Rendezvous With Destiny
In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I assessed the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation. In Part 5 I examined the technological, ecological, political, military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in this final part, our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.
We are now in the seventh year of this Fourth Turning. A famous quote from the seventh year of the last Fourth Turning portended the desperate, bloody and ultimately heroic trials and tribulations which awaited generations of our ancestors. What will be our rendezvous with destiny?
“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.” –Franklin Delano Roosevelt – June 27, 1936 – Philadelphia, PA
Our Rendezvous With Destiny
“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.” – Strauss & Howe –The Fourth Turning
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors, and school teachers. Such propagandists accomplish their greatest triumphs, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects… totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals.” – Aldous Huxley – 1946 revised foreword to Brave New World
As the decade’s long debt fueled economic expansion petered out at the turn of this century, with average Americans experiencing an ongoing fifteen year recession, punctuated with multiple booms and busts created by the Wall Street owned Federal Reserve, a more Orwellian totalitarianism has begun to raise its ugly boot. As the exponential increase in debt reached its zenith and economic progress for the masses stalled, the ruling class embraced Orwell’s belief that once a society built upon hedonistic principles and “good times” loses its vitality, the ruling class would need to invoke government morality, patriotic fervor towards state mandated enemies, a quasi-religious belief in governmental omnipotence, and restrictions upon the freedoms and liberties documented in the U.S. Constitution.
The 9/11 attacks marked the turning point for totalitarianism in America. Their lust for power can no longer be sustained by using suggestion to convince the masses to love their servitude, but will require the truncheon, military hardware, surveillance technology, more prisons, and physical intimidation of the masses to maintain the status quo. We are in the midst of experiencing the worst of Huxley and Orwell’s dystopian nightmares.
Fourth Turnings are not finished portraits, but a canvas upon which the colors of history are painted. The specific events, timing, duration, and outcomes are not knowable or predictable in advance, but the reaction and mood of generational cohorts to the events are predictable and consistent throughout history. Anyone who denies the dramatic mood change in the country since 2008 and the deepening crisis mindset engulfing the world is either a member of the existing establishment or on their payroll. Denial and propaganda will not reverse the tide as a tsunami of consequences will sweep away the existing social order and replace it with something different. It may be better or worse, and our choices during the next decade will matter.
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