Cultural Trajectories

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently read a couple of books about Islam:

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary

The Trouble with Islam Today, by Irshad Manji

Destiny Disrupted in particular was a revelation.

At the risk of appearing to oversimplify, let me say this: one of the things that impressed me about this sweeping history was how much and how persistently people are people, no matter where they live, what their culture or religion.

Here’s the theme that I saw in common with all the other histories I’m familiar with.

1. Someone has a really good idea. In this case, it was Mohammed. In other cases, it might be Jesus, or the founding fathers of the US, etc.  
2. People (in one aspect of their peopleness) are impressed by this idea, and align themselves with it.
3. All goes well for a while, except of course having to deal with the existing societal structure (i.e., power structure) that is threatened by this new idea. (The ruling class tried to kill Mohammed, leading to the Hijra; Jesus was crucified and his followers persecuted; and England didn’t take kindly to the colonies’ leaving the fold.) But by and large, this new idea actually works and things go well.
4. Over time, however, another aspect of the peopleness of people takes over, and the powerful find ways to infiltrate the new system and leverage it to their advantage. This leads to a corruption of the system, stratification of society, consolidation of power once again.
5. However, it also leads to a boom in culture. Once some people have the wealth to have leisure, all kinds of things like writing, education and study, music, philosophy, architecture, and so on, bloom.
6. And then it fades, often because of the weakening of the ruling class through the adoption of hereditary succession (not every son is as good as his father), or because someone more brutal comes in and takes over.
7. And then someone says, hey, this bad thing happened because we were not true to our original principles. We need to go back to where we started, to re-purify, and everything will be all right.  (Or, alternately, someone could suggest reformation to fix the problems.)
8. Then we start a perhaps smaller cycle as above.

It's a bit of a spiritual (and societal) conundrum.  The acquisition of power leads to some level of security, which in turn makes it possible to develop culturally, but also makes corruption pretty much inevitable.  And corruption is rather like kudzu - hard to eradicate.  The introduction of a powerful new idea can shake it up for a bit, but maybe not long.  The tension between the two is one of the ways we grow, both culturally and as individuals. 

And yet, eventually, the resulting culture becomes weak enough that another sweeps in and takes over.  Inevitably? 
The measure of safety/security and  reliable abundance seems to be critical.  At the point where we give up too much to get or retain those things, we lose something important.  ("It is only through ignorance that we surrender our freedom"; "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.")  But is that only true if we give up freedom to the wrong powers (that is, is it ok to give it up to the Catholic Church, say, or to the government of our own country)?  And exactly where is the balance?

Again - more questions than answers.  Dang.