Tytler cycle
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The Tytler cycle is the name commonly given to a sequence in which societies supposedly move from bondage to spiritual faith, courage, liberty, abundance, selfishness, complacency, apathy, dependence, and finally back to bondage.
The sequence is frequently attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, an eighteenth-century Scottish judge, historian, and professor. Tytler did write critically about democracy and argued that growing wealth and security could be accompanied by declining public virtue.
However, there is no reliable evidence that Tytler wrote the familiar cycle or the associated claim that democracies normally endure for about two centuries. The sequence's earliest known appearance is in a 1943 speech by American industrialist Henning W. Prentis Jr.
The modern 'Tytler cycle' is therefore better understood as a twentieth-century political quotation that was later attached to Tytler's name. Its history illustrates how appealing cyclical claims can spread through repeated quotation even when their attribution is doubtful.
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- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tytler_cycle