Truth & The Fourth Turning

Guest Post by Chris Oswald

If you aren’t familiar with the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory of History, I would encourage you to take it up. As people attempt to process the Trump election, a thing many are describing as the most surprising political development in American history, the writings of Strauss and Howe are proving remarkably prescient.

Those familiar with the model are in agreement that the West (and perhaps the entire world) is in the midst of something Strauss and Howe call the Fourth Turning or, The Crisis.

A key feature of the Fourth Turning crisis is the emergence of the Grey Champion. Trump’s ascendency (as Sander’s surprising relevancy) are manifestations of the Grey Champion phenomena. Those who could not understand how three 70 year olds rose to such prominence in this cycle will find a satisfactory explanation in the Grey Champion writings of Stauss-Howe.

Jim Quinn at The Burning Platform does a good job of juxtaposing Trump with Gandalf (a Grey Champion archetype). If you haven’t read his two part post on the subject, I commend it to you now. His thoughts are more extensive and important than mine and what follows is merely supplemental.

Now that I’ve done nearly everything I can to point you to writings better than my own, I will get to the point. Here I am taking up a small but significant detail in the Gandalf arc, the transformation from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White.

Early on in their epoch, Fourth Turning Grey Champions are faced with a choice. Either they will die to their political ego and tell the truth like the Lincoln did in the Civil War Saeculum. Or they will succumb to the allure of quasi-heroic can kicking like FDR did in the Great Power Saeculum.

Such was the choice of Gandalf in the Battle of the Peak. When the Grey Gandalf, a wizard of the Hobbits (the deplorables?) came face to face with the Balrog, a decision had to be made. Would he stand or shrink away? Would he descend in a self-sacrifical melee? Would he die to himself?

In this present crisis, I cannot say what form the Balrog will take. In Tolkein’s work, the Balrog is a fallen entity, previously beautiful but now perverted into various shape-shifting manifestations of power and terror. The Balrog could be classical liberalism now twisted into the rootless fascist rage of the Social Justice Warrior or the Balrog could be classical capitalism now perverted into Wall Street’s formless greed. I suspect it will be a combination of the two. Social Justice Warriors and Wall Street appear to be in contradiction with one another but remember the Balrog is a shapeshifter who fights in fire and in water. Both movements employ circular reasoning and above all, both attempt to bully the culture with the aires of inevitability. To quote another more modern science fiction series, the Balrog postures himself as if to say, “resistance is futile.”

This turning’s Grey Champion will be faced with a choice. He will either fight or flee. He will either tell the truth at great cost or join the Balrog in self-deception.

Quinn writes,

The civic decay already proliferating during and after the election will be exacerbated as bad debt wipes out financial institutions, corporations, and willfully ignorant consumer borrowers. The lesson of 2008 has already been forgotten. Rather than rolling out his grand vision, Trump will be dealing with a financial crisis which will make 2008 look like a walk in Central Park. Will he follow the same failed policies used after 2008 — NIRP, QE, and saving Wall Street at the expense of Main Street?

Or will he level with the American people, allow Wall Street banks to go bankrupt, let the free market purge the system of trillions in bad debt, tackle the unfunded entitlement liabilities, and have Americans endure a Depression in order to reset our economic system? It will take a Grey Champion with a high level of moral fortitude and courage to demand such sacrifice from the citizens of this country.

The third turning (unraveling) involved a series of unveilings that revealed the true state of America’s cultural institutions.

911 and the subsequent terror attacks in America have exposed the tenuousness of our homeland security.

Pedophile priests and the Roman Catholic coverup have exposed the darkness of our sanctuaries.

The proliferation of online pornography and the Ashley Madison hacks exposed the unsoundness of our marriages.

The Iraq debacle ranging from WMD alarmism to Abu Grab to political indecisiveness exposed the many weaknesses of our military industrial complex.

The 2008 housing crisis exposed our financial leaders to be lemmings and our firmest financial segment (housing) to be Papier-mâché.

Ferguson exposed our inner cities to be piles of sweaty dynamite.

Snowden and WikiLeaks exposed our government to be dishonest.

Dozens of reporting scandals exposed our media to be duplicitous.

Such has been the nature of the third turning’s unraveling. We were lied to. Even worse, we lied to ourselves.

The crisis will be resolved in one of two ways:

The Grey Champion may kick the can down the road like FDR, ignore simple math and lull the American people into another 100 year cycle built on self-deception.

Or, quite improbably, the Grey Champion will stand toe to toe with the demon of inevitability and engage in a seemingly suicidal confrontation.

Gandalf the Grey had limited power and may, at least for a time, have kept the Shire good. It took Gandalf the White to make Middle Earth great again.

Qualifiers:

I did not vote for Donald Trump. The raw materials that make him a Grey Champion were the very qualities I found most objectionable. I am not optimistic that he will fight the good fight. Yet one thing is certain, the man does love to fight. Who knows? He certainly has a puncher’s chance.

By emphasizing “Gandalf the White”, I suppose I’ve set myself up to be called an alt-right dog-whistler. To which I would simply respond, “Hello Mr. Balrog, I am not at all surprised to see you here.”

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Alter Boyz
Alter Boyz

ANOTHER 4th Turning essay, mercifully short.

Rename the site to 4th Turning R Us.

Miles Long
Miles Long

Boyz… Wondering why you grace us with your presence & ultimate wit if you so dont enjoy the articles. In the upper left corner of the screen is your back button. Dont be afraid to use it.

Card802
Card802

Boyz is obviously one of those whiny little bitches. You see an article you don’t care to read, you read it anyway, and then bitch about it because it’s there. STFU already.

Unquenchable
Unquenchable

Enjoyed your take on this as well as your elaborations regarding Tolkien, Strauss and Howe and the fractures appearing all throughout middle earth.

For some reason, I keep thinking of Feanor in The Silmarillion, knowing he was soon to die, cursing Morgoth three times while knowing his elves could not prevail in Thangorodrim. Even so, he ordered his sons to keep their oath and seek revenge. And when Feanor dies, the fire of his spirit burnt his body to ashes.

That’s what I keep thinking about.

starfcker
starfcker

Alterboyz, big Jim is getting some internet love these days. Is it not deserved? Did he do better than the networks? Step one in changing from a participation trophy society is to acknowledge truth, and those who deal in it. Anyone can do it. Most right now choose not to. It is deserving of respect. I respect it.

Gerold

Great article, Chris and that’s an excellent listing of the Third Turning’s unravellings.

Watching Amerika’s house burn down from the viewpoint of your Canadian next door neighbor underscores the difference between being great and being civilized. Greece was civilized; Rome was great. You can be one or the other, but not both.

The end of the great Amerikan Empire is sad, more so because it will adversely affect the rest of the neighborhood.

Whether Trump is the Grey Champion as Jim outlines in his excellent series we may not know for certain except in retrospect. Whoever it is has his work cut out for him. Can he make Amerika great again? Being long past the point-of-no-return, I fear not. Lost empires are never regained. The best the Grey Champion can do is soften the blow and let us down gently.

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