The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were a shock to America.  No one seemed to have anticipated that the United States was vulnerable to an attack of this magnitude on its own soil.  The World Trade Center had been bombed in 1993.  We had suffered major attacks on two of our embassies in Africa and on a Marine barracks in Lebanon and on the federal building in Oklahoma City.  But, rather than seeing these events as part of a trend that might grow, we seem to have brushed them aside as isolated incidents.

Why?  Were we not warned by our futurists, the people whose job it is to anticipate such things before they happen?  Actually, we were.  In a 1994 article on "The Future Face of Terrorism," in The Futurist magazine, Marvin Cetron predicted that that "the next 15 years may well be the age of superterrorism."  He stated that "tomorrow's most dangerous terrorists will be motivated not by political ideology, but by fierce ethica nd religious hatreds.   Their goal will not be political control, but the utter destruction of their chosen enemies."  He also observed that "targets such as the World Trade Center not only provide the requisite casualties, but because of their symbolic nature, provide more bang for the buck."  Other specialists on terrorism observed the many of the same trends.  But terrorism experts were a marginal group in academia and in government, and their warnings were largely ignored.

America's failure to take the terrorist threat seriously can perhaps best be explained by another set of futurists.  In their book The Fourth Turning, William Strauss and Neil Howe predicted that "sometime around the year 2005, perhaps a few years before or after," America would suffer a crisis of some kind that would spark a new mood in the country.  They gave several brief scenarios of possible crises, including one in which "a global terrorist groupblows up an aircraft and announces it possesses portable nuclear weapons" (p 273).

Strauss and Howe use generational trends to make long term predictions.  Their scope of analysis is audacious, their book Generations claims to make sense of the full sweep of American history from 1584 to 2069.

Strauss and Howe are not the only analysts to have detected long-term cycles in American history.  In The Cycles of American History, Arthur Schlesinger argues that there have been periodic shifts from liberalism to conservatism, as summarized in the following table:
 
 

Liberal	Conservative
1765-1787	1787-1801
1801-1816	1816-1829
1829-1841	1841-1861
1861-1869	1869-1901
1901-1919	1919-1931
1931-1947	1947-1961
1961-1978	1978-1993
1993-2010	2010-2026

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Political scientist Frank Klingberg, after an extensive study of historical documents, argued that American foreign policy alternated between introverted and extroverted phases, as shown in the following table:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Introverted	Extroverted
1776-1798	1798-1824
1824-1844	1844-1871
1871-1891	1891-1919
1919-1940	1940-1973
1973-1991	1991-

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In these historical analyses, there is always a risk that the analyst who is committed to a particular model will tend to exaggerate the extent to which events fit the model.  But since the 1960s, we have had survey data that can be used to check the validity of cyclical models.  Sometimes it fits very well, as in the following chart of trends in the values of college freshmen.  From the 1960s to the 1980s, the percent valuing a meaningful philosophy of life steadily declined, while the percent placing value on being well off financially increased:

Not all values follow the same pattern, however.  The percentages valuing "helping others" has exceeded the percent valuing "success" by about the same amount over the entire period:
 

A very comprehensive study of trends in public opinion by William Mayer did detect periodic shifts from liberalism to conservatism, although some attitudes did not fit the general trend.  There was a consistent liberal trend on race relation and women's rights, for example, throughout the period, together with a conservative trend on crime and punishment.
 
 
 

1960-1965	Stability. Liberal trends on racial equality and capital punishment. Most changes small and counterbalanced by conservative trends.
1966-1973	Liberal Shift. Liberal changes on premarital sex, abortion, racial equality, women's status, foreign policy, the defense budget, Soviet relations and many other issues. Conservative trends on crime, taxes, labor, gun ownership, foreign aid.
1974-1980	Right Turn. Conservative changes on crime, the ERA, Soviet relations, military spending and intervention, taxes, government spending, regulations, inflation and the environment. Liberal trends on racial equality, women, premarital sex, legalizing marijuana.
1981-1988	Liberal Resurgence. Liberal changes on race, military, government spending, gay rights, Soviet relations, women, family, environment. Conservative trends on crime, abortion, economic rights & privileges, business profits.

 
 

Schlesinger and Klingberg had no real explanation for why there were long-term cycles in the zeitgeist.   The theory of generations, as developed by Strauss and Howe (following a number of earlier authors), does offer an explanation.  Strauss and Howe use a four generational model, with each generation dominating for a period of approximately twenty years.  At the end of a generational period, a major event typically occurs which catalyzes a shift in the public mood.  They posit that there are four generational types, which they describe  (in their first book) as follows:
 
 
 
 
 

IDEALIST	An inner-driven, moralistic generation which comes of age during a period of spiritual awakening and develops a new creedal passion.
REACTIVE	An alienated, cynical generation which challenges the ideals of their parents and develops into pragmatic, risk-taking adults.
CIVIC	An outer-driven, morally complacent generation which institutionalizes many of the ideals of the previous generations.
ADAPTIVE	A hypocritical generation which coasts along on the accomplishments of the civics, laying the groundwork for a new idealist era.

 
 

In American history, shifts between these generational types were triggered by the following events:
 
 
 
 

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING	SECULAR CRISIS
Reformation Awakening (1517-1539)	Defeat of Spanish Armada (1580-1588)
Puritan Awakening (1734-1743)	Glorious Revolution (1675-1692)
Great Awakening (1734-1743)	American Revolution (1773-1789)
Transcendental Awakening (1822-1837)	Civil War (1857-1865)
Missionary Awakening (1886-1903)	Depression & World War II (1932-1945)
Boom Awakening (1967-1980)	[expected in the 2020's]

 
 
 

The generations that are still present in American society are as follows:
 
 
 
 
 

GENERATION (type)	YEARS BORN (duration)	PRESIDENTS & CANDIDATES
G.I. (Civic)	1901-1924 (24 years)	Johnson, Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Kennedy, Carter, George H.W. Bush, Dole
SILENT (Adaptive)	1925-1942 (18 years)	Mondale, Dukakis, Kemp, Hart, Jackson
BOOM (Idealist)	1943-1960 (18 years)	Bill Bradley, William Bennett, Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle, Albert Gore, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush
THIRTEENTH  ("Generation X") (Reactive)	1961-1981 (21 years)	.
MILLENNIAL  ("Generation Y") (Civic)	1981-2001?	.

 
 

This theory fits well with the theory of long cycles in the global capitalist economy, as developed by a number of authors:
 
 
 

Economic period	Economic condition	Generational period	Generation entering rising adulthood	Generational type
1814-1848	Contraction	1814-1843	Transcendental	Idealist
1848-1872	Expansion	1844-1864	Gilded	Reactive
		1865-1881	Progressive	Adaptive
1872-1893	Contraction	1882-1904	Missionary	Idealist
1893-1918	Expansion	1905-1922	Lost	Reactive
1918-1945	Contraction	1923-1946	G.I.	Civic
1945-1968	Expansion	1947-1964	Silent	Adaptive
1968-[1993]	Contraction	1965-1982	Baby Boom	Idealist
[1993-2018]	[Expansion]	1983-2003	Thirteenth	Reactive

 
 

There are several problems with this kind of analysis.  One is that it tends to exaggerate the extent to which history fits into a regular pattern.  This tendency, along with a predilection to coin a whole new vocabulary, has discourage many people from taking Strauss and Howe's generational theory seriously.  Michael Lind, a reviewer for the New York Times (January 26, 1967) remarked that:  "The idea that history moves in cycles tends to be viewed with suspicion by scholars. Although historians as respected as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and David Hackett Fischer have made cases for the existence of rhythms and waves in the stream of events, cyclical theories tend to end up in the Sargasso Sea of pseudoscience, circling endlessly (what else?). ''The Fourth Turning'' is no  exception."

In my opinion, this is too harsh.  Economic and social cycles are not regular and predictable like astronomical cycles, but there are more or less regular alternations in social variables, and Strauss and Howe do a better job than anyone else in making sense of them.
 

The chart below gives an intriguing graphical summary of cyclical trends in economic and social variables, and how they fit together.  A larger image is available on the Internet.
 
 
 
 
 

For a larger, higher resolution, image of this chart of cyclical trends in the world economy, click here.  The Chart is from Applied Futures International, Woodlands, Texas.  I have posted it myself since their site has gone down.

 
 
 

Although I think Strauss and Howe have done a remarkable job of making sense of a tremendous amount of history, I do not share their conviction that the patterns they observed will necessarily continue into the future.  At least I hope this is not true, since their model predicts that America is entering into a period of general decline for about twenty years.   This is a good warning, and it has made a lot more sense after September 11 than it did before.   But their practical recommendations are not very inspirational.  They essentially recommend that we reconcile ourselves to a rather bleak couple of decades:
 
 
 
 
 
 

Strauss and Howe's Advice for America as a Society At the Current Historical Turning Point forge the consensus and uplift the culture, but don't expect near-term results clear the debris and find out what works, but don't try building anything big define challenges bluntly and stress duties over rights, but don't attempt reforms that can't now be accomplished require community teamwork to solve local problems, but don't try this on a national scale treat children as the nation's highest priority, but don't do their work for them tell future elders they will need to be more self-sufficient, but don't attempt deep cuts in benefits to current elders correct fundamentals, but don't try to fine tune current performance expect the worst and prepare to mobilize, but don't precommit to any one response And Their Advice for Individuals return to the classic virtues build personal relationships of all kinds prepare yourself for teamwork look to your family for support gird for the weakening or collapse of public support mechanisms diversify everything you do

This is pretty depressing, reminding me of Kenneth Boulding's Sonnet for Cycles:
 
 
 

SONNET FOR CYCLES by Kenneth Boulding 22 February 1992 Cycles surround us, soon as we come to be; Wake-sleep, wake-sleep, night-day, dark-light, night-day; Feeding at intervals pursues its way, The moon's never from monthly patterns free. Seasons follow each other relentlessly, And, as we grow under new learning's sway, Planets in big and little circles play. For some, each day at four o'clock brings tea. Birds flap their wings and migrate forth and back. Yet still I do believe time has an arrow. Great Cycles?--NO!--they make the mind too narrow, For Evolution follows an upward track    Which my small self can climb as knowledge grows     From God's Creation.  To what end?  Who knows?

Of course, Strauss and Howe's recommendations are not focused on terrorism, but on the national mood in a more general sense.  But perhaps the terrorist threat will prove to be just what the nation needs to shake itself out of the cyclical funk that Strauss and Howe predict.

In contrast to Strauss and Howe's pessimism and fatalism, Cetron's approach seems more useful.  He warns of trends that make terrorism more potent: