This letter is about your future self. This letter does not pretend to predict your future. Nor do I claim to have any psychic powers or vision of the future that comes from dreams. Our feelings of uncertainty about the future sometimes get in the way of our thinking clearly about what we can do in the present to prepare for the future.
Science has a definition of uncertainty that is different from when we have a feeling of uncertainty. The former is a statistical method and the latter a fleeting feeling that too often leads to anxiety. This letter is not intended to increase anxiety but to identify hope.
Generations
We do have the certainty of demographics: how many and when people were born. Events over time influence people, and groups of people influence events. We refer to these groups of people, born at certain times, as generations.
The study of generations provides a solid foundation of statistics, events and consequences over time that we weave into a pattern. This description of a pattern does not result from direct causation, like when authoritarian action has specific consequences. The pattern of generations results from systemic causality analyzed over time. (1)
For example, Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) are well known as a generation of idealists. There are differences between first half and second half of the Boomer generation. The later Boomers flocked to the evangelical churches that appealed to their ideals. This large evangelical group has influenced the policies of conservative politicians.
To keep this letter short and to the point, I’ll refer you to the books by Strauss and Howe, “Generations” (2) and “The Fourth Turning” (3) for further details and study.
The Fourth Turning
The Fourth Turning is a Crisis. A 20-year era, America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival. Civic authority revives, cultural expression finds a community purpose, and people begin to locate themselves as members of a larger group. In every instance, Fourth Turnings have eventually become new “founding moments” in America’s history, refreshing and redefining the national identity. Prior Fourth Turning Crisis Climaxes were the American Revolution and Civil War.
America’s most recent Fourth Turning began with the stock market crash of 1929 and climaxed with World War II. The generation that came of age during this Fourth Turning was the Hero archetype G.I. Generation (born 1901 to 1924), whose collective spirit and can-do optimism epitomized the mood of the era. Today’s Hero archetype youth, the Millennial Generation (born 1982 to 2004) show many traits similar to those of the G.I. youth, including rising civic engagement, improving behavior, and collective confidence.
What is your role?
As a member of the Millennial Generation, you will have the opportunity to become part of the next Hero generation: the generation that gets credit for saving America from a Great Crisis. What that means to you personally depends on what you volunteer to do during the Great Transformation.
When?
According to Neil Howe, co-author of “The Fourth Turning”, the present crisis era began September 2008 when the global Dow was in free fall, banks were failing, money markets froze shut, and business owners held their breath. You probably don’t remember because Isa was 9 and Natalia was 7 years old at the time.
What’s Next?
Writing now, March 2016, we are entering the eighth year of the crisis era. Howe writes that a Turning lasts on average about 20 years. That means the current 4th Turning will last from 9/2008 until about 2028. Can we be more specific? Yes.
As stated in my blog post reference (4), the 4th Turning has four stages: catalyst, regeneracy, climax and resolution. We experienced the catalyst in September 2008. When will the other stages happen and what does that mean for you?
My Advice: Stay in school as long as possible. Even when the crisis hits hard…and the surprise makes people do stupid things….you should pause, breath, take deep breaths. One possibility is that you decide to leave university before finishing. Know that you will return after the crisis resolves. There is hope for returning to school after the crisis resolves.
My Dad was a member of the previous Hero Generation. He stayed in school (1938-1942) but left before the graduation ceremony. He could have left early, because WWII started in Europe in 1939 and Pearl Harbor was in December 1941. My Dad was in college in Colorado until spring of 1942 in order to complete his classes to finish his degree and graduate. Then he volunteered for the Army Air Corp. Many others returned to finish college later.
The Great Transformation
The success of humanity, your generation, and you personally, will feel uncertain. But there is the certainty of a successful conclusion. There are great events yet to be known that will be extremely difficult to overcome. The timeline is approximate, and the climax and resolution of the crisis era could happen quicker than average, and we might get through by 2025.
The key to your generation’s success and your future will come from your foresight. Here, I am laying out for you a pattern for the future. You will need to fill in the events as they happen that align with this general timeline.
The Regeneracy
The Regeneracy (2016-2020) will patch over differences, band people together (unity) and build something new. This stage will begin a growth in centralized authority and decisive leadership at a time of great peril and urgency. The Regeneracy cannot always be identified with a single news event.
Howe suggests the Regeneracy will begin in 2016. We can see this playing out now in 2016 Presidential politics. Trump represents the past traditions of an authoritarian white male dominating every part of society and making decisions based on direct causation. Hillary Clinton represents the future of women in leadership roles, when we need unity, mass mobilization, progressive policies, and a clear understanding of systemic causality (1).
Climax and Resolution
The Climax (2020-2024) is a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and triumph of the new. The peak alignment in 2020 of the generations happens like this: Boomers as the moral leaders (weird right?) with GenX (like your mother and father) as the managers and supervisors. Your generation, the Millennials, are the “soldiers”, the ones on the front lines of the crisis. My hope is that you pause and finish university, then pick your leadership role sometime after the initial surprise crisis event.
The Resolution (2025-2028) is both a triumphant and tragic conclusion that separates winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order. You will be part of the Hero Generation, celebrated for the rest of your lives by future generations for saving humanity from certain extinction.
Conclusion
If you follow my advice above, by spring 2020 the Regeneracy stage will be complete, and you will have been partially engaged in the crisis, but you each will remain in school to graduate from university in 2022 and 2023. You’ll then fully engage in action to respond to the Climax and Resolution along with hundreds of millions of other Millennials from every country on Earth.
Everything that I grew up expecting to remain the same in my lifetime will be changing. For example, people’s behavior will change so that consumerism, buying unsustainable material objects, becomes like a sin and illegal (weird right?). You will have no trouble with the Great Transformation because you will have millions of Millennials like you supporting each other.
Key Advice: look for opportunities to be a leader. Shortly after joining the Army Air Corp, my Dad got out of being a gunner on airplanes and went to officer candidate school in Australia. He became a 1st Lieutenant, the leader for a team of African-American soldiers loading and unloading airplanes that followed the island hopping Army towards Japan that ended the war.
You will be offered opportunities to lead. You’ll be successful at the end of the crisis. Think about your choices, then make a decision and move into a leadership role.
Take Care
Richard Turnock
References:
(1) The difference between direct causation and systemic causality are discussed in my blog post: http://turnock.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-trump.html
(2) Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. New York: Morrow, 1991.
(3) Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. New York: Broadway, 1997
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