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1. […] http://www.shadowsandsymbols.org/?p=85 Post tags: awakenings, Barack Obama, generations, revival, turnings | […]

   Pingback by Shadows and Symbols » At the Dawn of the Fourth Turning? — September 7, 2009 @ 6:35 pm

2. Bill, thanks for this. I basically reread Generations and The Fourth Turning this past January, and I wondered again while reading them how Howe would view this current decade from the standpoint of the present instead of the future, as he did in his two books with Strauss in the 1990’s. This was what I was looking for.

   I recall one of his books as saying that the fourth turning would come with a defining moment. While he didn’t contradict this, he really used the season analogy effectively in this podcast to suggest that the crisis may be mild or strong and may have warmer and colder periods as it progresses. Like winter, it could be cold or warm, wet or dry, but it will be winter. His job is not to predict the kind of winter we’ve just entered but to establish that we are in what he calls a secular (or societal) winter.

   Which answers another one of my questions to him. In this podcast he seems to suggest that winter has indeed begun, and that it may last twenty years or so.

   It gives me such hope to hear him suggest, as he does in his books, that Gen X and the Millennials do not see the world as Boomers do. I know I have a revulsion against the judgmentalism and the infightings of my own generation, and I understand that fourth and first turnings have their own dangers (total war, destruction of democracy, in the first; suppression and an over-reliance on institutions in the second), but I suppose I just want to see and to live in what’s coming next. I feel like I’m living in the death throes of my own generation’s extremes.

   Speaking of which, it was ironic to hear Howe at the end talk about the young generation’s belief in collectivity, strong government, and security and then to hear the song that played next on the podcast: a very Boomeresque parody of big government, comparing it to Sammy Davis’s “Candy Man.”

   Comment by Peter — September 11, 2009 @ 9:30 pm

3. Yes, Neil Howe was no longer saying “get ready for winter” (as he and William Strauss had written more than 10 years ago in “The Fourth Turning”) in this podcast interview. Instead, he was saying that the winter season (the 4th turning) is already here.

   If I recall, though, he never specifically addressed the issue of a “catalyst moment” in this interview. In “The Fourth Turning”, much emphasis was given towards there being a clearly defined catalyst that would bring American society from a 3rd turning (autumn/fall) into the 4th turning (winter).

   Comment by bill-o — September 12, 2009 @ 12:29 pm

4. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who made the “You lie” comment during Pres. Obama’s address last Wednesday, is a member of the Boomer (idealist) generation. He’s 62 years old.

   Comment by bill-o — September 12, 2009 @ 12:32 pm

5. Yeah, I checked Wilson’s age out, too.

   I do recall a catalyst moment emphasis in the two books. Maybe he’d argue that we’ve had it but can’t see it — to close to it in time? I dunno.

   Comment by Peter — September 12, 2009 @ 1:14 pm

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