Cyclical History

[angka]

Do you believe that history is constructed of cycles of events, organized into formative, classical, and post-classical or destructive periods? Would this interpretive theory therefore imply anything about the current state of western civilization, if true?

Or is the idea of 'cyclical history' itself a load of crap, which cannot adequately account for the powerful dynamic of human culture and ingenuity? Does any model of the past apply to a potentially boundless future?

It's the first day of class for this history major, can't you tell? :7

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. Some things seem to be cyclical, like famine and disease

but, I am not sure we know enough about history yet to be sure of larger patterns. there could be a 2, 5 or 10 thousand year pattern, but we don't yet have good history to know.
as for smaller patterns, like business cycles, I believe they are man-made for the most part... money goes up, stocks go down, bond yields and precious metals go down... smart money buys what is cheap, and by the time the suckers get into the market...BAM... it all crashes and the big money buys cheap again, and it all starts again.

[PATRICK]

2. 10,000 years too small a sample

for such a grandiose pattern, yet patterns abound deriving from the seasons and generations and the mammalian instincts of man muddling through a new set of changes. Most of the theories are too pretentious and majestic and don't take the long view, millions or billions of years backward or forward. Olaf Stapledon had an ambitious progressive and evolutionary view that seems too dreary and modest after the discovery of DNA.

We should study patterns, the wagon wheel ruts of the pioneers, the stubborn psychology of man, milestone jolts in science and society. Cyclical history unfortunately is the stuff of theosophists and astrologers, the comfort of romantics like W.B. Yeats and General Patton.

[angka]

4. and my mesoamerican history professor.

ahem :)

[Vitruvius]

3. The economy does tend to have bad depressions every 60 - 80 years;

the reason is that it takes 60 - 80 years for everybody who remembers the last trip thru the meatgrinder to retire and/or die.

Two major causes of economic depressions:

- Corporate domination and corporate corruption; crooks taking over industry and running it into the ground for their own short-term gain. This time around, it's Enron, Halliburton, and more...

- Crooked plutocrats (like the BFEE) taking over the government and running it into the ground for their own short-term gain.

When you see crooked puppets like Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, or Bu$h in charge, you know there's trouble ahead. Everything Bu$h does is good for his rich employers -- in the VERY short term -- and a disaster for the economy.

Vitruvius

P.S: The above problems are made worse by the corporate-dominated mass media that flowers just before an economic crash. The problem is that the crooked plutocratic Rethugnican ruling class starts believing their own lies because they read them in the newspaper and see them on TV. So they lose any touch with reality and lose any vestigial ability to deal with the economy.

[Raenelle]

5. Naw. Waves, maybe. But the universe is way more mysterious

than the classical mind can capture.

History major--just lean back and enjoy the sprawling, exciting, dramatic story.

First day of class for this history teacher, too.

[On the Road]

6. Fernand Braudel

wondered whether 150-year Kondratieff cycles existed. Seems a strange cycle time. Don't know the theory behind it.