Some Happy Thoughts in Uncertain Times
As Thomas Paine wrote in 1775, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Again. Been there before. But perhaps I can offer some words of comfort and encouragement drawn from a political science background—and specifically from generational theory—that might help keep things in perspective. (The larger picture is more fully set forth in William Strauss and Neil Howe’s 1997 book, The Fourth Turning.) Briefly, things have not gone off the tracks, despite appearances, because every 80-90 years our society predictably collapses and renews itself in new and better form. The process, like any new birth, is painful. But each time we have emerged a country more true to our best values than we were during the previous cycle.
Four Generations, Then and Now
Generational theory holds that U.S. history moves through cycles the approximate length of four generations. Every 80 to 90 years the whole system comes unglued and then is put back together in newer and better form by the following fifth generation, which thus becomes the new first generation. It’s nicely summed up in the old adage, “History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.”
We have been through three such episodes in our brief history so far: the American Revolution, the Civil War, and FDR and the New Deal—roughly, 1776, 1860, 1932. Approximately 88 years later, the emergent “Crisis of 2020,” for lack of a better term, comes along right on schedule. In each case we have been blessed with superior leadership, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. There are no guarantees of course, but it also seems that in some strange way difficult times call forth the needed new leadership. One can only hope.
What drives the cycle is the experience of the four succeeding generations. The first generation builds a new or radically remodeled set of political institutions that try to embody their current values as best they can approximate them, which is always only roughly but far better that what was in place before. The musical Hamilton offers a good look at the process in its first appearance, and yes it was messy.
The job of the second generation is to tidy up and fill in as best they can the inevitable gaps left by their predecessors. In the last cycle this was the work of the Silent Generation, who launched the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. The one big shortcoming left over from the New Deal years was the failure to address racial segregation, which had been left in place as part of the prevailing electoral calculus and perhaps more basically because we can only do so much at a time. Minnesota’s own Hubert Humphrey was the first to raise the cry at the Democratic National Convention in 1948. He did so even though he realized it would drive the “Solid South” into the Republican column to his party’s disadvantage, which has been the case ever since.
By the time the third generation enters the scene, the now aging political system is getting even further removed from current values and concerns. So the third generation tends to just drop out, ignore it in detail except where it impinges on their chosen lifestyle, and passively accept the general stability of what’s in place. This was the hippy generation of the late 1960s-70s, the drug culture, the dropouts, the anti-war movement. Go back further in history, you will find the Transcendentalists of the 1830s.
The fourth generation finds they are even further out of sympathy with the system, which seems not to be working in any event. “Surely there must be a better way to do things than this” is the cry, and rightly so. At this point the current institutional structure loses popular support, and even its very legitimacy. The system crumbles when confronted with a crisis that might have been successfully dealt with in an earlier period. People are not going to rally to save a sinking ship.
This is about where we are today. Are elections still working properly, given charges of voter suppression on the one hand and voter fraud on the other? When Presidents are chosen by the Supreme Court, as in 2000? When one candidate has three million more votes that the other, but loses anyway? Has the Supreme Court itself helped or hindered when it declares money is free speech and opens the floodgates for big money to buy ”public” policy? When truth itself becomes negotiable, a commodity that can be cut to whatever shape and size is most convenient? What has been the general standard of national leadership across the government for the past three years? Of what use is a Senate that doesn’t debate anything but just hurls predictable partisan catchphrases at each other? Feel free to insert your own pet dysfunction here, the list is near endless. This is not an effort to add to the partisan rhetoric, but rather to utilize partisanship to illustrate the point. Clearly there is a lack of general public support—if not outright disillusionment—for the current institutional structure. On top of everything else we must now face the ability or ineptness of the current administration to deal with the public health crisis itself and the major economic fallout that will follow (and will be far more difficult to cope with).
So we are roughly where the colonies were on the brink of the Revolution, when patriots considered George III a tyrant out to destroy their liberty, and the London government saw the colonists as determined to revolt no matter what concessions might be made. In 1860, the North felt “the Slave Power” had taken over the Federal government, and the South felt a hostile North was determined to destroy its way of life any way it could. No one trusted anyone on the other side. In 1930, the nation was sinking deeper and deeper into economic depression, banks failing, workers jobless and hungry, factories shut down, no end in sight. Messy indeed.
Happy Thoughts in Uncertain Times
Why is this good news? First, of course, it’s not. There are going to be some tough times ahead for all of us, no surprise there. Buckle up. Getting through a fourth-generation crisis takes five or ten years of pure hell, and quite possibly a mounting death toll. But it doesn’t mean that everything has gone off the tracks, that we are caught in some kind of unprecedented “freak of nature” catastrophe like an earthquake or volcanic eruption. This is actually what we should expect. It is how our society renews itself every four generations, and like any renewal a lot of the old life gets discarded as the new life is born. But renewal is utterly necessary, because without it the society ossifies and dies.
The average age of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention was 42. Four delegates were in their twenties, and four of the most influential delegates — including Alexander Hamilton — were in their thirties.
One happy thought is that the new generation is already in place: individuals in their 20s and 30s, about the age of many members of the Constitutional Convention, those who fought the Civil War, and those who staffed the New Deal. The cultural transformation generally begins when the coming generation enters active social and political life. Their relative youth also brings substantial advantages. They come with new energies and a certain emotional detachment from what is going to be swept away in any case. They find they are living in challenging and exciting times; yes, lots of hardship, but much more hope and excitement, a time of progress marked by the inevitable ups and downs.
We have no idea what the precipitating crisis will look like this time. A fiercely disputed November election outcome is a good candidate to start with, and/or the way the current public health and upcoming economic crises are dealt with. No one knew in 1860 what the Civil War would look like, or even if there would be one; but everyone was aware that they were on the brink of Niagara, as we are now. When the crisis hits in full force, don’t worry, you will recognize it.
“Each time we have gone through this standard fourth generational crisis we have come out truer to our enduring values than we were before.”
The second happy thought is that each time we have gone through this standard fourth generational crisis we have come out truer to our enduring values than we were before. America as an independent republic is better than as a British colony. A U.S. without slavery is more America than one with. A nation with a strong social safety net in place (healthcare, a measure of economic security, strong public education, unemployment benefits, fully inclusive, etc.) is better than one that just lets people flounder and perish. Hopefully we don’t need the coronavirus to show us that.
And of course many would say our ultimate trust must go beyond the political/human realm at all, to the God of history, the Higher Power however you understand the term, who still and always holds us secure in caring hands.
At the same time I hope you find the above, more secular thoughts helpful as well. Clearly our main strength is to stay connected to each other, to our neighbor, to our tradition as a people; and for each to offer the public good what they can from their storehouse of skills, experience, background, training, or other resources. One thinks of Mo Willems giving online drawing lessons; teachers converting their classroom to distance learning in order to stay connected with their students, especially the most vulnerable ones; the Met Opera offering its repertoire free on-line daily; everybody from the health care workers on the front lines who risk so much every time they see a patient, to the young person who cheerfully brought the online grocery order out to the trunk of your car yesterday.
Find your own niche, and contribute from it. You will never regret having done so.
About the Author
John E. Lawyer, PhD is a Professor of Political Science, Emeritus at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota.