Embracing the Fourth Turning: History's Clock Strikes Again

Chaos Foretold: Four Predictive Models Converge

A little over a year ago, I wrote an article arguing that the Left and Right were obsolete concepts. In short, I saw a hopeful shift towards a more realistic view of haves versus have-nots on one hand, and integrity versus corruption on another. Surely, the team-sports-as-political-identity phase of American politics was bound to be over, I thought.

Boy, was I wrong.

Instead, the country stumbles, flailing and incoherent, from one crisis to another, with increasing polarization all around. One mistake I made in my previous prognostication was that political leaning would eventually make logical sense, which was naive on my part. Turns out it doesn't. Tribalism trumps logic any day of the week. It always has, and likely always will.

The reasons for my misplaced hope stemmed from observing multiple trends converge on a single point: The US is headed for inescapable chaos, as are its vassals in Europe. In many ways, it’s already there, though the temperature is nowhere near the boiling point.

If you were to stop reading right here, the key takeaway from this article would be this: The chaos we’re seeing was predicted and predictable, and is happening right on schedule. It’s only the specifics that are surprising.

The recent horrific and very public assassination of Charlie Kirk at a university rally and the brutal stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a North Carolina train are examples of ever-more-common public violence in the US. Mass protests against immigration in Europe and draconian government censorship have their own flavor of chaos. Combine that social chaos with incomprehensible foreign policy as well as backwards and antagonistic economic policy (that we’ll explore in a subsequent post) and you’re looking at a society up the proverbial creek.

Critically, the public reaction to all the above is just as important as what’s happening to begin with. You can be sure some groups benefit from dividing people — but the seeds of division can only grow in fertile soil. I’m not yet an old man, but I’ve never seen society so starkly divided.

So, it’s time to put on our pattern recognition hats. Three major predictive patterns align to make this decade and more one of predicted turmoil. Another fourth predictive pattern casts additional shadows on a backdrop that has not yet made significant waves, but nonetheless presents significant insights.

This article will be the first in a series of three exploring division, chaos, and uncertainty. The subsequent articles will be (in an order determined by my whim):

• Embracing the Fourth Turning: Institutional Rot

• Embracing the Fourth Turning: Irreconcilable Differences

For my dear readers, I want to make a point clear. This is not a doom-and-gloom article series. While I fully expect chaos in the short term, in the long term I’m optimistic. Periodic upheavals are necessary, like occasional forest fires, to burn the deadwood and choking underbrush of a society so that new life may flourish.

So, when I say “Embrace the Fourth Turning” as I do in the title, it doesn’t mean I expect you to like it. Rather, it means this: Accept that the Fourth Turning is real, update your mental model, and prepare yourself accordingly.

Let’s start by examining the four predictive, converging models that lead me to the conclusion chaos was predictably inevitable, and then we’ll paint the backdrop it’s all taking place on.

Four Predictive Models

Four Predictive Models

If you were to go ten years in the past and tell the average American that, for starters:

1. There had been two attempts on a presidential candidate’s life in 2024

2. That candidate was Donald Trump

3. There had been a major pandemic in 2020 that shut down the economy and killed millions

4. Nationwide race riots had caused billions of dollars in damage in 2020, and

5. There were wars in Ukraine and Israel the US was funding, they would rightly ask how the hell things got so bad so fast.

You can call this the Time Machine Test to see just how different things are from recently. But bright minds saw chaos of this sort coming. Let’s start with the theory this article derives its title from.

Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory

For William Strauss and Neil Howe, devolution towards chaos fits their generational turning model. In fact, they’d predicted chaos in the mid-2020s in their 1997 book The Fourth Turning, which examines generational dynamics over an 80-year timeframe, or around the length of a human life. Imagine each generation as seasons of a year.

After each fourth generation in the US, they argue, there is an upheaval that unravels the old order to make way for a new one. The previous fourth turning was the Second World War, some 80 years ago. The previous fourth turning? The Civil War. Before that? The Revolutionary War. This even goes back to England, with the Glorious Revolution. You get the picture.

Each phase in their cycle lasts around 20-25 years, and looks like this:

1. High (first turning): A post-crisis era of institutional strength, collective optimism, and social cohesion, with a focus on rebuilding.

2. Awakening (second turning): A cultural and spiritual upheaval where individualism rises, and younger generations challenge institutional norms.

3. Unraveling (third turning): A period of institutional decline, rising individualism, and social fragmentation, with trust eroding.

4. Crisis (fourth turning): A period of existential upheaval where institutions are challenged and society faces major economic, political, and social crises, leading to a new order.

For Strauss and Howe, their prediction of a fourth turning puts 2025 right in the middle of it, with a potential resolution towards the end of the decade. Ongoing US polarization, economic inequality, and loss of faith in institutions all contribute to the crisis.

Peter Turchin’s Secular Cycles

Historian Peter Turchin’s book Ages of Discord provides a structural and demographic framework to explain why societies, including the United States, go through periodic upheavals. In Turchin’s model, historical instability arises from demographic pressures, economic inequality, and “elite overproduction,” or too many elites competing for the same jobs. Think too many lawyers, MBAs, aspiring politicians, and so on, competing for limited positions. This can end up in political gridlock, for example, which is perhaps the most reliable thing the US government provides.

Inequality has risen sharply in the US since the 1970s, and Turchin predicted a peak in instability between 2020-2030. An example? CEOs now earn 290x the average worker, up from 30x in the 1970s, as the top 1% hoovers up 20% of all income. In 1970, that top 1% only took home 10% of all income. These trends are only widening.

As Plutarch wrote, “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” We’re seeing that in real time.

Turchin really gets into the weeds with statistics and a mathematical view of history. It’s fascinating stuff. He produces charts like this to help visualize change:

See the dotted black line spiking upwards after 2000? That’s the conflict Turchin sees incoming in his Political Stress Index. Look where it’s headed by 2025. The solid black line is his Well-Being Index, backed by loads of data. As you can see, he calls what’s happening now the Age of Discord II.

John Glubb: The Fate of Empires

In 1978, British Lieutenant General Sir John Bagot Glubb penned an essay entitled The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival. Its core argument was that, on average, empires last around 250 years, or ten generations. Glubb breaks down the phases of empire as follows:

1. Age of pioneers: A dynamic group conquers or builds the empires through bold, collective action.

2. Age of conquests: Rapid expansion consolidates power and territory.

3. Age of commerce: Economic prosperity and trade flourish, fueling wealth and influence.

4. Age of affluence: Wealth leads to decadence, with focus shifting to luxury and consumption.

5. Age of intellect: Cultural and intellectual achievements peak, but complacency and division emerge.

6. Age of decadence: Marked by declining civic virtue, corruption, inequality, and internal strife, leading to collapse.

Note that, on July 4, 2026, the United States will officially be 250 years old. While Glubb’s core thesis is an approximation rather than an iron law of history, it seems pretty on-the-money here.

JD Unwin: Sex and Culture

While the above three works are fairly frequently cited in discussions of civilizational decline, JD Unwin’s Sex and Culture (1934) often flies under the radar. As a dispassionate and secular anthropological study of the relationship between sexual norms and cultural achievement, Sex and Culture explores cultural energy through an oft-ignored lens. Unwin studied 16 civilizations and 80 “primitive societies” over some 5,000 years, offering significant breadth without moralizing.

His conclusion? Societies with strict sexual constraints, particularly pre-nuptial chastity and absolute monogamy, exhibit the most “social energy,” leading to advancements in art, architecture, science, technology, and governance. Conversely, when societies liberalize sexual norms, they lose both cohesion and creative energy, devolving within three generations towards what he called a “zoistic” state, or one focused on the self and immediate biological or ego-driven needs.

Critically, Unwin did not argue for a domineering patriarchal society, which is a common knee-jerk assumption for those hearing his thesis for the first time. Indeed, he argued that legal equality between men and women is critical to maintaining a healthy society.

Unwin categorized societies into four types:
1. Zoistic: Lacking complex structures, organized religions, or significant cultural output.

2. Manistic: Exhibiting simple religious practices, basic governance or hierarchies, and modest cultural output.

3. Deistic: Marked by organized religion, formalized institutions, and significant cultural achievements.

4. Rationalistic: Producing breakthroughs in philosophy, science, law, and art, with sophisticated governance and religious structure.

Consider that we’re roughly 3 generations after the sexual liberation of the Western world and you’ll see that this, too, fits the framework of things breaking down by the 2020s.

Unpredictable Pathways Plotted

Pinpointing the exact spark for upheaval is a fool’s errand. Think of Otto von Bismarck’s quip before World War I: “Some damn foolish thing in the Balkans” would ignite it. No one foresaw the Archduke Ferdinand assassination, yet Europe’s statesmen felt war brewing. Today, the patterns converge. Turchin’s Political Stress Index has soared more than 250% since 2000, Glubb’s 250-year decadence looms in 2026 for the U.S., Strauss-Howe’s 80-year cycle marks a crisis, and Unwin’s 3-generation decline syncs with other models. Whether sparked by the Kirk killing, Zarutska’s horrific murder, yet another school shooting, or a black swan event, chaos looks set to broaden and intensify. Chaos moves in interesting ways: gradually, and then all at once.

Forget crystal ball guesses. Focus on broad patterns. The next decade, following the already-wild 2020s, promises to be a roller coaster, with institutional rot and irreconcilable differences between countrymen (our next topics) stoking the momentum. Update your mental models, prepare for the unexpected, and let’s navigate this Fourth Turning together.