Relatively long cycles such as global warming, ice ages and the movement of continents govern the behavior of our planet. Cycles of wind and waves carve and shape continents. Relatively short cycles such as day and night, summer and winter, and life and death govern our lives.
It is little wonder that we find similar cycles that govern our history and our politics. History repeats itself not because we fail to learn from it, but because it follows a cycle that repeats and has repeated since the beginning history was recorded. This constant repetition can be used to predict future trends.
The main dancers in these cycles that shape history are religion, nomads and the civilizations they shape.
Mountains grow from oceans on continents till they become too big and fall back to the sea. Winds cause waves that erode continents. There is a similar cyclic struggle between settled and tamed civilizations, and the free and wild nomads that end up invading and conquering them.
Just like winds, religions are fundamentally all the same. They all believe that man and his world were physically created by a god or gods and that after we die, we are united with them.
Just like waves, nomads are fundamentally all the same. They are all freedom loving people that are self-reliant with nothing to lose but their self-assertion. They are in the end ready to trade their lives for their freedom, and their freedom for their security.
Just like continents, shaped by winds and waves, civilizations are composed of settled people who are reliant on religious priests and political leaders. They obediently worship their gods and blindly serve their exploiting leaders. They are ready to sacrifice their entire lives for them in the name of security.
New thoughts in the form of new religious beliefs repeatedly blow into civilizations from the outside, just like fresh air that overtakes stagnant stale air. Nomads follow and invade and reshape everything in their path, just like waves that follow winds do to continents. Civilizations that have grown too big and complacent are eventually overtaken by nomads, just like the clumsy over-sized dinosaurs were overtaken by small and nimble mammals 50 million years ago.
Rise and fall of civilizations follow a cycle of birth, flowering, falling and dying, just like seasons follow the cycle of spring, summer, fall and winter. After a civilization has collapsed and is newly conquered by freedom loving nomads, often referred to as terrorists or barbarians, old civilizations are raped to give birth to new civilizations.
Like the promise of spring for a fruitful summer, the birth heralds in an age of heroes with values placed on honor, strength and courage accompanied by exploration, colonizing and building of infrastructure. Crime rates drop and the status of women are raised. Wealth is fairly and freely distributed to those that merit it. Leaders establish their legitimacy thru benevolent rule causing an improvement of the living conditions.
Like the coming of summer, a golden age welcomes and encourages arts and sciences that accompany new ideas and inventions causing additional improvement in the quality of life. Public work projects like roads leading to trade and libraries leading to knowledge are initiated and financed. The population increases and enjoys peace, stability and prosperity.
At the end of the flowering phase, wealth accumulates towards administration,
growing a vast bureaucracy and a
huge military complex to protect all that new wealth. Greed starts to dominate the political system. At the falling phase, crime increases and like the falling leaves in autumn, women slowly start to lose their status.
As the winter phase approaches, wealth accumulates towards oligarchs who become corrupt and decadent and their leaders usually become idiots who blindly follow the whims of the few greedy rich who control them like marionettes.
Deficit spending and currency debasement slowly reduce the population to poverty before they are even aware of it. Infrastructure falls into disrepair causing famines and great hardships. The starving people eventually rise up in protest causing a breakdown of law and order.
Crime becomes rampant and the status of women sinks to prostituting themselves to feed their children. Diseases and wars cause the population to decline.
Society splits into fractions causing civil wars. The fallen leaders of the conquered civilizations are hunted down and executed eliminating them from regaining control of new civilizations that rise from the ashes.
This cycle has repeated faithfully ever since people have recorded history 3,500 years ago. The Egyptian civilization and the civilizations of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians as well as those of India were overtaken by waves of barbarian Aryans from the north.
Then came the Hebrew wind that allowed the Jews to conquer lands in the Middle East. The Buddhist wind prepared for the conquest of India and the Far East. The barbarian Greeks under the leadership of Alexander the Great came in like a wave and the Romans soon followed.
The Catholic wind preceded the waves of barbarians led by the Franks from the north and by Attila the Hun from Mongolia. They ploughed the Roman Empire that was overgrown by suffocating weeds.
The Islam wind preceded the wave of barbarians from Mongolia led by Genghis Khan and his followers, Timor and the Ottomans who like bakers mixed the cultures as if they were baking bread. They introduced gunpowder, the compass and paper that opened up more roads for more barbarians with more new ideas. The compass allowed ships to sail far from shores and to safely return. Paper allowed the printing press to mass produce books which opened up people's minds and allowed knowledge to be shared.
This spreading of knowledge, like a wind caused people to protest and thinking people to be innovative in. These winds of innovations in science allowed the industrial revolution and the information and communication revolution to start. Like winds eroding mountins, these revolutions are continuing to change our world.
The Protestant wind caused waves of immigrants from Europe to cross the Atlantic and to shape the American continent. Freedom loving and freedom seeking immigrants from all over the world soon followed.
Traditional nomads are a thing of the past, but freedom seeking refugees, immigrants and freedom loving tourists have taken over their role.
The number of refugees exceeded 50 million in 2013 and plays a direct and indirect influential role in the countries they move into.
The number of international tourists exceeded 1,000 million in 2013 and tourism has proven to have a strong and resilient economic influence of many countries by generating billions of dollars in exports and creating millions of jobs.
All empires throughout history follow the same path of growth and decline. They arise from the ashes of conquered empires, and soon develop a desire and a need for expansion and for consumption.
Like adolescents, they seek peace and growth and an easy and entertaining life. Like adults, they develop a belief system that values long term security over short term freedoms. As the age, they turn to extravagance with art and luxury that eventually leads to decadence. With time, laziness, followed by gluttony creeps and masquerades as freedoms that must be protected at all cost. The addiction to gluttony and the suffering accumulate like a cancer till death. A new growth begins from the ashes and gives birth to a new empire.
huge military complex to protect all that new wealth. Greed starts to dominate the political system. At the falling phase, crime increases and like the falling leaves in autumn, women slowly start to lose their status.
As the winter phase approaches, wealth accumulates towards oligarchs who become corrupt and decadent and their leaders usually become idiots who blindly follow the whims of the few greedy rich who control them like marionettes.
Deficit spending and currency debasement slowly reduce the population to poverty before they are even aware of it. Infrastructure falls into disrepair causing famines and great hardships. The starving people eventually rise up in protest causing a breakdown of law and order.
Crime becomes rampant and the status of women sinks to prostituting themselves to feed their children. Diseases and wars cause the population to decline.
Society splits into fractions causing civil wars. The fallen leaders of the conquered civilizations are hunted down and executed eliminating them from regaining control of new civilizations that rise from the ashes.
This cycle has repeated faithfully ever since people have recorded history 3,500 years ago. The Egyptian civilization and the civilizations of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Mesopotamians as well as those of India were overtaken by waves of barbarian Aryans from the north.
Then came the Hebrew wind that allowed the Jews to conquer lands in the Middle East. The Buddhist wind prepared for the conquest of India and the Far East. The barbarian Greeks under the leadership of Alexander the Great came in like a wave and the Romans soon followed.
The Catholic wind preceded the waves of barbarians led by the Franks from the north and by Attila the Hun from Mongolia. They ploughed the Roman Empire that was overgrown by suffocating weeds.
The Islam wind preceded the wave of barbarians from Mongolia led by Genghis Khan and his followers, Timor and the Ottomans who like bakers mixed the cultures as if they were baking bread. They introduced gunpowder, the compass and paper that opened up more roads for more barbarians with more new ideas. The compass allowed ships to sail far from shores and to safely return. Paper allowed the printing press to mass produce books which opened up people's minds and allowed knowledge to be shared.
This spreading of knowledge, like a wind caused people to protest and thinking people to be innovative in. These winds of innovations in science allowed the industrial revolution and the information and communication revolution to start. Like winds eroding mountins, these revolutions are continuing to change our world.
The Protestant wind caused waves of immigrants from Europe to cross the Atlantic and to shape the American continent. Freedom loving and freedom seeking immigrants from all over the world soon followed.
Traditional nomads are a thing of the past, but freedom seeking refugees, immigrants and freedom loving tourists have taken over their role.
The number of refugees exceeded 50 million in 2013 and plays a direct and indirect influential role in the countries they move into.
The number of international tourists exceeded 1,000 million in 2013 and tourism has proven to have a strong and resilient economic influence of many countries by generating billions of dollars in exports and creating millions of jobs.
All empires throughout history follow the same path of growth and decline. They arise from the ashes of conquered empires, and soon develop a desire and a need for expansion and for consumption.
Like adolescents, they seek peace and growth and an easy and entertaining life. Like adults, they develop a belief system that values long term security over short term freedoms. As the age, they turn to extravagance with art and luxury that eventually leads to decadence. With time, laziness, followed by gluttony creeps and masquerades as freedoms that must be protected at all cost. The addiction to gluttony and the suffering accumulate like a cancer till death. A new growth begins from the ashes and gives birth to a new empire.
Once the world has been fully globalized and all nomads have been civilized and all refugees integrated, a future cycle can be envisioned of civilizations colonizing space.
Or perhaps by being conquered ourselves by unwelcome extra- terrestrial invaders.
Timeline of history
3300BC Beginning of Bronze age,
3200BC Beginning of Indus valley civilization,
3100BC Beginning of Egyptian civilization,
3000BC Beginning of civilization in Samaria,
2800BC Beginning of civilization in China,
2600BC Beginning of Mayan civilization,
2000BC Abraham and Hebrews,
1700BC Hindus,
1600BC Aryans,
1000BC Beginning of Iron age,
800BC Beginning Greek/Roman civilizations,
600BC Buddha and the Buddhists,
300BC Alexander the great,
0 AD Jesus and Catholics,
400 Attila the Hun,
600 Muhammed and Islam,
800 Beginning of European civilization,
1200-1500 Genghis Khan, Timor, Ottomans,
1300 Beginning of Aztec civilization,
1400 Printing press
1500 Protestants,
1600 Immigrants,
1700 Beginning of American civilization,
1700 Musicians and scientists,
1800 Industrial revolution,
1950 Information/communication revolution,
2000 Refugees/tourists, Globalization,
Internet,
???? Space colonization / extra-terrestrial invaders.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment