Trump, Bannon and the Coming Crisis

[Eric the Green]

(04-13-2017, 02:03 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(04-13-2017, 01:21 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: This article appeared in The Federalist yesterday:

Why Progressives Hate Steve Bannon's Cyclical View Of History

Progressives hate Steve Bannon's fascination with a book that suggests history is cyclical.  It undermines a progressive worldview that yearns for utopia.

Neither the cyclical view nor the incremental ramp up view are correct. History may rhyme but does not repeat. Plus, the system is noisy. So although there may be some periodicity, the waveform is quite dirty.

Actually, the irony is that the cyclic view is more progressive than the linear view. I have noted this in some of my essays at my site. One can only move forward on wheels. They provide motion. A line is static and gets stuck. Also, going in a straight line, you have no idea where you are going or where you've been, so you have no idea of what is forward or progressive. Only a cycle provides this. Cycles are always spirals if they are in relation to a line; that is, motion is the friction of a wheel moving along a path or street. So, maybe a cycle is not progressive if it's not placed on a pathway or in relation to a background, but it is progressive if it is so placed. And in music, repeating rhythm (ironically) always means movement.

Modern times have saecula that are more-sharply defined and faster than ancient/medieval/renaissance times. I have likened this to the spiral cyclic movement of air and clouds in a hurricane. A mature hurricane has a sharply defined eye and spiral. It is powerful and moves fast, and is like a living being. That's why they have names. All living beings are in a sense spirals with sharply-defined centers, and the more alive, the sharper the definition. Modern times involve more living beings, as if our hurricane has more air and more power. Of course, they can inflict more damage on things that are flimsy and in the way too.