So a 20-year old book nets $15 for a paperback, $25 for hardcover and $17 for Kindle electronic
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny: William Strauss, Neil Howe
An interesting insight into the non-linear trends that have impacted this land since before the American Revolutionary War ... even as early as 16
"... “One afternoon in April 1689, as the American colonies boiled with rumors that King James II was about to strip them of their liberties, the King’s hand-picked governor of New England, Sir Edmund Andros, marched his troops menacingly through Boston. His purpose was to crush any thought of colonial self-rule. To everyone present, the future looked grim.
Just at that moment, seemingly from nowhere, there appeared on the streets “the figure of an ancient man” with “the eye, the face, the attitude of command.” His manner “combining the leader and the saint,” the old man planted himself directly in the path of the approaching British soldiers and demanded that they stop. “The solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in the battlefield or be raised to God in prayer, were irresistible. At the old man’s word and outstretched arm, the roll of the drum was hushed at once, and the advancing line stood still.” Inspired by this single act of defiance, the people of Boston roused their courage and acted. Within the day, Andros was deposed and jailed, the liberty of Boston saved, and the corner turned on the colonial Glorious Revolution.
“Who was this Gray Champion?” Nathaniel Hawthorne asked near the end of this story in his Twice-Told Tales. No one knew, except that he had once been among the fire-hearted young Puritans who had first settled New England more than a half century earlier..."
Then .. 80 years later ..
"... the Gray Champion reappeared. The occasion was the revolutionary summer of 1775—when America’s elders once again appealed to God, summoned the young to battle, and dared the hated enemy to fire. “When our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on Bunker’s Hill,” Hawthorne continued, “all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds.” This “old warrior”—this graying peer of Sam Adams or Ben Franklin or Samuel Langdon (the Harvard president who preached to the Bunker Hill troops)—belonged to the Awakening Generation, whose youth had provided the spiritual taproot of the republic secured in their old age..."
As Jim Quinn from the Burning Platform observes:
"... Gray Champions are not necessarily good, admirable, or moral. Most have narcissistic tendencies and have at least as many enemies as allies. All of the men I’ve named were deeply flawed and in some cases malevolent. What they all had in common was tremendous confidence in their own abilities and an unbreakable determination to achieve the outcomes they desired. Winning was all that mattered to these men.
Americans, blinded by their normalcy bias, never see a Fourth Turning until it arrives with fire and fury. When it arrives, many want to turn back time to the glorious days of spring or summer, but it is not to be. Winter is upon us and even though we wish a Gray Champion wasn’t needed, come he must and come he will. And they won’t be asking for the opinions of the sheep before taking control.
“A lion does not concern himself with the opinion of sheep.” – Tywin – Game of Thrones .."
Book quote to keep rolling on this:
“Americans have always been blind to the next turning until after it fully arrives.
Most of today’s adult Americans grew up in a society whose citizens dreamed of perpetually improving outcomes: better jobs, fatter wallets, stronger government, finer culture, nicer families, smarter kids, all the usual fruits of progress. Today, deep into the Third Turning, these goals feel like they are slipping away. Many of us wish we could rewind time, but we know we can’t – and we fear for our children and grandchildren.
Many Americans wish that, somehow, they could bring back a saecular spring now. But seasons don’t work that way. As in nature, a saecular autumn can be warm or cool, long or short, but the leaves will surely fall. The saecular winter can hurry or wait, but history warns that it will surely be upon us.
We may not wish the Grey Champion to come again – but come he must, and come he will.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe
Also, one last quote that I gleaned from the same source Jim Quinn) above:
".. Linear thinking pundits, politicians, businessmen, bankers, bureaucrats, and citizens fail to grasp the cyclical nature of history. They think themselves progressives, falsely believing humanity and history move forward in a straight line. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is why they throw hissy fits when their predictions and beliefs are thrown into disarray by events and mood changes in the country..."
Things that make you go hummmmm ...
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