Population Bomb, Fourth Turning, Bunk

Summary

The web content reflects on the impact of historical and contemporary theories on societal change and population growth, juxtaposing them with current events and personal reflections on agency and pragmatism.

Abstract

The article discusses the influence of Paul and Anne Ehrlich's The Population Bomb and William Strauss's The Fourth Turning on societal attitudes and predictions, particularly in the context of high school discussions in the 1970s and Steve Bannon's political strategies. It acknowledges the limitations of theoretical frameworks in the face of real-world complexities, noting the absence of concrete plans for societal rebuilding. The author, drawing on personal experience and observations, suggests that living pragmatically and maintaining agency through active participation and advocacy is crucial amidst the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic, potential population decline, and geopolitical events such as the War in Ukraine.

Opinions

The author views the predictions of The Population Bomb with a critical eye, recognizing their impact on environmental awareness but also their limitations in foresight.
The Fourth Turning's theory of generational cycles of societal change is presented with skepticism, especially in the context of Steve Bannon's use of the theory to justify upheaval without a clear plan for the future.
The author identifies as a pragmatist, shaped by a long life and the realization that past revolutionary discussions lacked practical rebuilding strategies.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on birth rates and population growth are seen as accelerating factors towards a potential peak in world population.
The article criticizes the oversimplification of generational marketing and the use of short-hand descriptors like "boomers" and "millennials."
There is a distrust of grand theories and prescriptive life advice, with the author preferring to focus on individual agency and action within a complex, unpredictable world.
The author emphasizes the importance of living pragmatically, paying attention to the world, bearing witness, advocating for change, and acting when possible, especially in the face of global events like the War in Ukraine.

And we persist through the ennui

Redd on Unsplash

The Population Bomb (Paul and Anne Ehrlich, 1968) instigated serious debates among us high school idealists about whether we should have children or not.

The inflammatory prose of The Population Bomb laid out a dire future of food shortages, although one can look back fifty years and find much that merited attention for our environment.

The Fourth Turning was published approximately thirty years later by William Strauss (1997), and per The New York Times and others, is critical to understanding Steve Bannon’s approach to the Trump White House.

The Fourth Turning proposed there is societal change every twenty years, and that every eighty years the current social order is swept away and replaced by something new.

In America, these eighty years are supposedly marked by the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, and whatever is happening now. The critique of Steve Bannon is that he was promoting the destruction of the existing order, without a replacement. This reminds me of conversations I had in the early ’70s that began “when the revolution comes…”

The problem with any theory is that it is theory.

Longer life has taught me to be a pragmatist. The revolution we discussed fifty years ago had no ready-made build-back-up plan. Joe Biden is talking infrastructure, and we know how long crumbling infrastructure has been in conversation. The horrific riots of 2020 have left scars in many of our cities that will take a concerted community effort to repurpose.

It isn’t clear how Covid will impact the world population. The deaths are relatively low (less than one percent) worldwide, and most occur among the oldest in our population. Births have been deferred in our country, and deferred births are fewer births.

In an article on Medium in January 2019, just before Covid (By the End of This Century, the Global Population Will Start to Shrink, @Darrell Bricker and @John Ibbitson), the authors cite various experts who project 2060 will see peak world population. Covid might further population decline through the psychological impact of uncertainty.

What are the connections between these disparate points? As I wallow in ennui this second January of the pandemic, I have been seeking out counterpoints to hopelessness.

We have, as a society, struggled through difficult eras in the past — depressions, wars, technological transformation, pandemics.

During a long life, say eighty years, we manage through different changes. We laugh at many from the vantage point of geezerhood, but grief, anxiety, and uncertainty clouded the past’s present moments.

Unbridled population growth seems to be the root of many problems, including immigration provoked by economics, climate change, loss of hope. It appears we are closer to flattening that curve (remember the refrain?) than we had known.

The current feed of news media shouts to our worst instincts. This statement should not minimize the very real political, health, social issues we face. Authoritarians flourish in uncertainty; maybe we revert to the childhood wish the Grown-Up will take care of the problem, although we are our Grown-Ups, like it or not. I felt my agency taken away in the first lock-down. With two years’ practice, we can find our advocacy channels, however small.

The dire warnings of the Ehrlich’s were as much wrong as right, though maybe the warnings themselves helped inform decisions. A neat division of birth years into generations is good for marketing. We speak in short-hand of boomers and millennials, but the past is not necessarily prescriptive and short-hand descriptors simplify the complex diversity of this amazing world.

An earlier ambition of mine was to be a guru like Stephen Covey and come up with the magic number of principles to change your life and sell books. That ambition means I distrust theories constructed by authors.

So, I am back to living in this messy, unpredictable world without a theory or a prescription. You may be muddling through, too. To retain balance requires paying attention; bearing witness; advocating as one can, and acting when one is able. Maybe that is a prescription for claiming agency and the persistence required in this age of ennui.

Postscript: March 15, 2022

The War in Ukraine certainly upsets the existing order even more, and we know enough to know we do not know what will emerge. While on the one hand this war leads credence to the theory of the Fourth Turning, on the other hand Vladimir Putin’s theory about the Russian Empire will be thoroughly debunked. Acting on his theory appears to have lead to disaster.

I retain the prescription above, that we live pragmatically as we can, and that a master theory is a grand marketing plan, whether for a book or an empire. The unintended consequences of the exercise of authority may be a rise in democracy.