The Fourth Turning
“a sudden acceleration of the historical process in a terrifying manner,” sufficient to “release economic, social, and moral forces of unforeseen power and dimensions, which often make return to the status quo impossible.”
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
“We are bound to assume as a scientific hypothesis on which history is to be written, a progress in human affairs. This progress must inevitably be towards some end.” “Progress was Providence,” was how Lord Acton later described the prevailing Victorian view. “Unless there was progress there could be no God in history.”
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
Most important, we need to understand that our modern efforts to flatten natural and social cycles often meet with only superficial success. Sometimes, all we do is substitute one cycle for another. When we dam a river or industrialize a society, for example, we might eliminate the cycle of floods or wars; then again, we might just ensure that the ... See more
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
If you learned history in the usual linear style, you probably felt a void. Perhaps you yearned for a more personal connection with the past and future, a path through which you could attach a larger drama to your own life experience. Perhaps you yearned for a closer connection to the ancestral wisdom gained by real people who struggled to build th... See more
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
The First Turning is a High, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays.
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
Etymologically, the word time comes from tide—an ancient reference to the lunar cycle still retained in such expressions as “yuletide” and “good tidings.” Similarly, the word period originally meant “orbit,” as in “planetary period.” The word annual comes from annus, whose ancient root meant “circle.” The words year and hour come from the same root
... See moreWilliam Strauss • The Fourth Turning
a “progressive nationalism” and James Truslow Adams of an “American Dream”
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
There's no fulcrum on which to rest a policy lever. People of all ages sense that something huge will have to sweep across America before the gloom can be lifted—but that's an awareness we suppress. As a nation, we're in deep denial.
William Strauss • The Fourth Turning
As Boomers have begun turning fifty, the public discourse has become less refined and conciliatory and more impassioned and moralistic. Why? The midlife Prophet is replacing the midlife Artist.