by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

The pendulum of history: I had a history teacher in high school who proposed that history moves in cycles like a pendulum. The pendulum of social "history" will swing to the left, then back to the right and then back to the center, which will be slightly to the left of the previous "center". --Left, Right and Center, by-the-way, come from the French Revolution and the National Assembly. Even though Louis XVI had ordered, under pressure and reluctantly, that the three houses of the Estates-General meet as one body, the membership organized itself in its seating arrangements where the conservative Royalists sat on the right, the moderates occupied the center seats and the radicals were to the left of the chamber. This description of political proclivity maintains to this day, even though most have no clue as to why we call the conservatives the "political right" etc..-- I think we have watched this process over the past 50 years. From the "center" which was our society in the 20 years following WWII, we have swung left during the period 1965-1975, back to center during the '80s and then, to the right (culminating with Bush II) during the '90s. *Note that Clinton was actually centrist in his policies, and he was still bitterly attacked by the conservative right to the point that his administration was effectively handcuffed and powerless.* And thus endeth today's history lesson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005