The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory & How 2024 Could Be The Biggest Year Of Our Lives
Quick programming note before we get into this piece: Since I am not writing for The Telegram: Canada during the week, I will be moving these articles to Substack for the weekend. I'll provide at least one, possibly two, stories for you to read here. Thanks again for your overwhelming support.
There will be something that happens in your life that will be the biggest moment of your life. Sometimes big and sometimes small, it's bound to happen. Maybe it’s the birth of your child, the promotion/job you always wanted, or maybe you see or go to a place you always wanted to go. At some point in your life, this will happen; that’s a fact.
On a greater scale, the same thing happens with generations. There is always a defining moment when an event happens to highlight what a generation is going through. You can look at any generation going back as far as recorded society and see that moment in history. You can see the turning of the generation. While this is a societal belief, you can easily measure this moment.
Now, when you map out these events and group them in sets of 4, you will see something amazing occur. No matter which group you look at, all the groups with the four generations will have a combination of 80 years, almost down to the exact number. Then, within each group, each generation will have a different outlook on life and how things played out.
This is the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory.
This theory is quite simple to understand. Our society works in 80-year cycles broken down into roughly 20-year chunks, all defined by the generation being born at that time. Each generation moves to the next through what's called a “turning” and the entire 80-year cycle. Each cycle is called a “Saeculum”.
The generations are then given an archetype, a category to describe what each generation has to look forward to. The archetypes go in the following order:
High: According to Strauss and Howe, the First Turning is a High, which occurs after a Crisis. During The High, institutions are strong, and individualism is weak. Society is confident about where it wants to go collectively, though those outside the majoritarian center often feel stifled by conformity.
Awakening: According to the theory, the Second Turning is an Awakening. This is an era when institutions are attacked in the name of personal and spiritual autonomy. Just when society is reaching its high tide of public progress, people suddenly tire of social discipline and want to recapture a sense of "self-awareness", "spirituality," and "personal authenticity". Young activists look back at the previous High as an era of cultural and spiritual poverty.
Unraveling: According to Strauss and Howe, the Third Turning is an Unraveling. The mood of this era, they say, is in many ways the opposite of a High: Institutions are weak and distrusted, while individualism is strong and flourishing. The authors say Highs come after Crises when society wants to coalesce and build and avoid the death and destruction of the previous crisis. Unravelings come after Awakenings when society wants to atomize and enjoy.
Crisis: According to the authors, the Fourth Turning is a Crisis. This is an era of destruction, often involving war or revolution, in which institutional life is destroyed and rebuilt in response to a perceived threat to the nation's survival. After the crisis, civic authority revives, cultural expression redirects toward community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group.
When you read these different archetypes and map them out to the current cycle we are in, it starts to all make sense. Let’s break down the current Saeculum we are in and go through each turning point. To see the breakdown for previous Saeculums, please go to the Wikipedia page for this theory.
If you have been keeping track of the years and how these all play out, you will see that the current Saeculum is coming to an end. This year will be the 79th year, and then 2025 will be the 80th year, meaning it comes to an end.
So what does this mean? Why does this matter? Well, each Saeculum is ended by a world-altering moment. The last one, that started the one we were in, was started by the end of WW2. So, the question is, what is going to be the end of this Saeculum?
No need to panic, though. We may have already had it happen, that being the COVID-19 Pandemic and subsequent recession. Many who study this theory believe that this is the case. But, with rising tensions in the Geo-political world such as the Ukrainian war, The conflict in the Middle East, or even the potential military invasion of Taiwan, there is still a possibility that we could be seeing this final major event unfold.
In the world of politics, it could be the results of the 2024 General Election in the USA, slated to be a rematch of 2020. There is more and more discussion about what is going to happen if Donald Trump were to lose. Last time, the USA saw an insurrection for the first time since the Civil War. Interesting to note that the Civil War was the defining moment to end the Saeculum during that time.
The silver lining in this whole thing is that while we may be facing a huge event in our society, our children being born right now are going to be the first generation of the new Saeculum. They are going to be the new “High” to start off the next 80-year cycle. So, look at that as a positive.
You may be reading this and think, “This is bull. This can't be true,” and you might be right. This is a theory, an idea, so to speak. But sometimes these theories turn out to be true. As time goes on, this theory looks more and more like it is true. Because when you really break it down at a macro level, it all makes sense. It’s a fascinating thing to look at and keep top of mind as we go through life. While you are in control of your destiny, so to speak, society appears to work on this rotation, so it’s not entirely your fault.
Until next time.