How did we get to the Crisis Stage? Strauss-Howe generational theory (“SHGT”) labels the Third Turning as an Unraveling. According to SHGT, each cycle, or saeculum, consists of four turnings, each lasting about 20-25 years, making up a full cycle of around 80-100 years, basically the time period of a long lifetime. The Third Turning, or Unraveling, is the period that follows an era of high civic order (the Second Turning or Awakening) and precedes a crisis (the Fourth Turning). Strauss & Howe posit that the current Fourth Turning began in approximately 2008 with the Global Financial Crisis.
The Unraveling began, therefore, in the mid- to late-1980s. SHGT describes the characteristics of the Unraveling as:
Individualism Over Collectivism: Society emphasizes personal autonomy and self-expression over collective unity.
Weak Institutions: Public trust in large institutions (government, corporations, etc.) erodes, and these institutions often fail to inspire confidence or seem capable of addressing major societal issues.
Cultural Fragmentation: The period is marked by cultural division, political polarization, and a general sense of disunity.
Decadence and Excess: The society may focus more on material wealth, entertainment, and consumption, sometimes leading to excess and neglect of deeper values or community bonds.
Decreasing Social Order: Unlike the cooperative spirit of the Second Turning, the Unraveling tends to see increasing skepticism and division among different segments of society.
Francis and Anarcho-Tyranny
By the early 1990s, influential writers of both left and right began to conceptualize and name the Unraveling. The dessication of American institutions would be explained by 3 men: Samuel Francis, Patrick Moynihan, and Charles Krauthammer. The Defining ethos of the current Crisis is “Anarcho-Tyranny”, a term coined by Sam Francis in 1993. Francis first introduced the concept of anarcho-tyranny in his article “Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A.,” published in the July 1994 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. (see discussion here: https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/anarcho-tyranny-2020/
Francis criticized the government’s tendency to neglect enforcement of fundamental protective laws, leading to societal disorder (anarchy), while simultaneously imposing oppressive regulations on law-abiding citizens (tyranny). He illustrates this paradox by highlighting instances where authorities focus on minor infractions, such as seat belt violations, while failing to address more serious criminal activities. This duality, according to Francis, undermines both public safety and individual freedoms.
Moynihan and Defining Deviancy
In Senator Patrick Moynihan’s influential 1993 article “Defining Deviance Down,” he argues that American society has progressively redefined what it considers “deviant” behavior, normalizing conduct that was once widely condemned. Moynihan’s thesis is that as social issues like crime and family breakdown increased, society responded not by addressing these problems robustly, but by adjusting its perception of what is considered acceptable or “normal” behavior to avoid confronting widespread dysfunction.
Moynihan explains this phenomenon through three categories:
Altruistic: Well-meaning efforts to protect certain groups from stigma or prosecution led to lower societal standards for behavior, normalizing previously unacceptable actions.
Opportunistic: Individuals and organizations capitalize on this redefinition to advance their own interests, often benefiting politically or financially from the relaxed standards.
Normalizing: Society becomes desensitized as deviant behaviors become commonplace, eroding traditional moral boundaries and expectations.
See the original article here (https://nation.time.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2012/03/defining-deviancy-down-amereducator.pdf)
Krauthammer Defines Deviancy Up
In his 1993 rejoinder to Moynihan in the American Enterprise Institute, Charles Krauthammer argued that no only were certain traditional norms being defined down to rationalize previously-deviant behavior, societt was simultaneously raising the standards for what was considered deviant in previously normal or traditional behavior.
Pathologizing Normalcy: Krauthammer pointed out that traditional norms and behaviors, once considered healthy or ordinary, were being redefined as problematic or deviant. For instance, he noted how certain natural behaviors, such as the assertiveness of boys or certain family structures, were increasingly seen through a lens of medicalization or social stigma.
Cultural Shift: The article highlighted a societal trend where, while some genuine issues were normalized or ignored, other aspects of life were scrutinized excessively, expanding the definition of deviance in new areas, particularly when it comes to speech (political correction), mental illness, and sexual norms (the creation of “date rape”:”).
Contrasting Moynihan’s Argument: While Moynihan focused on the lowering of societal standards to accommodate more extreme behaviors, Krauthammer underscored that there was a simultaneous increase in labeling previously accepted practices as deviant, effectively shifting societal norms in two directions.
To quote Krauthammer at length: “There is a complimentary social phenomenon that goes with defining deviancy down. As part of the vast social project of moral leveling, it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found to be deviant. Therefore, while for the criminals and the crazies deviancy has been defined down (the bar defining normality has been lowered), for the ordinary bourgeois deviancy has been defined up (the bar defining normality has been raised). Large areas of ordinary behavior hitherto considered benign have had their threshold radically redefined up, so that once innocent behavior now stands condemned as deviant. Normal middle class life then stands exposed as the true home of violence, abuse, misogyny, a whole of catalog deviant acting and thinking.” (Krauthammer, Charles. “Defining Deviancy Up.” The Weekly Standard, November 22, 1993.) See original article here (https://www.aei.org/research-products/speech/defining-deviancy-up/)
Falling Down
Perhaps no quicker encapsulation of anarcho-tyranny can be found than the 1993 movie “Falling Down“. (Trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD5ofrSNDFA)
Can’t get breakfast because it’s 11:33 and they stopped selling breakfast at 11:30. That’s part of anarcho-tyranny. While anarcho-tyranny was already widespread enough to have movies made about it (see also “PCU” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCU_(film)) by 2008 and beyond it’s rot had consumed virtually all American institutions. For example, during Covid, violent racial protests were deemed ok, while ordinary Americans couldn’t visit loved ones in hospitals. Anarcho-tyranny at its most ludicrous and tyrannical. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-health-protests-301534
President Trump’s recent election seems to be a perhaps final push-back against what many call “woke”, but what I think is simply anarcho-tyranny run through to its final conclusion. The final collapse of American institutions in 2020-2024 will be the topic of my next post as we continue to think about the Fourth Turning.
Fourth Turning Chronicle 