AN INTERNAL DYNAMIC CAUSING THE DECLINE AND FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS - Why civilizations have a natural life cycle (A Progression of Philosophies Book 5)

In this book, philosophy is joined with world history. A certain lesson can be found in records of the past.

Self-consciousness accounts for much of the complexity found in human society. It helps to explain the decline in civilizations.

The point is that human thoughts, purposes, and ideas are not eternally unchanged beings as Plato imagined them but unseen forces acting in the world.

Purposes which are achieved produce change in the world. Something is created that did not previously exist. All such beings react to each other's presence. The world is a jungle of mutually hostile or friendly forces defining an ecology of purposes.

Of course civilizations decline. Successful purposes lead to worldly power and worldly power corrupts. Corruption causes decline. It's as simple as that.

Sadly, there is no such thing as “American exceptionalism.” We enjoy no exemption from the adverse consequences of our own foolishness.

Progress seldom if ever continues in a straight line. Pendulums swing from one extreme to the other. Unseen forces emerge.