Chapter 136: The View of Historical Cycles_1

Human societies often present a very contradictory characteristic: Collectives are irrational, while rationality tends to be exhibited only in individuals.

However, absurdly, the result of individual rationality often leads to outcomes that are neither beneficial to oneself nor others (the Nash equilibrium of the prisoner's dilemma).

The premise of collective rationality suppresses individual rationality, yet the suppression of individual rationality often doesn't result in collective rationality, but rather leads to the irrationality of the group.

This characteristic is even more pronounced when it comes to civilizations, which are almost uncontrollable, and Lin Sen was unclear on how to deal with this problem.

Lin Sen had not found a solution within the School of Future History either. Although the school had predicted the social history of the next 200 years, it had not discerned the essence of the problem.

The individual in human civilization is akin to the micro quantum in the macro world, independent yet unified, following completely different rules.

In physics, scientists tirelessly pursue a grand unified theory that unifies micro quantum with the macro world, attempting to bring the four basic fundamental forces of nature into a single theoretical framework.

The School of Future History also attempted to integrate individual emotions with the entire development of civilization consciousness into a theoretical framework.

Lin Sen, combining these theories, realized that perhaps the direction of an entire civilization was beyond human power to change. No matter what great achievements were made today, the future seemed unalterable, falling into a kind of fatalism.

But Lin Sen was not content to accept this. Lin Sen wanted to change it all. Lin Sen's world view was different from most people; it was the Reincarnation View.

The smallest cycle is the individual's Reincarnation View, which of course, has nothing to do with superstitious reincarnation; it is essentially the characteristic of life propagation, which needs no introduction.

At a higher level is the Dynastic Cycle View. Whether it be Western city-states or Eastern dynasties, there are always cycles of rise and fall, cycles of progress, but again, cycles of rise and fall. As with our history, a dynasty lasts for about 300 years, something anyone familiar with history should be very clear about.

At yet a higher level is the cycle view of cultural history, where the lifespan of a culture is roughly 1600 to 2400 years (based on statistics of the life span of cycles of civilizations worldwide).

In terms of Huaxia, the first cultural cycle experienced five eras:

The feudal era (referring to the system of enfeoffment in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, not a feudal society), characterized by a nominal master, which could be a god or a supreme overlord of all under heaven, with sovereignty diffused and hierarchically enfeoffed;

The era of aristocratic states (corresponding to the Spring and Autumn period), also called the era of various states. Rival lords vied for supremacy, humanistic thought was liberated, and great philosophers tend to be the product of this era.

The imperialist era (corresponding to the Sengoku period), often saw earth-shattering political, social, and economic revolutions, and large-scale warfare became mainstream. In terms of culture, while there was a great diversity of thought, it soon tended toward factionalism.

The era of great unification (corresponding to Qin and Han Dynasties), where politics and economy would peak, resulting in an exceptionally powerful nation. However, thought and academia tended to be monotonous, even rapidly regressing, with culture's future falling into prolonged stasis.

The era of decline (corresponding to the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties), where political fragmentation and cultural extinction occurred over an undetermined length, which could be long or short.

The second cultural cycle began with the Battle of Fei River and lasted until the early 20th century, opened by the spread of Buddhism, the syncretism of Brahmanism and Buddhism, and the great integration of Han and Hu.

Similarly, there were eras of religion, philosophy, factionalized philosophy, academization, and total cultural collapse. These five eras basically correspond to the first cultural cycle's five eras.

The history of the West also fits well into these five stages. The West developed faster than us in modern times because they were still in the peak of their second cultural cycle, which coincided with the Age of Discovery, propelling their rapid development.

But they will soon enter their era of extinction and decline.

Our second cultural cycle was inherently deficient and frequently interrupted by external invasions, never achieving the desired results; its highest achievements were only the culminations of Wang Yangming's Neo-Confucianism of the Mind.

We are now leveraging the cultural achievements of the West's second cycle to commence our third cultural cycle, which started with the War of Resistance against Japan.

Above the cycle view of cultural history, there is also the cyclic view of civilizations. On this point, we don't have much say, but the Trisolarans do.

The Trisolarans have experienced 200 cycles of civilization.

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After the great depression in the original timeline, the Second Thought Revolution was akin to triggering the third cultural cycle, but it was clear that it was more inherently deficient—it could not sustain a star civilization.

How to initiate a new cycle of civilization? Undoubtedly, this was the most outlandish idea, one which nobody dared to contemplate.

The cost of such an endeavor was beyond anyone's imagination. Just look at history, the number of deaths during the dynastic cycles compared to the cultural cycles (referring to the period of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, when there may have been only 800,000 Han people). What about the cycles of civilization then?

Of course, Lin Sen believed that population was not the essence of the problem; the essence was the socialized ideology, the unity of politics, economy, and culture.

Starting a new civilization cycle did not require the destruction of the current people; what was needed was the destruction of all the foundations of civilization.

Lin Sen's scheme finally came to light, making us suffer through more severe natural disasters, with the hope that these disasters would destroy everything existing in civilization, allowing for everything in civilization to start anew.

Some believed that a reboot of civilization was only possible if, after a godly apocalypse, a new humankind was created to replace the current one; otherwise, there was no way to reboot civilization, because the ideology of the new civilization would not change from the current one.

This view was not wrong, but what we desired was not a true reboot of civilization; it could be understood as a reboot of a civilization that was congenitally underdeveloped.

The reason Lin Sen made us suffer the greatest losses in this disaster was to destroy the old, leaving behind only the deep cultural roots and the people, discarding all else in order to better implement the "Island Plan" and to better reboot civilization.

Of course, the salvation of Western society also required the West to pay a corresponding price. This was not only preparation for the future struggle for world dominance but also preparation for the reboot of civilization.

...

Two days later.

The United Nations Planetary Defense Council convened, with representatives from various countries and the two Wallfacers who had not hibernated required to attend. It was also a meeting broadcast to the entire world.

First, the PDC Chairman gave a speech, mourning those who had perished in the disaster and reported the damage the natural disaster had caused to human civilization.

The purpose of the meeting was political negotiation on global post-disaster resettlement, seemingly a cooperative scheme being discussed by the whole world, but in essence: cooperation was a beneficial "self-interest strategy".

In the current situation, the effectiveness of agreements was actually very low, and achieving genuine peace and unity, hand-in-hand cooperation, was essentially impossible.

The human world's Dark Forest had taken shape once again, with the scarcity of resources similar to the squeezing of living space, and the chain of suspicion never disappeared.

All countries now needed to tread carefully, like walking on a tightrope over a cliff, wanting to seize others' resources, fearing their own interests being eroded, and even more afraid of exposing a weakness that would lead to an attack from the rest.

All were fearful and anxious, caught in an atypical prisoner's dilemma—believing the best way to forestall others from making a move was to strike first.

However, unlike the Dark Forest, everyone was in plain sight, and whoever acted first would also face collective retaliation.

If left unchecked, they would undoubtedly descend into chaos at some moment in time.

Perhaps this was the optimal moment to implement the "Island Plan".

PS: The cultural cycle view of history discussed in this chapter is the perspective of Lei Haizong (1902-1962), with his "Cultural Cycle theory of Chinese civilization".

Mr. Lei Haizong's historical theory formed its own system, dividing five thousand years of culture into seven elite regions: Egypt, Babylon, India, China, Greece; Rome, Islam, Western Europe. He analyzed not just Chinese culture but also the other six.

All cultures went through five stages. At first glance, this division of historical development might seem arbitrary, and some connections were indeed far-fetched.

But upon careful thought, history can hardly have strict patterns. Cultural cycles are like circles within circles, and each circle differs; each civilization's circle is also influenced by geopolitics.

The cultural cycle view of history is not the most mainstream historical theory, but the author tends to agree with it, and many viewpoints in this book are extensions of this theory.

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