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AM's avatar

Tytler’s Cycle can confirm. Playing out before our eyes.

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Janet's avatar

? Looked it up—a cycle company. But I’m intrigued now.

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AM's avatar

Basically, Tytler's Cycle suggests that democracies go through the following phases: 1) Bondage; 2) Great Courage (breaking free from bondage); 3) Liberty; 4) Abundance; 5) Complacency; 6) Apathy; 7) Dependency; 8) BONDAGE - again, thus starting the cycle over.

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Fla Mom's avatar

Lol, try Polybius, in ca 100 BC:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6*.html

Also, Strauss & Howe expanded on the 'American cycle of history' idea in both Generations and The Fourth Turning. We're well into the fourth turning.

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AM's avatar

Obviously most philosophers (Tytler was a Scottish philosopher) build on the earlier works of Greeks and Romans. Speaking of 4th Turning - have a great book on that. Am fascinated with cycles and patterns that seem to play out over and over through recorded history.

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AM's avatar

And why LOL? Feels condescending.

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Fla Mom's avatar

You're right, it was, and I apologize. But the origin of it is that I have only in later adulthood come to know these things, and when we say 'some guy says 'x,'' it can be more easily dismissed than, 'this has been known so well that it was described in detail in 100 BC.'

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AM's avatar

Thank you! I know it's sometimes hard to read "tone" in the written word. Appreciate it.

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Fla Mom's avatar

I edited my comment above for more information, but you may not have seen it.

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Fla Mom's avatar

It angers me that my "education" was suited for slavery, but not liberty. As my husband said when he began his adult educational journey, "Why didn't anyone *tell* me this?!"

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RJ Rambler's avatar

This is why everyone SHOULD HOMESCHOOL!

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Fla Mom's avatar

And it's why we did, K-12.

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Mar 31, 2023
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Fla Mom's avatar

If you've not read Polybius, I advise doing so before coming to that conclusion. It's not long, and it shocked me.

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Mar 31, 2023
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Fla Mom's avatar

Found this today, following up on a comment someone made somewhere (lol), so I posted the below on my social media accounts. It tells the story of Biden 'protecting' us from COVID (and, for many who voted for him, 'protecting' us from Trump [Antifa can be the stand-ins for the 'mob' here]; from 'white nationalists' [BLM are stand-ins for the mob], from 'climate change;' and, going further back in our recent history, one can hear echoes in many Democrat campaign slogans) and then going on to falsely accuse Trump. And note the part about 'abolition of debts' (student loans) and 'partition of lands' ("we'll give you more stuff!" - the campaign slogan of Democrats for some time now).

"[W]hen [the tyrant] first appears ... he is a protector. ... How then does a protector begin to change into a tyrant? ...

"[T]he protector of the people[,] ... having a mob entirely at his disposal, ... is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen [not literally; read the whole thing for context--Fla Mom]; by the favorite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow citizen; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a ... tyrant?"

(Plato, The Republic)

Want to know why leftist academics tried to convince us that "dead white men can't have known anything relevant to today?" Because they knew *a lot* that is directly relevant to today, but if we knew it we'd have been forewarned and so forearmed.

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/legacy/plato/tryanny.html

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AM's avatar

There’s been a lot of valid criticisms of The Fourth Turning. But that doesn’t stop me from being fascinated by it ha ha.

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Chevrus's avatar

Fair enough but there is evidence a'plenty of Predictive Programming and Directed History....

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Janet's avatar

Thanks!. I love substack!!

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