We have multiple cycles in operation. Some fit well, at least in America. For example, two Skowronek cycles represent two near-halves of each Saeculum. Both begin with a new political paradigm that shows portents in the previous cycle and come with a very effective President fitting the new paradigm (FDR, Reagan) and a highly-ineffective one at the end (Carter, Trump). This most likely reflects declining returns to an agenda over about forty years. With the Presidency, this reflects itself in the generally-declining assessments of the overall competence of the Presidents as the era ages. Consider Washington to John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson to James Buchanan (with Presidents between Polk and Lincoln generally seen as the worst in American history). Lincoln is Lincoln, and what passes for the end of an era is William McKinley, a middling President... then comes Teddy Roosevelt to the trio of bad Presidents in Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.
Oddly, Obama is decidedly above average, although between dreadful Dubya and Mister Unmentionable.
The multi-stroke cycle may reflect that some people may exploit the memories of the experiences of old people from when they were born. In my case the oldest person of whom I have a solid memory was born in 1877. This man was old (78) when I was born. Should I have an active memory as long after birth as he had a lifespan before I was born, then this man's tales of a failed attempt to settle too far west in Nebraska due to a lack of reliable water, then I will be able to give someone a tale of something from the 1880's in 2033. I never got to know anyone with a memory of the American Civil War or any earlier time so directly. One has to read, and every author and publisher typically has some agenda other than objectivity (like making the story interesting enough to read). How good a reflection do we have of the Wild West from Western movies? Good question.
The greatest civil leaders during a Crisis Era know their history. FDR knew how to use Lincolnesque phrases against the Axis Powers. With his country in even greater peril in 1940, Churchill reached as far back as the Romans. Comparisons between World War II and the Second Punic War have been made.
The big cycle (as Arnold Toynbee suggests) is the lifetime of a civilization. A civilization begins with innovative solutions to big problems that leave behind communities that do much better. Maybe hunter-gatherers organize villages with formal government that taxes people to support a reliable defense, turns wartime regulation into formal law, and initiates record-keeping. There may be multiple communities that have experienced a similar transformation, but civilization has begun. Or -- from the ashes of a wrecked order comes much the same. Over time that civilization homogenizes and expands (often through voluntary imitation) In the final centuries of a civilization the civilization comes under the rule of some Universal State that encompasses it all -- and represses reforms and innovations because those seem to be destruction. The civilization has lost its vitality and adaptability and becomes vulnerable to outsiders that are more versatile and adaptable.
Western civilization has had plenty of candidates to be the Universal State: Habsburg Spain-Austria, Napoleon's realm, Wilhelmine Germany, and most ominously the demonic Third Reich. The United States may be one of the most impressive empires in world history, in part because it has kept its adaptability and has never become an aggressive, inflexible behemoth. We Americans are most likely long separated from the disaster of Toynbee's Universal State.
Oddly, Obama is decidedly above average, although between dreadful Dubya and Mister Unmentionable.
The multi-stroke cycle may reflect that some people may exploit the memories of the experiences of old people from when they were born. In my case the oldest person of whom I have a solid memory was born in 1877. This man was old (78) when I was born. Should I have an active memory as long after birth as he had a lifespan before I was born, then this man's tales of a failed attempt to settle too far west in Nebraska due to a lack of reliable water, then I will be able to give someone a tale of something from the 1880's in 2033. I never got to know anyone with a memory of the American Civil War or any earlier time so directly. One has to read, and every author and publisher typically has some agenda other than objectivity (like making the story interesting enough to read). How good a reflection do we have of the Wild West from Western movies? Good question.
The greatest civil leaders during a Crisis Era know their history. FDR knew how to use Lincolnesque phrases against the Axis Powers. With his country in even greater peril in 1940, Churchill reached as far back as the Romans. Comparisons between World War II and the Second Punic War have been made.
The big cycle (as Arnold Toynbee suggests) is the lifetime of a civilization. A civilization begins with innovative solutions to big problems that leave behind communities that do much better. Maybe hunter-gatherers organize villages with formal government that taxes people to support a reliable defense, turns wartime regulation into formal law, and initiates record-keeping. There may be multiple communities that have experienced a similar transformation, but civilization has begun. Or -- from the ashes of a wrecked order comes much the same. Over time that civilization homogenizes and expands (often through voluntary imitation) In the final centuries of a civilization the civilization comes under the rule of some Universal State that encompasses it all -- and represses reforms and innovations because those seem to be destruction. The civilization has lost its vitality and adaptability and becomes vulnerable to outsiders that are more versatile and adaptable.
Western civilization has had plenty of candidates to be the Universal State: Habsburg Spain-Austria, Napoleon's realm, Wilhelmine Germany, and most ominously the demonic Third Reich. The United States may be one of the most impressive empires in world history, in part because it has kept its adaptability and has never become an aggressive, inflexible behemoth. We Americans are most likely long separated from the disaster of Toynbee's Universal State.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.