Second

The Second Turning is also known as the Awakening, like the Great Awakening of the early 18th century. It’s a time of spiritual, moral, and religious tumult, an inward-looking mirror of the Crisis. Youth is celebrated, convention and tradition less so. It can be considered a reaction to the corruption and blandness of the First.  

During a Second Turning, expect to see:

Religious/spiritual symbolism and rhetoric: William Jennings Bryan spoke of a Cross of Gold. Martin Luther King went to the mountaintop. Martin Luther himself posted 95 Theses.  Whether talking about economics, justice, or religion itself, religion and spirituality are a frequent theme in the Awakening.  While all institutions will start weakening around this time, religious institutions are often under the heaviest attack.

Crowds: In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin mentions attending a revival presided over by George Whitefield, and estimated that (as reported) thirty thousand could easily have heard him at once. Hundreds of thousands showed up at Woodstock. Whatever might be worth saying is worth being heard by a lot of people.

Youth: Bryan was barely old enough to be president when he won the Democratic nomination in 1896. Franklin was a few years younger than that in Whitefield’s crowd. And these are the old fogies in Awakening times. The past is the past, the future belongs to the young. (This is not always a good thing.)

Speeches and such: “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.” “The Cross of Gold.” (“I Have a Dream” misses by only by a few months, as Strauss & Howe consider the last Second Turning to have started after Kennedy’s assassination.) “The Liberator.” People will note and remember what was said.