At The Ending of A Cycle
History is politics. in other words, particular versions of the past serve to justify certain agendas important to the powers-that-be. nowhere is this observation more appar-ent than in a linear explanation of history; namely, that our modern industrial world of capitalist democracy is the epitome of everything preceding it, following a steady as-cent from jungle drums to the internet, from cave man spears to modern “smart bombs.”
This view is embedded in our education curriculum and pre-sented as self-evident throughout public information media. it is nonetheless transparently false. objective surveys of the past cannot find humanity marching along on a steady progression from ancient barbarism to modern consumerism. Quite the op-posite appears. observers unaffected by dominant paradigms behold an historical panorama of cycles working like mechanical processes in every culture and nation. They run from birth and youth through maturity, decline and death, following our own, individual lives. we are all microcosms of human society.
Recognition of these repetitive patterns is not new. Cos-mologists of ancient india associated their inexorable movement with that of a great, unseen wheel. The Maya of ancient Middle America plotted recurring cataclysms of global impact linked to the behaviour of our species with cosmic regularity. in the an-cient near East and Europe, the Precession the Equinox ground on, sparking renewal from the dying. These and other cyclical, if invisible systems manifest themselves in the rhythm of growth and extinction experienced by every civilisation. To imagine ours is exempt from this universal process is childish. on the contrary, our era is no less grist for the mills of time.
This mortal pattern is not imposed on us by some mysteri-ous, cosmic force beyond our understanding or control. nor is it inherent in human nature. we are not ants (though some of have become termite-like), utterly dominated by instinct. The causes of civil rise and fall are quite clear and within our power to control. All human societies begin with a few individuals who successfully combine for mutual survival. if successful, their numbers increase, together with rising levels of cultural development. But at some, indefinable point, population begins to outgrow natural envi-ronment, and the cooperative spirit that originally ignited and bonded society turns inward to personal power at the expense of others.
This perversion deepens and spreads with population in-crease, meanwhile stressing human relationship with natural sur-roundings. A sense of space is necessary for our individual souls to flourish. They become warped and crushed under the pressures of an over-populated society feeding upon itself, until we lead, as the American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, described it, “the inauthentic life.” The Maya stated that each of four, worldwide catastrophes that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction was related to human behaviour by a kind of cosmic-moral law. These near-genocidal disasters were expressions in the natural world of a people horribly out of sync with that universal law.
The consequences of global cataclysm, the Maya affirmed, could always be avoided, if Man re-established his former balance with the forces that brought him into existence and sustained him. That is the Great Lesson of the so-called Mayan Calendar and its End Date set for the coming winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. once the relationship between our numbers and environment is restored, the natural upheavals we or our de-scendants may have to face will not compare with the unnatural deterioration of a society obsessed with self-indulgence. Technol-ogy is a wonderful servant, but a cruel god. it is the industrialised world’s Supreme Being, worshipped as much for the materialist cornucopia it provides, as for its perceived dispensation of all our sins against nature.
This view is embedded in our education curriculum and pre-sented as self-evident throughout public information media. it is nonetheless transparently false. objective surveys of the past cannot find humanity marching along on a steady progression from ancient barbarism to modern consumerism. Quite the op-posite appears. observers unaffected by dominant paradigms behold an historical panorama of cycles working like mechanical processes in every culture and nation. They run from birth and youth through maturity, decline and death, following our own, individual lives. we are all microcosms of human society.
Recognition of these repetitive patterns is not new. Cos-mologists of ancient india associated their inexorable movement with that of a great, unseen wheel. The Maya of ancient Middle America plotted recurring cataclysms of global impact linked to the behaviour of our species with cosmic regularity. in the an-cient near East and Europe, the Precession the Equinox ground on, sparking renewal from the dying. These and other cyclical, if invisible systems manifest themselves in the rhythm of growth and extinction experienced by every civilisation. To imagine ours is exempt from this universal process is childish. on the contrary, our era is no less grist for the mills of time.
This mortal pattern is not imposed on us by some mysteri-ous, cosmic force beyond our understanding or control. nor is it inherent in human nature. we are not ants (though some of have become termite-like), utterly dominated by instinct. The causes of civil rise and fall are quite clear and within our power to control. All human societies begin with a few individuals who successfully combine for mutual survival. if successful, their numbers increase, together with rising levels of cultural development. But at some, indefinable point, population begins to outgrow natural envi-ronment, and the cooperative spirit that originally ignited and bonded society turns inward to personal power at the expense of others.
This perversion deepens and spreads with population in-crease, meanwhile stressing human relationship with natural sur-roundings. A sense of space is necessary for our individual souls to flourish. They become warped and crushed under the pressures of an over-populated society feeding upon itself, until we lead, as the American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, described it, “the inauthentic life.” The Maya stated that each of four, worldwide catastrophes that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction was related to human behaviour by a kind of cosmic-moral law. These near-genocidal disasters were expressions in the natural world of a people horribly out of sync with that universal law.
The consequences of global cataclysm, the Maya affirmed, could always be avoided, if Man re-established his former balance with the forces that brought him into existence and sustained him. That is the Great Lesson of the so-called Mayan Calendar and its End Date set for the coming winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. once the relationship between our numbers and environment is restored, the natural upheavals we or our de-scendants may have to face will not compare with the unnatural deterioration of a society obsessed with self-indulgence. Technol-ogy is a wonderful servant, but a cruel god. it is the industrialised world’s Supreme Being, worshipped as much for the materialist cornucopia it provides, as for its perceived dispensation of all our sins against nature.
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