On today's show, we have Neil Howe, the author of The Fourth Turning, on to talk about the ongoing search and recovery efforts on the island of Kauai. We also have an update on the Trump trial, and a story from a local surfer who was on a fishing trip when he was lost in the storm.
00:15:36.780It's not just, you know, Xers and Boomers or Millennials and Xers, uh, we're accustomed to today, or, or Boomers and their World War II parents, right?
00:15:46.420Deep differences have been with us since the founding, since the 17th century.
00:15:52.940And, and what, what occurred to us as we were writing that book is that this is the source of some of the, uh, uh, otherwise unexplainable regularities in the rhythms of American history.
00:16:07.520I mean, for example, the fact that we have these enormous periods of civic creative destruction when the entire country goes through a, an upheaval of, of, you know, politics and economics, we really redefine what our republic is.
00:16:25.080And this happens about the length of a long human life apart, right?
00:16:28.620We had this period of, of, of revolution and rebellion in the late 17th century, um, uh, kind of coinciding with the glorious revolution.
00:16:38.540And then about a lifetime later, we had the American revolution.
00:16:48.900This is like the ticking of a talk, you know, or a clock.
00:16:52.700And roughly halfway in between these upheavals in the outer world, when we redefine politics and economics and infrastructure and all that, we have these upheavals in the inner world, which very conveniently in American history, we, we number.
00:17:10.200So we call them the first great awakening, the second great awakening and so forth.
00:17:14.200And this struck us as having very interesting generational roots, generational continuity, right?
00:17:22.220Because it's generations that come of age during an awakening that later in old age, usually take America into the next crisis.
00:17:31.440Generations which, which, uh, you know, come of age during a crisis, usually preside over the next awakening later in life.
00:17:38.580And, um, and, um, and this has been true since, uh, uh, you know, Ralph Waldo Emerson and, and, uh, and, and, uh, Walt Whitman, uh, a generation of prophets and religion founders and, and, and, and, you know, commune leaders and who attended the civil war.
00:17:57.000And it, it was true for the generation born just after the civil war who, who took us really were the wise old men and women of the world war II era.
00:18:06.480But it, it, it suggests a, um, a rhythm, uh, and that's what we wanted to write about.
00:19:09.340You, you didn't have much aspirations beyond that.
00:19:12.120We were modest individually, but the nation did incredible things collectively.
00:19:17.020I mean, everything from interstate highways to launching the, the, uh, Apollo, uh, moon launch programming, you know, and, and, and we managed to, to, we managed to, uh, balance the budget every year, right?
00:19:30.240While, while feeding the world and, um, presiding over that period of, of, of growing global order and prosperity.
00:19:38.020The, the, the second turning was the awakening, and that was the period that many listeners probably remember, maybe as kids, this was the, you know, sixties, seventies, early eighties.
00:19:52.120And this was a period when all of America wanted to throw off all that social obligation, all that conformity, all those rules.
00:19:59.500And this started really with, um, started more on the left.
00:20:03.980There's no question about that, mainly in the culture, uh, throwing off, uh, you know, patriarchy and, and military, uh, uh, uh, uh, conscription and all the rest.
00:20:14.440And, and, and it ended, I think a little bit more on the conservative side, you know, throwing out regulations, cutting taxes and all the rest.
00:20:20.380And, and so, but, but the one theme was we wanted to be a less ordered society.
00:20:26.760We wanted individuals to kind of go more of their own way.
00:20:30.640And, uh, the, the biggest nightmare for boomers at that time was the oppressive middle class, right?
00:20:37.880Pleasant Valley Sunday, that was their worst nightmare.
00:21:41.020We were all, yeah, the government was going to fade away.
00:21:43.880We would all be, uh, individuals living wherever in the world we wanted, I guess, you know, on our laptops and a Starbucks somewhere, just contracting with each other and, and enjoying infinite possibilities, right?
00:22:01.180Of, of, of, of a, of a world of individuals, uh, that wouldn't need anything.
00:22:06.320And so individualism totally triumphant, no institution or community left.
00:22:11.960But history shows us that third turnings inevitably lead to fourth turnings.
00:22:18.640And that's when, instead of wanting to, uh, rebel against order, society wants more order.
00:22:26.680And that's what we're living into today.
00:22:28.800And the, the cutting edge generation for the, the awakening was boomers, but the cutting edge generation now is millennials and they want a more ordered life.
00:23:36.520So, um, you know, there's, there's three theories out there that I have kind of melded into one yours.
00:23:44.640And I don't know if you've, uh, read, uh, Michael drew's work, uh, pendulum, how past generations shape our present and predict our future.
00:23:52.980He describes it as a pendulum, uh, and describes much of what you, you guys worked out.
00:23:58.720Um, but he, he shows it's an 80 year cycle.
00:25:23.780And, you know, when Kondrachiev, who was, uh, uh, Stalin's economic advisor, when he was asked what's better capitalism, communism, he said, it's, it's seasonal.
00:25:34.860And, uh, you look at things and, and capitalism is better because communism, when it starts to go cold into winter, the system props everything up.
00:25:44.620And so the system falls apart in the end, it can't prop up life.
00:25:49.960It's got to go in through these cycles.
00:25:52.180Um, and we're doing that since 2008, we're propping everything up.
00:25:57.840So it doesn't go into a hard freeze, but we've bastardized everything.
00:26:02.720And I'm, I'm wondering, do they always have to end in like war?
00:26:09.820Well, typically they have, um, you know, every, every total war in American history has occurred during a fourth turning.
00:26:18.520And every fourth turning is at a total war.
00:27:26.520So one thing before we go on to where we're headed, it is interesting to me that America, uh, has had these turnings along with all of the West, uh, for instance, American revolution, the French revolution, uh, world war, uh, world war two was the same, uh, you know, same thing.
00:27:47.360That was happening over at Germany was happening over here.
00:27:49.780Uh, we had different results, but, um, there's the we generation and the me generation and these things generally happen.
00:28:00.060Do they not in the we generation when we're all, we're all collective.
00:28:06.360We generations are, are, are, are, are made, not born.
00:28:12.160I mean, and that, that's the important part.
00:28:14.880Um, so how do we, how do we avoid what, uh, how do we avoid going in when we have a collective mindset going into something very un-American?
00:28:29.300You know, this has been a struggle since the beginning, uh, every time, because America is by, by its culture and by its heritage, a individualist kind of, uh, right.
00:28:43.220And war has been difficult for that reason.
00:28:48.260It was difficult for the revolutionaries.
00:28:50.900Um, you know, uh, George Washington, uh, implored, uh, again and again, you know, that, that, that Congress should then, that authorize him for this, for this great continental army.
00:29:03.080And of course, there were a lot of foot draggers and people who didn't want to do that.
00:29:07.200Uh, similarly in the Civil War, similarly in, in, in World War II, uh, it was, Roosevelt was very slow to be able to actually enact conscription.
00:29:17.560Uh, and, and, and we came very late to the table, uh, to the, the, the, the fight against fascism.
00:29:25.020Um, um, and, and so it, it is a problem and, and forth turnings by their very nature of, of collective mobilization put democracy to the test.
00:29:38.020But we're already seeing it today in America.
00:29:42.680You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:29:46.320Um, you know, I don't know how I feel about, uh, this story.
00:29:51.660Israel TV's channel 12 news released an investigative report, uh, about the five red heifers that were just brought to the Jewish state last September.
00:30:04.120Uh, and the supposed funneling of government funds to construct the third temple.
00:30:10.500Now, for those of you who know how the story ends, this could be a very exciting time.
00:30:18.500It could also be a very terrifying time.
00:30:22.400Um, the, uh, last month, the journalist tweeted about an experiment conducted, uh, by Bar Ilan University, Professor, uh, Amar,
00:30:33.460who attempted to determine how many people could be ritually purified by one red heifer.
00:30:39.140Apparently one has enough to purify 660 billion, uh, people, which, you know, there's not that many.
00:30:46.480So I don't know why they got the other three had ref red heifers.
00:30:50.080Um, but apparently, uh, there's the reports now on Israeli TV claiming that there are plans and everything is in place to rebuild the third temple,
00:31:01.280which means if I understand it correctly, that that building there on the Temple Mount now, it's got a gold dome.
00:31:11.060I don't remember what it is exactly, would have to be deconstructed in some way or another.