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

by William Strauss

Since the dawn of the modern world, there has been but one Fourth Turning constellation: elder Prophets, midlife Nomads, young-adult Heroes, and child Artists. For half a millennium, that constellation has recurred exactly the same way five times, and a sixth time with a slight variation in timing and consequence. This archetypal lineup has been one of the great constants of Anglo-American history. ■ The indulged Prophet children of Highs, born in the aftermath of one Crisis, foment the next Crisis upon entering elderhood. ■ The abandoned Nomad children of Awakenings become the pragmatic midlife managers of Crisis. ■ The protected Hero children of Unravelings provide the powerful young-adult soldiers of Crisis. ■ The suffocated children of Crises come of age afterward as Artist youths. Earlier chapters explained how Crisis eras shape generations; now you see how generations shape Crises. This explains the underlying link between the cycles of history and the rhythms of the saeculum.

Except for Nomads and Heroes during the Civil War, every prior Crisis era witnessed each generational archetype entering the following phase of life: Prophets into elderhood, Nomads into midlife, Heroes into young adulthood, and Artists into childhood. Here is what history teaches about the four life-cycle phases (and archetypes) in turn.

As visionary Prophets replace Artists in elderhood, they push to resolve ever-deepening moral choices, setting the stage for the secular goals of the young. As Prophet generations enter elderhood, their passion for principle leads beyond the point of no return. No longer are their crusades mostly symbolic; now they acquire a last-act urgency. As the Crisis erupts, their cultural arguments coalesce around a new vision of community. In families, they redefine elderhood as spiritual stewardship. In the larger society, they trade material security for moral authority and translate their lifelong values agenda into commandments that exact sacrifice from themselves and others. From the young, they seek personal obedience and respect; to the young, they offer the opportunity for heroism and achievement unlike anything they themselves had known at like age.

As pragmatic Nomads replace Prophets in midlife, they apply toughness and resolution to defend society while safeguarding the interests of the young. Playing to win but half-expecting to lose, Nomad generations enter midlife with a sense of exhaustion. Still forced to take hit-or-miss risks in their work and public lives, they become increasingly cautious in their family lives. By now they take for granted widening gaps between classes, ethnicities, regions, and gender roles. The ablest among them emerge as cunning, pragmatic, and colorful public figures. When the Crisis hits, they find their lives painfully split between the old order and new. But they rise fiercely (and sacrificially) to the occasion, able to make hard and fast choices without fretting much about what others think. Exalting the workable over the ideal, midlife Nomads forge an effective alliance with the elder Prophets. Yet people of other ages are quick to criticize them and slow to give them praise.

As teamworking Heroes replace Nomads in young adulthood, they challenge the political failure of elder-led crusades, fueling a societywide secular crisis. Coming of age, Hero generations develop a strong ethos of constructive activity, a peer-enforced code of dutiful conduct, and an overwhelming sense of generational community. Instinctive doers and team players, they gravitate toward social goals and human relationships that can be clearly defined. They expect and receive challenges from older generations. They band together on command. At the Crisis climax, their heroism seemingly makes the difference between bright and dark futures for all of posterity. “Fire is the test of gold,” Seneca once observed, “adversity, of strong men.” Young men enter battle because, like their society, they perceive they have no other choice.

As Artists replace the Heroes in childhood, they are overprotected at a time of political convulsion and adult self-sacrifice. Artists enter childhood surrounded by no-nonsense adults who fiercely protect, even envelop them at a time when mighty events are deciding the fate of nations. Children are expected to be obedient, stay out of harm’s way, and let adults do important work. And they do, though they earn less praise for it than the prior generation. Though assured of their collective worth, they are constantly reminded that their individual needs take a low priority as long as the community is struggling for survival. This fosters an anxiety about how (or if) they can ever live up to the expectation of powerful elders who are sacrificing so much on their behalf.

By the mid-2020s, the generational archetypes will be ready for something new. The Fourth Turning will be ready to expire when old Prophets weaken, Nomads tire of public urgency, and Heroes feel hubris. This occurs around the time each archetype stands on the brink of a new life phase: ■ The elder Prophets, still leading the culture while vacating institutions, now worry about a society whose new materialism they find alien. ■ The midlife Nomads, sensing that the old crusades have run their course, now plan to fortify community discipline and narrow the scope of personal choice. ■ The young-adult Heroes, energized by the success of collective action, now want to change society from the outside in. ■ The child Artists, credulous youths in a world of powerful adults, learn to trust conventions and prepare for ways to help others. By the middle 2020s, the archetypal constellation will change, as each generation begins entering a new phase of life.

To be preseasonal, America should prepare now for the Fourth Turning.

Prepare institutions: Clear the debris and find out what works, but don’t try building anything big.

Prepare politics: Define challenges bluntly and stress duties over rights, but don’t attempt reforms that can’t now be accomplished.

Prepare society: Require community teamwork to solve local problems, but don’t try this on a national scale.

Prepare youth: Treat children as the nation’s highest priority, but don’t do their work for them.

Prepare elders: Tell future elders they will need to be more self-sufficient, but don’t attempt deep cuts in benefits to current elders.

Prepare the economy: Correct fundamentals, but don’t try to fine tune current performance.

Prepare the defense: Expect the worst and prepare to mobilize, but don’t precommit to any one response.

Were history pure chaos, every expression of human will could be undone at any time. Were there no intelligible connection between past intention and future result, we could do nothing to assist our children or posterity. We might as well drain the treasury, ruin the atmosphere, ravage the culture, and consume the seed corn of civilization. Were history purely linear, humanity would also find itself degraded. Even the most noble of societies would become no more than a means to an end. Generations not present at the end of time would become mere building blocks, their members mere sacrifices on the altar of progress. Along the great highway of history, nothing would be eternal. The only free choice anyone might make would be to speed or slow a foreordained juggernaut. As linear history develops ever narrower standards of perfection, any generation not measuring up to that standard must look on itself (and be looked on by others) as a bad seed, useless to humanity except as a source of harm. The same would be true for any individual. Recent Western experiments with totalitarian regimes provide an object lesson: Societies that deify history’s destination typically have no respect for the moral autonomy of the people making the journey. When history is viewed as seasonal, by contrast, each generation can discover its own path across time, its own meaningful linkage to ancestors and heirs. Whoever we are—G.I.s, Silent, Boomers, 13ers, Millennials—we can locate our rendezvous w...