Thom Hartmann & Neil Howe: Are we in the Fourth Turning?

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 07:11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZp0-DOC7Ko   Posted on YouTube: July 29, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 171   Posted on DU: July 29, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 3935

 
Neil Howe, co-author of "The Fourth Turning." While what's going in Washington may SEEM like run-of-the-mill dysfunctional politics that we've all gotten used to - the reality is - we could be watching something much, much bigger unfolding. Something bigger than Speaker Boehner - something bigger than Harry Reid - and something even bigger than President Obama. This debt-limit fiasco might actually be the start of a crisis in America unlike any this nation has ever seen since the Great Depression or even the Civil War. Thom Hartmann is joined by Neil Howe - President & Co-Founder of Lifecourse Associates & the author of eight books including the one I want to talk about tonight, "The Fourth Turning."

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check
www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[abelenkpe]

1. Yes

Especially the part where gen X agrees to screw themselves over attempting to fix the mess were all in.

[femrap]

2. I had no idea of the ages

of our Representatives in Congress...Gen X are not like their parents...the hippie generation, however I do realize many of the Boomers weren't all Lefties, but we did invoke true Change ie, civil rights, women's rights, the anti-war movement.

Now those changes are being revoked.

[abelenkpe]

3. It's sickening watching society slip backwards

I've always identified with hippies and been grateful for the civil rights movement. But I am gen X and it's true most of my peers growing up are now predominantly right wing. I have great hope though for millenials. The younger workers we've hired recently are so smart, talented and open minded. Maybe that's just my work though..... :)

[femrap]

4. My grandmother always said

"It skips a generation." So hopefully you are right about the Millenials!

[rucognizant]

27. Sorry Boomer..........

Many of those ideas began with us the PREBOOMERS while you were still in school. You provided the volumne to get it done!
I reached some profound ideas about civil rights when I was about 6 or 7, and spent the weekend in my ( black) Nannies) poor cabin, when my baby Brother needed emergency surgery. The first Boomers (1946) were babies!) PLUTO IN LEO. I AM PLUTO IN CANCER. Boomers did NOT live through a WAR, fear, rationing, Dr,. Spock..................
We were questioning sexual freedom in high school while you were still in elementary! Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, are NOT BOOMERS they are PreBoomers!
Pluto in Leo ( typical grabs all the glory!)

[wxgeek7]

5. More here

More here, when Thom interviewed him back in January of this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-mJRSeCuIs

[neoralme]

6. Yes. I'm reading the book right now. The end chapters are too

scary to even discuss.

[Morizovich]

7. K&R

[GillesDeleuze]

8. sorry thom, but thats new age revisionist crap

[diane in sf]

10. Sorry Gille, you are spouting rude crap. Do you have anything real to say?.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Actually this is somewhat simiplified and americanized

version of Toynbee's cycles of history..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_J._Toynbee

[bananas]

22. Oswald Spengler was another one

He preceded Toynbee.
The Nazi's tried to use Spengler's work as propoganda, claiming that the Nazi era was the next cycle,
Spengler said the Nazi's were just a symptom of the end of the current cycle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler

<snip>

The Decline of the West was an important influence on historian Arnold J. Toynbee's similarly themed work A Study of History.

Spengler's concept of the 'Faustian' outlook was an important part of Herman Kahn's book The Year 2000. Kahn used the Spenglerian term to describe cultures that value continual, restless striving. He did not use it to refer to Faust's bargain or pact.

Communal readings of The Decline of the West held great influence over the founding members of the Beat Generation. Spengler's vision of the cyclical nature of civilization and the contemporaneity of the end of the Western European cycle led William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to look for the seeds of the next cycle in the communities of which they were a part.

<snip>

[neoralme]

15. No, it is not. It is EXACTLY what is happening. In one of the seven

scenarios in the last chapter, the author wrote what may happen identically to what is happening right exactly now with the debt ceiling crap.

[CleanGreenFuture]

17. Check out my thead from the other day on The Fourth Turning. Includes the excerpt

that you are referring to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1582208

[neoralme]

18. I wrote the exact same passage a few days ago. The timetables

are questionable, that the events will happen are not. I now think Obama is more dedicated to starting the end of entitlements than the Republicans. It's like he has a need to prove something no matter who he hurts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1578607&mesg_id=1583069

[diane in sf]

9. So glad Gen Y is coming along--they do not seem to be Repukes.

[phantom power]

11. It seems like a fairly plausible consequence of human nature and human lifespan.

The cycle is about 4 human generations, or about one human lifespan. It's about long enough for the people who actually lived thru the last "winter" to die and leave behind only people who think it can't happen to them. The last winter was 1930.

[JDPriestly]

13. A Pete Peterson fan -- then he is not for me.

Cannot stand Pete Peterson.

But I have noticed the recurring cycle, 1760, 1893, 1930, etc.

I don't, however, think that the fanatical free market ideologues will be re-elected to Congress.

They aren't doing anything about jobs. They are making the economy worse for their voters.

I also have serious doubts about Obama.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. How about Toynbee?

It is a somewhat simplified version of Toynbee, and history is indeed cyclical

[JDPriestly]

19. Yes, I agree with the theory that history is in its broad outlines, cyclical.

But Pete Peterson????

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. If you read the Fourth Turning it works

FOR THE US. I have... and yes I was thinking Toynbee all along...

[CleanGreenFuture]

16. Thanks, Thom. Was listening today and the other day when this came up. Started a thread

on it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1582208

I have the book in my cart on Amazon. Sounds like an interesting read.

[PADemD]

24. Strauss & Howe's earlier book is worth reading, too.

Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069

http://www.amazon.com/Generations-History-Americas-Future-1584/dp/0688119123

As an Idealist Boomer, I found the description of Lincoln's Idealist generation an almost exact description of my own.

Even the description of their hair styles and clothing made me think of Sonny & Cher.

[bananas]

21. Thom, is Raw Story misquoting him as saying "No" when you ask him about war and depression?

When you asked about the crisis and war,
Raw Story quotes him as saying "No":

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/07/author-u-s-may-be-on-the-verge-of-another-revolution/

<snip>

“Are we on the verge of another ‘fourth turning’ — another major crash leading to a world war and a world-wide depression?” Hartmann asked.

“No,” Howe said. “I hope it won’t be bad. I hope the destructive will be avoided to the furthest extent possible and the constructive, which always comes out of a fourth turning… will be maximized.”

Despite his hopefulness, Howe added that as society closes the book on its last century, once we are able to look back at this period in time, no matter what happens next, historians will point to the financial crisis of 2008 as the trigger behind it all.

<snip>

That's not what I heard,
as I just posted in another thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1607748&mesg_id=1608115

1. He doesn't say "No", he says, "Um, well I hope it won't be bad...but clearly the line-up is there"
Listen to it at 6:00 in the video: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x604440

Rough transcript:

"Um, well i hope it won't be bad
I hope the destructive will be avoided to the extent possible
and the constructive which always come out of the fourth turning, it's normally a constructive era, will be maximized
but clearly the line-up is there
our elder leadership are those born after the last crisis
they don't remember it
this is what historian Toynbee called the great trigger of the long cycle of war
those who start the next war are just too young to remember the last one"

[soryang]

23. Give me a break!

I'm a historian by training and I think this guy is FOS.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Think about this as an americanized toynbee

yes, it makes toynbee fairly easy to understand.

I had the same reaction, and I have read this... perhaps re-readying Toynbee, who is not considered crap even today... brought it up.

[craigmatic]

26. I just finished reading the 4th turning and that scenario is so on point it's scary.