Sierra Mackenzie

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The Tytler Cycle

The 18th -Century Scottish historian Alexander Tytler came up with the circular cycle below. While looking at it, keep in mind these three points:

  • Issues drive debate through societal decline.
  • Economic, political, legal, and societal forms are the focus of statesmen as the cycle progresses.
  • The cycle occurs typically over a two-hundred year period.
  • 'Spiritual Faith' through 'Abundance' are forms; while 'Selfishness' through 'Bondange' are issues.
Okay, this is going to be a little hard to actually show the circle... so bear with me and my list, which will have to do. Begin at 'Spiritual Faith,' and end with 'Bondage.' Ready? Go!

-Spiritual Faith (which goes into)
-Courage
-Liberty
-Abundance
-Selfishness
-Complacency
-Apathy
-Dependancy
- Bondage

I think we are in the bolded areas. So now let me explain my thinking for why each bolded word should be bolded in the first place.

First, Dependancy. We are dependant on others. Look at our national debt! Look at our welfare! And just look at our leaders! (Are they doing anything about it???) The average person cares only about themselves (not to any reader, just to our entire nation as a whole:))- which is why politicians are able to stael votes, because they offer something good for nothing. No-one wants to help another person. That is why big businesses bully little ones without a trace of guilt. No-one is willing to work for what they want- hence, there is no more stewardship. All that to say, we are now beginning to depend more and more on the government, which is exactly what our founding fathers didn't want- for one person to have so much power!

Second, Bondage. The apathy seems to take place in the midst of abundance. The abundance is/has been disappearing, and now people are waking up to the bondage they didn't feel before. People don't care enough about what's going on in their country and the world to be educated voters. I think that it's better to feel a little pain now than a huge amount of agony later-- but our country is just waking up to what's really going on. I believe we're either in the midst of dependancy, or going into bondage. Spiritual bondage, intellectual bondage... just  because we aren't in cages doesn't mean our food, our rights, our wages, our education, etc. aren't being controlled. There is a certain amount of bondage in dependancy, which, while once there, is like a stubborn weed let go in a garden: hard to dig out.

There was a time when I would've said, "Abundance." Next there was a time when I looked at that chart and said, "Complacency." But we're farther on the chart then ever. What are our people going to do about it?