In this article I'm going to build on the seminal work of Alexander Fraser Tytler and analyze the famous “Tytler Cycle”.

This man was a renowned Scottish lawyer, historian and writer, who conceptualized the famous “cycle of civilizations”.

It's my job to pass on to you one of the most important and fundamental notions in the understanding of history and society.

Everything is a cycle in this universe

One of the inescapable notions of all self-respecting conservative thinking, and even more broadly of all wise thinking, is that almost everything in this world works in cycles.

Many people realize this just by instinct, and this obvious fact has been understood since the dawn of time. People of antiquity, of virtually every civilization, of every continent, have for the most part always seen the universe in cyclical terms. And there's a reason for that.

If we inspect from the widest to the smallest, it is very easy to see that, for example :

• The universe works in cycles, as the latest scientific discoveries show. And you don't have to be Einstein to see that everything in space is cyclical. Planets revolve around the sun, all stars and planets are spherical and so on.
• On Earth, everything is cyclical too: the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of day and night, etc.
• In terms of life on Earth, everything is once again cyclical: all animals are born and die, everything comes from the earth and returns to the earth. This is the famous "cycle of life“.
• On an even smaller level, the way the body functions is also a cycle, such as eating and excreting, which feeds the plants and the soil, which then produces new food that the animal can eat again, and so on.
• Many other cycles exist, and it would take too long to name them all, whether at microscopic or mass level. For example, there's the glacial cycle, which is much broader than the seasonal cycle, and which causes global temperatures to fluctuate over several hundred years. In economics, for example, there are also financial cycles, a succession of waves that repeat themselves and always reproduce the same patterns of birth, growth and decline.

When you take the time to think about it and observe, you realize that almost nothing escapes this cyclical pattern. When you think about it,It's even a bit ridiculous to think that anything in this world can be linear.

Where would this thing go?

“Nothing is lost, nothing is created: everything is transformed.”

Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier

But what was taken for granted by our ancestors has gradually slipped from the minds of our contemporaries, for a number of reasons.

These include, but are not limited to, declining intellectual levels and growing ignorance, as well as Judeo-Christian thinking which sees things in a rather linear way.

We could also mention that Man, perhaps out of arrogance, believes himself to be increasingly disconnected from nature and history, and therefore superior to the way the world works, as if he could escape universal rules.

The industrial era and the feeling of “omnipotence” conferred by the latest technologies have contributed to giving humans this illusion that increasingly disconnects them from reality.

So we're currently in a phase where the majority of people are virtually amnesiac about their own history, their own culture and how the world works. Which is no coincidence, as you'll see later in this article.

But that's where the return to reality comes in, thanks to the Tytler Cycle's message of wisdom.

Coming from a prestigious lineage (his father was a lawyer and his son will be a lawyer), during his historical research he makes a monumental discovery, but one that makes sense when you think about it.

As “Senator of the College of Justice”, he'll come to realize that, like everything else in the end, even civilizations follow the same pattern and are subject to the law of cycles.

This cycle, to which he gave his name, is a veritable cornerstone in the understanding of history.

The Tytler's cycle, the life cycle of civilizations

Let's unpack this cycle together.

As you can see, the cycle begins with Bondage, the stage when the people are oppressed by the ruling power. This phase is also known as “Tough Times” or "Servitude".

This is the worst period of the cycle, where famine, mass control, war, slavery, disease, inequality and so on are usually found.

Then comes the stage of Faith, which is the trigger, the hope in which the enslaved people will seek their salvation.

It can be seen, for example, as an expectation of better days to come. This stage is not necessarily directed solely towards a God; it can sometimes be a kind of secret garden or faith in the future. It sometimes called “Spiritual Faith”.

Next comes the Courage stage, which is usually the fight for freedom. It's during this phase that the enslaved people will decide to take action, whatever the cost.

He'll free himself from his chains, and the clashes between the people and the ruling power will begin. This is also the moment when a providential man may arrive, a savior like Moses who came to save the Jewish slaves.

Sometimes it's simply a general uprising, sometimes with a few leaders at its head, like the American Revolution, for example.

If the people emerge victorious, they gain their Freedom, which is the next phase. Hard-won freedoms pave the way for prosperity, and the blood shed by the generation(s) who fought enable the next generations to enjoy freedoms and rights that the previous generation didn't.

These new generations, bathed in the gains and freedoms won by their ancestors, are living in the phase of Abundance.

This phase is simply the development of society and people, the most flourishing age of a civilization. It's generally the time of great inventions, great discoveries and opulence in energy and resources, full employment and many other things that make it possible to acquire great wealth.

But too much abundance and opulence gradually leads to the phase of Selfishness.

In a world where there is no longer any struggle, no longer any difficulty, the one and only purpose of existence becomes purely material. Individuals gradually begin to focus on personal success and the accumulation of wealth, forgetting notions such as heritage, sacrifice, the duty to remember, a sense of community and so on.

This far too selfish and far too gentle society, offering comfort that makes you forget any difficulty, leads to the Complacency phase.

This phase creates individuals who begin to trade their freedom for a little more comfort. Individuals begin to put blinders on. They choose to be in denial, not to speak out or not to see reality, for the sake of convenience.

Society wallows in the charade and gradually forgets its responsibilities. People start stepping on others if it serves their personal interests, and let themselves be stepped on so as not to upset anyone. The individual no longer questions himself. Others are responsible, but never themselves.

Naturally, this phase then leads to the Apathy stage.

The individual becomes increasingly incapable of being moved or of reacting (through sluggishness, indifference, depression, etc.).

He no longer cares at all about the fate of others, no longer feels connected to others, and all he cares about is himself. With everyone playing a role, the individual no longer feels concerned and no longer identifies with anyone.

In a completely larval state, the individual no longer has any real notion of freedom or responsibility, and runs away from any difficulty or effort, becoming completely dependent on the system.

He no longer has any notion of freedom, since he has reached a stage where he is far too dependent on the system and would lose out if the system were to collapse, since the individual can no longer live without it, he no longer has the skills, the knowledge, the desire...

The individual, insidiously and progressively, finds himself once again in a state of servitude, and in the total absence of a brake or a strong man to act as a barrier, society relapses into the worst dramas: famine, mass control, war, slavery, disease, inequality and so on.

So we've come full circle.

Our current cycle and where we are now

Does the description of the cycle stages ring a bell?

You're bound to recognize some very familiar elements in this cycle, and that's normal. In fact, let's play the game to the end.

Let's apply Tytler's cycle to our own time.

The beginning of our “civilizational cycle” started with the Renaissance.

In fact, it's not called Renaissance for nothing, because it's truly the birth of a new cycle, different from the Middle Ages cycle that preceded it and lasted some 1,000 years.

When we entered this new cycle, we entered new values, a new worldview and a new configuration, very different from those of the medieval period, that is considered to be the Bondage stage.

Indeed, the people were still subject to the old monarchical system, and famines, wars and tragedies were very common. The people, with the advent of the very unjust and cumbersome absolute monarchy, are oppressed and can no longer even feed themselves properly, are burdened with taxes and start to grumble, but are harshly subdued. This was the period of the Fronde, for example.

The stage of Faith will take shape with the emergence of Enlightenment philosophy, which creates a new hope, a new paradigm, a new “faith”, the revolutionary faith.

Circles will form, meetings will take place, spirits will heat up, the revolution will take shape, and open up the next stage: the Courage.

In the Courage stage, the people emerge from servitude and take action. Bloodshed begins, and the people are ready to give their lives to win freedom.

During this period, Europeans had 2 choices: revolution or the exodus of millions of Europeans to America.

The revolutionary period turned into the Napoleonic period, which fought to defend the gains of the Revolution against external enemies.

Once victory is achieved, Liberty is won.

It ushered in a period that would gradually transform into the stage of Abundance, then Selfishness. These 3 major intertwined phases correspond to a period stretching from the end of the First French Empire, passing through the Second Empire and then going through the WWI, until the end of the Second World War.

It includes the Belle Époque period, but also the great colonial period, the great industrial boom, the emergence of Fordism, mass production, factories, the just-in-time society, and so on.

All this abundance and selfishness will mutate to create the stage of Complacency and Apathy.

This stage, can be said to begin at the end of the First World War, with the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism, and to extend right up to the 2000s. It is above all the boomer period.

The period when everything becomes softness, indifference, constant compromise, the leftistization of society, exacerbated tolerance, inclusiveness, a total absence of any sense of responsibility, absolute comfort, egocentricity and the gradual loss of all social gains.

Which brings us to the final phase, Dependence.

Beginning with the explosion of the Internet and then the arrival of the smartphone, today the individual is unable to do without his or her phone, which has become not just his or her second, but their first brain.

He can no longer do calculations without the calculator on his smartphone, he can no longer think without Google, in short, he does nothing that isn't dependent on the system.

He shops on Amazon and breeds on Tinder.

He can no longer get around without his car, he can no longer travel without his Health Pass, he can no longer have a social life without showing his credentials on social networks, and so on.

And the individual is so dependent that he now demands even more dependence, like a drug addict or someone on a drip.

Mass surveillance is on the increase, universal income is on the horizon, and so on.

No need to draw you a picture, just a quick glance at Tytler's cycle and you'll understand the next step that lies ahead...

Bondage.

What the Tytler's cycle teaches us

Tytler himself said:

«A democratic regime cannot endure. It remains in place until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse at the expense of the public purse. From that moment on, the majority always elects the candidates who promise the most gifts at the expense of the public purse, with the result that democracy crumbles under the weight of immoderate fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average duration of great civilizations since the dawn of history has always been around 200 years.»

Alexander Fraser Tytler

As a reminder, Tytler died in 1813. He therefore did not have the opportunity to see the last 200 years, and yet, this illustrious visionary was right and his observation allows us to read between the lines to understand the structure of all civilizations.

If we do a quick calculation and start from the French Revolution, let's say 1789, that would make 234 years.

We are right at the end of the cycle and the total exhaustion of our system.

When you think about it, it makes sense.

No civilization is eternal.

The current western system will not last 10,000 years; everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We simply must not turn a blind eye and be able to grieve, however painful it may be.

We also learn that sometimes smaller cycles can fit into larger cycles, forming macro-cycles.

This macro-cycle is obviously that of Western Europe, which is collapsing on itself as it is also reaching the end of its cycle.

In the end, the Tytler's Cycle was never really lost; it simply took on other forms over the decades and centuries. In recent years, especially in the English-speaking world, we have seen a resurgence of a less-sophisticated form of the Tytler's Cycle with the famous:

• Hard Times Create Strong Men
• Strong Men Create Good Times
• Good Times Create Weak Men
• Weak Men Create Hard Times

But then why did Tytler bother to alert us?

Quite simply because everything is not doomed, even if the cycle is coming to an end, we must never forget that it is always followed by renewal.

So yes, the Bondage phase is likely to be very painful and we will get through it.

Moreover, the elites of the western world are beginning to psychologically prepare the masses and have publicly announced their predictions.

According to major organizations like the UN or even the World Economic Forum, European countries are going to lose half of their population. We therefore wonder what will happen during this phase of Bondage, at least those who have the information and who are much better informed than us, are announcing it publicly.

According to forecasts by major institutions, France for example, will go from around 67 million inhabitants today to around 30 million.

Perhaps I, who am writing this, or you, who are reading this, will be part of this purification during our lifetime; in any case, what is almost certain is that it is our generation that will most likely experience the phase of Bondage.

How long will it last? 20 years? 40 years?

As a reminder, the USSR lasted more than 70 years.

The events of the coming years are completely unpredictable. Who could have predicted the Covid pandemic or these sudden restrictions on freedoms a few years ago?

But then, what to do?

Well, I'm just a man and I don't have any magic solutions.

And he is very pretentious whoever claims to have this solution or to be able to single-handedly halt the inevitable fall of an entire civilization or who claims to be able to save you.

We have, I fear, passed the point of no return.

What I can do is not tell you what you should do, I myself do not know.

What I can tell you, however, is what you should not do:

• Don't be entirely dependent on the state and the system. The more you are tied to the system, the more likely it is to drag you down with it. Strive to regain autonomy and independence.
• Don't be passive. Work on yourself, as you are doing by reading this article, inform yourself, learn, think for yourself, relearn useful skills that could help you in the event of a "disruption of normality."
• Stop acting according to others, who are in this apathetic and dependent mold, act according to yourself. Make your life decisions according to your real passions, your real desires and do not live someone else's life, no longer worry about the judgment of others.
• Build your community. It's very dangerous to face the state alone. It puts you in a very vulnerable position. Invest in diverse communities that aren't tied to the system.
• Find safety. Where? It's simple: the further you are from civilization, the less likely you are to be affected by it. The degree of distance will then be a matter of personal choice. As a general rule, stay away from major cities. Also, stay away from the most decadent countries that are beginning to turn into dictatorships, and find a place where your physical safety is (almost) guaranteed.

Typically it is better to look at countries that are not at the same stage in terms of the cycle, because yes, each civilization follows its own cycle and the different civilizational blocs of the world are in different macro-cycles.

Russia, for example, has just emerged from the USSR and its phase of Bondage since 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since 2000, it has experienced strong development and the country is more or less currently in the Freedom/Abundance phase.

Other countries in the world that are sometimes called “developing” are at the beginning of the cycle, you just have to find out and know their stories.

As for taking action to gain autonomy and independence, I invite you to learn more through my series of articles BEING AUTONOMOUS.