The Turnings, Part 3: The Unraveling

There are four turnings in the saeculum, just as there are four seasons in a year. The High is like the spring; the Awakening like the summer; and the Unraveling correlates to the fall/autumn. Autumn is when stuff starts to die (leaves, flowers, etc), and as the days grow shorter, darkness comes to dominate light.

During an Unraveling, the institutions criticized during the Awakening are rejected entirely my portions of the population (Nomads, mostly). Individualism peaks. Narcissism transitions to nihilism. Society devolves into a low state of trust.as the Nomads, undervalued as children, reach adulthood in a state of alienation and cynicism. Crime rises while necessary solutions to the problems introduced in previous turnings are deferred. The problems grow worse as the can is kicked down the road, guaranteeing they will build into an existential crisis. Culture wars flare up and the population begins to polarize.

As I've mentioned before, it might not be possible to precisely apply Strauss and Howe's generational theory to the historical accounts of the Bible, for a couple reasons. Nevertheless, I wonder if an entire saeculum might be documented in the Books of Samuel. Here's my hypothesis:

Samuel reached adulthood during a High. The Awakening began just prior to the Israelites losing the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines, and climaxed with their rejection of theocracy (demanding a human king, like the heathen nations).

The Crisis likely began when Samuel died, and entered its climax when Saul consulted the witch of Endor. The resolution of the crisis, then, was the period from the death of Saul to the coronation of David and his occupation of Jerusalem. Afterwards was another High, during which the Ark was brought to Jerusalem and David accumulated all the material for the Temple.

Therefore, the Unraveling began with the anointing of Saul as the first King of Israel, and lasted until the death of Samuel.

Kings and kingdoms are referred to interchangeably in the Bible. When the King is wicked, his wickedness rolls downhill and infects the nation. When a King is righteous, the nation receives God's blessings along with their leader. So, since God himself rarely makes distinction between a nation and its leader, then King Saul's personal unraveling was likely a microcosm of the Unraveling that took place throughout Israel during that time.

Just as autumn can start out pleasant, with mild weather and an explosion of bright colors in the trees, the last Unraveling in the USA began during the "Morning in America" period, guided by the confident optimism of President Reagan (GI Generation/Barn-Raiser) and his economic rebound. The explosion of color didn't come just from pop culture like Miami Vice, but from the neon clothes worn by Generation X, who definitely liked to party; but surprised everyone by how hard they worked. (Though considered "slackers" by the Silent and Boom when teenagers; we had to work much harder than they did to acquire some of the blessings they enjoyed and took for granted when they were our age.) We could also be considered colorful for our unprecedented racial harmony.

It did seem pleasant, at first. I remember thinking a great life lay ahead of me when I left my parents to go see the world for myself. But the damage done to our culture and economy during the previous turnings wasn't repaired--it was made worse. Inflation, college tuition, and the tax burden for young individuals would skyrocket during the late '80s and throughout the '90s. Wages didn't keep pace, but actually fell (when adjusted for inflation). With NAFTA and other destructive policy, most of the remaining manufacturing jobs were exported to America's enemies. But that didn't bother Boomers, Silents, or GIs. They voted for politicians who increased their own entitlements, while saddling X with the cost. Politicians of every age were also shielded from the consequences of their economic incompetence (or perhaps quite competent and deliberate sabotage).

GIs and Silents still clung to their institutions with blind faith. Boomers disparaged them and cried out for reform. X/13ers would have preferred to destroy most institutions outright. Institutions may have benefitted people in the past; but they were just more obstacles, hindrances, and hassles for us. And life had more than enough of all three in our experience. Our suspicion and contempt sometimes extended even to the institutions of family and the Church.

X turned the '90s into a violent decade. The prisons overflowed with our peers. What had still been a relatively high-trust society when we were born (outside urban jungles like Chicago, Philadelphia or Detroit, anyway) became a society where you had better lock your door, invest in security systems with video surveillance, and ignore people who appear to have car problems on the side of the road.

And the culture wars began in earnest.

During the Awakening, fornication, adultery, divorce, and infanticide were normalized. After removing the stigma from those sexual sins in our erstwhile Christian republic, the cultural svengalis ramped up their game, rubbing sodomy in our faces at every turn. After normalization came glorification.

The racial harmony of just years before began breaking down under a divide-and-conquer strategy (labelled "diversity"). White heterosexual males became the scapegoats or villains of every narrative; and would eventually come to reciprocate the resentment and hostility.

Strauss and Howe decided that America entered the Fourth Turning circa 2008. It's hard to argue with that. When autumn transitions to winter, the weather turns bitter and death hangs over the landscape. In 2008-9 some of the disastrous economic policies of the previous turnings were coming home to roost (but, typically, the architects of the disaster shielded themselves from the effects, at the expense of those who were already the hardest-hit victims of it, while posing as the victims' advocates).

Starting in Kindergarten, American children (Millennials) were taught to hate their country, deny God, and accept sexual depravity as normal. Neighbors and co-workers hated each other knowing nothing about one another, except their skin color. Identity politics had installed in the White House the most brazen Marxist yet, who would play the race card at every opportunity and divide the country to a degree not seen since the Bleeding Kansas period. We had transitioned from a culture war to a cold civil war. All the burning resentment built up in previous decades was focused on each other, instead of the ones responsible for the core problems.

It's sad how predictable this all was.

The Turnings, Part 2: the Awakening

 The 2nd Turning in a saeculum corresponds to the summer. The warming trend that makes the spring so pleasant continues, making the summer somewhat uncomfortable due to the heat. So it is with an Awakening. People begin to question and defy existing institutions, attitudes, and traditions. Prodigals, who enter rising adulthood (20-40) during an Awakening focus inward, rather than forward. They are typically selfish and self-obsessed. A gaping generation gap appears between them and their Barn-Raiser parents. Having been raised with maximum indulgence, the "younger generation" of narcissists reject the conformity of their predecessors, only to adopt an attitude of extreme entitlement. They see themselves as visionaries, and as more "conscious"--and therefore more important--than everyone else. Including their own children. Their focus on self, and on "consciousness" lead them into quests for spiritualism.

In the book of Judges, if not all the historic books of the Old Testament, I think many Awakenings are documented. In my opinion, every period in which the Israelites chased after foreign gods was probably an Awakening.

In particular, the account of Samson strikes me as occurring in the late stages of an Awakening. The culture in Israel (specifically in Dan) had already embraced pagan religion, and by the time Samson was born, that had progressed to its logical conclusion: rule by heathens. Samson was a spoiled brat who rejected the council of his indulgent parents. He bossed them around, instead. He was gifted with an access to spiritual power none of us have enjoyed. The manifestation of that power through him, superficially, makes us think of him as strong and masculine. Yet he was dominated by women throughout his tenure as a judge. Females "wore the pants" in his life. His weakness was rather sickening, and tragic. The gift he was granted at birth was magnificent. And all he had to do was uphold his Nazerite vow to keep it. By the end of his life, he had pissed it all away.

The last Awakening America went through began with the JFK assassination and ended during the "Morning in America" period of the early-to-mid 1980s. It included the "Summer of Love;" the moon mission, the Vietnam debacle, Watergate, the Civil Rights movement, the sexual revolution, civil unrest and domestic terrorism.

The Boomers followed the pattern, and actually pushed the boundaries. Probably the most spoiled, indulged children in history; they grew up to be the most ungrateful adults, with the most dramatic generation gap between themselves and their fathers. They questioned and defied institutions like never before--most notably, the Draft. But they despised more than just that institution, including gender norms, marriage, and the family itself. (Of course those are even more despised today, but the slippery slope began in the Awakening.)

While the generation gap widened, the gender gap narrowed. Masculinity was reviled, in men. Males grew their hair out long like women; music featured male vocalists singing in ever-higher voices; sodomy came out of the closet and was celebrated. Young females became as promiscuous as the worst of men in previous times, burned their bras in public, demanded "liberation" from roles as wives and mothers, and increasingly sought their own careers and traditionally masculine pastimes like sports. They cut their hair short, wore business suits, and preferred masculine (or at least androgynous) nicknames.

They took birth control to avoid having children, then aborted children who were conceived, anyway. They got abortion "legalized" via a ruling by a cultural Marxist Supreme Court, which has been treated as law ever since. What children were actually born to them were undervalued, neglected, or abandoned. To compensate for this "baby bust," left-wing activists in government opened the floodgates to the largest, most prolonged invasion in history. Since 1965, the red carpet has been rolled out for hordes of foreigners who value neither our culture, our once-predominant faith, nor our freedom. It was inevitable that, given their unabashed lust for dominance, and our timid "inclusive" philosophy and appeasement, they would one day rule over us, demanding of us the assimilation we never demanded of them.

Rising spiritual awareness led the Boomers to experiment with "mind-expanding" drugs and/or dabble in eastern mysticism/pagan religions, on the quest for "Nirvana" or a "higher plane of consciousness." And within Christianity, they became "Jesus Freaks"--often personalizing their concept of the Savior into an effeminate, pacifist hippie space cadet whose only objectives were peace and love--as Boomers defined it. In other words, their picture of Jesus was nearly identical to their own self-image.

It has been rightly noted that Boomers can't take credit for the Apollo missions. To be fair, neither can they be blamed for Vietnam. However, their reaction to the indecisive, pointless intervention in Vietnam, and Watergate, and Roe v. Wade, etc. has had long-term effects on America to this day, and spurred on the Unraveling.

The Turnings, Part 1: the High

 A "saeculum" is a period of 80-100 years, or roughly equivalent to a (currently) long human life. It comprises four "turnings." A saeculum is a historical cycle that repeats.

Strauss and Howe suggested we could look at history not as a two-dimensional circle that simply spins in place over and over, but as a three-dimensional spiral. I think of it as a spiral, because even though history keeps spinning along through the turnings in the same sequence, and the cycle of archetypes keeps producing generations  (in the same sequence) that generally fit those archetypes, there are linear trends that continue through the spiral of history that make certain qualities of the eras and generations unique.

One of the linear trends is the advance of technology. Another one is wrapped up in gender relations/gender identity/gender confusion. Careful researchers like Strauss and Howe can examine two Barn-Raiser generations like the GIs and Millennials, for instance, and point to several characteristics in the peer personality that are the same. However, stepping back from the trees to look at the forest, the culture of those two generations are radically different. Average members of one could probably never accept what the other was comfortable with.

Christians should not be mystified by this. The god of this world/age grows more powerful all the time. As his power grows, the world becomes more corrupt, and sin more ubiquitous.

I like to compare turnings to seasons. There are four seasons every year; and four turnings every saeculum--always in the same sequence. We can't predict what the exact temperature will be on a given day in the future; but we know winter will be cold; summer will be hot; leaves will change color and die in the autumn; rain will fall and flowers bloom in the spring.

In a saeculum, the High equates to the spring. In spring, the weather transitions to a more pleasant condition. What died in the winter is either reborn, or replaced with new life. Living things grow and prosper. So it is with a High: Economies recover. Wars end and the troops come home. Optimism and confidence permeate society. Old institutions are either rebuilt or replaced. People enjoy peace and material affluence--rising adults (Custodians) live much better than their parents did. They marry young and start building families.

Again, I may miss the mark when offering examples from the Bible because:

1.Strauss/Howe's turnings and archetypes were identified from looking at American history.

2. The USA didn't exist in Biblical times.

3. The average lifespan varied in some Biblical saeculi.

With those caveats in mind, the generation that had not reached fighting age by the time Joshua's Holy Land campaign ended, entered rising adulthood (age 20-40) during a High. They enjoyed peace and prosperity, for the most part. Their primary mission was to maintain and preserve the institution(s) passed down from Moses, Aaron, and Joshua. The priesthood and the Law were two obvious institutions. Obviously, those sheltered, overprotected Custodians didn't do such a great job.

Another High might be after Saul died and David finally took the throne. Solomon's reign, though, is probably a better example of a High. The immediate post-Flood and post-Tower eras were probably similar to the American Highs in some respects. When the last of the apostles died off, and their disciples took charge of the Church, that might be considered a high. The same goes for when Constantine legalized Christianity.

Our Biblical picture of what the Millennium will be like is sketchy; but from what we do know, it sounds like a High to me. The absolute highest High ever. Then once we enter eternity, I doubt there will be a cycle of turnings at all. High for the saved; Crisis for the unsaved. Forever.

The last American High was the postwar era. You could mark the beginning at V-J Day and the end at the JFK assassination. Some might locate it between 1946 and 1965...or some other span that covers many of the same years.

While the Silent Generation (Custodian) entered rising adulthood, the GIs (Barn-Raiser) entered midlife, the Boomers (Prodigal) were still children, the Lost (Nomad) reached elderhood, and the Missionaries (Prodigal) began dying off.

Good-paying jobs were plentiful. Housing and college tuition was affordable. Middle-class neighborhoods were safe. Police protected and served. Families were strong and stable. Men looked outward and forward, stewarding society and posterity. A normal guy with a normal job could buy a nice house and pay it off quickly; raise a family with the wife remaining home to raise the kids; take them all on vacations every summer; put the kids through college; retire in midlife and live comfortably off his pension (luxuriously when his ballooning Social Security checks were added to it). Everything became increasingly convenient for them.

Young people really had nothing substantive to rebel against, but some tried to rebel all the same. Rock & roll and hot rods were part of that.

The Korean War was an ugly blip on the societal radar. It lasted almost as long as WWII, but only because it wasn't taken as seriously. Prosecution of the war was indecisive, and the supreme commander got into trouble for seeking decisive victory as he and everyone else had done in the previous war (during the Crisis). Of course, the Korean war was ostensibly fought by Americans to stop the very force that the previous war was fought to benefit; but that political dynamic fits perfectly within the generational one.

Outside of that, average Americans enjoyed peace during the High.

Also, society hit peak conformity.

As we know from the Bible, it's when people enjoy blessings of peace and prosperity that they turn their backs on God. It was no different in the USA.

If the cycle holds, the next High should begin circa 2030.