Turnings are like the seasons. Every turning is necessary.

We discovered a recurring pattern and implicit in that pattern of generational recurrence,

the idea of a rhythm, a pattern, a sequence of events that comes around again.

Nature like cycles. Cities are founded. Cities collapse.

States rise, states fall. Families can prosper. Families can wither. All follow certain

repeating cyclical patterns. We end up inventing new cycles. So we have the financial market cycle.

We have traffic cycles.

We have all kinds of modern, high-tech cycles, which we simply create.

There are four turnings.

Each one roughly 20 years or so an entire four turnings or a seculum lasts about 80 to 100 years.

A series of turnings that are launched by a so-called crisis war.

It's a time when there's a lot of genocide, a lot of killing, a lot of starvation,

usually a lot of disease.

It's the worst times in history.

And once one of those is over,

everybody, both the victors and the losers,

make a vow that they, that was so horrible,

it should never be allowed to happen again.

That's really the key to understanding what happens next.

The first turning is the high, like the 50s that comes after the crisis.

It's a period of consolidation. It's a period of stable families and stable family structures.

Lots of kids are born. Lots of infrastructure is built. but emotional life becomes more or less dead and begins to die out.

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