07-25-2016, 12:53 PM
New York magazine put up a lengthy post that doesn't quite endorse cyclical history but pretty darn close. Disastrous culture shattering events happen about when the people die off that remember the last such disaster. One mechanism mentioned in the article is a tendency for tyranny to follow democracy. At a time when the most freedom and equality triumph, when the many are the most free, when the elite are least potent, that is the time when a narcissistic demagogue will rise, blame some other race or culture for not so serious problems, and bring the whole thing down.
Originator of the theory? Plato.
Reason the United States lasted so long as a democracy? The founding fathers read Plato. They put certain mechanisms in the Constitution, now fading in influence, that kept the elite in power.
Theme of the article? Trump is Hitler. Doom and the destruction of civilization as we know it is coming.
It's worth a read. Democracies end... when they are too democratic
Originator of the theory? Plato.
Reason the United States lasted so long as a democracy? The founding fathers read Plato. They put certain mechanisms in the Constitution, now fading in influence, that kept the elite in power.
Theme of the article? Trump is Hitler. Doom and the destruction of civilization as we know it is coming.
It's worth a read. Democracies end... when they are too democratic
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.