare elsewhere. The Internet will start teaching “netiquette” and will help parents shield adolescents from chat rooms with misbehaving adults. Hollywood will make movies about wholesome teenagers doing good things for their communities. Suggestive teen ads and magazines will draw adult condemnation, as Boomers aggressively scrutinize and chaperone the teen culture.

Millennials will provide a focal point for the renewal of the American family. Thanks to a growing presence of telecommuting parents and live-in Silent grandparents, neighborhoods will retain more daytime adults, whose supervision will grow more assertive. Boomers will follow Hillary Clinton’s demand that adolescent behavior be monitored and constrained. The rates of divorce will decline—in part, because new state laws will make divorce harder for couples with children. Judges will not so freely grant separations in families with children and will punish deadbeat dads severely. This re-strengthened family will not be a replica of the 1950s. Children will not attach themselves so exclusively to mothers, many of whom will be working. Instead, they will attach themselves to a rotating array of substitute parents (often male) who represent the community. Like the offspring of well-run kibbutzim, Millennials will grow up to be sociable and team-oriented adolescents but will strike adults as somewhat bland, conformist, and dependent on others to reach judgments.

As no-longer-Clueless teens will back away from early (and unprotected) sex, the adolescent abortion rate will fall, fewer teens will get pregnant, and adoption or marriage will become more prevalent among those who do. Binge drinking and teen gambling will decline. Just as today’s twelve-year-olds are confounding experts by turning against the crime and crack cocaine habits of their 13er predecessors (with juvenile murders down 15 percent in 1995 alone), Millennial teens will prove false the consensus prediction among today’s criminologists that America is in for a big new wave of youth violence. To the contrary, youth crime will decrease. Some youth gangs will gradually redirect their energy from criminal mayhem toward collegial enforcement of an ad hoc public order. Those Millennials who do step out of line will be dealt with swiftly. Unlike with aging 13er criminals (many of whom will be warehoused and forgotten), the purpose of punishing Millennials will be to shame them, shape them up, and get them back in line.

This generation will build a reputation for meeting and beating adult expectations. In 1990, America’s third graders were issued three major challenges: Dr. Koop called on this Class of 2000 to be more drug-free, smoke-free, and sexual disease-free high school graduates than their predecessors; President Bush summoned them to graduate “first in the world in mathematics and science achievement”; and the African American Project 2000 called on school boys to grow up providing “consistent, positive, and literate black role models” for the children who follow. Millennial kids will do all that, and more. Around the year 2000, America’s news weeklies will run cover stories singing the praise of American youth—commending them for their growing interest in current affairs, rising aptitude scores, good community deeds, and a more wholesome (and standardized) new teen culture.

A Crisis era begins with a catalyst—a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood. ■ Once catalyzed, a society achieves a regeneracy—a new counterentropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life. ■ The regenerated society propels toward a climax—a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and birth of the new. ■ The climax culminates in a resolution—a triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates the winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order.

Which ones ignite? Studying the sparks of history themselves won’t help answer this question, because what they are is far less important than how a society reacts to them. That reaction is substantially determined by the season of the saeculum—in other words, by the turning in which they are located. Sparks in a High tend to reinforce feelings of security; in an Awakening, argument; in an Unraveling, anxiety. Come the Fourth Turning, sparks of history trigger a fierce new dynamic of public synergy.

The Civil War experience thus offers two lessons: first, that the Fourth Turning morphology admits to acceleration, and second, that acceleration can add to the tragedy of the outcome.