10 things I learned from The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End by Neil Howe
I found this image that summarizes it fairly well: I wish I had referenced it while listening to the audiobook.
On the left is the age in years, the diagonals are the generations, the top shows major events, and the years are on the bottom. So, for example, in 1969 there was an Awakening (Woodstock, Civil Rights), Gen X was being born, Boomers were kids to young adults, the silent generation was in midlife, and the lost generation was in "elderhood."
Source: https://sashastone.substack.com/p/we-cant-stop-the-fourth-turning
1. A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or, equivalently, the complete renewal of a human population.
Borrowed from Roman culture, it refers to the lifespan of a person or about 100 years, marking the full cycle of generational change and societal upheaval.
2. The book explores how each generation shapes society based on their experiences and ideas formed in youth, leading to predictable shifts in societal attitudes and structures.
3. hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times,
4. history moves in cycles, not linear progression
Cyclical View of History: The book posits that history moves in cycles, not linear progression.
5. Prehistoric people had a cyclical view of life and history. Only recently have we thought of history as linear
6. 25-Year Phases
: The cycle consists of four "turnings," each lasting approximately 25 years, with the current fourth turning predicted to end around 2033, signaling a time of transformation or crisis resolution.
7. Modern technology has altered our perception of cyclical events by mitigating natural rhythms, such as day/night and seasonal changes, distancing society from traditional cyclical awareness.
8. Major wars happen about every 80 years in the US
Revolutionary, Spanish American, Civil, WW II, Iraq
9. if you consider your own life to have four distinct chapters of youth, young person, middle age and older age the entire society has all those at once.
So when there is a cataclysmic event like a war or the Covid pandemic, people in different phases of life respond to the stimulus differently. This is what creates society's response at any given time, and also shapes how those people will respond.
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