Myu Lansky on Nostr: Time Isn’t Just a Line—It’s a Cycle In “The Fourth Turning”, Strauss and ...

Time Isn’t Just a Line—It’s a Cycle

In “The Fourth Turning”, Strauss and Howe challenge a fundamental assumption of modern life: that time is linear.

In a linear view of time, history progresses steadily forward. Each generation builds on the last. Problems are solved, society advances, and the past is largely behind us. It’s a comforting, even optimistic idea—progress is inevitable.

But “The Fourth Turning” offers a very different framework: time is cyclical. History moves through repeating seasons—High, Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis. Just like nature’s seasons, these historical “turnings” are predictable, patterned, and inevitable.

In this cyclical model, the present isn’t entirely new—it’s a return. Crises echo past crises. Awakenings stir the same kinds of upheaval across centuries. What feels unprecedented is often deeply familiar to those who understand the cycle.

This perspective changes how we understand the moment we’re living in. If we’re in a Fourth Turning—the crisis phase—then we’re not just experiencing chaos; we’re living through a necessary transformation, one that could give birth to a new societal order, just as it has in cycles before.

The question isn’t whether we’ll escape the cycle—but how we’ll respond to it. Do we resist the change? Or do we engage it with wisdom, knowing that what comes next depends on how we act now?

History doesn't just move forward. It turns.