Dark times

Everything has its cycle. Day and night, the moon, the seasons and the sun. And the same is true for our lives, and even cultures. A culture builds and builds, until at some point the scales tip, and often in a relatively short period of time a series of events occurs that bring it down. At first almost unnoticed; as whatever is happening is following the known, even valued process or the law. Things are down in the way ‘we do things’. “We are doing what is right”. But right for who? And is there a lack of flexibility when we hold on to possibly outdated processes and laws; no matter how much they have brought us in the past; no matter how much we have always valued them?
And then suddenly it becomes clear that we, as a culture, are no longer at the top of our game. Somehow other cultures, groups or people have taken over those things that where had such great strength to offer to the world; and we find ourselves on the dark side of the cycle.

The ‘night side’.

It is not necessarily a bad place to be, but it is vastly different from all that we have experienced before. When we look at the cycles of cultures one may even say that experiencing the dusk turning to night of that culture during our lifetime is a fairly rare event. The cycles of cultures tend to take any number of centuries, so being there, in that culture, right at the tipping point, is by no means a ‘given’.

But when we are there, right when that tipping point occurs, does also mean that we are in a position not only to witness it as it happens, but more than that we are in a position to direct it. To make it happen perhaps even faster than it would have on its own accord; or to prevent it from happening for another couple of hundred years.
After all, culture as defined by anthropologist E.B. Tylor, it is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” In other words, it is us!

In the past this tipping point has often coincided with a breakdown in communications. Either because of distances, because things taking place that would prevent efficient communication, like wars, or because that which was communicated from the top down ~ from the governments to the people ~ no longer resonated as true, logical, fair, or just to those governed by it. Thus creating unrest.
Eventually it would depend on the quality of the man (or woman) at the top which way the scales would tip.
Was he/she a good person? Fair and truthful? An ethical person wanting the best for all involved? Or was he/she a tyrannical person, dominating, prone to lying, and greedy? A corrupt, immoral person just wanting the best for him/herself?

The good person may well extend the bright time ~ or day time ~ of that particular culture, where as the tyrannical person may tip the scales to the dark time ~ or the night time ~ of that culture.

And as I said, the night side of the cycle is not necessarily a bad place to be. After a hard day’s work, we may be looking forward to the dark of night in which we rest and recuperate. In a sense the same is true for any cycle, even in the cycle of cultures that takes hundreds of years to complete…
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