The Future is Medieval is the name of an album by British punk outfit The Kaiser Chiefs. For me, the sentiment rings true. I have always been uncomfortable with the idea that «History is over» due to neo-liberal so-called «prosperity». It seems to work on the assumption that the events yet to come will obviously be comprised of stepping stones towards a techno-hippie, peace-and-love cyber-communist utopia. The central idea assumes that collaboration will vanish conflict and violence will be vanquished by the spread of free trade and freer markets. Nanobots will annihilate disease; robotics will render abundance; AI will purge poverty from the planet. All for the small price of losing mental health, autonomy, meaning, belonging, community, adventure, and romance; potentially even the natural world itself. Disturbanisation.
-1- Chaos & Paranoia
In 2010 Secular Cycles was released by Dr. Peter Turchin, a student of the mathematical study of complexity; a chaos historian. This book shook my world when I discovered it more than 10 years later in the middle of 2023. It was like my understanding of the chaos around me, which had been fractured and incomplete, was rendered into a united structure. A grand narrative which made sense. The bare branches of the tree of ideas bloomed. I became paranoid. I became extremely certain that the Kaiser Chiefs were right to say the Future is Medieval and some crisis would occur in 2024. Let us now explore the reasons for this intense anxiety followed by the remedy I found.
-2- Cycles
Turchin's observation was that history has cycles of repeating patterns. These patterns seem to emerge spontaneously from human behaviour in societies with no knowledge of one another or of the pattern itself. One chief pattern identified by Turchin is the «secular cycle» which occurs every 250 years approximately, often but not always ending in great catastrophes, revolutions, world wars and so on. We will return to this idea.
-3- Psychology & Incentives
Let us explain the cycles as best we can. One explanation for this undeniable phenomenon is that human incentives «naturally» construct societal systems which collapse when pushed into extreme scenarios characterised by their unique direction. Expanding on this, imagine that one ideology, which once worked very well for a specific situation, exposes its inherent flaws and limitations when it has been the sole direction and focus of a society for too long. A society which focuses on the generation of material artifacts and rewards those who can efficiently channel resources into such productivity ⟨including the illusion of it⟩ will result in a concentration of power among those who fall into the centre of the Venn diagram between competence and initial starting point, also known as privilege. A society which focuses solely on forcefully regulative equality of distribution, forgetting productive opportunity, ends with everyone equal in their fear and poverty. A society which focuses solely on the power of the king ends with his head in a basket in the market square. However, in times of immiserate poverty that same capitalism can save a society. In times of inequality, those systems of redistribution can save a society. In times of war and conflict, where decisive action is needed and communication extremely slow, that king's authority can save a society. What we humans seem to lack is the ability to balance each of them, with its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps a half-baked or coincidental expression of this is why we have the left and the right in a Western democracy? To balance unrestrained liberty with fairness and widespread opportunity?
-4- Process
The timeline of Turchin's secular cycle begins with the aggregation of power and, crucially, opportunity by an increasingly small percentage of «elites». You could argue for or against the idea that these people are just as trapped by the cycle as anybody else, as they are only acting in their own incentive to give themselves and their children safety and prosperity. Next a phenomenon emerges which Turchin dubs «elite overproduction» -- in this situation, the value of various jobs and their products becomes unbalanced in a manner which creates enormous competition for elite and middle class status. From Ivy League graduates fighting for unpaid internships to influencers scrambling for digital clout, elite overproduction is alive today. Therefore the number of aspirers for elite status increases as their odds of success decrease massively. Now a process of «immiseration» occurs, in which many aspirers now fall into an impoverished category. Their expectations scuppered, they become resentful and this is where the risk of revolution and civil war begins.
-5- Decay
However, that is not where the risks end -- a further problem exists within the elites. As above, so below. These secular cycles occur because something was working; a belief, an ideology, a way of being. However, what happens to that central idea is that it degrades and decays. It becomes an underlying presumption but its original context is forgotten, with two results: firstly, the details become fuzzy and the subtleties fade into memory; secondly, it becomes such a strong belief that it turns into a kind of arrogant presumptuousness. Whilst that central idea collapses among the populous and its opposite emerges radically, the elite become extremely pompous and pretentious. They take their eyes off the road to go and eat cake or drink champagne. Decadence. Because of this arrogant, ignorant attitude, the countries presided over by such people are extremely vulnerable to external assaults as well as internal revolutions. In this way, The 30 Years' War and the English Civil War both occurred during a secular cycle. So did the Spanish Silver Crisis, an economic crisis akin to inflation. The exact manifestation of the crises can vary widely. Now, I know what you're thinking: this sounds very similar to today, doesn't it . . ?
-6- Hope
Never fear! Your faithful narrator has an answer. An optimistic answer, too. Reject the mechanical mind. We use machinery ⟨or microbes⟩ as a mental model for complex and very human systems. This is very wrong. In 1980, a bet was proposed between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich, the latter of whom was author of The Population Bomb, the book that began the panic over global population figures which persists to this day. Ehrlich, a passionate and influential biologist, used the behaviour of yeast in a Petri dish ⟨which breeds until it consumes all of the food, whereupon it dies⟩ to predict that by the year 2000 there would be an economic crisis which had the potential to destroy humankind, leading to cannibalism and barbarism untold and unprecedented. Julian Simon bet that 5 materials of Ehrlich's choosing would be lower in price by the same year; they agreed on the metric for prosperity. The year 2000 came around, with much panicking in its run-up. Ehrlich lost the bet. All five of the materials were cheaper in inflation-adjusted terms. Three of the five materials were cheaper outright. The mechanical mind fails when tested within complex systems.
-7- Difference
We have minds to plan for the future. Godlike consciousness ⟨surely, even if God does not exist in the usual conceptualisation, the idea of God is a reflection of our own minds; creativity and Freudian superego alike⟩. We have the ability to think dynamically and in situation-appropriate terms. Knowledge of a fact changes behaviour in and of itself. There was no Peter Turchin, no Historical YouTube channels, no global awareness, no freedom of information, no internet and no books like Secular Cycles to read during the English civil war. Nor during the 30 years war. Nor during the Spanish silver crisis. There was no awareness of the possibility of these cycles during those times, therefore they occurred unconsciously. There was no global trade in the manner of today's, no migration or holiday-making in the volumes of today's, and no global co-operation to the extent of today's. Today we have over-educated elites at the helm of power. Yes, they are ignorant and yes, they are greedy, corruptible and «merely» human. However, the knowledge of these cycles is out there, and we have a left- as well as a right-wing. We have endless discussion of academic ideas and we do have people working for the good of humanity at all levels. I have to believe it, because the world as we know it did not end last year – I was certain that it would. I have to believe, also, that the mere knowledge of these cycles existing out there can be enough, even subconsciously, to move the dial, re-write FUTURE HISTORY, and change our fate. If only we can learn to synthesize the perspectives of capitalism, socialism, liberalism proper, nationalism, religion and so on. We must break these ideologies down into their underlying values, abandon tribalism and voting based on the colours of the candidates' ties, thereby integrating science, spirit, empathy, equality, freedom, fairness, justice, power, punishment and clemency.
-8- Global Decadence
A Final Thought. There should have been a decadent cycle in the 19th century, according to Turchin, which should have seen mass immiseration leading to collapse. This retro-prophesied widespread decline was softened, delayed and partially avoided by the onset of industry, particularly in countries like Britain, France and the U.S.A who were the tip of the spear leading industrialisation. The power of sheer economic transformation. Decentralised innovation.
Today, we are faced with a digital revolution, which courses through the veins NOT of a single nation but an interwoven global power structure. Perhaps the lack of collapse of any one country last year is a sign that these labels are no longer appropriate. We have shifted to a world civilisation which could either increase or decrease the risk of collapse. Collapse could be total, global and inescapable. Or it could be impossible without a world-scale disaster. Decadence is a result of immiseration, which itself results from centralisation. Without a central power structure to horde and accumulate resources, and without an external threat to force the cycle forwards, what happens then? We are in uncharted territory. Decentralisation looms via bitcoin, the internet, and the free exchange of information. Governments and corporations alike MUST be prevented from having total control. Global centralisation must be avoided at all costs; only then can we escape the collapsing, cascading cycles of FUTURE HISTORY. Only then might history end.
Read history, question ideology, resist tribalism. If nothing else, let’s remember: knowledge itself can change the course of history.