What is the civilizational cycle?
Currently the history of Western civilization is coming through its worst times. It fades gradually for the last hundred years. There is a complete stagnation in the economy and culture. Faith in its future falls, idea of democracy no longer seems so attractive. Science has put forward its response on the matter - a new direction in science has established, which explains the process of cyclical development of civilizations. This science is called biohistory.
Each civilization passes a certain stages or lets call them cycles of development: generation, development, flourishing and fading. From the point of view of biohistory, civilizations tend to consist of such promoters of their kind as C and V type. Type C is in charge of attitude to business, work and labour, obedience to the law, science, economy and industry develop quickly on this stage. Fasting, restricted sex, control of children, religion – this is what C society promotes. Low testosterone is also typical for C groups. V promotes the idea of acceptance of the fact that authority exist, that states should be created and be cohesive, aggressiveness and the desire to fight and win are typical for the representatives of this type. Males always dominate over females, they are very warlike and at same time very well-organized. A very bright examples of V society are Sparta, Vikings, Mongols.
C and V may rise and fall and at the same time they may co-exist. They are particularly unstable when regimes change one another. But still, regimes may change and civilization may stay the same. Lets take a look at civilization cycles in Europe and in Asia in times between Middle Ages and 19th century. It is obvious that in Middle Ages aggressive V dominated with full of anger, stress and cruelty. When V was on its peak level it started to be substituted by C which grew very fast. Stress was getting lower and lower and as a result C continued dominating for some centuries. The same situation was, for example, in Japan – in the 19th century when C developed rapidly and lead to rise in industry and economics. But in the 15th century Japan was full og cruel samurais who tortured people and punished them in different ways. Only in 17th century things got better and step by step civilization moved from V to C.
2. Explain the rise and fall of Rome using the civilization cycle idea
At the beginning of its history Rome had very high C. it wasn’t always brutal Empire full of cruel sports, slavery, blood and brave warriors. It had government and law, people were engaged into metalworking and farming, a lot of beautiful architectural structures were created, engineering was developed greatly. As you see, the C was very hight, maybe the highest in Europe. C reached its peak in 250 BC.Till thet time V also developed greatly. Rome had the biggest and most powerful army in the West. Finally, V undermined C and they together started to decline. After that birth rates started to decrease, farmers started to move from villages to cities and they were replaced by slaves, the gap between rich and poor people became very big. From these facts we see that C was falling. Also we see how relaxed people were, they had no stress at all, like if they thought that wealth and happiness will last forever. People were lazy, drunk a lot, had sex and so on. What I want to say is that V was also not high. Women did not want to bear children and the population fell dramatically, the pace of the economy and amounts of trade also fell. What I want to say is that when C was constantly falling, V declined a little bit and stress was not high after what stress together with V rose.
Cycles in the Roman Empire differ a little bit from those that were in Eirope and Japan. Here C fell together with V after what V rose greatly. Cycles are symmetrical so when in the 2nd century V and stress were low, C fell quickly. Here is what happened as a result – Roman religion collapsed and Christianity appeared. It was a very powerful religion but even it with its strong C could not save the Rome from the fall. C was falling continuously until the Empire fell into several parts. As you can see, the reason why Rome collapsed was an enduring fall of C.
3. Summarize key ideas of "stability factor".
S factor appeared in countries where children were controlled and taught on all stages of their lives. So parents have big influence on their children. When C and V tend to fall down, S factor comes in power, almost on genetical level. Most of todays countries with high S level previously were countries with low S level. So, I believe that it is possible for all of us to make transformations. China, India, Middle East – all of them are former low S societies, which are now high S.
Islamic counties are mixed to some extend as they successfully maneuver between C and V. As a result – it brings their civilization to Stability. Here are few examples to prove my words – the birth rates are high, religion is very strong, culture is well developed, at the same time cruelty factor is high, patriarchalism is in everything, death rates are high. Western people wonder how they manage to stay stable all the time. The answer is as follows – the Islam culture and traditions are the oldest in the world, so they have a tremendous experience thus got hight S-factor. Yes, those countries are poorer but they are always stable. S-factor is on high level there, when Europe is low S.
Nowadays Muslims migrate all over the World, there are a lot of them in Europe, where C is in decline. The birth rates in Europe are low and they believe little in their success. Maybe very soon Europe will become more Islamic than Christian. And the war between Western and Eastern cultures will end.
4.Briefly sum up the key traits of the "rise of the West" and explain its decline
At the moment West is in its decline but before this it rose greatly and was developing quickly. The main reason why West prospered was the rise of infant C between after the Middle Ages and up to 19th century. As a result of this rise the Industrial Revolution happened, technologies and science developed very fast, market economy was created. Also a certain patterns f behavior were typical for people at those times – they were moved more by rules and customs but not by personal attitudes. Children were treated more strict and under more control. So called nuclear families started to appear and polygymy families became more rare. Marriage and family ment a lot for people during that period. All these factors are is very common for C period.
Also the amount of working hours increased and people were not as lazy as in Middle Ages, all of them worked. Evidence of democracy began to appear in the society.
But in the middle of 19th century everything changed in the Western World – it started to fade and is declining year by uear. Here are examples of whatis happening nowadays in the West. Marriage age is getting higher in Europe, women don’t want to give birth to children. Families are becoming less monogamic and it leads to big amount of divorses. One more problem – late puberty age. Few centuries ago it was at age of 12-13, today it is 17. The nation is getting older and older.
All rich civilizations collapsed as you can see from the above mentioned examples. The same is happening to the Western civilization. It is in decline since the 19th century and the decline got its peak in 1960s. Nowadays culture and morale of the the western worls are on very low level. Another glaring problem - the growing number of same-sex marriage, which is also playing against the West. People are more likely to get passive income and they don’t like to work. They would rather study all their lives or do nothing but not to work. Debt keep on rising and this ,eams that economy is in stagnation. In the last 50 years there has been no single significant scientific discovery, all the forces are aimed only at meeting the consumer needs – creating useless cell-phones and TV-sets, but not flying into space or something like this. Young people are not interested anymore in science. They are more likely to play computer games but not do scientific researches. Young men’s testosterone is getting lower each year, thay become indifferent to everything. Most likely in the near future we will see a tremendous change of power of influence.
