0:00

Marshall here, welcome back to The

0:02

Realignment.

0:08

I'm really pumped to share this episode. I'm

0:10

speaking with Neil Howe, author of The

0:13

Fourth Turning Is Here, What the Seasons

0:15

of History Tell Us About How and When

0:17

This Crisis Will End. Back in

0:19

the 1990s, Neil, along with

0:21

his departed colleague William Strauss, wrote

0:24

The Fourth Turning, which made the prerogative

0:26

argument that modern life moves in generational,

0:29

historical cycles, what they call

0:31

turnings. Despite the peace and

0:33

prosperity of the 90s, they predicted that

0:35

after 2008, we'd enter a crisis period,

0:38

or a fourth turning, a prediction that

0:41

nearly perfectly rhymes with many of the challenges

0:43

we face today. Now, Neil

0:46

argues that many of the themes and topics

0:48

we cover on this show, from geopolitics

0:50

and great power conflict, to party realignments

0:53

and civil strife at home, contribute

0:56

to what he and William Strauss

0:58

predicted back in 1997. So, so many different topics

1:03

are going to be hit here. The thing I noticed that

1:05

whether or not you agree with Neil and

1:08

William's theories or predictions,

1:10

we should understand that so much of their approach has shaped

1:12

the way we live today. They were actually the ones

1:15

who came up with the term millennium,

1:17

so their thoughts on generational

1:19

change are incredibly important. I cannot

1:22

recommend this and The Fourth

1:24

Turning enough, such

1:27

enjoyable books that provide a lot of value and favorable understanding

1:29

of the world. So I hope you all enjoyed this

1:31

conversation and that I can make this comprehensible.

1:34

Huge thank you to the Foundation for American Innovation for

1:37

supporting the podcast's work.

1:38

Hope you all enjoy this conversation.

1:46

Neil Howell, welcome to The Realignment. Well,

1:49

thank you very much, Marshall, for having me on your

1:51

show. Yeah, I'm excited to speak

1:54

with you. Obviously, at a

1:56

pure sociological level,

1:58

you're the along

2:00

with your departed co-author William

2:02

Strauss, who came up with the term millennial. So it's interesting

2:05

to interview you as a millennial, so

2:07

much of my self-conception is

2:09

literally stemming from the words

2:11

and concepts that you're really talking about here. So

2:15

here's what I wanna just start with.

2:17

This is such an interesting book for me. This

2:19

being the fourth turning is here because I'm

2:22

not just interviewing you, this person who has

2:24

this theory of the world who is

2:26

putting it out there. This is a followup

2:29

to a book from the 1990s, the fourth turning,

2:31

where you made some predictions about

2:34

how the next 25, 30 years would go, predictions

2:38

that in many ways rhyme with a lot of

2:40

the, let's say diagnosis one would give

2:42

of the challenges facing America and the world in

2:45

the 2020s. So I just wanna start here.

2:47

1990s, we know the cliches,

2:50

the end of history of interviewed France Hooke-Yambe on

2:52

this podcast. What did

2:55

you see

2:56

in the 1990s? Then in 1997, we

2:58

could convince you, hey, I

3:00

should maybe write a book that suggests that

3:02

this isn't going to go as long as

3:05

one thinks it will, or things

3:07

aren't as strong at a foundational

3:09

level as one would think, given the way we tend

3:11

to reinterpret how we think about that moment today.

3:16

Well, that was, so Bill and

3:18

I decided to write this book, I don't know, probably,

3:20

you know, 1995, 1996.

3:25

There wasn't anything we were seeing

3:27

in the 1990s. And of course, that's the whole

3:30

point. We're trying to look ahead to

3:32

something that wasn't seen yet.

3:35

I mean, looking at history to be

3:37

able to understand the

3:41

future is an exercise of being able to look around

3:44

corners, see how

3:46

things will change. I mean, anyone

3:48

can extrapolate. I

3:50

mean, if anything, the future is always going to be, you know,

3:52

the last 10 or 20 years extrapolated forward,

3:55

then you don't really need history, do you?

3:58

You just don't need it. You need

4:01

to go deeply into the past. And this

4:03

is, we actually, I think in the book, quote,

4:05

Churchill to this effect,

4:07

you know, the deeper into the past

4:09

you go and the more deeply you understand

4:11

history, the better you're able to see

4:13

around the corners.

4:15

And

4:17

in fact, we had already written a book, Generations,

4:21

which came out in 1991. We

4:23

wrote that in the late 1980s,

4:25

which already

4:26

sort of made

4:28

the prediction. I mean, we already had

4:30

basic dynamics of

4:33

the rhythm of history in place

4:36

that was generationally driven,

4:38

right? That suggested

4:41

that this period

4:44

of the autumn season

4:48

or what we call the unraveling era

4:51

would end sometime in

4:53

the 2000, 2010 decade, sometime

4:56

in the middle of that decade. And

4:58

in fact, I think it ultimately did with the GFC,

5:00

the global financial crisis. But

5:04

we had already seen that, right? So

5:07

it wasn't suddenly a discovery. It

5:10

was, no, I think you

5:12

could say that there were certain people

5:14

in the late 1990s,

5:17

of there was a famous debate, for instance, between

5:20

Francis Bikkiyama and

5:22

Sam Huntington, who

5:25

had a kind of a different, you know, where the future

5:27

was gonna go. In other words, there

5:29

weren't differences of opinion on this. And

5:31

that debate you're referencing is the passion of civilizations,

5:34

kind of thing that alternate model.

5:35

Exactly.

5:38

But I think that's fair to say that a number of people were

5:41

thinking, you know, a very

5:43

lightly governed America where

5:45

seemingly individualism

5:48

was rampant

5:49

and the

5:52

marketplace, a triumph, and globalism

5:54

was everywhere,

5:56

and governmental intervention

5:58

and regulations seemed to be disappeared.

5:59

hearing and

6:00

it was the end of all big issues,

6:03

the end of all strong governmental actions, the end

6:05

of all strong historical conflicts

6:08

was coming about. I think a lot of people

6:10

could sense

6:12

probably wasn't going

6:14

to happen. That

6:16

seemed a little too good to be true.

6:19

After a long,

6:21

long summer and a long, long

6:25

fall,

6:27

you think, even

6:29

if you're not thinking back to the last winter, you're

6:31

wondering, is this going to keep going?

6:33

I think there were a lot of Americans at the time

6:35

who had trepidations about

6:38

how long this would last. All

6:40

we did simply said, there actually is a

6:42

timetable. It

6:45

does come to an end.

6:46

There are these rhythms of history,

6:48

there are these eras

6:50

which are generationally driven and you can

6:52

anticipate when they will begin and end

6:55

to some extent.

6:56

That was really our method as you know.

7:01

It wasn't looking

7:03

at what was happening at the time, but it was looking

7:06

simply

7:07

at the calendar.

7:09

The helpful follow-up here then,

7:12

you describe the

7:14

period we're in as a fourth turning.

7:16

We'll get to the exact definition of a turning,

7:19

but to make this comprehensive for people, we

7:21

should understand this is the millennial crisis.

7:24

That's what you're referring to this current moment as. I'd

7:26

love for you to just define what

7:28

you see

7:29

as the crisis in

7:31

American slash global society

7:34

today. How

7:36

does that articulation of the crisis fit

7:39

within the model you provided in 1997? Where

7:42

are the gaps? Where does the timeline intersect

7:45

hopefully wherever you want to take it?

7:47

Yeah, maybe it's best

7:49

to go and actually look at what the churnings are

7:52

and how we arrived at this.

7:56

Bill and I when we first started writing did

7:58

not have any particular.

7:59

the theory of

8:02

cyclical history at all. We

8:05

originally wanted to write a book simply about

8:07

different generations in American history

8:10

and how they're different, why

8:12

they're different,

8:13

and why they leave such different legacies.

8:18

We have been members of the Boomer generation, which

8:20

was very famously different,

8:23

you might even say, almost archetypal-y

8:25

the opposite of our parents' generation

8:27

who fought World War II.

8:29

And there were just such

8:32

absolute dramatic differences. The

8:36

GI generation was protectively raised.

8:38

We were indulgently raised. They came

8:41

of age with D-Day. We came of age with Woodstock.

8:44

They spent their young adults years

8:46

building battleships and founding families,

8:49

and we were sort of taking voyages inside

8:51

ourselves. It was a completely different

8:53

kind of experience. And we wanted

8:55

to now have

8:56

these incredible generational

8:59

contrasts, which certainly

9:02

Boomers are very well aware of, happened

9:04

before in American history.

9:06

And we found that they had, and in fact,

9:09

going all the way back to the early 17th

9:11

century, we really started with the first

9:14

old world immigrants to New England

9:16

in the 1630s, the Great Migration

9:18

to New England, the Puritan generation. We

9:20

found that

9:21

all these had a very

9:24

strong generational sense. They were different from

9:26

their kids, different from their parents. Since

9:28

it's not new, this didn't just start

9:30

with Boomers or Gen X

9:33

or millennials, right? This had been with

9:35

that since the founding of

9:37

America. And

9:40

one quick thing, and what's fascinating about

9:42

the cyclical nature of this, it's

9:44

not simply just that I am different than

9:47

my father. It's that my differences

9:49

with my father are a lot like

9:51

the differences between his father

9:54

and his grandfather in terms of like, there's

9:56

the repeating nature of that. Yeah, there is a repeating

9:59

nature because what we've...

9:59

found was that not only are generations very different,

10:02

these generations tended to following or

10:04

curing pattern. Then it's to say following,

10:07

for example, a very idealistic

10:10

and

10:13

anti-establishment generation like

10:15

Boomers,

10:17

we're all familiar with the fact that you had these

10:19

very kind of caustic, cynical,

10:21

pragmatic generation of exers,

10:23

right? Or just survivalists,

10:26

race to think for themselves and really

10:28

die a piece of gum

10:31

or stand Boomers coming of a

10:33

very different sense of themselves. We

10:35

find that that adrenaline repeating constantly

10:37

in American history. Following

10:39

the transcendentals, you had the Gilded Generation

10:42

of people like Ulysses Grant, a

10:45

completely different generation of metal and muscle,

10:47

just very different kind of sense of themselves.

10:50

This goes back to the Americans founding.

10:53

You can find other

10:55

differences too. For example, the generations

10:58

that

10:59

come to the age during the great crises

11:01

of American history like the American

11:03

Revolution, the Civil War,

11:05

the Great Depression and World War II

11:08

tend to be very community-oriented

11:10

generations, friendly get-go from the time they

11:13

were raised as children.

11:15

They have a much more strong

11:17

sense of their collective strength

11:20

and are looking

11:23

much more if

11:27

I ordered

11:28

view of society in the future.

11:31

I pause you there to understand

11:33

this.

11:35

As a millennial,

11:36

I do not feel as if my generation

11:39

feels, just speak for all of us here with the

11:41

voice of God as a podcaster. I

11:43

do not think we feel community-oriented.

11:46

I think you could go through all the statistics we all know,

11:48

loneliness, disengagement, all the

11:51

Robert Putnam-y things. So is your argument

11:53

that the crisis itself, and the crisis is

11:55

an error, right? It isn't 2008. This

11:58

is why it's useful to think of the Great Depression.

11:59

your aid was the 1930s all the way through

12:02

World War II. Does the crisis

12:04

forge us into community-oriented people

12:07

by the nature of what we have to do, or is there

12:09

some community-oriented, order-seeking

12:12

aspect of my personality that is

12:14

buried

12:16

and has to be brought out through that moment? How should

12:18

we understand that? I think the latter.

12:21

So a lot of the FOMO and the loneliness

12:24

and all that, which you're absolutely right, is

12:27

because millennials seek

12:29

community but can't find it. We

12:31

know, for instance, that in grade school,

12:34

they're more likely to do community service.

12:36

They like the Adjutant Community Service. I remember

12:38

all the millennials. You remember when,

12:41

I can't remember,

12:45

Don McCain's running mate,

12:47

you remember, ran, yeah,

12:51

yeah, up in Alaska, I

12:54

remember her convention

12:57

speech, nominated convention speech, but

12:59

she constantly put down community service.

13:01

And I had a bunch of millennial employees and

13:04

there were pregnant little tears the next morning. What's

13:06

the matter with community service? How

13:09

can you possibly involve people from

13:11

wanting to bring the community together?

13:13

In other words, millennials feel

13:15

that they are in

13:17

a Hunger

13:20

Games world, or a

13:22

squid game. I mean, that kind of

13:25

world, where they don't wanna be, they

13:28

want this community. We see it in

13:30

so many aspects of millennial life.

13:32

They wanna work for big employers and

13:34

wanna work for employers with benefits. They wanna

13:36

work for employers that bring them together as a community.

13:39

You see them living together in cities.

13:41

You see them actually

13:43

increasingly being marketed,

13:45

these sort of communal units

13:48

where everyone shares stuff together. The

13:50

whole heaven sharing economy.

13:52

This was exactly the opposite of boomers in the

13:54

same phase of life. Boomers didn't wanna

13:57

live with their parents. They wanna do anything

13:59

possible.

13:59

will live away from their parents, right?

14:02

And they certainly didn't want to live with each other.

14:07

They wanted strong walks on their door and they all

14:09

wanted an individual play.

14:11

But my sense

14:13

is that millennials feel they're any world

14:15

which is not theirs. They need to transform

14:18

it in the community direction, right?

14:21

There's

14:21

no question that this is not a community

14:23

world today. But that's

14:25

the sense

14:26

what Tege got said once that every generation

14:30

is a trajectory. It's not a

14:32

place. It's a sense of where

14:34

it's going, where it wants to go.

14:36

Boomers

14:37

have changed America since

14:40

the time they were growing up was Leave It to

14:42

Beavers in a very corporate

14:44

organized community-oriented

14:47

America

14:48

into this totally individualized place.

14:50

I mean, just think of the Boomer arc

14:52

as they have taken over society,

14:55

sort of

14:58

blasting everything into little bits and pieces

15:00

of atoms. Until now,

15:02

we don't have defined

15:05

benefit pensions. We have defined contribution,

15:07

but you can contribute if you want to. And

15:10

if you know, you can

15:12

borrow from it. You can do anything

15:14

you want. Boomers have turned out to be

15:16

over their lifecycle, extremely

15:19

tolerant of huge divisions

15:21

of differences in income

15:24

in America today, big differences in

15:26

class. Because you remember the biggest problem

15:28

when they were coming of age

15:30

was America's oppressive

15:32

and overwhelming middle class. Back

15:35

in the late 1960s, the genie

15:37

coefficient for income and wealth approached

15:39

its all-time low, right? We

15:41

were a very tightly

15:44

balanced society at that point. Boomers

15:46

hated it. It was Pleasant Valley Sunday,

15:49

charcoal burning everywhere. Everyone

15:51

was identical. Why

15:53

can't we have different strokes for different folks?

15:55

Go different directions. And pretty

15:58

soon, it wasn't started.

15:59

started with the culture and college campuses

16:02

and even inner cities

16:04

resisting authority and the patriarchy

16:07

and so on, and then telling you what to do.

16:10

But it ended up by the late 70s, early

16:13

80s in the economy, tax

16:15

cuts, deregulation. So

16:17

that whole panoply, both on the left

16:19

and the right with boomers, was all

16:22

around

16:23

liberating individuals from all the

16:25

social disciplining constraint, right?

16:27

And ultimately

16:29

leading us into the autumn season, I talked

16:32

about the awakening as the summer season, right?

16:34

That's the summer of the seculum. But

16:37

the autumn season is this period of

16:40

weak and disempowered

16:42

institutions, but strong

16:45

individualism.

16:45

In the boomer era, Marsha, you go

16:48

into a bookstore and all the most

16:50

upbeat books are about me, myself,

16:52

and I. I can notice that, I can

16:54

do anything, I can triumph, I

16:56

can, all of the most downbeat books

16:59

are about what we have in common,

17:01

death of the family, death of politics.

17:05

And that is the world that boomers

17:07

have created. There is a seasonal

17:09

arc to these things. And I think

17:12

that comes clear in

17:14

our writing,

17:15

and it's not just this seculum.

17:17

You can see the same things in prior

17:20

seculums. You can see the same things

17:22

happening as when we went into the 1850s before the Civil

17:25

War. You can see the same thing happen

17:27

as you're going into the 1760s before the American Revolution.

17:30

And my point again is that it's

17:33

only by getting deeply involved

17:35

in history that

17:37

you can appreciate

17:39

and begin to sense these longer term

17:41

rhythms. And a lot of the book has

17:44

to do with tracing

17:46

social indicators. And

17:49

you recall, I mean, you read the book, we

17:51

look at Robert Pundums, we look at the indicators

17:57

of community,

17:58

we look at the indicators of the real life.

17:59

cycle in politics, right? We look

18:02

at foreign policy, we look at demographics,

18:04

you know, fertility and immigration, we

18:06

look at,

18:07

we look at culture, we look at religion.

18:10

Religion is an interesting aspect of the American

18:12

life that most historians don't really take very

18:15

seriously.

18:16

We take it very seriously. And

18:19

the history of America is not

18:21

just the history of

18:23

economies, politics, and

18:25

civic achievements. Some sell the

18:27

history of the inner life, culture, religion,

18:32

how we think about ourselves from the inside

18:34

out. And if

18:36

I were simply to say, when you map

18:39

the four turnings along the secular, the secular

18:41

lasts about 80 to 100 years, right?

18:44

And it's divided into generation-like

18:47

length pieces.

18:48

And each of those pieces

18:50

is a season, right?

18:53

And then the second turning

18:55

is a solstice.

18:57

You know, the sun gets its longest

19:00

length days, that's the awakening.

19:02

And that's when society remakes

19:06

its inner world of

19:08

values, religion, culture.

19:12

The winter season is the opposite

19:14

solstice. That's when the sun

19:16

is in its lowest.

19:19

And that's when we remake the outer world

19:22

of political institutions,

19:25

infrastructure, economics, how we actually

19:27

live together in the material world. How do we

19:29

actually create

19:31

real communities outside ourselves,

19:33

right? So there is a yin

19:36

and yang quality to it. And

19:38

the kinds of generations coming of age

19:40

in these different eras are

19:43

very different. One is what we call

19:45

the profit archetype. Like

19:48

Boomers were like the missionary generation

19:50

born after the Civil War.

19:52

The so-called the wise old men

19:54

and women

19:55

during the World War II

19:57

and the New Deal, you know, the likes of Henry

20:00

Stimson, you know, those. Jim Stimson

20:03

and McArthur and FDR and Einstein

20:05

and all those.

20:07

And

20:09

they were looked up to for values

20:11

and vision. And the

20:14

generation coming of age during that period

20:16

was the GI generation. And they were great technocrats.

20:19

I mean, they were great community players.

20:21

And to some extent,

20:23

you think the GIs, you know,

20:24

when we look at the GI generation,

20:27

which has been sort of at a- Could

20:30

you give like initial birth date for

20:32

the GI? Cause like this is- Oh, the GI generation

20:34

was born in 1901

20:35

to 1924.

20:39

And the one who really sought combat

20:41

the most was sort of the later half of that generation.

20:44

But there were- JFK is a good archetypal.

20:47

Yeah, JFK to George

20:49

Bush Sr., right?

20:51

Who was one of the youngest members of the

20:53

generation. You know, very young as a pilot

20:55

when he got shut down. My point

20:58

is that

20:59

that generation, we look at them and

21:02

Tom Brokaw wrote the book, you know, The

21:04

Greatest Generation. So we look back at them and

21:06

you think, oh my gosh,

21:07

they were always, you know, this way. They

21:10

were this, they stood at the very beginning

21:12

for country and so on. They were always

21:14

so as American as apple pie,

21:16

right?

21:18

What we forgot is that they

21:20

were kids brought up and

21:22

they believed in community, much as millennials

21:25

do today as aspirational. I

21:27

mean, they were the ones who were raised to,

21:30

you know, you

21:33

know, join the four age clubs. And

21:35

that was the first girl scouts and boy scouts

21:37

that are released in school uniforms for the first

21:39

time. People wanted to protect

21:42

these kids, much as people wanted to protect millennials

21:44

when they first came along, right? And they wanted

21:46

to see them more in civic life, much as the

21:49

way Bill Clinton

21:50

said it was a great idea back in the mid 1990s, that

21:53

millennials would be in school uniforms. You

21:55

remember the old school uniform movement.

21:59

came of age at a time when they really believed

22:02

in sort of

22:03

community would be great for Americans future.

22:07

And they looked up and the generations

22:09

above them are very individualist and the next

22:11

generation, all there was the lost generation, there

22:13

were the rum runners and the gin pincerad during

22:15

the 19th place. They were wild,

22:18

you know, wild partiers and

22:20

hated authority hated the

22:23

hated government. And

22:25

generally voted to the Republican Party, by

22:27

the way, GIs came of age voting

22:30

for the Democratic Party. But of course, at

22:32

that point, the economy

22:35

gave away. Right?

22:37

We have the great, you know, Black Thursday, the economy

22:40

went into a free fall.

22:42

And one thing we forget is a lot of

22:45

the millennial generation

22:47

during the Communist Party, I

22:49

mean, they became socialist, they became

22:51

anti American. I mean, they became

22:53

the opposite of what we remember many

22:55

of them swore to the

22:57

destruction of capitalism in the United

23:00

States.

23:01

And sometimes people ask me, you know,

23:03

are these millennials, you know, you call

23:05

them a hero, I could type that many of them are

23:07

so anti American. And so when I say, do

23:10

you ever look at the GI generation that were there

23:12

that age, right? Because the original, you

23:14

know, neoconservatives at, you know, city college

23:17

in New York, you know, Irving and

23:19

Crystal, a lot of these figures were all of

23:21

them were in the 1930s. And the point you're

23:24

getting there were they were Trotskyists. I mean,

23:26

yeah, they were they were in the Trotsky fringe.

23:29

Of course, they backed the losing candidate

23:33

of that one. But but

23:37

yes, now they were admittedly, you

23:39

know, they were there were still

23:41

there were still socialists after World War Two

23:43

was over, which kind of distinguishes them

23:46

from from a lot of you know, they're fellow

23:48

travelers who really

23:50

fell back in line more during the war.

23:53

And obviously, you know, Stalin really

23:55

discredited himself with the style of Hitler pack

23:58

and many things brought about sort of that.

23:59

the collapse a little bit of the enthusiasm

24:02

around the common term.

24:05

But nonetheless, we forget where

24:08

that generation started. And we

24:10

forget how unlikely it

24:13

seemed that they would be able to

24:15

create this new America.

24:18

But to some extent, you're absolutely right. They

24:20

were transformed by

24:22

the World War II experience,

24:24

by the New Deal, and especially by

24:26

World War II. And

24:29

by the time the war was over, we

24:31

were a different country.

24:34

Yeah, a couple of things.

24:35

Yeah, go ahead. A couple of things. One, I just

24:37

wanna... So

24:40

this is really a book

24:41

to be read. I usually listen

24:43

to Ottawa books, but I just wanna read this book.

24:46

I'm recommending to listeners that you read the book. It's

24:48

just very like, there's concepts and things are

24:50

floating around. It's really just a book that should be read. So I wanna

24:52

make this very clear. When you were talking

24:55

about the individualism versus

24:58

community orientation, I think listeners should

25:00

think back to how insane movies

25:03

like Office Space, American

25:05

Beauty, Pleasantville look

25:07

to us now. So those are baby boomer produced

25:10

1990s movies where you would

25:12

think the worst thing in the world is you live in a suburb,

25:14

you have a house, and you've got a 40 to 50 hour

25:17

a week job that is considered, this is also

25:19

the thing of Fight Club. The hell

25:21

with the narrator's life is that he has

25:24

to go to Ikea and he just can't

25:26

find the perfect individuals. You talk

25:28

to any, especially during the worst person, let's

25:30

say COVID or the aftermath, you

25:32

talk to any millennial or even Gen Z or

25:35

let's say, wait,

25:37

what's Kevin Spacey's problem in American Beauty?

25:39

This looks pretty great. Like these are perfect

25:41

illustrations of how these

25:44

different perspectives are gonna be shaped

25:46

at a deeply generational level, except for purely

25:49

politics and those things. But it's also a

25:51

sign of how

25:54

the seculum keeps turning. One

25:56

thing I point out actually, when I get to

25:58

the last section, I talk about the first section.

25:59

turning. I don't know, you recall that

26:02

chapter, but I'm sort of saying what happened

26:04

in the last part, you know, what happened in the

26:06

late late

26:07

40s when we were all kind of tooling down from war

26:09

on America, winning in this very different period,

26:12

right? And one quick thing, the fourth event in that

26:14

scenario, because listen to good PIVX, we should tell

26:16

the last 75 years to this, the fourth

26:18

turning was obviously Great Depression World War

26:20

II. So now after World War II, you're getting

26:23

into the first turning after the first turning again,

26:25

which which prioritizes community,

26:28

de-emphasizes individualism, America,

26:30

society itself feels that it's more than the

26:33

sum of its parts,

26:35

right? Which is the opposite of

26:37

the

26:37

fall season when we feel as individuals

26:40

much more empowered than the community, right? So

26:42

it's a very different kind of

26:45

gestation of a very different sense

26:47

of what society is, right? It

26:50

always comes after crisis.

26:52

And I make this point, everyone wants

26:54

to know, you know,

26:55

when can we get a golden age again, where

26:58

we all believe in community, we all know

27:00

we're a band of brothers writ large, you

27:02

know, that kind of sense, right?

27:05

I hate to say it, it only happens

27:07

after crisis.

27:08

And you look back in American history,

27:11

in those periods when people thought they were living

27:13

and something resembling a golden age,

27:16

only comes after crisis.

27:18

And there's a reason for

27:20

that. And I explore that in the book.

27:23

You might even say to society is scared

27:25

straight, you know, on a massive scale.

27:28

Once you're a threshold for

27:30

crisis, because this is where the definitions get

27:32

fascinating. Because I mean, sure,

27:34

you remember this. Yeah,

27:37

go on. Yeah, let me just

27:39

make this observation as

27:41

a maybe a cautionary

27:44

note to everyone who's who's watching

27:46

and that is

27:48

this is not a prediction. This is just

27:50

a correlation, right?

27:53

Every fourth turning that we've ever had going

27:55

back to the 15th century has

27:57

always featured a total war.

28:01

And every total war that we've had has always

28:03

occurred in a fourth turning.

28:05

You know what I mean? So that's

28:07

the Revolutionary War, Civil

28:09

War. Civil War, yeah. And

28:11

then going back, the

28:14

incredible wars we had during the Glorious

28:16

Revolution, which is America's first kind

28:18

of revolutionary moment around the time of the Glorious

28:21

Revolution in London.

28:23

But it was a period of brutal warfare

28:26

in the colonies. And then going back before

28:28

that, back to the Armada, the War of the Roses.

28:31

We go back, it's an amazing rhythm.

28:35

And so what happens

28:37

in those periods, as you can imagine? Now,

28:40

what's the conflict about? What

28:43

could be a conflict with

28:45

some exterior community? Or

28:47

it could be a

28:49

conflict within the community.

28:51

The Civil War, for example,

28:53

or the War of the Roses, which is basically

28:55

two parts of the community, splitting

28:58

into two sections and

29:00

then having it out. One of them has to prevail.

29:04

Or it's some

29:06

interesting combination of the two. And

29:08

as I point out in the book, these aren't

29:10

either or. They're a little

29:12

bit of both. I often say the American Revolution

29:15

was a little bit of both. King

29:17

George was over there, but on the other hand, most

29:19

of the killing during the late

29:24

1770s or 1780s

29:26

was colonists killing other colonists. Especially in

29:28

the South. You wrote about this in the South.

29:31

If you're loyalists in the South, it's not

29:33

great.

29:34

No, it was terrible. And it was

29:36

the backcountry loyalist against the

29:39

plantation patriots. But

29:42

it was horrible violence. And at the time,

29:45

it was generally referred to as the Civil War.

29:47

People referred to it as a Civil War in America.

29:50

Only later did the patriots

29:52

get to write history. The

29:55

winners get to write history and say, oh no,

29:57

it was a revolution against these

29:59

where it was all about King George,

30:02

and it was all about rent codes.

30:04

They forget the fact that

30:07

100,000 colonists exited

30:10

the colonies

30:11

in the early 1780s along with the British.

30:13

That would have been the equivalent of 7 million

30:15

Americans today, you can imagine, and

30:18

that's probably an undercount because

30:20

many probably migrated on their own.

30:23

Anyway, this is my point.

30:26

We see both these things today in America.

30:29

We see the growing risk

30:31

of geopolitical conflict. In fact, we're

30:33

engaged in a proxy war right now and a major

30:35

land war in Europe.

30:38

We fear,

30:40

now near-germ, we fear something

30:43

in the Western Pacific.

30:45

We also fear

30:48

the increasing threat of

30:50

the bifurcation and collective conflict

30:52

between sides of America, the

30:55

red zone, blue zone conflict,

30:57

10 years ago, we did not even do surveys

31:00

on

31:01

civil war in America, the possibilities of

31:03

a war in America.

31:04

At last count, over the last few years, it's

31:06

been about half of Americans think that it's

31:09

likely

31:09

to happen over the next few years.

31:13

This is just people,

31:15

this is a feeling about what's happening in this country.

31:18

My point is that these

31:21

trends that we predicted

31:23

long before anyone talked about

31:25

any of this, we seem to be there.

31:28

At

31:28

least people seem

31:30

to have entered that

31:33

mind space

31:35

where it's at least thinkable today. What

31:39

we're saying is it's not only thinkable, some

31:41

form of these things is likely to happen,

31:45

which will occur, we don't

31:47

know. As I put it in the book,

31:50

the difference between an internal conflict

31:52

and an external conflict is often

31:55

on a razor edge

31:57

all the way up into the point until society decides.

31:59

which way it's going to go. It was certainly that

32:02

way in the 1930s. If you had asked people in the 1937,

32:04

you

32:05

know, what kind of, if there's going to be a

32:07

big conflict in this country, what would it be? They

32:10

probably would have said, well, it would have been the New

32:12

Deal against its opponents. I mean, we

32:14

were incredibly polarized. DAN TAPIERO

32:17

Exactly. It was going to be a revolution.

32:21

In fact, we had,

32:22

Sinclair

32:24

Lewis came out with a, but it can't happen here,

32:27

which is all about a fascist takeover in America.

32:29

In other words, we thought that that would

32:31

be the conflict.

32:34

But in a process, and I spell out in the

32:36

book, which has to do

32:38

with kind of a second regeneracy that often occurs

32:40

during a presence era, the

32:43

country galvanized around a different sort of

32:45

issues.

32:46

And it was sort of an interesting

32:49

sectional

32:50

game because it had to do with

32:52

Roosevelt genusing, some

32:54

of his Northern support

32:56

and bringing back on board some

32:58

of the Southern Democratic supporters

33:01

that he needed, because of course they dominated

33:03

all the leadership of all the congressional parties

33:05

because of seniority.

33:07

So he brought them back on board

33:09

and he galvanized the country around essentially

33:12

an us versus

33:14

fascism agenda. And

33:16

ultimately

33:19

the attack on Pearl Harbor was almost anti-climatic.

33:23

This country modalized for

33:25

war in the sense of the arsenal

33:27

of democracy about a year earlier,

33:30

about really even at the

33:32

end of 1940. And

33:38

we really started pumping

33:40

up the fiscal pumps by the

33:43

opening months of 1941. So that

33:45

was almost a

33:47

year before Pearl Harbor. Anyway,

33:51

an interesting story of how

33:53

that happened,

33:55

very hard to predict in advance how that would

33:57

have gone.

33:59

But our point is, and my point

34:02

continuing in this book,

34:04

is that no, you can't predict which

34:06

way will go. What you

34:08

can predict is that something

34:10

will go, right? That there

34:13

will be a conflict and

34:15

that that conflict will reinstall

34:17

this new sense of humanity. It's

34:20

the overall social process can be predicted,

34:23

not the actual tangibles

34:26

of the conflict itself.

34:28

And we've discussed a bunch

34:31

of different crises so far in the podcast.

34:33

And if we just do the quick AP US history

34:35

summary, Civil War, I mean,

34:37

the Revolutionary War is about the nature

34:39

of what America is in terms of recovery, British culinary

34:42

and independent thing. So war is about

34:44

a debate around are we

34:47

these states United or are we the United

34:49

States Union versus secession?

34:52

Great Depression to World War II is the domestic

34:54

thing. The external thing, but

34:56

also domestically, the nature of the industrial

34:59

economy, financial structures, sides of government,

35:01

et cetera, et cetera. What would you say

35:03

the millennial crisis, this

35:06

period of roughly 2008 to the present into

35:10

the future? What is this crisis about?

35:13

I think we can tell what

35:16

kinds of events would get us in

35:18

there. What we can't predict

35:20

is how we will

35:23

be transformed when it would come out of it. I

35:25

mean that honestly.

35:27

When we went into the Civil War,

35:29

remember the

35:29

elimination

35:32

of slavery wasn't even on the table. And

35:34

I often remind that, you know, Lincoln,

35:36

in fact, broadly

35:39

agreed with people that he would sign a constitutional

35:41

amendment guaranteeing the south slavery

35:45

indefinitely in the south. So long

35:47

as you know that they were, he was running

35:49

on

35:50

the Republicans basically inherited the Free

35:52

Soil Platform and Free Free Soil Party.

35:54

We just didn't want slavery in any of the new territories

35:56

or states.

35:58

For reasons which were fine with the. abolitionists,

36:00

but they also suited those. A lot of white

36:02

people, it didn't want any blacks. And

36:05

they knew the New Territories, slave or not,

36:07

you know what I mean?

36:08

So, in other words, it was a mixture of motives.

36:11

But the abolition of slavery

36:13

was not on the table when Lincoln

36:15

was elected at the time when the South seceded.

36:18

I remind people that

36:20

because they read back, you

36:22

know what I mean? They read back, they think, oh,

36:25

well, that was what the nation wanted.

36:27

We were divided over that.

36:29

No, that was not on the table.

36:32

We had no idea that that would eventuate.

36:34

It was only when we got into total

36:36

war. And

36:38

Lincoln finally said, given the scale

36:40

of the casualties, we have to do anything

36:42

possible to weaken the South. We're going to

36:44

declare slavery's contraband.

36:47

And so, any slave who wants to come over,

36:49

they will be freed forever

36:51

because that will weaken the South.

36:54

But then, of course, the radicals, the

36:56

radical republicans in Congress

36:59

were jubilant because they knew that

37:01

that policy, if

37:03

the union won the war, would

37:05

make the total eradication

37:07

of slavery in the South. So, in a sense,

37:10

we adopted the abolition

37:12

of slavery as a wartime

37:15

measure.

37:16

And Lincoln made it very clear that

37:18

he was not in favor in abstract

37:20

of abolition of slavery.

37:23

But he was, because he

37:25

wanted to break, you know, wanted to make sure that his

37:27

conservatives, you know, republicans were on

37:29

board and his would, democrats wouldn't abandon

37:32

him. He's the border states always. Yeah,

37:34

he wanted to keep them in the wars.

37:37

But, and so, time and

37:40

again, we see that these huge

37:44

long-term permanent decisions

37:46

are made in the heat of crisis. And

37:50

this is a point I bring up, I

37:52

think it's in

37:54

the Fourth Turning of the Social Process. I

37:56

think it's a chapter, I don't know,

37:59

pretty good at remembering.

37:59

I think it's chapter eight, but I talk

38:02

about social processes.

38:04

And one of the most amazing and some paradoxical

38:07

things about our history is that

38:09

if you ask people

38:12

when we'd be the best time to make huge,

38:14

permanent long-term decisions, you know, about

38:16

changing our constitution or doing everything

38:19

better again,

38:20

everyone sort of say, well, the best time we'd be

38:23

when we're all prosperous, happy, you

38:25

know, we have plenty of resources to spare

38:27

to make East Dividendous nights in 93. This

38:30

is good. In 1997, you know, when

38:32

the real court attorney, it wouldn't have

38:34

been a perfect time. We were,

38:37

we actually foresaw that we have a balanced

38:39

budget. The Cold War was over. We had

38:41

all these extra resources.

38:43

History says,

38:45

you know, so in other words, a sunny day,

38:48

right? Wait for that sunny day and we'll

38:50

make these long-term decisions. But

38:52

history says that may be the

38:56

rational thing to do.

38:57

But history says it's absolutely not what we

39:00

do, actually do. We do the opposite.

39:03

We wait for the rainy day, the

39:06

stormy day, when all of our backs

39:08

are against the wall, where we face the

39:10

existential decisions about whether

39:12

our nation and community will last

39:15

at all.

39:16

Near-term problems, immediate problems

39:18

about we're facing defeat in the base.

39:21

And suddenly we make long-term

39:23

decisions. It is paradoxical,

39:25

right? And we do it again and again.

39:27

We did it with the Constitution. We did it with

39:30

these enormous decisions in domestic

39:32

policy

39:33

during the Civil War. Everything

39:35

from the original Yosemite Grant, from

39:37

the National Parks, Chascot, and the railroad, you

39:39

know, the

39:41

regulation of the money supply, income time, I could

39:44

go through all the things we did. And

39:46

similarly with the new deal there

39:48

in World War II. And

39:51

so that's paradoxical. But

39:53

again, it shows that how

39:55

when people think about the climax

39:58

of a poor turning, which I think we...

39:59

are

40:00

drifting toward,

40:02

we're in the fourth turning of the narrow, but we're drifting

40:04

toward the climax

40:07

that we fear

40:09

it

40:10

because we know that that's going to be duress,

40:13

it's going to be painful, it's going to be hardship,

40:17

and it's likely to involve

40:20

organized conflict.

40:22

But on the other hand,

40:24

we should realize that that's nature's

40:26

way

40:28

of

40:29

bringing about a creative destruction of institutional

40:32

life and rejuvenating who we are as

40:34

a republic. And we do that periodically

40:37

in our nation's existence. We sometimes

40:39

even call these, in fact,

40:41

it's not our defined historians, political scientists

40:43

calling, but the first republic after

40:46

the second republic after the

40:48

Civil War, the third republic after the New

40:50

Deal,

40:51

we're headed toward our fourth republic

40:54

after the climax of this fourth

40:56

turning. And it

40:58

will involve probably consummate

41:00

and decisive realignment politically. Oh, there

41:03

you go, right to the name of your show. But

41:10

all of that will happen, and

41:12

we will make long-term decisions

41:15

the exact nature of which still

41:17

even now,

41:19

we can only begin to imagine what

41:21

those might be. I mean, look, we all

41:23

know what big problems we have,

41:25

big public policy challenges. I

41:28

mean, you could talk about all of them from

41:32

kind of sclerotic, non-competitive

41:34

economy, which is failing

41:37

to really generate the

41:39

living standard growth and the productivity growth

41:41

that we once experienced to

41:44

things such as climate change, problems such

41:46

as climate change, the inability to balance

41:49

the budget, the inability just to

41:51

tilt the entire playing

41:53

field of this nation's economy toward the

41:55

young and toward the future. Instead, it's

41:57

all tilted to rewarding older people. consumption.

42:03

All of those things

42:04

get resolved at the same time.

42:07

You come out of the fourth turning suddenly

42:09

with a long-term orientation,

42:12

turn long-term goals suddenly,

42:14

and of course, who represents the future,

42:17

who represents the long-term?

42:19

Kids, young people. So there's a

42:21

huge emphasis in investing on them, just like

42:23

we did after World War II. Suddenly, we passed the GI

42:26

Bill and we...

42:27

Education was free. Higher education.

42:29

Suburbs, Levitown is you create a new mother

42:32

living. Yeah.

42:32

Well, so this

42:35

gets to a big question that I have, not just as an interview

42:37

production as a reader. You have this concept

42:40

of these precursor

42:42

events, and this is a very key thing. So in

42:44

the middle of these turnings, in the middle

42:46

of the cycle, you have World

42:48

War I. That's a precursor.

42:51

Specifically in the fall

42:54

season, in the third turning before the

42:56

fourth turning. Yeah. So these are all of those

42:58

third turning events.

43:00

And then just also 9-11. 9-11 is another example

43:02

then. 9-11 was again a third turning.

43:05

It occurred

43:07

late in the third turning, not long before

43:09

the fourth turning started.

43:11

So what I want to know then is, because

43:13

this is where we get to the explaining the

43:15

generational archetypes. Hero, millennial,

43:19

artist, Gen Z, prophet,

43:22

those are the silent challenge. Those are

43:24

the boomers. Boomers. Yeah. For

43:27

Africa, we need boomer and the

43:29

silent generation would be the artist archetype.

43:33

So then the

43:35

way to understand this then, do precursor

43:38

events not lead to

43:41

let's say

43:44

a resolution of, because oftentimes the precursor

43:46

events

43:47

will press engine many ways, the actual

43:49

crises of the fourth turning. So World War

43:51

I, obviously you've got a lot of domestic strife

43:54

and all might try being an anti-war progressive during

43:56

that period. You have the red scare.

43:58

You've got obviously what they exterior.

43:59

What's the word order look like that very much

44:02

rhymes before World War Two say they have

44:04

9-11 generation unity, etc Is that is

44:06

that do they not lead to resolution

44:09

because the generation in charge?

44:12

Does not constitutionally have

44:14

the ability to conclude it, right? So

44:16

can Woodrow Wilson not do something

44:18

that FDR can yeah,

44:20

yeah every generation is in the wrong

44:22

place Right and then

44:24

there was there is such a thing as a poor turning

44:26

constellation when you finally get the the

44:29

profit archetype well

44:31

into old age Gen

44:33

Xers totally in charge of

44:36

institutions, you know admirals general

44:38

CEOs and so on the

44:40

Euro archetype

44:41

well, you know

44:43

Totally in control of young adulthood,

44:46

you know extending all the way into the mid-40s, right?

44:49

And and that's when you

44:51

have the maximum

44:55

Outer world creative

44:57

potential right because the doers

45:00

are young the community Organizers and

45:02

the people who actually want to do things the left-brain

45:04

organization things about how do we create these

45:06

big new ordered forms? Are young they're actually

45:09

great things and the values are in

45:11

it people are old, right?

45:13

So and then you've got the pragmatic

45:15

generation in between

45:17

who just knows how to get stuff done, right? I mean they

45:19

take sort of break rules break heads

45:21

doing every you want to make sure it's done you get

45:23

this You know more Bradley's and Dwight Eisenhower's

45:26

and the George Patton's right? They're all

45:28

in that midlife space

45:30

So that's the maximum potential

45:32

for changing the world on the other hand

45:34

Think about another think about another set

45:36

of positions. Let's say you have the

45:39

profit archetype young adults So

45:42

the binging and values was all among the young

45:44

and then you've got the other generation as the

45:46

doers Yes, the

45:49

rationalists the doers of people who believe in the

45:51

community Well,

45:53

and then you have sort of an which you watch a

45:55

generation between what was called the you know

45:58

Michael Luke caucus generation of silent

45:59

right?

46:01

That's like maximum dysfunction,

46:03

right? So you have

46:06

the people who believe in values, they know what's wrong,

46:08

they're young,

46:09

and they're giving orders to the older people who

46:11

are running the world. Do you

46:14

see how it works? That's basically the late

46:16

60s. Hell no, I won't go.

46:19

And then you have the older

46:21

generation

46:22

believing that as a nation, we need to

46:24

have all of this community when you dab all

46:26

these long-term obligations, and

46:28

you have a young generation just saying this,

46:30

right? And

46:32

you actually saw that

46:34

evidence of that during the pandemic.

46:37

During the pandemic, interestingly, people

46:39

didn't remark on that a little bit, the

46:41

youth

46:42

generation was

46:45

the most likely to want to actually follow

46:47

the rules.

46:48

You know, like put on face masks, and

46:50

actually, you know, all of the rules

46:52

when it comes to controlling the pandemic,

46:55

even though they were by far the least

46:57

at risk, right?

46:58

The older generation, most at risk,

47:01

were

47:01

the ones who rarely against all these regulations,

47:04

right?

47:05

And the reason why I bring that up is

47:07

that if you had gone back to the 1970s, let's

47:10

imagine we had had

47:11

a pandemic, you know,

47:14

like, I don't know, 1972, would

47:16

have been the opposite. You don't

47:18

have older people saying, okay, let's get on our

47:20

uniforms now, it's time to go to work. And

47:23

younger people would have been saying, hell

47:25

no, what are you talking about? And the key thing

47:27

here, just to make this super clear, just

47:30

within your, because this is the perfect setup in the sense

47:32

that

47:33

imagine Richard Nixon's government

47:35

America telling baby

47:37

boomers to do X, Y, and Z versus even

47:39

the millennial generation, Donald Trump

47:42

is president,

47:43

and they're still doing the thing. Donald Trump, even as president,

47:48

is still an outsider. He's railing against

47:50

his own administration. He's still the deep

47:52

state, is still enemies everywhere, even

47:54

within his own organization. One of the

47:56

fascinating is about Donald Trump. And

47:59

it was. He

48:01

was never really in charge. Even

48:04

as president, his own government

48:07

was almost his opponent.

48:10

The problem with Donald Trump as being a

48:12

populist is it's very hard for him to be in

48:14

charge of it, because that means he's responsible.

48:17

So it has to rail against

48:19

federal

48:21

bureaucracies or Congress or people forcing

48:24

me to do this and that.

48:26

I think

48:29

the idea of being in charge and

48:31

feeling responsible for what happens

48:35

is not really in

48:37

the Boomers DNA. Remember, the

48:39

whole- Oh, it's so interesting.

48:42

But the Boomers' whole mission was to change

48:45

the culture. It was not

48:48

to

48:49

build infrastructure, design

48:51

a new constitution. It was to free

48:54

your mind instead. You remember the old Beatles

48:56

wet album, free your mind.

49:00

Not to be aggressive, but

49:02

does this explain why Boomers are obsessed with conspiracy

49:04

theories?

49:05

In the sense that like,

49:08

think of not to get over-tletical,

49:10

but like

49:11

RFK Jr. RFK

49:14

Jr. seems to be incapable. I

49:17

could see the attraction. If you are in constitution,

49:19

you're incapable of being in charge. Conspiracy

49:23

theories and this and this and that seems to be- It's

49:25

a logical thing. Right.

49:28

You just always want to keep people in flame

49:30

that

49:31

mobilized almost

49:33

in a chaotic fashion to mobilize

49:35

them with a purpose to actually change the world,

49:37

but then you have to take responsibility for

49:40

it. It's interesting

49:42

that Boomers

49:48

are aware of the charge that millennials offer

49:50

and level against them

49:53

that they're a do as I'm saying,

49:55

not as I do generation. The

49:57

Boomers are always talking about high

49:59

values. I

50:00

heard Bill Clinton came to the president saying, you're

50:02

really the most ethical presidency in American

50:04

history. You look at even

50:06

conservatives, the CPAP doctrine

50:09

is culture is upstream from politics.

50:12

Whenever you look at boomers, culture

50:14

always comes first and actual policies

50:16

come later. Its intentions come

50:18

first. That's that old awakening,

50:21

fire.

50:22

The pure heart comes first and

50:24

the inside comes first. If

50:26

that's pure, everything else follows.

50:30

But being responsible for consequences,

50:33

which is what follows, is

50:36

something boomers have a hard time with. When

50:38

they're faced with these accusations

50:41

that they

50:43

don't really take charge, and are

50:45

only responsible for how they run these institutions,

50:48

I think boomers are responsible.

50:50

We never really tried to run the institutions.

50:53

Our whole purpose in life

50:56

has been to change aspirations and

50:58

ideals. Here's an interesting

51:00

way to look at it. A

51:04

phrase came into being hugely

51:06

increasing in popularity through the 1950s.

51:10

As the GI generation was gaining power,

51:12

he kept taking over America as the CEOs,

51:15

and ultimately by the end of the decade

51:17

as president, right? The JFK.

51:19

That was coined by C. Wright Mills, who was

51:21

called the power elite. The

51:23

GI generation loved that power

51:25

elite. Yeah, we're the power elite. We're taking over.

51:28

We got longer strides in Kennedy

51:30

said, we're going to take power. We're going to actually change.

51:33

Then LBJ came to the Civil Rights Act,

51:35

and we came over there, we're going to put a man on the moon.

51:39

We were a nation that would

51:40

do huge things. The great

51:43

society. We really did do

51:45

big things during that period.

51:49

Another phrase became very popular, sky-rattling

51:51

popularity during the 1990s when

51:54

boomers were taking over.

51:56

It wasn't the power elite, and it was coined

51:58

by I think Newsweek magazine. It

52:00

was

52:00

a phrase called the cultural elite.

52:03

That says it all, doesn't it? The

52:05

power elite, the cultural elite,

52:08

members have always been fixated in the culture.

52:10

And what they were going to do is

52:13

they were going to be in charge of the culture. They were going to change

52:15

the culture because if you change the culture,

52:18

everything else will eventually automatically follow.

52:21

And in fact, in a long term sense, they're right

52:23

because they lead America straight into the fourth turning.

52:27

They'll lead up to millennials to actually change the

52:29

world. So in some long term sense,

52:32

there is wisdom to that. But obviously,

52:35

boomers are not a generation which

52:37

has taken responsibility

52:40

either as CEOs or as political

52:42

leaders for what they've done. I mean, all these

52:45

mark to market buyout schemes

52:47

and

52:48

all these incredible things that boomers do,

52:50

which are so obviously self-serving

52:53

and their lack of a long term time horizon.

52:56

But given how they came of age,

52:58

celebrating the present,

53:00

celebrating Lifford today,

53:02

title of a famous song, by the

53:04

way, why

53:07

would we expect them to have a long term

53:10

orientation when it comes to how

53:12

they actually manage their lives?

53:15

Where boomers will become very interesting,

53:17

I think, is when all

53:20

we know about them is their values because their

53:22

values are actually very demanding

53:24

and very unforgiven.

53:26

And when you look at just the boomer values

53:29

themselves,

53:30

truth versus falsehood, good

53:33

versus evil,

53:35

and you have a younger generation of doers

53:37

actuating those,

53:39

then suddenly you have a society that

53:41

can really move. That's why it really matters

53:43

where boomers are in the phase of life. And

53:46

I think one thing that's a little bit counterintuitive

53:48

about our book is that we claim that boomers,

53:50

when they finally completely end

53:53

all age, will

53:55

not be the pro-consumption lobby

53:57

that we associate with 80 years.

53:59

ERP and senior citizens,

54:02

that boomers will go along

54:04

with sacrifice

54:06

for everyone in America, much

54:08

as earlier artists and profit

54:11

archetypes have done in their old age,

54:14

been in favor of the

54:16

individual sacrificing and behavior

54:19

in favor of the community and in favor

54:21

of younger people. And that will be a

54:23

very surprising

54:26

feature of the late fourth turning

54:29

that we are going to see. And in fact, I

54:31

already see it. If you interview most boomers

54:33

about social security and Medicare, yeah,

54:35

they'll say, yeah, I don't want

54:38

those things changed, but their heart

54:40

isn't in it. I mean, they know that

54:43

they didn't say in the same way that the GI

54:45

generation did. Exactly. They were

54:47

never senior citizens. They didn't

54:49

do any of that stuff.

54:52

I've been involved in

54:54

looking at this for a long time. I was writing

54:56

books about

54:59

the generational inequity and the federal

55:01

budget even back in the 1980s.

55:03

And I remember how the GI generation looked

55:06

at it. It was,

55:08

I paid my dues. I

55:10

splashed the Surat Normandy at Okinawa,

55:13

at Tarawa. That's

55:15

a good argument, too. I

55:18

built this country.

55:20

And I want my dues

55:22

back. I mean, everything you see around you, we

55:25

built. And you guys are

55:27

just playing with it. And

55:29

there was no response to that argument. And

55:31

basically, what happened in the 1970s

55:34

when the entire Vietnam fiscal

55:36

dividend went to seniors, now that was

55:38

after we expanded the eligibility

55:41

for some security, we

55:42

put it on colas, we did a whole bunch of things

55:44

to hugely shift the budget during

55:46

that period to seniors. Boomers

55:49

went along with that. Boomers did

55:51

not object at all to bearing a much

55:53

bigger fiscal burden

55:55

for the GI generation turned

55:58

senior citizen.

55:59

thing isn't it that the same generation

56:02

that we called junior citizens during

56:04

World War II was the first generation

56:07

of seniors to be called senior citizens

56:09

in the late 60s. In other words, that

56:12

same

56:13

image just aged with that.

56:16

Well, no one is going to cut benefits

56:18

to senior citizens. So

56:21

there was a trade. What happened was

56:23

that the trade was this. OK,

56:26

you got Nixon and Watergate, new generation,

56:29

really no one cares about you anymore. So we're

56:32

going to do this. You're going to get all your

56:34

benefits. We're going to pile them on.

56:36

You're

56:36

going to let us have the culture.

56:39

And that's what happened in the mid 70s. And

56:41

by the time Reagan came into the White House for playing

56:44

Beach Boys, that was a big thing. I know it's

56:46

hard for you to understand that. But that one's actually

56:48

a big thing, right? Yeah, Beach Boys at the

56:50

White House. Whoa, well, that was Nancy

56:53

Reagan's.

56:54

He told Ronnie that was OK. Now you can

56:56

play Beach Boys.

56:58

Ronald Reagan's OK with that. But my

57:00

point is that the Boomers took over the culture.

57:03

And that was the exchange. You

57:05

give us the culture. Let us do

57:07

what we want in the culture. You guys get your benefits.

57:11

As we move further into the fourth turning,

57:13

the

57:14

exchange is going to be the reverse.

57:18

So the reverse is that

57:20

the Boomers will say, we're

57:22

going to give up our benefits. This is a time

57:24

of hardship. I mean, imagine what we've been doing

57:26

in this country. We suddenly had to

57:29

truly mobilize for some national

57:31

emergency. We're

57:32

going to give up those benefits.

57:34

But

57:34

in return, we're going to ask more from

57:36

young people culturally. They can

57:38

serve their country.

57:40

That's going to be the difference. And that's going

57:43

to be actually a huge slingshot

57:45

for the millennial generation, because

57:47

that will empower them then

57:49

to remake the world.

57:51

I want to ask one last quick question, because

57:53

I know we're hitting your time limit here. The

57:55

New York Times did a good write up last

57:58

week about your book and how it's actually. pervaded

58:00

into pop culture. But the thing

58:02

that I really actually kind of objected to in the

58:04

narrative level was that, and by the way, this is

58:06

the writer doesn't choose the headlines, but it

58:08

referred to your work as like

58:11

a doomsday theory. And I just like

58:13

kind of want to say like, honestly,

58:15

this doesn't feel doomsday. This feels

58:17

very empowering

58:19

if I'm a millennial in the sense that like, they

58:22

feel like you're totally alone right now, but actually

58:24

what your cohort members,

58:26

you guys can do big things again. So I

58:28

just want you to respond to whether or not this is a pessimistic

58:31

or I think this feels pessimistic against the 90s,

58:33

but I think now that we're into it, this feels optimistic

58:36

to me.

58:36

I think it is optimistic. First

58:39

of all, I'm incredibly

58:41

optimistic about America. I mean, I really believe

58:44

in America. I believe in this country. And

58:47

I think actually the fourth turning

58:49

is a solution, you know, more

58:52

than it is a problem. It's

58:54

a huge challenge

58:55

and it will demand the most

58:58

from all of us. But long

59:00

term, it is a solution. It's

59:03

a way to solve all of the problems.

59:05

And we all think of as insoluble, and

59:07

it's a way to empower the younger generation

59:09

again. I

59:10

think,

59:13

in other words, I'm very positive

59:15

about where this nation comes out

59:18

of the fourth turning. And

59:21

you were right, you know what you said,

59:23

writers do not choose the headline, since you

59:25

well know. And I've had many examples of op-eds

59:28

and just wince when I see the headline.

59:31

Oh, I didn't say that. And it was something

59:34

that all viewers should understand. When

59:36

you write something for a newspaper

59:38

like an op-ed,

59:40

editors insist on being

59:42

able to choose a headline for you,

59:44

which may completely misconstrue

59:46

what it is. And the fact is,

59:48

is it the writer of that article, which

59:50

is actually interesting, it's been style section

59:53

piece in the meantime,

59:54

did not say that

59:56

in his article. But,

59:57

you know, your

1:00:00

times, we want to put it in a safe box.

1:00:02

Oh, this is that. You know what I mean? That's

1:00:04

a dooms. It's, it's,

1:00:07

it's obviously not a

1:00:09

doomsayer thing. Anyone

1:00:11

ever read the book? Yeah.

1:00:12

It's like closing thought is, and this, I think once

1:00:15

again, to your point, it's, it's not optimistic.

1:00:17

It's not pessimistic because it's a solution. You

1:00:19

read a book about, you know, you read where these like

1:00:21

heavy of gadget books about what went wrong in the 2000s and

1:00:24

they say things like, how would we not

1:00:26

come together

1:00:27

after September 11th? We had all this opportunity.

1:00:30

Why did George Jimmy Bush tell us to go shopping

1:00:32

instead of doing national service? This book explains

1:00:36

why that was the thing. Yeah. We don't have to think

1:00:38

that this is all crazy. Like this was a solution

1:00:40

to that. It does explain why. And that's a precursor

1:00:43

event, as you said, and that's typical of recursors,

1:00:45

it's kind of like the little water. It's like the Mexican

1:00:47

American work.

1:00:49

I will say this, that, um, in

1:00:52

one way, I think it was very positive. Was that the book

1:00:54

gives

1:00:56

a really interesting and important

1:00:58

role for Egypt today's generations,

1:01:00

you know, over the next 15 years. And that is

1:01:03

boomers to suddenly become.

1:01:05

They fulfill

1:01:07

their purpose as

1:01:09

a generation of vision and values

1:01:12

in a good way. Right. Uh, not

1:01:14

necessarily with, with managing institutions,

1:01:16

which they don't work well, but to

1:01:18

be that kind of, uh, elder

1:01:21

cultural arbiter

1:01:23

and providing kind of a guide post for

1:01:25

younger generations,

1:01:27

it's a way for Gen X

1:01:29

to suddenly

1:01:31

see themselves not as

1:01:34

terminal losers. I mean, this was a generation

1:01:36

that was castigated and criticized ever

1:01:38

since they were kids. I mean, we've never had

1:01:40

a

1:01:41

generation so heavily

1:01:44

dumped with negativity by the media ever

1:01:46

since they were born, even as kids, these

1:01:49

were the child's double horror movie kids, you remember?

1:01:52

And the worst educated kids in American

1:01:55

history, I mean, everything about Gen X is sort

1:01:57

of, you know, garbage, worthless.

1:01:59

history, nothing to them,

1:02:02

nothing to contribute. And I think

1:02:04

by contrast, Gen Xers

1:02:06

will be at the fulcrum as

1:02:09

midlife leaders in what happens.

1:02:11

They will make the difference as midlife

1:02:14

leaders,

1:02:15

for better or for worse. And

1:02:17

then for millennials, this is a launching

1:02:19

pad. This is a launching pad

1:02:21

for the rest of their lives.

1:02:23

And whatever is created

1:02:26

will be identified with them, much

1:02:28

as the Republican generation,

1:02:30

you know, who largely, you know, wrote

1:02:33

the Federalist Papers, wrote the Constitution,

1:02:35

you know, right?

1:02:37

It was associated with them. I mean, this

1:02:40

patriotic Republican generation,

1:02:42

they were the ones who were elevated

1:02:45

by this event and they were able to

1:02:47

create something long term for this country's

1:02:49

future.

1:02:51

This is empowering every generation

1:02:54

alive today

1:02:55

in a very special way, either

1:02:57

because

1:02:58

it helps them realize a better future

1:03:01

or it allows them to bring to bear

1:03:04

a better side of themselves

1:03:07

in this period to come than is necessarily

1:03:10

what they've been contributing in the past. That

1:03:14

is an excellent place to leave it. Neil, this

1:03:16

has been really great. Once

1:03:18

again, I recommend all of your books

1:03:21

and I hope folks continue to dive into it. Thanks

1:03:23

for joining me on The Realignment. Great. Thank

1:03:26

you, Marc. It's been a pleasure. Hope you enjoyed

1:03:28

this episode. If you learned something, like this show's mission,

1:03:30

or want to access our subscriber-exclusive

1:03:32

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1:03:38

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1:03:49

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