Introduction to the cycles

 

Hard times create strong men,

strong men create good times,

good times create weak men,

weak men create hard times.

- G. Michael Hopf

There are numerous examples that we humans live in cycles. Day turns into night until the sun rises again. Winter ends to spring, spring ends to the summer, summer ends to autumn and autumn ends to the winter. The first cycle I was introduced must have been back in elementary school. Females back then were still feminine, so my teacher said the following: "After a summer of short skirts, trend changes and long skirts become fashionable. When everyone wears long skirts, short skirts make a comeback."

This is a cycle, and a fashion cycle is the most recognized we have in the Western World. The cycles can be both seasonal like with skirts or even decades or centuries-long. The new cycle is both rejections of the dominating form of art but also a search for new ways of expression.

I start this from neoclassicism, thanks partly to the discovery of Roman Pompey Hellenic art made a comeback. Napoleon greatly favored this way of expression as he was busy uniting Europe under French hegemony. But as Napoleon was eventually defeated and his progressive liberal ideas were frowned upon upper-class embraced romanticism. Romanticism was... well romantic. It was a return of princesses and knights, an era long lost. Meanwhile, the world was moving on by steam and wheels and industrial smoke shadowed romantic ideals paving room for realism. Fairy tales were forgotten as working-class misery exploded thanks to the high demand of factory labor. The focus was set on real life, on real people as the artist saw the world around them. Realism was clear and very focused, and so the next wave of artists naturally rejected this. Impressionism followed realism, the style was anything but clear. More like a dream or a quick glance at something you would soon forget.

This is how the cycle of art flows, neoclassicism was preceded by rococo, and impressionism was followed by post-impressionism. As if the next move of the human psyche could be anticipated.

Empires also follow cycles. There is a rise period, golden age, stagnation, and eventually collapse. No nation has ever be exempted from this iron rule of history. Today it should be obvious to any keen observer, that the US has reached the stagnation or even early collapse part of the cycle. Take a look at the time chart of the ruling Moslem dynasties below, it is clear there is some kind of trend that eludes us.

Therefore, the question is: like with skirts and human art history, can these trends be forecasted? Before 20th century all such attempts have failed either as frauds or due to lack of information.

The first such person I am aware of was Nikolai Kondratiev. He was a Soviet economist working in Lenin's NEP-program to return capitalism to the Soviet Union. His most important work was Kondratiev wave, a theory that proved that capitalism works, and Stalin wasn't none too happy. First Kondratiev was sentenced to gulags for violating Leninist orthodoxy. Because that wasn't enough to kill the man Stalin had him executed during the great purge in 1938.

The second man was a Soviet scientist as well: Alexander Chizhevsky. In 1951 he discovered the relation between sunspots and “historical events involving large numbers of people”, in other words, revolutions. Again the great hawk in Moscow wasn't none too happy, that according to Chizhevsky Great October Revolution wasn't because of the will of people, but because of peak solar activity in 1917. The peak of solar activity also occurred during in 1905 Russian revolution. The accepted reason for the revolution was the failed Russo-Japanese war. Like Kondratiev, he also spent time in gulags and was likely saved by the unexpected death of Stalin. Anyway, he was forbidden to study the cycles so nothing more came out of him.

The third man isn't Russian but American: Martin Armstrong and he is alive today. Many years ago a found his blog, God alone remembers why or how, but at first I thought he was crazy. He predicted that in France socialist (Hollande) will lose elections, in Germany Merkel will lose power, the Brexit side will win and Trump's victory as well. All of his four forecasts hit the nail, Merkel losing power is debatable but she took a clear hit. The fifth successful forecast he made back in 2017 was that in 2020 Belarus faces a political crisis, and here we are today.

This is why I am starting to write this blog. Part as a hobby, part as serious research to discover is there such a thing as cyclicity in human activity, and if there is: can it be predicted? Personally, I am convicted that there is something to be discovered, perhaps a completely new field of science, and I can't wait to see where does this research takes me to.

This research will be written and published in a form of a blog for several reasons:

1. keep it open and public

2. receive feedback and thus break and prevent my personal biases

3. gain publicity, funding and when there is enough material, publish a book

Thank you for reading this far, and welcome to the world of cycles.