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CNN Live Event/Special

America's New War: Author Discusses 'The Fourth Turning'

Aired September 27, 2001 - 17:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: About four years ago, a book called "The Fourth Turning" was published. That book dealt with what its authors called the four shifts, or "turnings," in America's national mood. They say they appear to occur about every 20 years or so.

Applying this cyclical approach to history, the authors predicted the following: "Shortly after the new millennium," they wrote, "a sudden spark will catalyze a crisis mood in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire."

Neil Howe, co-author of "The Fourth Turning," joins us now live from Washington to talk more about it.

Sir, good evening to you.

NEIL HOWE, CO-AUTHOR, "THE FOURTH TURNING": Good evening, Bill.

HEMMER: Before we get to "The Fourth Turning," quickly, what was one, two and three, sir?

HOWE: Oh, in the turning -- the rhythm of American history in terms of these four turnings, the first turning is what we call a high: for instance, the American high after World War II, extending from about 1946, VJ Day, VE Day, to the assassination of John Kennedy in the early '60s. A second turning is -- and I should say a first turning is a time of institutional strength, little individualism, a great deal of conformity in the culture and a great deal of confidence about the national direction.

A second turning is a cultural and values upheaval of the kind that we had in the consciousness revolution, from the early '60s to the early '80s. This is a time when people want to throw off all that social discipline, and of course, gave us events that a lot of baby boomers my age remember so well coming of age.

A third turning is in many ways the inverse of a first turning. It's a time when individualism is triumphant, institutions are weak and distrusted. These are famous for their decades of bad manners, for a feeling on entropy in society, fragmentation, rising worries about what holds us together as a nation. And history shows that third turnings are always followed by fourth turnings, which are the large hinge eras of crisis in American history. Earlier examples of fourth turnings would be the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil War, the American Revolution, and even other eras going back in both American and European history.

HEMMER: All right, take it a bit forward, if you could then: If that's the case, based on your theory about this crisis era, what comes out of it, how do Americans respond?

HOWE: Well, what drivers these turnings is generational aging. As generations are shaped (UNINTELLIGIBLE) by history, they grow older and in turn they shape history. And now, we see a new generation of baby boomers taking over, presiding over America's institutions. Boomers have always had a reputation as fixated on values in the culture, and that actually gives them as leaders very little room for compromise, for negotiation.

And we're beginning to see this, I think, in a lot of the boomer op-ed writers and essayists and people in the media, a great longing for renewal of community, certainty, black-and-white solutions to problems, and also of younger generations coming up from behind them are also pushing this process along as they have pushed it before.

I think one thing that America feels beyond the shock of the physical dimensions of the tragedy, the buildings, the lives lost, is a sense of disorientation. Only a few weeks ago everyone thought that America was headed indefinitely toward individualism, better markets, more mobility, more openness, kind of a carnival culture, less regulation, less government. And now, today, all of those trends seem to be in reverse. I mean, high-tech, high-tech culture, and then we have our planes taken over by someone with knives.

HEMMER: Huh. Neil, I want to get to this quickly, so I can show viewers again another excerpt from your book, and it reads by the following -- I don't know if we can put it up on the screen or not. It says: "Don't think you can escape the fourth turning the way you might today distance yourself from news, national politics or even taxes you don't feel like paying. History warns that a crisis will reshape the basis social and economic environment that you now take for granted."

Again, the question: What comes out of this as we go forward?

HOWE: Well, let me give you one clue, that if you look back historically at the great fourth turnings of our history, you find that the event that touches it off can always be predicted in advance. Many people didn't, but we could always foresee it. People did foresee a terrorist event, people did foresee a stock crash in the late -- in the late '20s. People did foresee an abolitionist president in the 1850s.

But what comes out of the crisis, that is to say what climaxes the mood toward the end of the crisis era is something totally beyond our imagination. We do think we will redefine ourselves as a nation, as a society, and that many of the political and economic institutions could be drastically altered with events that could speed up history in a way that we haven't been accustomed to seeing for a long time. HEMMER: Fascinating stuff, we'll see where we go from here. Neil Howe, author -- co-author of "The Fourth Turning." Much appreciate your thoughts today.

HOWE: Thank you, Bill.

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