The Fourth Turning

[Undertoad]

"A spark will ignite a new mood... An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies?. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability-problem areas where, during the Unraveling, America will hav eneglected, denied, or delayed needed action. Anger at 'mistakes we made' will translate into calls for action, regardless of the heightened public risk. It is unlikely the catalyst will worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while. The local rebellion will probably be quelled, terrorists foiled, fiscal crisis averted, disaster halted, or war fever cooled. Yet even if dire consequences are temporarily averted, America will have entered the Fourth Turning."

- Strauss and Howe, <i>The Fourth Turning</i>, 1996

How ya like them apples?

They were a little off. They predicted it for 2005.

But despite your initial reaction, no, this isn't some kind of Nostradamus or biblical code or etc. Strauss and Howe are historians and sociologists. Think-tank types. They were studying generations and generational effects when they found that the generations were similar in history. They found the patterns that repeated themselves, patterns of history that have been studied before, and connected their generational findings to explain them.

And predict them. America has been through several "crisis" periods, following "unravelings". The revolution. The civil war. The depression/WW2.

The conditions that existed before all those crisis periods are occurring now. 911 could be the spark that starts the next period of crisis.

Crisis sounds scary, but although it's a period of upheaval and such, it doesn't have to mean personal crisis, not necessarily. It is a societal change, a change in societal attitudes, reflected in its tastes, mores, etc.