I see it as more cyclic. A crisis addresses the greatest problem in the culture. Kings, colonial imperialism, slavery, and isolationism will stand as past examples. You get rid of them. At the same time, change is traumatic. Those who have lived through a crisis are not eager to go through another one. It is not until the folks who have lived through a crisis have died off that you are apt to see a crisis again. This is not my thought, but the core of S&H.FullMoon wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:12 amThinking that current conditions represent a turn for the better, rather than worse, is the better choice if wisdom is the opposite of your goal. Broad social contract decreed by small groups of dogmatic, interconnected self-serving groups. A tale told before of great hardship, comrade.
Thus, you get a three generation time of no change, followed by a time of change. Name calling those you disagree with will not change that.
This cycle might end if the culture has no great problem to solve. It is natural that the problems are more visible in urban areas, and that is where the push for change often comes from. There, seeing the government murder one’s family or die from Covid is more apparent. Population density increases the problems of the environment and infrastructure. In the best of worlds, the cycle would not exist. There would not be a stubborn insistance to see problems ignored followed by a mad scramble to solve them. There would be a steady level of effort.
But this is not the best of worlds.