[American Thinker] In its ongoing effort to counter Steve Bannon's influence in the White House, the New York Times recently ran a piece essentially ridiculing Bannon's for his admiration of The Fourth Turning (1997) by William Strauss and Neil Howe.
As is the Times' MO, instead of addressing the substance articulated in The Fourth Turning, it dismisses the authors as 'amateur historians' and writes that their thesis is provocative and disputed.
Well, yes, The Fourth Turning theory of history is provocative. And it certainly is disputed by those who are presently warmly ensconced in today's establishment as well as their paid mouthpieces, for reasons that will soon become evident. But disapproval from the status quo doesn't mean Strauss and Howe are wrong. Quite the contrary. As for me, I find their arguments and analysis very compelling.
For those not familiar with the Fourth Turning, it takes a cyclical view of history. This is not based on the movement of the planets and stars but human nature and how people view things differently based on what generation they are in.
In a nutshell, the argument of Strauss and Howe is that as history moves in eighty to a one hundred year cycles. Within this saeculum cycle, there are four distinct turnings. The authors define a turning as "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 constellations. A society enters a turning every twenty years or so, when all living generations begin to enter their next phase of life." |