Learning from History

A concept called social generations was developed by Neil Howe and William Strauss who looked at the past 120 years, ie 

“...from the GI generation, who built the post-World War II economy to the solid generation of corporate careerists, to the Boomer generation, Gen X, the Millennials and......homeland generation, being born now in digital work - echoed generational shifts throughout history..."

Chanticleer, 2024

"...It's a view of the world which posits that there are long-term patterns of social behaviour, intergenerationally driven, and certain changes in the social mood come a regular and, to some extent, foreseeable predictable intervals......bits of a four-season model of history and is driven by generational formation and generational ageing..." 

Neil Howe as quoted by Chanticleer, 2024

The cycles of history are broken into 'turnings'

- first turning (society is collectively confident in where it wants to go and institutions are strong, such as during the period between 1946 and the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in the early 1960s)

- second turning (society focuses on situations in favour of personal freedoms, such as the US college protest in 1960 around the Vietnam War, civil rights, women's liberation, conservation movements, etc)

- third turning (it is a time of unravelling when individualism is triumphant as citizens start splitting into competing camps based on their values, such as from the early 1980s until 2008)

- fourth turning (usually marked by a series of crises, like the sharemarket crash of the 1929, World War II, GCC, pandemic,  terrorist attack, increased nationalism/tribalism with retreating globalisation, etc. Generally out of this comes a new national and international identity like after World War II when the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund were unveiled for the world to operate a rules-based system; however, warfare tends to appear in this turning)

Some current precursors to the fourth turning could include

- wars in Ukraine and Middle East

- tension between China and the US, eg trade war

- soaring government and private debt

- polarisation of different groups, especially in USA, Europe, etc

- proliferation of nuclear weapons (around 10 nations have the capability to make and use)

- demographic changes, ie ageing population, mass migration, etc