Neil Howe seems worried about the ascension of Beck & Palin in this 4th Turning. Demagogues and tribalists rise up during 4th Turnings. The last 4th Turning led to the rise of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. These were three of the biggest megalomaniac murdering thugs in the history of the world. Could someone like that rise to power in the US? If economic conditions deteriorate as I expect, anything can happen.
Glenn Beck: Polarizer
Posted by Neil Howe under 4th Turning (Crisis), Baby Boomer, Generation X, Politics
8 Comments and 3 Reactions
Glenn Beck has quickly become just about the most polarizing figure in America today. If Obama has come to represent America’s left brain, Glenn Beck is auditioning to become its right brain. (I mean that in both senses.) In a Third Turning (Unraveling), this would be cause for entertainment. In a Fourth Turning (Crisis), this development takes on a darker, more sinister hue.
The red zone widely reveres Beck—not for who he is (no one really knows that much about the guy), but simply for what he says. The blue zone widely reviles him—not for who he is or what he says, but rather for what he reflects about what is happening in America today. The Obama election already seems distant. For the literati, Glenn Beck is William Butler Yeats’ “rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.” See this cute Youtube video from NYC ( “Glenn Beck Scares Me”).
He sends the prophets of the secular left into such apoplectic rage that, like Kunstler, they simply shout themselves into incoherence. The dominant theme of Kunstler’s piece is that prayer “is what people resort to when they don’t understand what is happening to them.” I’d love to hear Kunstler’s take on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s original 1963 speech.
Kunstler is on firmer footing when he says that Obama’s caution often stems from the fear that any precipitous policy change may trigger a catastrophe. In 4T-land, one is tempted to walk on tiptoes. You are on the brink. Don’t you dare throw the shadow-bank CEOs into prison. Or raise tax rates on the rich. Or shove cap-and-trade down the throats of big energy. Or close down Gitmo. Or offend Putin. Or vaporize Ahmadinejad’s new reactors. The economy may implode (again). That dreaded WMD may finally be unleashed. And *then* what will everyone think of your presidency?
True, by behaving (in Kunstler’s unplugged words) “like a weenie,” Obama may end up encouraging the very riptides of history he is trying to evade. On the other hand, by behaving as Kunstler would urge, we would almost certainly end up in the midst of a crisis Though perhaps, Kunstler would argue, it would be a crisis we could survive rather than one that we could not—logic that only makes sense to an Ayatollah like Kunstler. Maybe what really burns Kunstler up about Beck is that they both share the same turning-yearning.
I offer here two other more even-tempered reflections on the Beck “honor” rally from the Washington Post.
The first, by Kathleen Parker, makes the interesting point that everything about Beck’s message stems from the 12-step recovery program—with a riveting emphasis on the utter worthlessness and depravity of the speaker. Glenn Beck, a first-wave Xer (born in 1964), does this with grandiose self loathing:
“Hi. My name is Glenn, and I’m messed up.”
“You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one — I can’t speak for you, but I’m on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show.”
“You can get rich making fun of me. I know. I’ve made a lot of money making fun of me.”
And some of his lines are just funny, showing that he didn’t become a radio star for nothing. Parker quotes one of them. Not coincidentally, it extends the addiction metaphor in a new direction:
“It is still morning in America. It just happens to be kind of a head-pounding, hung-over, vomiting-for-four-hours kind of morning in America.”
The second, by Ruth Marcus, points out that Beck’s rhetoric has found a way to unite the two sides of GOP—the libertarian (business) side with the moral (evangelical) side. The tea party has never enjoyed such solidarity, with its “black robe regiment” (an allusion to the Prophets archetype during the American Revolution) blasting away from the pulpits.
And to accomplish this, only a cross-over Boomer-Xer voice seems to work. Beck is Boomer (born 1943-1960) in his bombastic moralism, yet also Generation X (born 1961-1981) in his pessimism about human nature, his fear that everything around us is vulnerable and at risk, his historical revanchism, and his in-your-face bluntness. His opening lines, announcing that today we talk too much about America’s “scars” and not what makes America “good” is very Xer. Only a kid who was born the year after MLK’s speech and who grew up in the 1970s would say that.
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin remind us of the un-pretty side of the Gen-X role in history. Let me offer a prediction we made in The Fourth Turning(1997):
“By the middle 2020s, the archetypal constellation will change, as each generation begins entering a new phase of life. If the Crisis ends badly, very old Boomers could be truly despised. Generation X might provide the demagogues, authoritarians, even the tribal warlords who try to pick up the pieces.”
If any of this comes to pass, I have no doubt that many of the Xers who fill the role described here will remind us of Beck and Palin.
The original MLK (Artist archetype) appealed to our super-ego. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, his lofty, grandiloquent words appealed to principle on the eve of an era of economic and aspirational inflation. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, he was the right man for his time. Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin ( Nomad archetype) appeal to our id. In front of the Lincoln Memorial, their blunt, sardonic words appeal to honor on the eve of an era of economic and aspirational deflation. Are they (gulp!) the ineluctable duo for our time?
Reverse Engineer says:
Well, I have been accused on more than a few occassions by our dear old friend Tom LaCour of Demagoguery, and I call myself a Tribalist, so let me write a few words of support here for other Demagogues like Glenn Beck and Jim Kunstler.
One thing about these guys, you know where they stand. They don’t hover in the wishy-washy, fence sitting Centrist Political Zone. Given the Volatility we are experiencing, with the failure of Obama-sama, its likely in the next swing of the pendulum we go back to the Right, putting Right Wing Extremists like Glenn Beck in position to take control of the Political Agenda, whether or not he runs for President. Is this a good thing? No, but thing is here there ARE no good things. You really think this thing can be worked out by a bunch of wishy washy centrists trying to make all the people happy all the time? What you get out of that is Lock Up, which is what we got in CONgress at the moment.
So yea, a Fourth Turning is a time for the Rise of Demagogues. One can only hope we come up with a higher quality Demagaogue than Glenn Beck as we proceed through the Fourth Turning.
RE
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
5 
0
14th November 2010 at 7:06 pm
Kill Bill says:
Its just a silly act by a joskin
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
14th November 2010 at 7:25 pm
Apollo says:
Well of course the rise of Palin, Beck and such people only confirms we have entered, irreversibly, the age of the Fourth Turning. More messiahs, more demagogues will surely come. They will fan the flame, twist every opportunity to gain public power. They stand excellent chance to gain political power – offering no more than what desperate people want to hear. We might even see a GW Bush returning to ‘finish the job’. Or even a president ‘Mussolini’. [Hey Jim you forget to include imperial Japan Tojo gang in your list of megalomaniac murdering thugs. Don't let 'em off the hook - we dropped two special eggs on them you know.]
When powerful countries are cornered, sparks are sure to fly. No exception. What’s we are seeing today is a global triangle spinning ever faster.
On one corner, were we are witnessing the stunning rise of a neo-Communist China playing every card right. It managed to gain wealth, power and world status at an annual rate of 8% compounded over 25 years. Math people call it exponential growth. As as student of history, I cannot list a similar rise of such sustained speed of a large country without resorting to war of conquest, ever.
On the second corner we have the EU. Don’t be distracted by all the confusing talk about EU ‘mess’, contradictions and intractable problems. These are normal for a land of so many countries. It is very healthy checks and balance at work. Europe is home to people with long, very long history. They have seen a great deal. They have had empires and they have had the world’s greatest explorers. Focus on the important – from the utter destruction of WW2, confrontation of Cold War, the EU managed to become world biggest economy, the world’s most technologically advanced continent, and the world most cultured and artistic. Europe is completely self-sufficient. Europe is fully able to originate and create just about anything it wants. And Europe has the world’s most successful currency – the Euro in 20 some years has gained in value that’s almost beyond imagination. And they have done this without direct sovereign backup, and with a central bank barred by law to buy government bonds and bail any country out.
On the third point of this triangle, we are seeing the continued disintegration of a mighty USA. A country proven incapable of sound governance, national unwillingness to solve problems, lowering and just about every standard of human quality and achievement, yet continue to spend national treasure to maintain a military empire the world no longer wants or needs.
Like or Dislike:
2 
2
14th November 2010 at 8:59 pm
Novista says:
And FDR fits in that pantheon, Jim.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
14th November 2010 at 7:45 am
Welshman says:
When Nixon gave Mao the keys to the U.S.A., he unlocked globalization and our sad future.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0
14th November 2010 at 12:32 pm