In 1997, a historian named Neil Howe and his co-author William Strauss published a book called The Fourth Turning. A Substack author who goes by the name of St. Badhon recently published his take on how The Forth Turning relates to today’s crisis and what it says about the role of elders in it.
The 80-Year Winter a Historian Called in 1997 Is Here, and Your Generation Writes the Ending
According to St. Badhon’s take on The Forth Turning it is the elders who, at a time of crisis, identify what needs to change and the young who do the building. The caveat is that old does not necessarily mean wise. Some elders can be rigid in their thinking, certain in the worst way.
There is a metaphor in the book concerning three doors to the future. One door leads to renewal, another to diminishment, and the third to collapse. By identifying the kinds of changes necessary to transition to a better future elders effectively dictate which door we must pass through. Of course all elders will not agree on what needs to be changed during a crisis but it is assumed a general direction will emerge.
The task for elders is to pass down a vision that is larger than the grievance while avoiding rigidity and the temptation to win an old fight rather than ending a new crisis.
In a comment on St. Badhon’s article a reader stated that capitalism is the model that is failing. She offered the growing chasm between the haves and have nots as an important indicator of the problem with capitalism. She bemoaned the fact that we are lacking a working model of an alternative arrangement. I disagree.
The Hopeful Mindset identifies the root of the problem and the fundamental shift needed to rectify it. Jeremy Lent’s book, Ecocivilization, presents specific changes that need to be made to support that shift. Groups like the Religious Naturalist Association describe and support an understanding of nature’s interdependent existence that is the basis of the necessary shift’s worldview.
Elders have met their responsibility in supplying the blueprint. It now must be hoped that the young will make it so. Fortunately, there is a large and growing number of initiatives going on around the globe that are working toward that end. Hope lives on.