TIME AND CHANGE: LINEAR OR CYCLICAL? OR BOTH?
Just before Easter we engaged in a mental exercise, grappling with the issue if progress is real, or a modern illusion (link). "Reactionary Feminist" Mary Harrington in a video (link) expressed her conviction that progress is not real. Rummaging through posts, some going back a long time, I chanced on an essay we posted in 2008 on the idea of history evolving in cycles, written by Sam Holliday of the Armiger Cromwell Center, which as far as I am able to find out, is no longer active. Cycles have births, periods of growth and expansion, a maturity phase and finally, death. If you are born and raised in the West, which has a history spanning roughly a thousand years from the Crusades onwards, the notion does not immediately occur to you. You need the long view. Now if you are a Greek, with a history spanning four thousand years, the concept becomes undeniable. You can't miss it! I have re-written the posting for the book I am trying to put together, in an abridged version. Here goes.
May 16, 2025 polyMATHY: Ancient Greek Hours, NOT Roman: Koine’s Surprising Way To Tell Time.
Time is better understood through cycles than it is through progress. The idea of cyclical time is not new. The ancient Greeks knew of different ages in their history. In modern times the notion of cycles was put forward by Nietzsche, Spengler, Sorokin, and Toynbee. The rise and fall of families, communities, states, nations, cultures and civilizations are no longer seen as the work of the gods, as was the case in ancient times.
It is now understood that cycles are never identical and that no cycle is deterministic. Each group has its unique origin, growth, contentment and decline, its own virtues and its own secular authority. However, there are similarities and certain patterns to the concept.
Cycles are the oldest attempt to give meaning to time and change. Many civilizations of the past saw the natural world as stages in cycles of birth, growth, decay and death. People living close to nature think in terms of seasons. Babylonian, Indian, Chinese and Aztec myths were often described in cycles. Hindu and Buddhist visions are eternal cycles of cosmic process, which repeatedly rises to a golden age and then declines.
Aristotle wrote of civilizations as a continuous "coming to be and falling away." Both Stoics and Epicureans in the Roman Empire saw history as endless cycles. Cycles are never identical and are not the results of anything that came before it. They have however four stages in common.
The distinguishing characteristic of all groups is a common identity, a sense of kinship. Those in a group need not have common genes, or speak the same language, or even have the same culture, but they must think of themselves as 'we'.
Some groups spend a long time in one stage, yet others go rapidly through the stages. Some groups are able to reverse to an earlier stage, while others go through several iterations of decline/growth, disorder/order, and stagnation/prosperity.
Through the cycles we can understand our present and look our future in the eye. The stages of a cycle are Birth, Maturity, Contentment, and Decay. The first two stages are Rise and the last two stages are Decline.
The first stages of cycles are a time of struggle. The overcoming of obstacles releases the energies of the group to respond effectively to challenges. Survival instinct is strong, creating leaders who are able to build and defend the group. Individuals support the group in their own self-interest.
Hegel often refers to each group having a particular "spirit of the people", noting the importance of virtues that are shared moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. While a group is rising, the masculine dominates. After the building stages have run their course, the fall begins.
The Birth stage of cycles is a time of troubles and challenges with extinction always close at hand. The most violent and enterprising gain power. This results in unprecedented effort, unity, sacrifice and loyalty to a single leader who is a father figure, a ruler, priest or prophet. He is the arbiter of right and wrong, good and bad.
The individual is often sacrificed for the benefit of the group. It is a time for brutish men--not for the timid; for action--not for words. Some groups are able to skip the Birth stage because they are able to borrow from another group that has failed.
During the Maturity stage there is an increase in knowledge, numbers, and territory; there is an accumulation of surplus, the development of new technology and new ways to do things. The knowledge and technology uses the surplus to increase the power of the group.
The group exists for the sake of its members, yet the group is still enough of an organism to be able to hold on to the customs, traditions, roles, and sense of duty developed in the Birth stage. Heroes are the distinctive feature of the Maturity stage.
Heroes become the magistrates of order to provide protection from internal and external threats. They form a ruling class that holds all of the leadership positions. Heroes are examples of loyalty, dedication, and patriotism. Their behavior demonstrates honor, discipline, duty, and a sense of purpose.
Over-sophisticated and corrupt elites advancing self-interests is the fundamental cause of decline during the Contentment and Decay stages. No longer do all of those with political power work for the interests of the whole group; instead they increasingly advance the agenda of factions, and/or personal interests.
During the declining stages there is a softening of both customs and laws, and a greater reliance on the rule of law. Also the feminine aspects increase and replaces the masculine. Edward Gibbon attributes decline to the disappearance of vitality and creative power replacing vigor and public spirit with pleasure seeking and factionalism, the degeneration of art and literature combined with obsession with materialism.
The Contentment stage of cycles is a time of eclecticism, easy, comfort, and sophistication with nothing original. Art is decadent and rarely supports traditional institutions. Science and technology are complex and costly, but do little to advance the human spirit. Intellectuals are concerned with causality, feelings, and intentions; they stress thinking rather than action and the ideal rather than the practical.
The Contentment stage is often considered a Golden Age, since there is usually peace, prosperity, rights, a complex legal system, and a privileged intelligentsia. Respect for authority, discipline, and common identity give way to humane and easy tolerance-to benign, nonjudgmental behavior.
It becomes an aggregate of individuals and factions. Standards are either absent or are largely symbolic. Behavior is increasingly controlled by the rule of law rather than shared morals. There are increases in material prosperity, social security, humanitarianism, and bureaucracy.
There is an increase in the number of intellectuals, materialists, and hedonists who believe they are living beyond values, beyond right and wrong. There is advocacy for universal laws to achieve equality.
In the Decay stage the group has become polyglot, borrowing from others to create a vulgar and violent underclass, yet a delicate, refined, and dissolute upper class. It has crude, disturbing art, and sterile, ethereal beliefs.
There is disintegration and a lack of common identity. It is an aggregation of individuals. Factions within the group are as competitive with each other as they are with those outside of the group.
Only secular authority remains and it is often ignored. There is economic depression, and a decline in the standard of living. Votes go to those who promise the most. There is ever-increasing hostility and violence between factions, which sometimes becomes a civil war.
Conclusions
The cycle of Rise through Birth and Maturity, and then Decline through Contentment and Decay is a useful way to view the present and consider the future.
Some groups are able to skip the Birth stage because of transfers from a previous group that has failed; some groups are able to remain in a stage for a long time while others go rapidly from one stage to the next.
Rather than seeing history as facts of specific events and times and studying parts, the cyclical concept allows the long term and holistic approach.
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