Setting an intention for 2024
Reading Neil Howe’s 2023 tome The Fourth Turning is Here was a great endeavor I undertook over the holidays. Yes, caveats abound. I am aware that Steve Bannon uses Howe’s ideas to justify his own nihilist, apocalyptic visions, including his apparent hope to start World War III. It is completely Euro- and America-centric, and lacking in gender analysis, or virtually any appreciation of racial dynamics or insights about identity (ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.) beyond broad generational categories that are full of flattening generalizations. There is literally not one word about how members of non-dominant communities experience the historical trends and social generations he labels and examines; and little to no mention of the climate emergency we are in, despite the book’s main premise—that our society is in a once-in-a-century crisis. And yet—once you get past these many weaknesses and the “party trick” aspect of the book’s approach (well dissected in this 2017 Politico piece from David Greenberg) I still think that Howe’s insights give us much to consider in looking at our current moment.
The basic idea is this: In observing the last six centuries (of Anglo and Anglo-American history), Howe asserts that there is a distinct cycle that helps us understand where we are today, in what he calls a “Fourth Turning” or saecular winter, a time of crisis that we must traverse (likely with a significant conflagration ahead that we must navigate and survive) to shift society into a saecular spring of rebirth and renewal. Whatever your perspective on whether Howe’s theories are hooey, with cherry-picked facts and oversimplified observations about generational traits, the book is full of interesting ideas. Most of all, I think what he says in his Epilogue is worth deep reflection. He writes:
“If avoiding the Fourth Turning is not possible or even desirable, what then should we do?
“We should follow ancient wisdom and conform our behavior to the season. If it’s winter, we should act like it’s winter. We should help our community prepare to be strong in the coming spring while allowing the least possible suffering so long as the storms rage. Though we may not be able to prevent the winter from happening, we are able to make the winter turn out better or worse. But we can’t help at all unless we first acknowledge that winter has indeed arrived. Only then can we see clearly, plan responsibly, and act effectively.”
What Howe is offering, however imperfectly, is a call to action for each of us, in alignment with our generational traits (this aspect is truly fascinating, and one of Howe’s areas of greatest expertise), to play the role we are being called on to play in this crisis, to mitigate the damage and forge a path through. Whether you believe in his (rather alarming) prediction of a conflagration—an Ekpyrosis—that will come to pass in 2032 or 2034 (so specific!!) it is clear that we in the United States, and globally, are facing multiple crises, from the climate emergency to the rise of authoritarianism to staggering inequity. I believe his analysis of the cyclic nature of history encourages us to see the stakes and the lessons of the past with clearer eyes, prodding us to step off the sidelines to strengthen institutions and movements to change our course—or at least prepare us to face it. Who do we need to be, as individuals and as members of a community, to do our utmost to avoid, or prepare for, the crisis and its aftermath? How do we find the fortitude and capacity to organize ourselves and undertake this challenge?
Furthermore, while Howe gives short shrift to Indigenous communities and wisdom for the first 450 pages of the book, in the Epilogue his language resonates with so much of what I have been reading from Indigenous thinkers, particularly in the climate justice arena. Howe counsels us to “appreciate the interdependence of people and events across space and time” which he asserts “exceeds all understanding.” This encouragement to respect interdependence, a key exhortation from Indigenous wisdom, bears heeding. He asks: “In everything that happens, what are the most important and enduring patterns? And what role can I serve within them?”
I am grateful to have this food for thought to start off this sure-to-be-consequential year. I hope that a personal commitment to figuring out my own place and role can help me to support others in doing the same.
