Having laid out the basics of Howe’s generational theory of historical cycles, I now turn to his discussion of the current social era. In his scheme, this is the Crisis phase or Fourth Turning of the Millennial Saeculum that began in 1946. Such crises do not occur randomly in the modern world, but recur regularly because of the generational dynamics. The generations that inherit the institutional regime constructed in one crisis live in such a way as to set the stage for the next crisis.
Eventually, after new institutions are created, the generations who know how to manage them competently and fairly will disappear—as will the generations who are content to be managed by them. New values and ideas will emerge, and rising generations will coalesce into factions around them….
During an Awakening, the rising priority of the young Prophet is that people adopt new ideals and values, which requires weakening, not strengthening, the behavioral constraints of community…
During Crises, the rising priority for the young Hero is that people adopt new civic goals and obligations, which requires strengthening the behavioral constraints of the community.
Typical events
Howe describes some key types of events that happen in a Crisis, based on Western history going back to the fifteenth century. I will use for examples the last American Crisis, the Depression and World War II, before looking for parallels today.
The Crisis usually has a precursor that occurs in the previous Unraveling stage of the cycle. An example is World War I, which foreshadowed the larger global conflict to come but did not resolve the domestic conflicts of the time or focus the nation’s attention for very long. In the 1920s, “the Third Turning mood resumed, only now with a darker, more nihilistic tone than before the war.”
The Crisis phase begins with a catalyst that suddenly changes the mood. An example is the stock market crash of 1929.
The Crisis includes at least one regeneracy, an event that encourages social unity and directs energy toward civic life. An example is Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, declaring that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
The Crisis reaches a consolidation, when society rallies in support of a struggle for survival. The obvious example here is Pearl Harbor and the immediate declarations of war.
Society can then move toward a climax, the victory of a new order over the old. The climax of World War II came with military victories over Germany and Japan in 1944.
Finally, the Crisis reaches its resolution, which resolves the main issues and fully establishes the new order. At the end of the war, the U.S. provided the leadership to establish the United Nations and international financial institutions, decisively ending its period of isolationism. Around the same time, it institutionalized federal support for economic security with the G.I. Bill of Rights. Members of the G.I. Generation, who had endured sixteen years of Depression and war during their childhood and/or young adulthood, were well rewarded for their service and went on to become America’s solid middle class and secure senior citizens.
The Millennial Crisis
The term “Millennial” does double duty here. It names both the historical cycle that is now climaxing and the younger generation that Howe casts as the Heroes in that climax, comparable to the G.I. Generation of the previous cycle.
Only a few of the typical Crisis events have occurred so far. Howe regards 9/11 and the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to be the precursor. This was followed—as was World War I—with a period of disillusionment and isolationist sentiment.
The catalyst for the current Crisis was the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. The country briefly came together in support of vigorous federal action to combat the recession. But as economic growth resumed, albeit very slowly, political division and gridlock reappeared.
A kind of regeneracy occurred during the 2016 election. The Trump campaign “mobilized party partisans to an intensity not seen since the mid-1930s.” No consensus on where the country should go emerged, but at least people were politically engaged. Many were passionately engaged, as the rise of right-wing militias and threats of political violence showed. A movement of educated voters toward the Democratic Party and of less educated white voters toward the Republican Party suggested that a major political realignment might be under way.
If this Crisis is to resemble previous ones, it still needs consolidation, climax and resolution. Instead, “governing at the national level has ground to a halt,” and pessimism about the country’s future prevails.
Prospects for accelerating crisis
Because the Millennial Crisis has not reached its climax, Howe can only suggest what dramatic events may lie in store. One possibility is another financial crash. Although the economic stimulus measures adopted during the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic did restore the economy to what passes for normal, the reliance on such extraordinary measures is a sign of underlying weakness.
Chronic stimulus lowered savings, fed zombie firms, and suppressed business dynamism. Worse, it raised the risk of yet another crash by glutting Wall Street in order to feed Main Street. It habituated investors to low taxes, to guaranteed consumer demand, to narrow credit spreads, to debt pyramids built on near-zero or negative real interest rates, and to promises of Treasury bailouts and Fed backstops in case there’s trouble.
Howe wonders if the country is economically resilient enough to handle a serious crisis.
Never before has America approached a major national trial with such a low rate of economic growth, with such a meager savings rate, with such heavy public and private indebtedness to the rest of the world, and with so little available fiscal room—thanks to a large public sector that is now mainly dedicated (through benefits and tax breaks) to funding the personal consumption of its eldest citizenry. This time around, in short, the very structure of the economy is tilted steeply toward the old and the past. Unless America can rapidly reverse that tilt, no ambitious investment agenda on behalf of the young and the future will be affordable.
He anticipates the need for a major reversal of policy, “from leveraged personal consumption to unleveraged national investment.” Crisis-level spending on national priorities may require getting people to spend less on themselves, whether by encouraging saving, raising taxes, rationing consumer goods, or letting prices rise.
A second accelerator of the Crisis could be civil war. Polls find about half of respondents saying that a civil war is likely. Talk of secession is also popular, especially among MAGA Republicans. Hostility toward the federal government, declining respect for democratic institutions, cultural polarization, and a heavily armed electorate all create the potential for armed conflict.
Another possibility is a new great-power war. As in the world of the 1930s, we see undemocratic regimes on the rise, declines in global trade, larger waves of refugees, and closer ties among our principal adversaries, in this case China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, perhaps trying to take advantage of Americans’ recent disengagement from foreign affairs. Our major parties disagree over support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.
These accelerators of crisis could intersect in dangerous ways. A new financial crash could intensify domestic or global conflict, as the Great Depression did in the 1930s. Civil conflict in the United States could increase the nation’s vulnerability to foreign attack, either because a foreign adversary takes advantage of our internal divisions, or because one side in the civil conflict gets assistance from a foreign power. [Recall that the Mueller investigation found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in support of Donald Trump.]
Many scenarios are possible. One is that our internal differences are settled at the ballot box, and the country unites to address some external threat. Another is that unresolved internal differences become the greatest threat, and cannot be settled without serious violence.
The social transformation
Howe describes five major changes that societies typically experience by the time a Crisis is over.
First, individualism declines and community strengthens. This is the opposite to what happens in Unraveling periods, which are noted for erosion of community ties. Think of Robert Putnam’s classic Bowling Alone, published in 2000. Howe observes, “Loneliness and isolation are highly correlated with substance abuse, chronic disease, depression, mental illness generally, and suicide. Deaths from such causes surged during the 2010s.” A Crisis tends to bring people together, first in family, social networks and partisan tribes, but eventually in collective social causes.
Second, privilege gives way to greater equality. The rising inequality that is normal in capitalist societies peaks in the Unraveling phase, but yields to greater egalitarianism in the Crisis phase, for several reasons. Government raises taxes on the wealthy to address national problems. Sudden shifts in spending priorities may hurt old industries and create opportunities for new ones. The nation enlists the support of economically marginalized groups by offering them a “new deal.”
Third, defiance of authority gives way to greater respect for authority. The emergence of new values in an Awakening and the deepening of cultural conflict in an Unraveling have undermined trust in traditional authorities. “As conflicts deepen, people will feel forced to choose between the authority of one or another partisan tribe.” By the time the Crisis is resolved, the authority of a new regime has become broadly accepted.
Fourth, temporary fixes that defer more serious action for later give way to more permanent solutions. The nation stops just trying to muddle through while factions argue endlessly. It tackles the big questions and tries to set a course for the future. In particular, it addresses the prospects of younger generations and tries to create a better world for them.
Finally, convention triumphs over ironic detachment. Besides outright defiance, another way of attacking social conventions during an Awakening or Unraveling is satire. A Crisis, on the other hand, is a time to get serious. What people write, speak, sing about, or act out becomes important. New rules appear, and not just the silly ones proposed by a popular comedian. “Manners traditionalize, families grow closer, proper behavior is ritualized, and personal violence and risk-taking decline.” Authoritative violence to enforce new rules is usually part of the process, however.
Generational contributions
How will each living generation of adults contribute to resolving the current Crisis? We cannot know for sure, but Howe makes some historically informed predictions.
During this Crisis, members of the Boom Generation have been moving into elderhood and are now between the ages of 64 and 81 by Howe’s reckoning. They have been noted for their individualism, risk-taking, and strong values orientation. Now they have an opportunity to play a role comparable to the last generation of the Prophet type, the Missionary Generation of Franklin Roosevelt. Its members had been “the great scolds of the Roaring Twenties,” but during the Depression and World War II they “consolidated their moral authority” to unify and mobilize the country. Howe expects the Boom Generation to produce a “Gray Champion” to play a similar role today. Boomers may well agree to sacrifice some of their accumulated wealth, through higher taxes, to support the needed reforms benefitting younger generations.
Members of Generation X have been moving into midlife and are now between the ages of 42 and 63. On the average they have had a tougher time than the more fortunate generations—Silent and Boom—that preceded them. Not only did they suffer as children from the family upheavals of the Awakening era, but as young workers they experienced reductions in real wages and a shrinking middle class. Left to their own devices in a system favoring private competition over public support, they have been noted for their “self-sufficiency, resilience, keen survival instincts, and the power to distinguish reality from illusion.” Their generation has produced many entrepreneurs and military leaders. Politically they tend to distrust government, prefer libertarianism, and vote Republican if they vote at all. The majority of Capitol rioters on January 6, 2021 were from Generation X. As the current Crisis unfolds, some Xers might become supporters of fascist or secessionist movements. More likely, Howe thinks, is that they will “seek to defend a powerful and newly energized republic as a means of securing the kind of well-anchored institutional world that was denied to them earlier in life.” One reason they may do so is that they are fiercely protective of their own children and want the best for them.
Members of the Millennial Generation have been moving into rising adulthood and are now between the ages of 19 and 41. Compared to Generation X, they have been more protected and respectful young people, doing more homework, participating in more extracurricular activities, and doing more volunteer work. When they hit the crime-prone years—late teens to early thirties—rates of violent crime fell dramatically. They are less comfortable in the unregulated marketplace and welcome more rules. They respect science and technical expertise more than ideologies and religious beliefs. They are the most Democratic-leaning of living generations, and are likely to join civic crusades to address pressing social problems.
Does every individual in a generation conform to such descriptions? Of course not. But enough shifts in attitudes and lifestyles occur to give each generation its distinctive character. Howe summarizes the respective generational roles he sees as the Millennial Crisis unfolds:
Let elder Boomers conceive the visionary ends. Let midlife Xers furnish the practical means. But then let young-adult Millennials, working together, furnish the critical mass that moves their entire society rapidly in one direction.
Beneath the Surface 