The Fourth Turning: Trying Not to Frighten the Rulers

About five years ago (I think) my daughter recommended I read The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe, and last week I finally read it.

The book makes the unexceptional argument that history goes in cycles, with typically a crisis once a century. Obviously, you might say, any ruling class gets weak and flabby after a century and either gets its back stiffened by an in-group replacement, or the less amiable war and revolution.

But Strauss and Howe butter up this notion with some Jungian archetypes, that the century long cycle is driven by a generations of Prophets succeeded by Nomads succeeded by Heroes succeeded by Artists.

Which, in my opinion, gets a bit confusing and turgid, and allows them to predict anything about anyone.

The key to their argument is the "fourth turning" when the accumulated detritus from a three generations of rule in any political entity creates a mess that provokes unrest and rebellion and/or war. The result is a reset that refreshes the society and begins a new cycle. When the book was published in 1997 the authors were predicting a Crisis era beginning in about 2005 or maybe as late a 2020.

Because a book like this is targeted at an educated audience, the "cognitive elite" that is basically the ruling class, it has to step rather daintily. After all, the reason we are in a mess right now is that we have had about a century of rule by the educated class that has ramped up government spending from about 10 percent of GDP to 40 percent of GDP and we are soon going to run out of money. Plus, as Charles Murray relates in Coming Apart, the last 50 years has been good for people with good cognitive skills, but not so good for the less cognitively able. So life is good for the cognitive, but not so good for the rest.

So I think that all the talk about Jungian archetypes is a smokescreen to hide the unpleasant truth that the Crisis is going to be all about the injustice dished out by the educated elite and experienced by ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives struggling through the brambles that have been sown in their gardens by their educated and cognitive betters.

And, the book is all about the changing fashions and enthusiasms in the ruling elite. I suppose that is inevitable because rebellions never succeed and wars never start without the ruling class -- or a resentful cabal in the second rank -- stepping up to lead. Slave rebellions and peasant revolts never succeed. Even the Spartacus rebellion in 73 BC of 70 slave gladiators that swelled into a host of over 100,000 was put down by the Roman legions. So, the question is what cabal in the ruling class is likely to form a head of rebellion.

We could say that the Fourth Turning in the US started with the Tea Party and the 64-seat GOP gains in 2010 that flipped the House and ended in Donald Trump getting elected president in 2016. The question is whether the rulers can put down the revolt. I suppose that the answer is: they probably can unless a significant splinter of the ruling class decides to go for broke and side with the rebels. Right now they have beaten back the rebels, but only just, with a questionable presidential election and a 50-50 Congress.

But can the Biden people clinch the deal? Can they intimidate Big Business into suppressing the yokels? Can they keep the economy on track and still satisfy their supporters? Can they, er, manage the elections? Can they keep the blacks riled up? Can the ruling class get its act together?

I suppose that is really the question. It's not whether the Deplorables have an argument or that the Commoners of Middle America are getting screwed. The question is can the ruling class stay unified, or will some sector of the ruling class decide to put itself at the head of a movement to "take back America."

And then, of course, the question is how far the rebels are willing to go to make their point, and how ruthless the rulers are willing to be in stopping them.