Understanding the Death of Western Civilization: Parallels Between Civilizational Cycles and Earth's Life Cycles

The last century has brought a tide of significant technological acheivements in the world, a lot of which have made great impact on healthcare, finances, and even warfare, just to name a few.  But alongside these acheivements, I'm sure it's no secret by now that there has also been significant decline in Western culture.  Technological acheivements have certainly impacted financial markets, but yet a larger percentage of our population continues to struggle with poverty.  Agricultural breakthroughs have allowed us to harness the power of plants on a much wider scale, and yet our people - in ever increasing numbers - continue to experience hunger and food insecurity.   These and other indicators demonstrate that Western civilization - possibly more aptly labeled as Western European civilization - is in decline.  But is our decline unique?  And furthermore, if our current global hegemonous culture is in decline, how does that decline mirror the rise and fall of biomechanical life as an individual phenomenon?

Certainly, civilization decline is something that has occurred before on our planet; the Earth is no stranger to the rise and fall of cultures.    A. J. Toynbee, in fact, wrote a series of tomes about the rise and fall of civilization cycles throughout history - 12 volumes in total between the years of 1934 to around 1962.    It's a lengthy and dense read, but it does demonstrate with some clarity the cyclical nature of civilization in terms of expansion and shrinkage throughout known history.   Clearly, based on the fact that we can now understand more of what caused other great civilizations of the past to disappear into the mists of time, we now know that cultural revolutions aren't eternal - they have a timeline, and both a beginning and an end apply to them all.   This collapse, then, isn't at all unique to us; it isn't the first time a civilization has waned, and it won't be the last. 

I could go into any number of reasons for this collapse, but there is no need.  The reasons are irrelevant.  The pattern itself, though, is something to which we owe our attenion, because it is an indicator of deeper, less understood rhythm to the universal order, and that - the hidden universal pattern, if you will - is what I want to explore here.   I won't go into the historical data that shows these cultural cycles - read Toynbee instead.   But I am going to draw the parallels between cultural cycles and the cycles of nature - cycles by which we are all governed. 

It's no secret that nature - in all her splendor - is cyclical.  Wherever you live, there are noticeable cycles of death and/or decline and rebirth and/or regrowth.    I live in the Midatlantic states - Virginia, to be exact, and where I live I'm privvy to a beautiful array of seasonal changes.  The Blue Ridge Mountains are known for their reflection of autumn's beauty in the colorful splash of fall colors when the leaves change.  In springtime, you can see the cherry blossoms bloom in nearby Washington, DC, and in summer, you can enjoy the mountain views from neaby New River Gorge. The point is:  nature displays her majesty in every season, in every way.   The cycles of her life - the rise and bloom of springtime, into the warmth and rainy summers, toward cool and crisp fall nights and on into the deep cold sleep of winter - are on full display here.   But in other places, seasons are just as noticeable, even if not the same.   Even ocean currents display seasonal traits! .   Inside our own bodies, cycles are prevalent.  For women, the cycle is most widely known, of course, but men have cycles as well.   And every human is subject to the cycle of life itself - an infancy stage (springtime perhaps?) where growth is prevalent, a summer stage where learning and experience are gained, an autumn where reflection occurs, and then perhaps even a winter, as we walk our way toward the doorway that leads us onward and outward.  Cycles are everywhere.

Civilzations are no different.  In the modern era (and likely in bygone eras as well, though it would be impossible to know for sure) we often believe that our acheivements have elevated us to a status that exempts us somehow from these cycles. But this is a fiction we have created on our own, and Nature didn't get the memo, apparently.   History, as we know, is littered with the remains of other civilizations whose accomplishments dictated that they assume their exemption from natural cycles - but they're gone now, and we can only see what remains from their acheivements.   Will western civilization (European civilization, more precisely) fall to the same fate? 

Our civilizations and cultures - as advanced as they may seem - are still subject
to the cycles of our planet's systems. 

Yes.  It's guaranteed.  The Western Empire will crumble, just as other empires and civilizations have before her.    The cultural cycles of expansion and contraction to which our modern era is subject have not changed:   they remain intact as history marches onward toward its distant horizons..   Just as nature gives birth and nourishes and then diminishes and retreats, so too go our human civilizations.   The pulse of nature is the pulse of civilization as we know it, and we are ever subject to its beating heart.  All that we now see and understand will disappear eventually into the tapestry of history, and the future will see the rise of other cultures whose acheivements will far surpass our own. Those cultures, too, though, are entangled in the narrative of nature - not exempt from it - and they will also expand and then collapse again as the cycles begin anew. 

Our narratives of success are tired to our assumptions that we can outpace natural cycles, or outsmart them somehow.  But the intelligence of nature is vast and immeasurable, and we are not separate from it, but intricately braided into its fabric, so that we too are a part of its infinite intelligence, and our acceptance of that will help us in the years ahead as we experience a decline our our known ways of relating to our planet and other people.