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.