When people look at trends in society, especially their relationships with history, it’s common to point out times when similar things happen over and over. This is sometimes captured by the statement that “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.¹ Beyond that, various people have suggested that history proceeds through cycles, that similar behavior happens over and over, regardless of the political situation. It would seem that such cycles occur in varying situations because human nature itself is constant, so that large groups of humans will inevitably follow similar behavioral patterns.

For those who seek to make improvements to human society, it seems these cycles need to be addressed. But any attempt to break out of them would run into the same issue of unchanging human nature. Regardless of the social and political systems that we come up with, they don’t change our nature. And without a change to our nature, there will always be a tension drawing societies back to the same behavior.