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CHAPTER 5

Universal epochal cycle
of social development: structure
and contents

The informative characteristic of the conception may be presented in two main aspects: through defining the theoretical principles of the social-historical development and the hypothetical periodization of the world historical process on this basis.

The society as a subject of the history and civilization goes through a large life cycle in its development. In the context of the social philosophy and the philosophy of history, this thesis has already become a trivial truth. A prominent scientist Nils Bohr said that the truth may be trivial and deep. A statement, opposite to the trivial truth is simply false, and the statement, opposite to the deep truth, is also true[51]. The failure to perceive the idea of cyclicity of historical processes is mainly connected with the vulgar idea of progressive development that will inevitably lead the mankind from the «kingdom of necessity» to the «kingdom of freedom», despite regressive tendencies. The perception of the idea of cyclicity in the spirit of the circuit of Ecclesiast is also connected with this conceptual approach: what took place then, is taking place now; what will take place, already took place. We conceive that the historical development of a socium is, in fact, a realization of epochal cycles, each consisting of two periods.

The first epochal period, «involution», has the semantic content of mastering the societal qualities acquired by the society in the previous period of development. The simplification of a social structure, traditionalism, and a reducion of social processes in space is characteristic of the involutionary stage. Such a society has «closed» character, helping to maintain the social stability. In such a socium, the degree of freedom of an individual is limited by influence of the collective. The emotional-sensitive psychotype of a personality is determining.

The second epochal period (evolution) is characterized by the development of social processes in space, complication of the social structure, and innovative activity. One of the tasks of the evolution is a modernization of the traditional society. The historical indication of the evolutionary period is the acquisition of new social characteristics by the society, including the actualization of signs of the own preceding period of development or attributes, characteristic of the societies at a higher level of historical development. The social balance is maintained by innovative accumulations. «Involution» and «evolution» are the normative conditions of a society[52]. The liberation of an individual and the strengthening of the objective-cognitive component in the psychological structure of a personality becomes the fundament of the innovative activity in the involutionary period. The main characteristic of the evolution is the stability of changes.

Normative periods in the history of the society alternate with transient periods, when the structures of the socium and fundamental institutions are transforming.

An increase in the historical activity depends on the interaction of three fundamental factors: the social-political, social-economic, and natural-cosmic. Moreover, the significant influence of the spiritual sphere should be added to the mentioned above. Let us emphasize that the absence of the preconditions for intensive activity of one of those factors does not launch the mechanism of transformation on the whole.

An important role in a change of the periods of an epochal cycle is played by the social-historical phenomena of wars. The subjects of military actions make and finish wars at various moments of the historical development. The correction of the rhythm of a cycle, defining the destiny of the whole region, or even global changes may take place in the case of invasion of a country as, for example, after world wars.

The transient periods of social development are characterized with historical phases opposite by the direction of changes: «coevolution» and «revolution». For example, the «co-evolution» is the phase of transition from the normative period of «involution» to the normative period of «evolution». This period is realized within the single epochal cycle, that is why only the polarity of the system qualities of the society or «vectors» of social development are changing under such conditions[53].

As distinct from «co-evolution», «revolution» is a qualitative transformation of the entire social structure of the society. It creates the mechanism of transition from the normative condition of «evolution» to the «involution». At the same time, this process is connected with radical changes of the societal characteristics. The «revolution» as if generalizes the results of development of the society during the entire epochal cycle and opens a new cycle[54].

The characteristic of a subject of history is changing in the process of development. In fact, various types of subjects are acting. For example, during the «revolution», the role of a subject-individual is activizing. Let us recall the fact that, in the period of the Great French Revolution of 1789-1794, there were the most characteristic personalities acting on the political stage. Such names as Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, Napoleon became denominative for each stage of the mentioned revolution, and the roles played by them became typical of the analysis of similar processes. The same phenomena may be observed in Russia of 1905-1917, when the cohort of revolutionary activists actually «exceeded the demand» of the history. During the transformation of the «co-evolutionary» type, the role of the subject-socium becomes more significant. Let us emphasize that, under conditions of the involutionary process, the temporal space of the society is deformed in the direction of the future that, respectively, makes the society a mythological one. In the process of the «evolution», one observes the displacement of attention to the past.

The information about the number of social roles confirms the relevance of the research hypothesis concerning the different levels of complexity of the social structures of the «involutionary» and the «evolutionary» societies. Whereas the number of social roles is about 70,000 in the countries that went through the Great Depression of 1929-1933, this number is about 30-40 thousand in the domestic area.

The discrepancy between the calendar-historic time of development of the society and the levels of biological and societal development are fundamental for antroposociogenetic development. Of adequacy for the social-historic analysis is the universal epochal cycle consisting of four interrelated elements (two opposite historical periods and two transient periods), which form the conventional scheme: «involution»–«co-evolution» –«evolution» –«revolution».

Now let us try to define specific «beacons» (the most important events in the spiritual or material spheres) on the historical material (after receiving the empirical data, this hypothesis may be reviewed). These «beacons» will give grounds for defining the possible chronological frames of every phase and the epochal cycle on the whole. After this analysis, we define an approximate number of cycles, already «processed» in the world historical process. On the grounds of such a research, it would be possible to create an adequate model of periodization of a change of epochal cycles.

Such a periodization should reflect the mechanisms of interaction at the three hierarchical levels: global, regional, and of certain countries. In this case, one may assume that the higher the hierarchical level, the later the transformational changes begin at it (for example, at the global level).

But, first of all, we make an approximate list of the elements (classifications) of the social-economic formations. The Marxist «five-element structure» – primitive communal, slave-owning, feudalist, capitalist, and communist systems – «works» to the «post-capitalist» formation.

The «three-stage» classifications are quite popular. They are presented by Morgan [wildness (since the appearance of the primitive people), barbarity (since the emergence of the primitive forms of agriculture), civilization (since the emergence of the state)] and by Bell [the pre-industrial period (the production is human-powered or animal-powered), the industrial (the basis is the work of mechanisms), the post-industrial period (the life of a society is maintained mainly by the means of the reproduction of information)]. These classifications are provided with chronological characteristics: the prehistoric epoch (before the creation of writing), antique, mediaeval, modern and contemporary time. However, this approach is too scholastic and conditional.

The creation of a more adequate single system of classification is complicated by the controversial semantic loads carried by the corresponding terminology. However, such an attempt can be undertaken.

Wildness – Barbarism – Primitive communal system
Ancient civilizations	Pre-industrial society	The epoch of ancient kingdoms
Estate-class society		Middle Ages
Capitalism	Industrial society	Modern and contemporary time
Informational society – Post-industrial society

We emphasize that the model by Spengler[55] is the most developed system of periodization in a strong accordance with the cyclic approach.

Table 1

«Simultaneous» spiritual epochs

	1500-1200 BC	1100-800 BC	0-300 AD	since 900 AD
	Vedic religion Indian culture	Hellen-Italic “demetrian” culture The Olympic myth Antique culture	Arabic culture syncretism (Mithra, Boal)	Western Culture Germanic Catholicism
The birth of a myth of the big style as the expression of the new God perception. The world’s fear and the world’s sorrow. (Spring)	Aryan heroic legends	Homer. Legends about Heracles and Tess	Apocaleptics	Bernard de Clairvaux Knightly epos. St. Francis of Assisi.
The early mystico-metaphysical formation of a new view on the world. High scholasticism. (Summer)	The most ancient parts of the Veda	The Orphic, cosmogony	Origen (254 AD) Mani (276 AD) Avesta, Talmud	Thomas Aquinas (1274) Dante (1321) scholasticism
Reformation: the protest within the national religion against the great forms of the early epoch	Brahmins	The religion of Dionysus	Augustinus (430 AD) Nestorians, Mazdak	Hus (1415), Savonarola, Luther, Calvin

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