This article summarizes the ideas of William Strauss and Neil Howe. Strauss earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a master's in public policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Howe has earned degrees in both economics and history from Yale University. They created the Strauss-Howe generational theory and have published multiple books together, most notably “Generations” and “The Fourth Turning”.
Their book “Generations” has been hailed by political leaders as diverse as former Vice President Al Gore to former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (under President Donald Trump). It’s also been recommended by business leader Tony Robbins on both Tim Ferris and Lewis Howes podcast respectively. The book was introduced to Tony by former President Bill Clinton.
William Strauss passed away in 2008. Neil Howe is currently the Managing director of Demography for Hedgeye Risk Management.
It's very hard to summarize all of the topics covered in William Strauss and Neil Howe’s books on generational theory. I highly recommend reading their books which have case studies from over the last 500 years of American history. A short video summary done by Neil Howe can also be found on YouTube linked here.
Generational Theory: The Cycles
Introduction
Generational theory comes from the perspective that history is cyclical rather than linear in nature. These cycles of society have four main periods or Turings as they call them that repeat over human history in the same cause-effect order over 80 years or so before repeating - the length of a long human life.
The four Turnings are caused by generations' aging into their next phase of life (Growing up, Coming of age, Midlife, and Elder-hood). Each generation has a particular set of attitudes and behaviors that are shaped by their location in history (eg. growing up during a crisis period vs. a high period). This is why societal Turnings and their moods last around 20 years each - about the length of a phase of life.
Generations have four Archetypes just as society has four Turnings. In this article I will be focused on society's Turnings. I will cover the generational Archetypes and their relationship to the Turnings in my next article.
The Four Turnings
The First Turning within the cycle is called a High and represents a sort of societal spring. Society has recently emerged from a major crisis period where there was a great need to rectify dysfunction in politics, economics, civic values, and geopolitics. New cultural identity and institutions were formed to deal with the recent crisis and now the society is in an era of civil uniformity. There is faith in the new institutions they’ve erected and collectivism is at an all time high. This can be viewed as a golden age of harmony and prosperity for a society as civic progress is at its highest point. However, it’s stifling to any individualism. The high level of civic harmony becomes very constricting on the individuals pursuits. By the end of this 20 year period, society's mood on civic harmony has changed. This leads to a new turning point in the society and the second period of the generational cycle.
The Second Turning is called an Awakening and represents a societal summer. As the society matures, people start to yearn for more individualism so they can fully blossom. The preexisting cultural norms from the uniform society are under scrutiny by the need for individuals to find their own paths in life. This is an inner world crisis. Society is testing its morals and personal values, breaking away from the established way of doing things. Individualism is needed again to solve the inner worlds personal issues that have been ignored. Similar to a young person rebelling from their parents authority, it's a time of necessary growing independence as the culture matures.This continues until civil unity is weakened and gives way to a new period of heightened individualism. The end of the inner world crisis leads to a new period of stability in values and culture revolving around the individual rather than the community. A new turning begins.
The Third period is called an Unravelling and represents a societal fall. The end of the inner world crisis leads to a new period of stability in values and culture centered around the individual's pursuits, leaving civic duties and responsibilities to decay. It’s a time when economic freedom is at its highest. Individuals' pursuits are also at their highest point. Wealth gaps grow larger in society, but it isn’t viewed as a big problem. Institutions don’t match the challenges of the time, not that anyone wants them interfering. People become very pessimistic and skeptical about any authority and leadership. Self interest is one of the primary values causing decadence and entitlement to rise. Crime becomes a larger issue as well. Sentiments are that the “good old days” are in the past, and the future seems destined for more societal erosion. Inevitably, the state of decay must be faced head on as tensions mount because of how dysfunctional the society has become on multiple levels.
The Fourth Turning is called the Crisis and represents a societal winter. The outer world is in need of repair. Civic life needs to be reinvented to match the dysfunction in society. The outer world is in crisis. Tensions about the direction of the society, its politics, economics and geopolitics are at their highest point in 60-80 years. Previous societal values and institutions are ossified and outdated. The current situation demands new civic agreements. A trigger event usually ushers in this new period of uncertainty. Civic unity is needed again to solve these large outer world, societal issues that have been ignored. Individuals begin to find their place in the community again. Top down leadership is favored over the slower bottom up style to solve pressing issues. This leads to a rise in autocratic leadership that can be swayed towards extremism and authoritarianism. Culture slowly consolidates around a new set of agreements about how society should handle the issues at hand. Old institutions and values are up for debate on their current merits. They are either retooled to handle the new problems better or replaced with new solutions. This is a period of creative destruction. As this period moves forward, the crisis only deepens and demands greater restructuring of societal values and institutions. Finally, the crisis reaches a climax point, where the society will be testing its newfound civic resolve. Once the climax has passed, there is finally a resolution, where the new civic values and institutions will be set in place for the next generational life cycle to begin anew.
The fourth turning and crisis period sound terrible, but they are needed. As Neil Howe has said “Fourth turnings are actually necessary, just like winter is necessary. Winter kills everything off so that new things can grow. And just as forests need fires, rivers need floods, so does society need events which clean out the debris. Which cleans out everything that is sclerotic and ossified and no longer functions. Something which tilts the whole playing field of power and wealth from the old back to the young again. This is what fourth turning’s do. They renew us. Fourth turnings are the price we must pay for a new golden age.”
This article is only serving as an introduction into generational theory by Strauss and Howe. As I mentioned before, my next article will cover the generational archetypes and their relationship with the Turnings. Again, I highly recommend watching Neil Howe’s primer on their theory on youtube linked here, or even better read their books “The Fourth Turning '' or “Generations”. Please look into their theory further, it has become a cornerstone to my analysis of the big picture. I look forward to delving deeper into their theory in future articles as well and connecting it with other theories such as Ray Dalio's long term debt cycles model, Stephen Harper's views on why populism is rising, and many other resources to build a better understanding of the big picture.
Comments