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

by William Strauss

As the wheel turns from Crisis to Awakening and back again to Crisis, modern history shows a remarkable regularity. In Europe, every cycle but one ranges from 80 to 105 years.

The Saeculum in America Inspect the left-hand seal on the back of a U.S. one-dollar bill. It's a circle with a four-sided pyramid, above which hovers an eye—an Egyptian or Masonic symbol of the divinity who sees all of history at one glance. Read the inscription above the pyramid: annuit coeptis (God smiled on the creation), words borrowed directly from Virgil's praise of the Augustan saeculum aureum. Read also the inscription underneath: novus ordo seclorum (the new order of the centuries). When the founders designed the Great Seal, they put the saeculum right on the money.

Anglo-American Awakenings While a Crisis rearranges the outer world of power and politics, an Awakening rearranges the inner world of spirit and culture. While a Crisis elevates the group and reinvents public space, an Awakening elevates the individual and reinvents private space. While a Crisis restarts our calendar in the realm of politics, an Awakening does something similar with the culture.

In a Crisis, older people give orders while the young do great deeds; in an Awakening, the old are the deed doers and the young are the order givers.

The saecular rhythm foretells another American Crisis in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, deep into the old age of those (like Newt Gingrich or Bob Kerrey) who were toddlers on V-J Day. The next Crisis era will most likely extend roughly from the middle Oh-Ohs to the middle 2020s. Its climax is not likely to occur before 2005 or later than 2025, given that thirty-two and fifty-two years are the shortest and longest time spans between any two climax moments in Anglo-American history.

To gain this understanding, you have to move beyond the saeculum's external timing and learn about its internal dynamics. You have to see history from the inside out. The key lies in finding the link between the seasons of history and the seasons of a human life.

service). The coming-of-age period is also when youths learn to substitute the approval of their friends for that of their parents—a substitution that helps forge a generational identity.

The phases, and social roles, of the modern American life cycle can be summarized as follows: Childhood (pueritia, ages 0-20); social role: growth (receiving nurture, acquiring values) Young Adulthood (iuventus, ages 21-41); social role: vitality (serving institutions, testing values) Midlife (virilitas, ages 42-62); social role: power (managing institutions, applying values) Elderhood (senectus, ages 63-83); social role: leadership (leading institutions, transferring values) Late Elderhood (ages 84+); social role: dependence (receiving comfort from institutions, remembering values)

The first four (childhood through elderhood) comprise the quaternity of the human life cycle. The combined length of these four phases, roughly eighty-four years, matches the span of the American saeculum dating back to the Revolution.

In a modern society, however, new Great Events keep occurring, and with great regularity. These are the solstices of the saeculum: Crises and Awakenings. Through five centuries of Anglo-American history, no span of more than fifty years (the duration of

This Euro-American experience confirms that the faster a society progresses, the more persistently generational issues seem to keep springing up.

Common perceived membership refers to how a generation defines itself and to a popular consensus about which birth cohorts belong together.

To say that you identify with your generation does not, of course, mean that you care for your generation.

A generation can collectively choose its destiny. But you cannot personally choose your generation any more than you can choose your parents or your native land.

Roughly once every twenty years, America discovers a new generation—a happenstance triggered by some striking event in which young people appear to behave in ways manifestly different than the youth who came just before.

notice the recurring pattern within each saeculum. The first generation comes of age with an Awakening, while the second has an Awakening childhood; the third comes of age with a Crisis, while the fourth has a Crisis childhood. Each of these four locations in history is associated with a generational archetype: Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist.

The Nomad is neither as dutiful (or naive) as the younger Hero nor as transcendently wise (or wicked) as the older Prophet. The best the Nomad can hope to experience is a brush with others' greatness. In the Star Wars trilogy, Han Solo looks down the age ladder and sees the good Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia—and looks up and sees the wise Obi-Wan Kenobi and the evil Darth Vader. These are times of Crisis, during which the Nomad does the dirty work with little expectation of public praise or reward.

In these four archetypal myths, you can recognize two sets of opposing temperaments as well as two sets of inverted life cycles. When multiple generations enter the myths, you typically see the Nomad sandwiched between the younger Hero and the older Prophet, and the Artist between the younger Prophet and the elder Hero.

Your generation isn't like the generation that shaped you, but it has much in common with the generation that shaped the generation that shaped you. Archetypes do not create archetypes like themselves; instead, they create the shadows of archetypes like themselves.

A Prophet generation grows up as increasingly indulged post-Crisis children, comes of age as the narcissistic young crusaders of an Awakening, cultivates principle as moralistic midlifers, and emerges as wise elders guiding the next Crisis.

A Nomad generation grows up as underprotected children during an Awakening, comes of age as the alienated young adults of a post-Awakening world, mellows into pragmatic midlife leaders during a Crisis, and ages into tough post-Crisis elders.

A Hero generation grows up as increasingly protected post-Awakening children, comes of age as the heroic young teamworkers of a Crisis, demonstrates hubris as energetic midlifers, and emerge...

An Artist generation grows up as overprotected children during a Crisis, comes of age as the sensitive young adults of a post-Crisis world, breaks free as indecisive midlife leaders during an Awa...

Scholars suggest that successor generations inhabited recurring fourfold cycles of complacency, prophecy, punishment, and deliverance.

As written in Ecclesiastes, “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.”

All these theories reflect a pattern dating back to the Old Testament—a four-type cycle that has been seen across four millennia, multiple cultures, and every imaginable political and social system. The labels vary, but the archetypal order (Prophet to Nomad to Hero to Artist) is always identifiable—and always the same.

At no other place and time in human history has the cycle of generations propelled this wheel of time with more force than in America.

Mount Rushmore's granite is a monument to four great American leaders. Born over a span of 126 years, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln represent four different generations (Liberty, Republican, Progressive, and Transcendental).

each archetype chiseled not in chronological order, but in saecular order: Nomad, Hero, Artist, and Prophet.

Over the next two centuries, an alternating sequence of Heroes and Prophets gestated a new American civilization: William Shakespeare's Elizabethan Generation produced the Heroes who founded (circa 1600) the first permanent English settlements on the Atlantic seaboard. John Winthrop's Puritan Generation produced the Prophets who summoned (circa 1640) the first Great Migration to America.

“;King” Carter's Glorious Generation produced the Heroes who transformed (circa 1690) a chaotic colonial backwater into a stable provincial society. Jonathan Edwards's Awakening Generation produced the Prophets who declared (circa 1740) the New World's social and spiritual independence from the Old. Thomas Jefferson's Republican Generation produced the Heroes who created (circa 1790) the United States of America.

Notice how the four archetypes follow each other in a recurring sequence. Each archetype encounters both an Awakening and a Crisis once at some point in its life cycle and always encounters these eras at precisely the same phase of life.

We remember Prophets best for their coming-of-age passion (the excited pitch of Jonathan Edwards, William Lloyd Garrison, William Jennings Bryan) and for their principled elder stewardship (the sober pitch of Samuel Langdon at Bunker Hill, President Lincoln at Gettysburg, and FDR with his Fireside Chats).

most came to be revered more for their inspiring words than for their grand deeds. We remember Nomads best for their rising-adult years of hell raising (Paxton Boys, Missouri Raiders, rumrunners) and for their midlife years of hands-on, get-it-done leadership (Francis Marion, Stonewall Jackson, George Patton). Underprotected as children, they become overprotective parents. Their principal endowments are in the domain of liberty, survival, and honor.

We remember Heroes best for their collective coming-of-age triumphs (Glorious Revolution, Yorktown, D-Day) and for their hubristic elder achievements (the Peace of Utrecht and slave codes, the Louisiana Purchase and steamboats, the Apollo moon launches and interstate highways). Increasingly protected as children, they become increasingly indulgent as parents. Their principal endowment activities are in the domain of community, affluence, and technology. Their best-known leaders include Gurdon Saltonstall and “King” Carter, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

We remember Artists best for their quiet years of rising adulthood (the log-cabin settlers of 1800, the plains farmers of 1880, the new suburbanites of 1960) and during their midlife years of flexible, consensus-building leadership (the Compromises of the Whig era, the good government reforms of the Progressive era, the budget and peace processes of the current era). Overprotected as children, they become underprotective parents. Their principal endowment activities are in the domain of pluralism, expertise, and due process. Their best-known leaders include William Shirley and Cadwallader Colden, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Walter Mondale and Colin Powell.

ARCHETYPES AND TURNINGS

A turning is an era with a characteristic social mood, a new twist on how people feel about themselves and their nation. It results from the aging of the generational constellation. A society enters a turning once every twenty years or so, when all living generations begin to enter their next phases of life. Like archetypes and constellations, turnings come four to a saeculum, and always in the same order:

The First Turning is a High. Old Prophets disappear, Nomads enter elderhood, Heroes enter midlife, Artists enter young adulthood, and a new generation of Prophets is born. The Second Turning is an Awakening. Old Nomads disappear, Heroes enter elderhood, Artists enter midlife, Pro...

The Third Turning is an Unraveling. Old Heroes disappear, Artists enter elderhood, Prophets enter midlife, Nomads enter young adulthood, and a new generation of child Heroes is born. The Fourth Turning is a Crisis. Old Artists disappear, Prophets enter elderhood, Nomads enter midlife, ...

The gateway to a new turning can be obvious and dramatic (like the 1929 Stock Market Crash) or subtle and gradual (like 1984's Morning in America).

The four turnings comprise a quaternal social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and rebirth).

Every twenty to twenty-five years (or, in common parlance, once a generation), people are surprised by the arrival of a new saecular season—just

The Fourth Turning 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.

Over three centuries of American history, a wide variety of social indicators—birth rate, marriage age, wage growth, social mobility, political activism—have always turned an abrupt corner every twenty-two years or so. Emerging out of reams of archival evidence, this insistent pattern compelled

that is darkly interpreted as closing a golden age of postwar growth. During an Unraveling, economic activity again accelerates, but now the growth is unbalanced and fitful. During a Crisis, the economy is rocked by some sequential combination of panic, depression, inflation, war, and public regimentation. Near the end of a Crisis, a healthy economy is reborn.

During a Fourth Turning, generational forces tend to funnel exogenous events toward a concerted national response. When Hitler and Tojo launched their global aggressions, America was poised for decisive action. With Prophets in power and Heroes coming of age, the archetypal order givers were in charge and the archetypal order takers were on the battlefield. The result was maximum cooperation between generations. Elder Prophet leaders do not back down from confrontation. Indeed, Sam Adams, John Brown, and FDR have all been plausibly accused of helping to stage an emergency for the express purpose of galvanizing younger people.

World War I, which merely grazed the United States while decimating Europe, had several key markings of an Unraveling-era conflict for all participants. It began pointlessly, ended vindictively, and—notwithstanding all the carnage—settled nothing. For America, its principal consequence was to shape (among the transatlantic Lost Generation of war-ravaged soldiers) a new cadre of totalitarian leaders that U.S. forces would have to encounter again. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, and Francisco Franco were all between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one in August 1914—as were Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong. It was not mere happenstance that triggered World War II during an American Fourth Turning. The rise of fascism had much to do with the saeculum's grip on European history.

V-E Day, V-J Day, and the creation of the Iron Curtain were profound Fourth Turning events throughout most of the world. As such, the saeculum's timing among different societies probably became better synchronized after World War II than ever before in modern history. Today, archetypal constellations all around the world show striking similarities.

Turnings 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.