Turbulent Twenties

Renaissance Humans, #70

I originally sent this piece out a year and a half ago—resending because it’s relevant to the moment, and I’ve gained a bunch of new readers in that time period.

The hostilities between Iran and Israel/the United States are part of this decade’s unfolding.

Part of one big set of reorientations, in many domains, all at once. It’s a collective reassessment and renegotiation of old norms, values, and practices.

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The Course of Empire (Destruction)—Thomas Cole, 1836

I used to love reading stories about the apocalypse.

I was all in. From ages eleven to fourteen, I devoured dozens of pulpy post-apocalyptic novels, inhaling forty books series like Deathlands. I remember turning to my mother once, nearly in tears. “I don’t think we’re going to make it,” I said with perfect tween solemnity. She looked at me with a bewildered expression, uncertain why her child was pondering the fate of humanity on a Friday night.

Stephen King’s The Stand also had a big impact. This intro sequence to the miniseries adaptation captures some of the vibe. Note the quote at the beginning, a reference to the Eliot poem The Hollow Men, which also featured in Apple TV’s The Gorge.

As Layman Pascal and Zak Stein discuss, what Apocalypse really means is unveiling— to uncover, disclose, reveal. It doesn’t mean the end of the world as in a massive depopulation and destruction of civilization, per se.

It does mean the end of the world in the sense of a one worldview ending, and another beginning.

The next thing, the next paradigm, the next way we will accord ourselves to reality.¹

Turbulent can be defined as: Moving rapidly or violently; Characterized by disorder, commotion, or unrest; Disturbed; Agitated; Tumultuous; Roused to violent commotion.

It is likely that during this decade, several interlocking sets of challenges will become too pressing to ignore or kick down the road. They will exert their gravity onto the context in a manner which causes a phase transition, like water to steam.

These challenges have been documented more concisely elsewhere, but they span nearly every domain: the economy, currency, the environment, politics, the international order, society, spirit, how we power the modern world, education, and technology, among others.

Most societies in history have had some sort of millennialism— this notion that a golden age is coming, just around the corner.

If we can just sweep away all the bad stuff from the other people and start over, things will be so much better.

It’s a seductive idea.

It’s natural for humans to think that the time they are living is more unique than other times, when in reality, it’s usually just another span just like the others.

Y2K, 2012— these are recent examples of the phenomenon.

I’m wary of running afoul of that bias, but there is an interesting confluence of thinkers in different fields illuminating a tough, unique road ahead in the near term.

This isn’t meant to be a Chicken Little type pronouncement— Most of the needed changes to weather this storm are internal—shifts in how we think about ourselves, others, and reality itself.

Changes in how we educate, how we interact with one another, and what we incentivize as a species.

Below I’ve collated several individuals who have taken a big history approach to understanding the present.²

Some of the theories are more controversial in academic circles than others (Looking at you, Cliodynamics and Generations Theory).

While I don’t think any one on their own is perfect, taken together they gesture towards a near term future in line with the catchphrase Taylor Swift uses to sign off some of her concerts— “May you live in interesting times.”³

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Ray Dalio

An investor and hedge fund manager, Dalio makes the case we are in a transition to China as the major nation-state on the world stage. The key takeaways from Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail:

• A country gains power when it encounters favorable economic and social conditions that enable it to develop its economy and military.

• A country directs the world order once it becomes more powerful than all the other countries (often demonstrated by winning a war).

• Once a country peaks, the population gets lazy. It borrows money instead of working hard. The country loses its economic and military edge. It becomes decadent.

• The shift from one world order to another happens when a new rising power becomes stronger than the decaying one.

• The decaying power often engages and loses a war against the rising power.

• The whole cycle starts again.

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George Friedman

In The Storm Before the Calm, geopolitical strategist Friedman makes the case that two major cycles drive changes in America.

The first is an institutional cycle occurring every 80 years (marked in the past by the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II) that guides the relationship between the federal government and other parts of the nation.

The second is a socio-economic cycle, which changes the dynamic of the U.S. economy and society at 50-year intervals. This is responsible for the industrial class, baby boomers, and the middle class.

Friedman predicts these forces will converge in the 2020s to “destabilize” American life and begin a “period of failures” marked by indifference to politics, low growth in productivity, and increasing unemployment.

But fear not, gentle reader— The 2030s will mark a return to a period of calm and prosperity.

Source

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Neil Howe

(Sidenote: Here’s a review of both Howe’s and Peter Turchin’s new books by Mr. End of History himself, Francis Fukuyama in the New York Times.)

Along with William Strauss (now deceased), Howe put forth the book Generations in 1992, predicting a "Crisis” in roughly the 2020s. His new book, The Fourth Turning is Here, explores these ideas in greater detail. Here’s a good review of the work on its own.

Strauss and Howe developed a theory of generational cycles, outlining four archetypes and proposing that history repeats in cycles of about 80 to 100 years, each consisting of four approximately twenty-year long turnings or phases.⁴ These turnings are High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis. They identify four generational types emblematic of the humans born during that turning:

1. Prophet (Idealist): Born during a High and coming of age during an Awakening, Prophets are principled and idealistic, aiming to bring about change and reform societal institutions (Baby Boomers today).

2. Nomad (Reactive): Born during an Awakening and coming of age during an Unraveling, Nomads are pragmatic, adaptive, and often skeptical of prevailing social norms. They focus on survival and rebuilding institutions (Gen X).

3. Hero (Civic): Born during an Unraveling and coming of age during a Crisis, Heroes are civic minded, valuing community, teamwork, and collective action. They work to rebuild and strengthen society (Millennials).

4. Artist (Adaptive): Born during a Crisis and coming of age during a High, Artists are typically raised in a time of societal stability. They contribute to society through creativity and tend to be individualistic (Gen Z).

The theory suggests that each generation's characteristics are influenced by the historical events and the surrounding societal mood during their formative years. These generations pass through the four turnings, and the cyclical nature of history repeats as these patterns recur every 80-100 years. Howe emphasizes the role of generations in shaping history and how each generation's distinct characteristics and attitudes play a significant role in societal changes and the outcome of historical events.

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Peter Turchin

Turchin is the creator of Cliodynamics— a transdisciplinary area of research that integrates cultural evolution, economics, history, sociology, and mathematics, among other subjects.⁵

He recently published End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration.

The crux of Turchin’s argument is that one of the largest drivers of discord in a society is what he terms Popular Immiseration— declining standards of living, wage stagnation, and inflation of essential expenses for the majority of a society.

This is created by what he calls The Wealth Pump— the transfer of capital and resources from the main body to the elites in a society. In Turchin’s framing, this inevitably happens when societies are free enough to pursue innovation. Capital begins to centralize with the winners in an economy.

Another driver is Elite Overproduction. Instead of musical chairs with decreasing chairs each round, imagine the game with the same number of chairs, but additional players over time. These elites graduate from prestigious universities and seek jobs as journalists, lawyers, professors, business execs, and politicians. Groomed from a young age with high education, networks, and ambition, these elites want to lead society. When the desires of some are inevitably frustrated, they turn to rule-twisting and breaking to achieve their objectives. What pulls a society out of this cycle of disintegration boils down to a few possibilities:

• Revolution

• War (Civil and/or External)

• Pandemic (Bigger than COVID, more in line with a Black Plague-type event)

• Economic Reforms

Each of these will slow or reverse the Wealth Pump. Turchin highlights the year 1970 as the date that our current period of disintegration began in the United States (This tracks with many other forms of analysis, such as Robert Putnam in The Upswing, and this one, referenced by Ed Brenegar). Cycles can last for decades or centuries— they are contextually different based on niche factors.

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So What?

As I mentioned earlier, I am leery of falling for the “I am alive, thus this time period is super important” bias. Every generation seems to have their share of crises, noteworthy events, and disruptive technology.

But taken together, these four independently derived models seem to forecast a near term of instability, lack of trust, and violence, both domestically and internationally.⁶

Rig for heavy seas.

In the face of such titanic forces at work, what is the individual to do?

I used to run cross country in high school— a 5 km foot race through woods and hills. My dad used to give me advice before the starting gun, solicited or not. It’s a dad thing, as I’ve discovered.

In the Turkish accent he never lost, even after decades in America, he would turn to me and say, “Run your race, Adam.”

That’s it. What else can we do?

Right now, that means taking care what we attend to, for our attention will frame the contours of our perception. As Dr. McGilchrist says, attention is a moral act.

It means appreciating the context holistically, cultivating the focus and discernment to think critically about these challenges.

And, it means acting. To strengthen relations with family, friends, and strangers. To connect and reconnect the sinew of community, in meatspace. Acting to add to the harmony.

To attune ourselves to reality, as it unfolds.

Let’s get post-tragic.

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Currere Certamen Tuum / Run Your Race

1. My sense is much of the rest of the non-western world is closer to this new worldview than we in the west are. Us enlightened westerners have to figure our shit out, match our knowledge with requisite wisdom.

2. This part of the essay is laying out long cycle historical analysis, that’s why I selected these four. Besides them, Tyson Yunkaporta is a visionary indigenous thinker pointing a way forward. In addition, there are many women working in this space— some of them include Sonja Blignaut, Nora Bateson, Bonitta Roy, Liv Boeree, Najia Shaukat Lupson, and Kate Raworth. They are all interesting, insightful thinkers who have contributed deeply to my understanding of where we are and the direction we should orient towards.

3. In fact, Taylor Swift unfortunately does not sign off her concerts in this manner. Even worse, this expression may have just been invented by someone in the West and attributed to a Chinese speaker.

4. I would be remiss if I did not note this is one of Steve Bannon’s favorite theories. I’m not sure if he just likes the Joker in Batman “watch the world burn” Crisis stage, or if he’s also onboard for the supposed High to follow.

5. Those with appropriate sci-fi nerd street cred wil recognize whiffs of Hari Seldon’s “Psychohistory” from the Foundation book series (and sad Apple TV show attempt).

6. A lot of this is happening already, with the conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere.