Neil Howe is the author, along with William Strauss, of “Generations,” “The Fourth Turning” and “Millennials Rising.”
The headlines this month have been alarming. “Steve Bannon’s obsession with a dark theory of history should be worrisome” (Business Insider). “Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable” (the Huffington Post). “Steve Bannon Wants To Start World War III” (the Nation). A common thread in these media reports is that President Trump’s chief strategist is an avid reader and that the book that most inspires his worldview is “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.”
I wrote that book with William Strauss back in 1997. It is true that Bannon is enthralled by it. In 2010, he released a documentary, “Generation Zero,” that is structured around our theory that history in America (and by extension, most other modern societies) unfolds in a recurring cycle of four-generation-long eras. While this cycle does include a time of civic and political crisis — a Fourth Turning, in our parlance — the reporting on the book has been absurdly apocalyptic.
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I don’t know Bannon well. I have worked with him on several film projects, including “Generation Zero,” over the years. I’ve been impressed by his cultural savvy. His politics, while unusual, never struck me as offensive. I was surprised when he took over the leadership of Breitbart and promoted the views espoused on that site. Like many people, I first learned about the alt-right (a far-right movement with links to Breitbart and a loosely defined white-nationalist agenda) from the mainstream media. Strauss, who died in 2007, and I never told Bannon what to say or think. But we did perhaps provide him with an insight — that populism, nationalism and state-run authoritarianism would soon be on the rise, not just in America but around the world.
Because we never attempted to write a political manifesto, we were surprised by the book’s popularity among certain crusaders on both the left and the right. When “The Fourth Turning” came out, our biggest partisan fans were Democrats, who saw in our description of an emerging “Millennial generation” (a term we coined) the sort of community-minded optimists who would pull America toward progressive ideals. Yet we’ve also had conservative fans, who were drawn to another lesson: that the new era would probably see the successful joining of left-wing economics with right-wing social values.
Beyond ideology, I think there’s another reason for the rising interest in our book. We reject the deep premise of modern Western historians that social time is either linear (continuous progress or decline) or chaotic (too complex to reveal any direction). Instead we adopt the insight of nearly all traditional societies: that social time is a recurring cycle in which events become meaningful only to the extent that they are what philosopher Mircea Eliade calls “reenactments.” In cyclical space, once you strip away the extraneous accidents and technology, you are left with only a limited number of social moods, which tend to recur in a fixed order.
Along this cycle, we can identify four “turnings” that each last about 20 years — the length of a generation. Think of these as recurring seasons, starting with spring and ending with winter. In every turning, a new generation is born and each older generation ages into its next phase of life.
The cycle begins with the First Turning, a “High” which comes after a crisis era. In a High, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, even if many feel stifled by the prevailing conformity. Many Americans alive today can recall the post-World War II American High (historian William O’Neill’s term), coinciding with the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy presidencies. Earlier examples are the post-Civil War Victorian High of industrial growth and stable families, and the post-Constitution High of Democratic Republicanism and Era of Good Feelings.
The Second Turning is an “Awakening,” when institutions are attacked in the name of higher principles and deeper values. Just when society is hitting its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of all the social discipline and want to recapture a sense of personal authenticity. Salvation by faith, not works, is the youth rallying cry. One such era was the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Some historians call this America’s Fourth or Fifth Great Awakening, depending on whether they start the count in the 17th century with John Winthrop or the 18th century with Jonathan Edwards.
The Third Turning is an “Unraveling,” in many ways the opposite of the High. Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. Third Turning decades such as the 1990s, the 1920s and the 1850s are notorious for their cynicism, bad manners and weak civic authority. Government typically shrinks, and speculative manias, when they occur, are delirious.
Finally, the Fourth Turning is a “Crisis” period. This is when our institutional life is reconstructed from the ground up, always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. If history does not produce such an urgent threat, Fourth Turning leaders will invariably find one — and may even fabricate one — to mobilize collective action. Civic authority revives, and people and groups begin to pitch in as participants in a larger community. As these Promethean bursts of civic effort reach their resolution, Fourth Turnings refresh and redefine our national identity. The years 1945, 1865 and 1794 all capped eras constituting new “founding moments” in American history.
Just as a Second Turning reshapes our inner world (of values, culture and religion), a Fourth Turning reshapes our outer world (of politics, economy and empire).
In our paradigm, one can look ahead and suggest that a coming time period — say, a certain decade — will resemble, in its essential human dynamic, a time period in the past. In “The Fourth Turning,” we predicted that, starting around 2005, America would probably experience a “Great Devaluation” in financial markets, a catalyst that would mark America’s entry into an era whose first decade would likely parallel the 1930s.
Reflecting on the decade we’ve just lived through, we can probably agree that the 1930s parallel works well. In the economy, both decades played out in the shadow of a global financial crash, and were characterized by slow and disappointing economic growth and chronic underemployment of labor and capital. Both saw tepid investment, deflation fears, growing inequality and the inability of central bankers to rekindle consumption.
In geopolitics, we’ve witnessed the rise of isolationism, nationalism and right-wing populism across the globe. Geostrategist Ian Bremmer says we now live in a “G-Zero” world, where it’s every nation for itself. This story echoes the 1930s, which witnessed the waning authority of great-power alliances and a new willingness by authoritarian regimes to act with terrifying impunity.
In social trends, the two decades also show parallels: falling rates of fertility and homeownership, the rise of multi-generational households, the spread of localism and community identification, a dramatic decline in youth violence (a fact that apparently has eluded the president), and a blanding of pop youth culture. Above all, we sense a growing desire among voters around the world for leaders to assert greater authority and deliver deeds rather than process, results rather than abstractions.
We live in an increasingly volatile and primal era, in which history is speeding up and liberal democracy is weakening. As Vladimir Lenin wrote, “In some decades, nothing happens; in some weeks, decades happen.” Get ready for the creative destruction of public institutions, something every society periodically requires to clear out what is obsolete, ossified and dysfunctional — and to tilt the playing field of wealth and power away from the old and back to the young. Forests need periodic fires; rivers need periodic floods. Societies, too. That’s the price we must pay for a new golden age.
If we look at the broader rhythms of history, we have reason to be heartened, not discouraged, by these trends. Anglo-American history over the past several centuries has experienced civic crises in a fairly regular cycle, about every 80 or 90 years, or roughly the length of a long human life. This pattern reveals itself in the intervals separating the colonial Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II. Fast-forward the length of a long human life from the 1930s, and we end up where we are today.
America entered a new Fourth Turning in 2008. It is likely to last until around 2030. Our paradigm suggests that current trends will deepen as we move toward the halfway point.
Further adverse events, possibly another financial crisis or a major armed conflict, will galvanize public opinion and mobilize leaders to take more decisive action. Rising regionalism and nationalism around the world could lead to the fragmentation of major political entities (perhaps the European Union) and the outbreak of hostilities (perhaps in the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, the Baltic states or the Persian Gulf).
Despite a new tilt toward isolationism, the United States could find itself at war. I certainly do not hope for war. I simply make a sobering observation: Every total war in U.S. history has occurred during a Fourth Turning, and no Fourth Turning has yet unfolded without one. America’s objectives in such a war are likely to be defined very broadly.
At the end of the 2020s, the Fourth Turning crisis era will climax and draw to a close. Settlements will be negotiated, treaties will be signed, new borders will be drawn, and perhaps (as in the late 1940s) a new durable world order will be created. Perhaps as well, by the early 2030s, we will enter a new First Turning: Young families will rejoice, fertility will rebound, economic equality will rise, a new middle class will emerge, public investment will grow into a new 21st-century infrastructure, and ordered prosperity will recommence.
During the next First Turning, potentially the next “American High,” millennials will move into national leadership and showcase their optimism, smarts, credentials and confidence. Sometime in the late 2030s, the first millennial will be voted into the White House, prompting talk of a new Camelot moment. Let a few more years pass, and those organization-minded millennials may face a passionate and utterly unexpected onslaught from a new crop of youth.
Welcome to the next Awakening. The cycle of history keeps turning, inexorably.
Neil Howe is the author, along with William Strauss, of “Generations,” “The Fourth Turning” and “Millennials Rising.”
Except for the fact a new total war with the weaponscwe have now leaves much of the world uninhabitable. Now factor in a few extra fukushimasfor the plants damaged that melt down Iin the next total war. Incomplete picture with unicorns at the end. Except they are actually mutated violent man eating horses of the apocalypse. Four of them in fact.
Blowing up cities with nukes accomplishes nothing except giving yourself a mess to clean up. Imagine instead a drove vs. tank, drone vs. truck war. A cheap self-guiding 5 or 10 pound drone takes out a multi-million dollar tank, or the truck that carries supplies to it. A C-130 full of drones takes out a tank division.
We’re also able to share information at the speed of light to all corners of the globe, which is unprecedented in human civilization. Why is it TPTB feel that they need public support for their wars, and why is it a false flag precedes it, including 9/11?
We don’t have an incomplete picture, given the book of revelations. It’s complete, however, we must remain vigilant. G/L eating horse meat.
What happens to life on this planet when nuclear reactors are nuked? I think people are still thinking of the trifling radiation from the bombs.
“Forests need periodic fires; rivers need periodic floods. Societies, too. That’s the price we must pay for a new golden age.”
The longer I hang out here and read and post the more I realize this blog is aptly named. A fire rages under the surface here too. I wonder what it will reveal? A golden age? Time will tell.
I am not so certain that the enemy will be China, Russia or even Iran.
_________________________________________
The current attacks on Russia. The forced bankruptcy of Greece with the fake currency call the euro. The destruction of Libya. The poisonous linking of Turkey to Europe. The destruction of Serbia. The attack on Syria.
___ All more of the same old war of Islam against Europe. With Russia unable to help Greece and instead of having to fight the battle in Syria it looks like this time around Islam will win its war on Europe.
___ Russia has been outflanked in the Balkins as well.
___ Step back a little farther.
___ The destruction of Lebanon and the positioning of Israel right there to take every bodies minds off of what is really happening.
___ Who has been running our government for the last 70 years anyway?
Liberals. Just as Howe says, it’s the people who grew up in the late 60s through the mid 80s who are the bureaucrats. They are the leaks about President Trump btw.
If we survive this Fourth Turning, the USA will be an authoritarian state. In an age when anyone with a grudge can kill thousands or even millions, it makes sense to have a complete surveillance state, more terrible than Oceania for many but a Brave New World dystopia for the top 15% or so. Only thing to do I see is to be in the top 15 or 20 percent.
Excellent article, however thermodynamic energy decline renders our next First Turning impossible without the discovery of some Star Trek energy source.
Grow more food.
Friendly, here is a jolly thought for today. If the 4th Turning war wipes out 3/4 of the world’s population, our energy crisis goes away for a generation or two or three.
You are right however, we should grow more food as long as it is healthy, non-industrial food.
Yes, Strauss and Howe are basically liberals, so they are not going to notice the importance of resource depletion and drought in causing the collapse of societies. They are also not going to notice that all societies, in their latter days, feature increasing political and cultural roles for women and professional athletes, and an increasingly intrusive role for government. So their work is quite interesting, but you have to be aware of all the stuff they are not noticing….
“Strauss and Howe are basically liberals, so they are not going to notice the importance of resource depletion and drought in causing the collapse of societies. ”
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It’s certain Strauss will not notice, because he’s dead (2007). It’s a shame he isn’t still around to see how well received his work has been become.
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It dawned on me that Trump’s vision for the country is simply the “High” of a First Turning. Call it a MAGA High. Instead, he is going to have to navigate a Fourth Turning as an embattled Gray Champion, trying to extinguish blazes on a thousand fronts before they finally burst into a deadly conflagration. If he makes it for the next four years, I predict he will have become a very old man.
It’s the job for which he signed up.
“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor 3:5 ESV)
If technologies such as 3-D printing and bio-engineering, among others, make it possible for individuals and small, self-interested groups to accomplish what could formerly be done only by continental governments and large corporations, it seems to me that large scale social institutions become obsolete. In which case, the “forth turning” may be nothing more than the demise of large scale social institutions and their replacement with “letting a 1,000 flowers bloom” in the form of massive political and economic decentralization. This is the “forth turning” I look forward to.
Here’s your “forth coming”:
…this is already occurring with large retail stores and shopping centers. It is just as convenient to order products from your home, for fast delivery.
This is why so much of America is FAT! Delivery! Walk to shop, pick up your own pizza or cook at home. Try and enjoy sit down meals. Support ma&pa main st.
Today I taught (not without her yelling) our oldest to use a jack, chock the tire, change a tire. She also learned how to check the oil, and preformed an oil change(this is where the yelling began. Didn’t tell her the filter drips) Classic.
Mr Spicoli? Why are you always late to my class? I don’t know…..
“I don’t know” I’m gonna leave that on this board all day so you get full credit!”
All right!!!!
Indeed, a society of small holders is the most anti-fragile of all, but a large fraction of the Earth’s population will need to disappear before such an idyllic situation occurs.
Just what the New World Order & One World Government orders.
Cain, the first murderer, was the first to build cities in order to control people more easily. That’s also the goal of the NWO.
In the previous turnings the world still had some elbow room. Thanks to oil we now have a vastly overpopulated globe, making the events to unfold that much more horrific.
Nope, the earth is not overpopulated at all. Population centers got larger for quite a while, but the need for concentrated population has been eased a lot, mainly due to oil, and the increased efficiency provided by technological advances.
In the 60’s it was unusual for people to work an hour’s drive from where they lived. Now it’s common.
Nice summary of the Fourth Turning,
great post, thanks Admin.
attempting to draw conclusion based on the behavior of the psychopathic elite will only leave you frustrated.
humans are not rational beings.
I’m feeling old and tired (at only 51) and am so not up to this Fourth Turning thing that’s coming. I bought a little hobby farm in ’95 and I’m just going to try to sit this out to the greatest extent that I can.
I hear ya! (59 here) But I hate to tell you that crime is increasing even in rural areas. I recently heard of a murder on a farm an hour’s drive away from Wichita, KS: A gang of youth meth addicts who drove out into the countryside looking for easy daytime burglary targets surprised a farmer who turned out to be in his house, rather than out in his fields, at that particular moment. Killed him.
I’m not a fan of the apocalyptic fiction genre — have only read two or three such novels in my life — but one of them was John Wesley Rawles’s “Survivors” (
One of the things in the book that struck me as spot-on was that the vicious, completely amoral drug gangs in the big cities, who are heavily armed, are not just going to sit tight and starve when the SHTF. Nope, they’ll fan out into the countryside — just as happened in real life recently. And the S hasn’t even HTF yet.
Good luck with that when the urban zombies come for fresh meat.
The golden horde is no match for the suburbs, neighborhoods will band together, and the National Guard will control key intersections. I wouldn’t want to get caught in the city without security, or anywhere, for that matter.
Get a gun, get training, and invest in the 3 b’s, bread, bullets, and bandages.
If you can ride out the first few weeks, you’re more likely to survive the first few months, and years.
As each of the last 3 Fourth Turnings have shown, technology actually magnified the severity of each crisis.
Therefore, I tend to believe that technology cannot be “stripped away” when considering the potential outcome of our current Fourth Turning crisis.
On the contrary, I am of the opinion that technology will be a major factor in what separates this Fourth Turning from the previous crisis periods in American history: In both overall severity and the ensuing ramifications / outcome.
In Strauss & Howe’s book, they acknowledge Fourth Turnings don’t always bring about positive outcomes.
Although I don’t wish to be a “doom porn purveyor”, I do believe it would be unwise to automatically assume this Fourth Turning will bring about a positive future for America, or the world in general.
In previous turnings, Americans were rugged, self-reliant and liberty minded. This is a far cry from today’s Snowflake Generation raised on a steady diet of political correctness and Marxism.
Moreover, today’s technology far exceeds that of any previous Fourth Turning. Especially when considering the potential for mass extermination, surveillance and societal control over everything from food distribution to energy to daily communications.
Just some things to think about and discuss while we still can; and before any of the forthcoming and inevitable anal secretions collide with the centrifugally oscillating blades of this turning’s fan.
BTW – although “centrifugally oscillating” fan blades may seem to paradoxically challenge known physics, keep in mind how technology could make this turning different. It may be necessary to take the wheel and start traveling outside of normal channels. When it comes to “cycles”, perhaps it’s important to steer clear of well worn paths so they don’t becomes ruts.
Think about it. When Bluto said the “Germans bombed Pearl Harbor”, he may have simply misspoke, or he may have had limited knowledge of history. Either way, did it really matter?
Never forget who is the real enemy.
And in the here and now, it sure as hell ain’t the Ruskies!
“In previous turnings, Americans were rugged, self-reliant and liberty minded. This is a far cry from today’s Snowflake Generation raised on a steady diet of political correctness and Marxism.”
This is what makes me so very nervous. We’ve largely lost that most basic of human virtues, deferred self-gratification. In every society that’s ever existed, there have always been some individuals with no self-discipline or impulse control, but now we have a whole society that has largely lost the ability to tolerate discomfort and hardship. When the power goes out, it’s gonna be ugly.
Fear the Millennials!
Somewhat in defense of the ‘Snowflake Generation’ – consider that they want some version of success as much as any earlier group. The school environment itself is what defines political correctness and Marxism as success, the kids just do what is rewarded. Intelligence, originality, skepticism, and even Maleness are punished right out of the kids by age 10. Who teaches the snowflakes spinelessness ? They’re much more to blame, more than the snowflakes themselves.
P Snowflake
American parents are to blame for not cutting that commie crap off at the knees when it started. Schools should have been overrun with irate parents demanding somebody’s balls on a platter.
It is not too late to turn it around…government won’t do it for us.
A lot of those parents are commies, too, disguised as progressive liberals.
Wait until they discover the bigger cycles that the fourth turnings fit into.
What cycles would that be HF…….new mini ice age? Glaciers covering productive land could be a little bit of a problem.
Lots of people are obsessed with the 4T book, why I don’t know, everything is cyclical.
There are things left out of their theory that could turn things upside-down.
Bea, that was the funniest of comebacks, I actually felt bad for HF.
EC- I wrote in a thread the other day that the interwebs were rife with “Bannon is Obsessed With the 4T Book and Has Dark Plans” articles and some Howe listed in the above. Looks like some people may distance themselves from Trump & Co. pretty soon due to WAR DRUMS.
Your young family members will pay the price as will mine. Bad JuJu all around.
I didn’t see that but it sounds just like the neo-con obsession with bringing about the second coming of Christ by initiating Armageddon. That’s like pump-priming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Bannon is trying to PREVENT the “bad juju”. But you won’t figure that out.
Riser- In order to help me figure it all out, hows about you put up links that support your opinion that he is trying to PREVENT war. I’m a fair person, change my mind.
Hey, B, sounds like we will be embarking on a new space race. Maybe we can get the moon-men to pay for it.
Since Trumpy likes to make others pay for his projects, he got the Republican party to pay for his campaign, we have limited options as to who we can fight with. Who has money to pay for our war making? China looks good.
El Trumpo just handed the Chinese South America out of stoopidity. I hear they are buying Cali so you may be pulling a rickshaw with a big fat Chinaman carpetbagger on board someday.
No, they won’t bankroll our wars. Stay tuned.
Bannon wants war, true, but not with who you think (Russia). China, maybe…he’s said so openly. But the real war will be another revolutionary war:
“Steve Bannon said some scary shit, didn’t he? (via The Daily Beast):
“I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.
Shocked, I asked him what he meant. “Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.”
From that statement, it’s obvious Bannon has the mindset that meaningful change of the current corrupt system can only happen by burning it down. No amount of “term limits” or “reform” will bring that about.
Failing governments never self-correct.
Riser- that is the lamest shit ever.
I have posted countless times that Bannon guarantees we will go to war with China, two or three times in the last two days.
A Leninist is a Leninist is a Leninist. Aligning yourself with V.I.Lenin only makes me see you as a Marxist BECAUSE nobody would do that unless they were a Marxist.
Destroying the Constitutional government in the vision of Lenin does not make me feel all warm and snuggly Rise. Peddle that goofy shit somewhere else.
Global pandemic is probably cyclical, one could imagine something lethal and antibiotic resistant spreading that would disrupt the 80-year cycles. The 1348 plague in England stopped whatever cycles they had by killing between a third and a half of everyone, it took around 150 years for population numbers to recover.
The best part is, as some of you may recall, the illustrious Admin was in Generation Zero. He did such a fine job, he has his own IMDB page. I am jealous!!!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3851851/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t26
How come it doesn’t show my porn films as Buck Naked?
I’ve seen those, and they came up a little short 🙂
Llpoh demanded that they be taken down. He said he’d rather watch John Wayne Bobbit’s bomb “Uncut” or Michael Douglas’ pasty ass in Fatal Attraction.
Not sure why. Grateful it doesn’t. I’m all out of ‘mind scrubber’.
Yes
They will leave the shitties and come to the country. I have no doubt I will die. However, I will take a few with me. After this, they will learn the meaning of attrition. To know I gave my life, to make their life harder is fine by me. Many good men must die to ensure our race. I will make that sacrifice gladly.
” When “The Fourth Turning” came out, our biggest partisan fans were Democrats, who saw in our description of an emerging “Millennial generation” (a term we coined) the sort of community-minded optimists who would pull America toward progressive ideals. Yet we’ve also had conservative fans, who were drawn to another lesson: that the new era would probably see the successful joining of left-wing economics with right-wing social values…In social trends, the two decades also show parallels: … a dramatic decline in youth violence (a fact that apparently has eluded the president), and a blanding of pop youth culture. ”
Howe seems a little out of touch with reality. I’m beginning to believe William Strauss was the brains behind the 4th Turning.
Flash, both guys are libs, but you’ve got to give the guy credit, his name is on the book.
Back around 1990 james dale davidson and edwin meese mog wrote the “Reckoning” describing how the digital age would affect everything and cause disruptions in bigness in every facet of global life including cheaper and easier terrorism. They did a follow up a few years later. Good reading regarding what some of you have said about technology making this time different.
I prefer a work by P.R. Sakar in describing the 4 ages of a civilization or society that always goes in a predictable order of LABORERS,WARRIORS,INTELLECTUALS,AQUISITORS.
Laborers are self interested lazy sorts who are quickly replaced by a warrior class where honor and integrity and bravery are valued. They gradually bring in intellectuals to help govern who are the priests,teachers, lawyers, beuracrats etc. who take over and are finally replaced by aquisitors who would be merchants, bankers, etc. who eventually run amok with dishonesty, greed etc. reigning supreme until even the intellectuals and laborers succumb to greed and extreme Me-ism with total lack of a moral compass until it degenerates into a short laborer age quickly replaced with warriors. Seems to me like we are at that point.
It seems to me that the authors mixed up the Institutions vs Individuals in the various phases, and therefore got it wrong. And, how does any of that relate to S. Bannon?
Did you read the article? Or just come in here and start commenting?
“A common thread in these media reports is that President Trump’s chief strategist is an avid reader and that the book that most inspires his worldview is “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy.”
Bread & Circuses will continue till our police state cannot be policed any longer and then we as a nation falter into a war civil or otherwise offensive or defensive , it will come , we will fail , it will be ugly ! We must accept the fact that our orginized government has morphed into a theft machine powered by indenture and now there is little left to steal to support it . This results in a climate where doing anything is not worth the effort because of what is stolen from those willing to produce ! All private sector jobs demand more for less and this is government pressures on all the employees and employer unless you are a “public servant” . The enforcement arms of government will bankrupt , evict and starve us so the select few can live out that American Dream never questioning who was destroyed for their benefit ! I suspect a civil war is likely , why else would disarming the population continue federally , state and locally , invest in precious metal “lead & brass !
S&H both foresaw the outline of history and helped to shape it by influencing people like Mr. Bannon. They are hardly alone in seeing cycles in history, as Ibn Khaldun, Arnold Toynbee, Oswald Spengeler and Kondratiev discerned patterns recurring in human affairs over time. One can see them in the Old Testament, too, as the Children of Israel had to ‘get religion’ every so often, after they had been fat and happy long enough to forget Who made that possible. Even my old Greek History prof at Wayne State, Findley Hooper (‘Greek Realities’) saw them operating in the 91 years between Marathon and the trial & execution of Socrates. That said, I don’t see why S&H’s ideas seem so radical, excepting for their application to our society, present & future tense.
If we do emerge from under the rubble of the old order with something new, perhaps a more localized, communitarian ethos, akin to the Chesterton/Belloc ideas of ‘Distributism’ will be the nre normal. If so, that’s fine with me. The argument isn’t about which system produces the most stuff any more; we know who won that one. It’s about how best to live, and giving up that Nth increment of theoretical additional wealth (for those not in poverty) for a more peaceable, just and manageable society where concentrations of inequality, for whatever reason, lead to instability is a trade-off I would be willing to make, as long as it is not coerced from me by Big Brother.
“state-run authoritarianism”
Thanks for the laugh. That’s largely a feature of the extreme left.