WEBVTT - Are we condemned to repeat history? 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:14.440 dot com. Hey, are welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.320 My name is Robert lamp and I'm Christian Seger. You know, Christian. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.920 It seems that we should be able to look at 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:26.840 where we've been in the past and therefore extrapolate, predict, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.560 even simulate where we're going in the future. Right, it does. 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.800 It does seem that way, And I think that that 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.640 maybe is a product of like the last century of 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.519 our uh scientific thinking. Does that make sense? Yeah, well, 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:45.080 I mean there's definitely one line in particular that we're 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.960 that we're often referring to and uh and in generally 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.159 misquoting I think a lot of the times, and that 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:55.000 comes from a philosopher, Georgia Santayana, who said, quote, those 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.040 who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:00.480 That would of course tend to imply, Hey, if you 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.760 can remember the past, then you can avoid these pitfalls 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.200 in the future. That there's some uh, there's some system 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.080 that can be employed that even though we're we're strapped 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.920 to this linear existence just hurdling through time into the future. Um, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.600 if we have some concept of the road that we've traveled, 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.319 we'll have a better idea about the road to come right. Yeah, 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.200 and so of bring it back around to our nerdiness. Uh. 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.240 In our fandom for Stephen King and the newly popular 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.479 Dark Tower Universe. Uh, there's a quote from King here 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.440 that he used in the stand under the Guise of 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.920 Randall flag. Life was such a wheel that no man 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.720 could stand upon it for long, and it always, at 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.440 the end came around to the same place again. Uh. 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.760 This is a terrifying concept though, right, And at the 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.680 same time it is an idea that seems to fill 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.720 a lot of people with purpose because they can say, ah, 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:00.880 hold on, wait, I've got it figured out, and I 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.720 can predict what's going to happen next. And in fact, 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.200 we had a listener right into us about this very idea. 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.600 Her name is Allison, and she wrote us and said 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:11.400 she was wondering if we would do a show about 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.360 this is something that's been mentioned a lot on the 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.040 internet lately and apparent eighty year cycle of political social 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.560 upheaval in our world. And she said she was horrified 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:22.960 and intrigued the first time that she heard about it, 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.320 and so she started looking into this. Uh. And she 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.040 said that she's heard about the idea in general, but 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.639 that this the whole like seventy to eighty year cycle 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.280 as a devastating shake up, whether it's via war, war 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.400 or turmoil, was kind of new, right, and she wanted 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:42.480 to know if we could do some research on it 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.000 and see what we came up with and provide some 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.919 perspective on it. And interestingly, because I have also heard 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.040 about this in the last couple of months, Um, we 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.880 did the research and it turns out that the one 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.320 that's making the rounds is not the one that is 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.880 being academically researched. There's like a little bit of uh 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:05.840 confabulation going on here between two different uh specific theories 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.440 and one is more well, I guess we can describe 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.960 them as the fifty year theory and the eighty year theory. Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.560 and these this is this is this is getting into 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:20.200 a realm of what is known as cleo dynamics, that 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.919 is cl i o dynamics. Yeah. So this is a 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.240 field where scientists are attempting to find meaningful patterns in history. 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:30.800 And it was named by a guy named Peter Turch. 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.240 And we're gonna talk a lot about him today after Cleo, 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.400 the ancient Greek muse of history. I have been having 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.800 the hardest time remembering this name trying. You came up 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:45.040 with a good idea earlier picture Cleo as miss Cleo 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.000 the psychic. Uh. The other one I'm thinking is like 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.360 letters to Cleo Dynamics, Like, I gotta figure out a 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.080 way to remember this because it's been hard for me. 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.440 But anyways, there's been a swell of efforts to apply 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:02.720 scientific methods to history by identifying in audeling broad social forces. 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.920 And one argument in favor of this is that historians 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.640 are too qualitative and that they point to samples of 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:14.040 cases from observations that Cleo Dynamics wants to use tools 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:19.000 like nonlinear mathematics and simulations that can model the interactions 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.240 of millions of people at once. Now, I want to 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.480 be clear about this upfront. It's criticized by traditional historians. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:31.240 They usually believe that there are countless variables interacting within 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.240 a society that lead to violence and social unrest, and 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.240 they don't think that there's any one unified theory or 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.880 general law to history. So so what are we talking 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.320 about here? Then, Well, we're looking at decades or even 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.599 century long periods of population expansion, followed by long periods 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:55.800 of stagnation and decline price dynamics mirroring population oscillations, strong 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.800 expansionist phases followed by state failure socio political instead of 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.240 build pity and territory loss, repeated back and forth swings 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:08.400 in demographic, economic, social, and political structures. Uh, just to 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.040 give you an idea of what what kind of patterns 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.640 we're talking about here when we're when you're imagining, say 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:18.039 the the Cleo dynamics weather person standing in front of 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.160 green screen, like these are the kind of movements they 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.120 would be talking about her chart. That's a perfect analogy. Yeah. Now, 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.760 an example I came across was in the work of 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.480 two and two individuals, one of whom of which we're 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.160 going to talk about in greater depth, Peter Turchin and 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:39.120 Sergey A. Nevadov, And they have a book titled Secular 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.920 Cycles in which they looked at England, France, and Russia 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.760 throughout both the medieval and early modern periods and they 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.240 closely observed cycles of inequality. So, uh, Nevodov has a 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.520 great rundown of cleo dynamics and economic inequality as well. 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.880 In Ian magazine and a couple of other publications. I'll 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:58.599 try to include a link to this on the landing 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.640 page for the episode. But he says that in this case, 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:06.719 the cycles break down to this, you have expansion, stagnation, crisis, disintegration, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.680 sort of a life cycle of a story arc for 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:15.320 for civilization. Right. However, uh Nfidov is quick to point 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.240 out that we're not talking about rigid clockwork here, So 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.400 these cycles don't occur in a machine. They occur in 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.039 a chaotic system in which a great number of variables 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.520 play apart. So in a way it is it is 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:30.960 a lot like the weather. The weather is a system. 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.600 We know what what's factors influence the movements of atmosphere 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:39.960 and weather patterns, but there's so many it's ultimately such 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.520 a chaotic system it becomes difficult to make um. You know, 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.440 long term predictions, even short term predictions are are are 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:52.640 open to uh to misinterpretation. And does anybody who's checked 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.200 the weather channel or their weather app on their phone 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.400 and gone outside and its raining. It's not that a 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.160 meteorologist doesn't know what they're taught king about. It's that 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.880 the the system is just that complex and difficult to 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.800 simulate even with the with our most complicated simulation systems. 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.360 So the idea here's the human cultures and civilizations. Also 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.920 that they're bumping up against each other, they're influencing each other. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.480 Uh So, there are so many factors that make it 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:21.680 complex and it's it's again, it's not as simple as 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:26.760 just you know, running a computer versus computer game inside 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.160 of of a closed system. Still, he maintains that complex 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.720 interactions do add up to a general rhythm. So if 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:36.880 you kind of take a god's eye view of everything, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.880 the idea here is that, yes, you will see patterns 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.120 emerge and then you can extract late that to the future. 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.680 So Cleo dynamics then is about observing these trends, observing 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.080 these cycles, this ebb and flow, and then predicting them 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.120 in the future. And you have a note here about 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.680 Mercy a eliads book The Terror of History, which I 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.040 remember reading in grad school. Yeah, and of the Eternal Return, 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.960 Yeah yeah, he involved in myth studies. Yeah yeah, So 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.880 he talks about this concept of the terror of history 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.960 in which humanity has abandoned a cyclical mythic view of 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.320 time that we used to have in favor of a 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.360 purely linear existence. We're forced to see history for what 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:20.960 it is, a senseless stream of blunders, atrocity, collapsed ideals 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.720 of fallen states, ruined megaprojects, and just sort of failure 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.240 in general. Um, it sounds like the greatest setting for 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.000 a role playing game. Yeah, but not one to live in. 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.960 It's what it is, legitimately worth thinking about when you're 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.600 when you're toying with, you know, dungeons and dragons, histories, 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.560 you know, or thinking about stuff like Game of Thrones. Yeah. Yeah, 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.960 there's a reason why all of these, like fantasy worlds 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.760 that are built from the ground up, have ruinous histories 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.040 to them that that they kind of look back on 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.120 in wonder. Yeah. So here's a quote from the myth 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.280 of the Eternal Return. Ileoti says, quote, in our day, 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.080 when historical pressure no longer allows any escape, how and 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.160 man tolerate the catastrophes and horrors of history, from collective 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.480 deportations and massacres to atomic bombings, if beyond them he 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.760 can glimpse no sign, no transistorical meaning, if they are 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.000 only the blind play of economic, social, or political forces, 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.360 or even worse, only the result of the liberties that 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.960 a minority takes and exercises it directly on the stage 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.680 of universal history. So Eliade says that for the longest 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:33.080 humans were able to place everything within a metahistorical framework. 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.120 Uh so, yeah, something fell apart because it was the 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:37.880 end of a decade an age. It was the punishment 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.079 of God, et cetera. Now, Cleo dynamics stands in an 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.240 interesting place by comparison, because they are, in a way 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.880 attempting to resurrect a cyclical view of history. There they're 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.160 turning not to divine mechanics, however, or the imagined astrological 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.360 influence of the spheres. Uh, but rather to a modeling 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.720 of history sort of fluid dynamics based on cultural evolution, 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:08.920 macro sociology, economics, and other factors. Plus in a refreshingly 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.680 optimistic humanist twist that I really like. It also opens 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.720 the door for control over those cycles, right Yeah, And 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:17.520 I think that's absolutely crucial to keep in mind with 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:19.440 all of this. It's not just another version of Oh, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:23.080 humanity is screwed. And here's why. There's the potential for 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.320 self awareness. Here, there's the potential for change. Right. So, 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.760 the general methodology that's being used in these studies at 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.679 least at least church and studies is to focus on 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.640 four main variables that are measured in several ways, and 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.880 and Robert you just mentioned many of these. He boils 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:43.720 them down pretty quickly to population numbers, social structure, state strength, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.480 and political instability. And then he says, the way to 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.720 measure these is actually through proxies that are connected to 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.760 these things that you can measure quantitatively. So he looks, 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.199 for instance, at social structure, He looks at the quantitative 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.920 data on life expectancy and wealth in a quality, and 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.720 that's one of his measurement points. So who's this Peter 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.280 Churching guy that that like has just come out of 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.200 nowhere with the cleo dynamics At least it seems like that, right, 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:11.439 He's actually been doing it for a while. He's an 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.319 ecologist and evolutionary biologist and a mathematician out of the 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:20.760 University of Connecticut and stores he studies population dynamics and 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.920 takes mathematical techniques that he used to use to track 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.960 predator pray cycles in forest ecosystems, and then he applies 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.240 those to human history. Now, Turchen looks at historical records 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:37.960 of economic activity, demographic trends, and outbursts of violence in 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:42.000 the United States, and he argues history is not just 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:47.000 one damn thing after another. His main research questions are essentially, 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.600 first of all, what general mechanisms explain the collapse of 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.880 historical empires? And then how did large scale states and 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.600 empires evolved in the first place. So this is some 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.160 pretty big heavy stuff when it comes to anthropology. Now, 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:07.119 church and first conceived of Cleo dynamics in nineteen seven 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.320 when he felt that all major ecological questions about population 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.040 dynamics had been answered, so he turned to that's a 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.000 direct quote from him. That's not me. I don't I 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.600 don't know necessarily that they have all been answered. But 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.920 he turned to history. And actually his father had previously 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.600 looked into us. His father was Valentine Church and a 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.760 computer scientist, and he had written dissident writings about the 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.320 origins of totalitarianism that got him exiled from the Soviet 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.480 Union in nineteen seventies seven. Now, the younger Church and 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.320 he recognizes that this kind of search for patterns in history, 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.400 this is not a new thing, right. Obviously, we're all 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.600 familiar with the idea of there being a cyclical nature 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.800 to history. I remember learning about this in like, uh, 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:55.600 probably like a junior high history class. Well, I mean 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.120 it's just basically pattern recognition in history class. Right, Oh, 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.520 an empire rye is and then it falls, you know, 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.440 you have you're gonna end up with some sort of 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.880 horrible emperor ruler and then then there's a revolution that happens. 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.760 Like you just you just began to recognize the same 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.960 patterns within these different stories. Yeah, that was the way 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:15.800 it was framed to us when I was like whatever, 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.679 twelve maybe thirteen years old. They're essentially like war happens, 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.400 then like there's peace, then there's war, then there's peace, 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.400 then there's war, and they happen in these like they 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.040 actually were able to this elementary school tape teacher was 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:29.959 able to map it out for us, you know. And 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:31.760 that's essentially what he's doing, but with just like a 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:36.880 broader set of data points, right. And he's really currently 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:42.160 focused on coordinating something called the c CHAT Global History 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.360 Data Bank, And this is a database of history and 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.079 cultural evolution that is hoped to be used to empirically 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:53.360 test out theoretical predictions from Cleo dynamics. So they're essentially 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.160 housing as much data as they possibly can gather to 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.520 run these predictive models against. So there are a couple 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.200 of moments of other Cleo dynamics though too rite and 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.280 we don't want to confuse Urchin with too many of 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:09.000 the other folks that are involved in this. And we 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.800 haven't even gotten to the actual purported eighty year cycle 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.400 that is making the rounds right now. What we're really 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.760 talking about with Urchin is the fifty year and then 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.360 two hundred year cycles. But uh, there's actually and you 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.520 and I both found this. There's a peer reviewed journal 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.520 on Cleo dynamics and it's open access, meaning anybody out 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.640 there can get get it, and you can share it 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.400 and reuse it under a Creative Commons attribution. You'll find 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.560 lots of different articles about cleo dynamic views of history. 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:39.440 You try to include a link to that on the 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.320 landing page for this episode is stuff to about your 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.680 mind dot com. Yeah, so here's a couple of people. 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.080 Uh they they have been doing similar work to church In, 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.239 but they're not, you know, part of his necessary research projects. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.680 So you've got Claudio sea Offee Reveala, who is a 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.560 computer social scientist in Virginia, UH. They're trying to use 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:04.360 cleo dynamics by running simulations on computer models. Specifically, his 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.000 team is looking at the Rift Valley region of East 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.200 Africa and the effects of modern climate change there. And 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.640 so they've seen that there was a drought there and 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:19.680 then subsequently labor specialization and vulnerability emerged spontaneously. So they 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.040 hope to be able to predict the flow of refugees 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.160 and identify potential conflict hot spots in the region using 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:32.520 using these Cleo dynamic methods. Another guy, Jack Goldstone, is 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.760 the director of the Center for Global Policy at George 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:40.120 Mason University. He's also a member of the Political Instability 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.160 Task Force, which is funded by the CIA to forecast 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.360 events outside of the United States. He's tried finding patterns 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:53.000 in past revolutions and he projects that Egypt will actually 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.680 have a few more years of struggle and another five 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.720 to ten years of rebuilding its institutions before it can 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.560 regain stability. Now this is in reference to the Arab 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:08.440 Spring Revolution of uh That might be a little bit this. 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.760 The information here might have been written closer to that 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.600 date than to our present date. So I take those 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.960 those numbers with a grain of salt. Goldstone, though, thinks 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.840 that cleo dynamics is only useful for looking at broad 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.920 trends and not useful for predicting unique events, so he 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.200 wanted to be clear about that. I think that's important 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.720 to note. And when we get into criticism later, you 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.640 do find that it's not necessarily the situation where people 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.440 are like cleo dynamics is awesome or Cleo dynamics is 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.200 is trash. It's a lot a lot of times it's 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.640 a discussion about to what extent these kinds of exercises 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.240 are useful or accurate. Right, Yeah. So another person who 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.920 felt the same way is Herbert Gentis, and this is 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.680 a retired economist working out of U mass Ammerst, who 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.880 also doubts that cleo dynamics can be used to predict 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.240 specific events, but he does think the patterns and causal 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.840 connections within it can reveal lessons for policymakers. So he's 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.439 essentially arguing this is something that people who are constructing 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.720 policy in our government should be paying attention to. And 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.440 the last person here I have here is Harvey Whitehouse, 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.639 who is an anthropologist at the University of Oxford, and 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:27.199 he oversees the construction of a database on rituals, social structures, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:31.160 and conflict around the globe. Now, he believes this research 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.880 can complement the approach of Cleo dynamics by shedding light 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:39.040 on the triggers of political violence. In his argument, this 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:44.920 violence happens when individuals strongly identify with a political group, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.639 and that identification is cemented through what he calls rituals. 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.399 And these can be frightening and painful. And the reason 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.320 why is the more frightening and painful they are, the 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.520 stronger the shared memories they create. Are This sounds very 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:02.800 familiar to us. We are you know, we're trying to 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.199 keep this episode evergreen, but we were actually recording this 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:11.480 the weekend after the riot events in Charlottesville, Virginia and 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:16.600 uh where you know, there were collisions between I guess 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.199 white nationalist protesters and counter protesters and there was a 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.480 woman killed by a car that drove into a number 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.280 of the participants in this. Uh, it's it was super upsetting. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.600 It's still super upsetting. And as I'm reading about cleo 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.280 dynamics and these applications of it, it seems to be 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.920 like a moment that will obviously join this data set, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:45.119 which sounds sounds somewhat unemotional, right because these are like 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.800 real people that it's affecting. But it also makes me 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.280 wonder like, how can this How could could we have 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.280 predicted events like this? Or can we trace back why 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.480 events like this are happening? Yeah, exactly, because again, it's 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.160 it's it's not just about knowing where we're going. It's 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.800 it's about being able to take control of it, being 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:07.720 able to sort of take control of the wheel to 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.920 a certain extent. Alright, let's take a break, and when 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:15.120 we come back, let's jump into this fifty year cycle, 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:22.920 this fifty year scale. Alright, we're back. So yeah, So 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.560 Turchen is actually the one who came up with the 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.760 fifty year scale, and this is the one that's getting 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.760 conflated with the eighty year scale that's making the rounds 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.439 on the internet right now. Uh, And we'll explain all 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.639 that later, but let's talk about what he actually means 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.199 with this fifty year scale. So the theory goes, he 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.560 calls this the father and Son's scale. The theory goes 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.800 that every fifty years there's a moment of violent upheaval 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.840 in the United States, and he looks at this as 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.199 beginning in eighteen seventy with the Civil War, then in 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.400 nineteen twenty there was violence over labor and race. Then 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.720 again in nineteen seventy we had the Vietnam War and 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.480 the Civil rights movement. So he's our you doing that 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.800 twenty is around when we're going to have our next 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.359 cycle and basically saying everybody needs to prepare themselves. We're 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:11.040 gonna go through another moment of turmoil. You know, I, UM, 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.520 I don't want to criticize this this because obviously there 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.000 are a number of issues going on, but I mean 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.919 instantly you think to yourself, oh, I'm glad there was 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:23.000 that stretch of a relative peace between ninety uh and 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.560 the and the nineteen seventy Um, you know obviously that's 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:31.040 when we had the World War two Great War. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.960 He's not tracking events like that because they aren't, I guess, 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.920 specifically within the borders of the United States. So that's 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.520 an interesting But you're making a really interesting counter argument here, 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.240 which is like, what's the then diagram of overlap of 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.919 global events on top of this right? Right? And then 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:48.960 you I guess you can also say two are you 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.439 have these key moments generationally where you have all these 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.760 factors coming together and opening us up for the potential 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.199 for unrest. But I guess there's also going to be 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:02.440 this um, this possibility for cascading effects, and I imagine 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.080 you could apply that to to the you know, the 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.960 decades to follow. He sort of addresses that, and I'll 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.480 get to that in the future, because he calls that's 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.920 part of his two hundred year scale. But let's wrap 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:19.120 up the fifty year scale. Yeah, Actually, that's a good 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:21.000 that's a good times you're going to have like two 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.879 different bruds of cicadas emerging at the same time exactly. 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.639 So he argues all of this in a published article 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:31.160 in a July issue of the Journal of Peace Research, 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:34.160 and he believes the model that he presents there suggests 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:39.359 that violence will be even worse because of quote demographic 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.680 variables such as wages, standards of living, and a number 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:48.960 of measures of intra elite confrontation. Now, his reasoning for 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.440 all of this is that there's a period of sustained 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:57.439 explosive violence, and then that is usually followed and maintained 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.879 as peace for around twenty to thirty years until a 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:05.040 new generation arises and this generation hasn't experienced any of 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.520 the horrors of the previous generations. So church And thinks 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.600 that this cycle occurs every two generations, or every forty 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.320 to sixty years. So that's why he places its smack 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:17.560 in the middle there with a fifty year cycle. This 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.400 is why he calls it the father's and son's cycle, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.080 which is a little gendered. But the idea here is 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:27.720 that the father responds violently to perceived social justice, and 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:32.280 then their son lives with that legacy of conflict and abstains. 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.200 But with the third generation, the cycle begins again. Now 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:38.560 church And compares this to a forest fire, and he 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.280 says it will burn out until underbrush accumulates, and then 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:47.040 the cycle recommences again. Okay, I can definitely follow that. Yeah. 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:51.760 I like looking at my life and how my lifespan 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.320 has played against the cycles that he's outlining. I can 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.240 see this, you know, Like I was born just after 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.360 the Civil Rights movement, just after Vietnam. I learned from 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.440 my parents that those events were catastrophic and that it 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:09.119 was you know, essentially I learned to try to be 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:13.680 peaceful as as he's arguing here, and then I think 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.879 we're seeing like the generation maybe two generations behind you 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:22.600 and I are they didn't they didn't have those lessons, right, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:28.199 and so subsequently they're sort of feeling the pressures of economy. 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.120 Really is what it comes down to with Turchin's arguments 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.160 upon themselves and then looking for a scapegoat. Yeah, I mean, 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:37.400 I have thought a lot in the past about what 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.080 it means to be entering into an age in which 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:45.040 there are no uh, you know, fewer and then ultimately 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:49.760 no firsthand accounts of the Second World War, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.800