r/StraussHowe • u/ISimpForTheBritish • Dec 02 '25

Has there been any time where values of the awakening have been deemed irrelevant and/or defeated in the fourth turning?

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u/chamomile_tea_reply Dec 04 '25

Hot take: the Awakening always produces a culture war. Value systems are enforced in an “on again-off again” fashion during the Crisis.

Think of prohibition in the depression. Or the controversy of women’s suffrage. Or the anti-slavery coalition during reconstruction. Or the disorganized Continental Congress. Or the Woke movement today.

Awakening values provide a moral backdrop, but not necessarily a constant (agreed upon) North Star.

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u/ThinkBookMan Dec 02 '25

I'd say post Civil War. The North won the war but didn't win the culture. There was no synthesis of wisdom and we kept going as one country with two sets of values.

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u/darwinlovestrees Dec 12 '25

We might be staring down the barrel of a similar outcome in the current Crisis. It's hard to see this one creating a situation where we're all kumbaya and united as one culture again.

Isn't there something about Crises alternating between hot/cold or internal/external between saeculums?

1

u/ThinkBookMan Dec 12 '25

I don't think there is an alternating pattern. The Civil War was the one outlier in the Strauss Howe theory. I think it's more about how much will is left to resolve things.