The Fourth Turning

According to a book from 1991, the world (and mostly, America) goes through a cycle of four turns.

People are wondering when the Fourth Turning will end: the latest estimate is 2030.

In his review for the Boston Globe, historian David Kaiser called The Fourth Turning “a provocative and immensely entertaining outline of American history, Strauss and Howe have taken a gamble”. “If the United States calmly makes it to 2015, their work will end up in the ashcan of history, but if they are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets.” Kaiser has since argued that Strauss and Howe’s predictions of coming crisis seems to have occurred, citing events such as 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and the recent political gridlock.

Kaiser has incorporated Strauss and Howe’s theory in two historical works of his own, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (2000), and No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War (2014). Michael Lind, a historian and co-founder of the New America Foundation, wrote that The Fourth Turning (1997) was vague and verged into the realm of “pseudoscience”; “most of the authors’ predictions about the American future turn out to be as vague as those of fortune cookies”. Lind said that the theory is essential “non-falsifiable” and “mystifying,” although he believed the authors did have some insights into modern American history.

For The New York Times in 2017, Pulitzer-winning journalist Jeremy Peters wrote that “many academic historians dismiss the book as about as scientific as astrology or a Nostradamus text.”

The Fourth Turning (Wikipedia)

Because the generations seem to be of a 20-25 year duration, I wondered if this theory is actually just a disguise for the cycles of Saturn (Father Time).

Now, admittedly, this would make the generational energy last almost 30 years, but the effect is similar. Take this illustration for one person’s career, as an example:

So, the question is: are people waking up to the fact that Astrology is more than just a pseudo-science?