What Do I Think About the Fourth Turning?

Believe it or not, the most frequently asked question I get from readers is what I think of William Strauss and Neil Howe’s book The Fourth Turning. I’ve never read it, though am familiar with their generational archetype thesis via their 1992 book Generations.

I gather that their idea is that American history has been a series of 80-year cycles made up of four turnings that take it through crisis to resolution. It’s a more cyclical idea of history rather than a linear one.

While I don’t have an opinion on their book, I do think there has been a pattern of institutional resets in America roughly every 75-80 years. This is not because of cycles, but because of changes in conditions that have produced crises which the old institutional arrangements were incapable of addressing. I think this is pretty obvious and something that has been seen by many people.

The Three Americas

Since America became an independent country, we’ve essentially had three major American institutional and governance systems. America 1.0 was created during the Revolutionary period, from the time preceding the Declaration up through the ratification of the Constitution, roughly 1775 to 1789. Extend this to 1791 to take in the Bill of Rights if you’d like.

America 2.0 was a product of the Civil War period and was a response to festering problems not resolved by the America 1.0’s institutional arrangements, especially slavery. The question of the relationship of the states to the federal government was also an open question. This was settled by the Civil War, which established the supremacy of the Union government. The abolition of slavery and provision of basic rights to freed blacks was settled by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. This was roughly the 1860-1870 period.

The post-Civil War era saw large scale industrialization that changed the country, producing massive corporations on a scale never before seen, as well as mass urbanization. The produced its own set of challenges that came to the fore in the Great Depression, where large numbers of those who did the right things - worked hard, went to church, formed families, avoided drunkenness - found themselves suffering and unemployed. World War II and then the Cold War were existential external crises for the country. These events led to America 3.0 as defined by the New Deal and postwar institutions (NATO, the UN, the IMF, etc) from roughly 1933-1948.

There have been three major amendments or changes to America 3.0: the Civil Rights laws of the 1964, the environment laws of 1970-72, and the globalization laws of the 1990s. These set the stage of the world we largely inhabit today.

We can debate various aspects of this. How should immigration law be treated, for example? Some people also have alternate frameworks. Christopher Caldwell, for example, sees the Civil Rights revolution as the key breaking point, creating a second constitution that is now supplanting our original one. But I think the idea of America 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 holds up well. (I think other people have even used this exact nomenclature).

We are now almost 80 years on from the end of World War II. Thus, if the pattern holds, we are due for an America 4.0, or another reset of our institutions designed to address the realities of the 21st century.

Institutional Resets Are Authentically Part of the American Political Tradition

Looking back at these three American institutional set-ups, we can see that the idea of a major institutional reset or refresh is authentically part of the American political tradition. Hence there is no need to appeal to any justification beyond that.

A lot of today’s discourse on the right is dominated by people who, in one way or another, seem to reject the American political tradition and think that we need to make a major break from it. We see this in people who call themselves “post-liberals” or “Catholic integralists.” Some of the national conservatism discourse also seems to suggest rejecting certain elements of the American past.

But making major changes in the American system of governance and institutions to meet new crises and realities has always been something America has done. It’s not necessary to call yourself a post-liberal to say that America 3.0’s institutions and legal frameworks are no longer serving the country well today, for example. That’s especially true if, as I believe, we see that the term “liberalism” basically functions as a shorthand for “the American cultural and political tradition.”

I do think we need major institutional and governance changes. Where I differ from others is that I think about this as operating well within the American tradition. We don’t need outside justification or foreign ideologies to create a fully authentic and legitimate American solution to the challenges we face today.

Will There Be an America 4.0?

Will we, fourth turning style, see the emergence of an America 4.0 in the near future? Only time will tell.

When I look back at the three previous American institutional systems, I see some distinguishing features compared to today.

Firstly, the three previous systems were a product of existential crises, either foreign (the Revolution, World War II, the Cold War) or domestic (slavery, the Depression). While we have a lot of very serious problems in America, we do not have a crisis comparable to any of those. Nor do we see such a crisis building. Perhaps a debt crisis or some type of foreign disaster such as a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan that militarily humiliates the United States could happen. There’s always room for Black Swans. But right now we aren’t in the middle of anything like that.

Simply put, today’s challenges are not comparable to the Civil War, the Great Depression, or World War II. This is one reason I argue against apocalyptic thinking. Undoubtedly the US has faced far worse moments in the past than it does today, even if I find various trends today disturbing.

The absence of a genuine existential crisis argues against the near term emergence of America 4.0. This is actually a problem not just for thinkers on the right but also on the left, who haven’t been able to find a justification for the radical overhauls they want to implement. This is one reason why they keep hyping climate change as the apocalypse, despite the fact that it is manageable from a US perspective. They need a crisis to push through their desired reset.

Secondly, unlike the previous systems, we have made major modifications to America 3.0 that have dealt with some of the problems that might have otherwise destabilized it. These have come with their own problems, but did work well in their initial objectives. There seems to be a strong preference among the current generations of leaders for patching the system rather than the kinds of wholesale institutional and governance changes made by yesterday’s leaders.

On the other hand, when the Boomers pass on, and other generations who aren’t as wedded to America 3.0 actually do run things, perhaps they will be willing to make more fundamental change.

Whatever happens to America 3.0, to answer my most frequent FAQ, I have not read The Fourth Turning, but I do find the idea of periodic institutional refreshes valid but not especially insightful. If I were to give one lesson from this, it would be for the right to appeal for a major institutional and governance reset from within the American tradition rather than from outside of it.