About What Readers Say
About Our
Message
About
Ourselves
About Our
Method
About What
Readers Say
Q. Do different kinds of people react differently to your theory?
A. Our keenest proponents, we believe, are young-adult parents of small children. There is something about the birth of a child to make you want to reconnect with history and to look for clues about what the future holds.
Q. What kinds of reviews have you gotten?
A. With Generations, we heard the full spectrum, from a few who were aggressively skeptical to a few who heaped on the accolades. (One reviewer enthused that the book would someday rank with Darwin’s Origin of the Species.) Our 13th-Gen book was received well, especially by young adults (which was no surprise) and even more spectacularly in Canada (which was). But some critics again took sharp exception. In general, Silent academics tend to be among our stiffest critics, 13er websurfers our staunchest defenders. Thus far, reviews of the Fourth Turning are quite encouraging. (Check out the Word of Mouth section for more)
Q. How did it happen that both Al Gore and Newt Gingrich endorsed Generations?
A. Both were interested in generational issues while we were still writing the book—and it just so happened that both of them really liked it when they saw it. We don’t think any of our books advances one political party or ideology over another.
Q. What do academic historians think of your work?
A. We’ve heard very favorable reactions from those who have taken the time to focus on our theory and understand our message. Many of today’s credentialed historians, alas, are specialized professionals who hesitate to assume history moves in any direction—much less try to foresee what that direction might be. Now that the Fourth Turning has arrived, maybe we will finally show up on their radar screens.
Q. You open your new book with the sentence “America feels like it’s unraveling.” Don’t recent polls show a rising share of Americans feel like the nation is “on the right track.”?
A. Not nearly as many Americans believe that as
was true 30 years ago. If Americans were ever asked whether their nation is “on the right track,” “on the wrong track,” or “on no track at all,” we think that the last answer would win hands down—for now. The re-election of Clinton and a Republican Congress should be interpreted not as an endorsement of America’s present direction, but rather as a sign that people want to keep the national government relatively powerless and unintrusive in their own lives. As the Third Turning wears on, people want to be bothered neither by an activist president nor a Congress full of intrusive culture warriors.
Q. Some people say you’ve described 13ers as a “bad” generation. Have you? Is that your view?
A. No to both questions. While some reviewers have said we are too negative about this generation, a greater number have said the opposite—that we bend over backwards to highlight 13er virtues. In all our books, we describe how every generation has good and bad potential. As the great German historian Leopold van Ranke put it, “before God, all the generations of humanity appear equally justified”—and, he might have added, equally necessary to check and balance others. However, we also observe that, fairly or not, 13ers have the worst reputation of today’s living generations. When you’re a Nomad archetype, that comes with the territory.
Q. The way you describe 13ers doesn’t suggest they’d be big supporters of Clinton. But didn’t most of them vote Clinton over Dole?
A. No, most of them did not. The main youth choice was for none of the above—or, perhaps, for any of the above—a choice expressed by the act of nonvoting. The final age-based vote tallies aren’t yet available, but we expect them to show about a 30 percent turnout for the age 18-to-29 bracket. That means that Clinton received the vote of only one of every six eligible youth voters. Dole got somewhat less than that, of course. We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a worse single moment of generational campaigning that near the end of the first debate, when Dole tried to appeal to young voters by a grandiose flourish about the America’s future capped by the advice to “just say no” on drugs. The 13er vote is still up for grabs. As more of them start families, we think Republicans (or a third party) possess a natural edge in getting their vote in the upcoming elections. But, as Dole (and Bush) showed, that edge can be frittered away.
Q. Do you think the recent election was important?
A. Generationally, yes. It marked the final passage from power of Dole’s G.I. Generation, ending a record-setting tenure in the White House, and the continuing Boomer ascent to political power. (Boomer’s now hold a plurality in the House, the Senate, and state governorships.) Whatever midlife Boomers want to accomplish before they pass on, they now know they only have so much time left to do it. That’s very significant. But from the standpoint of the saeculum, it didn’t much matter who won. There has never been an effective national leader late in a Third Turning. What may have mattered most, in this election, was the low turnout. That was a stark message of civic decay.
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