Much of my posting at this blog has been dedicated to laying out a theory of the recurring cycles of cultural change that have shaped human history, from the earliest times to the present day. The entries linked below represent my presentation of that theory from September 2009 to July 2012, a period during which I was attempting to resolve many highly technical questions.

In July 2012, I started over with a summary of the main points of the theory and began tracing it out chronologically through human history. Those posts are listed at Dance of the Visions 2.0.

A list of all the visions can be found here.

The Science-and-Democracy Partnership and the Chaos Vision

• The Cycle of Regeneration
• The Era of Science and Democracy
• The Death of Reason
• The Screwballs
• The Democratization of Higher Knowledge
• The End of an Era
• An Age of Chaos
• The Times They Are A-Changin’

 
Chaos, Holism, and the 60′s Counterculture

• From Hipsters to Hippies
• The Search for Meaning
• The Proto-History of Holism
• The Rube Goldberg Principle
• Moral Agents
• The True Voice of Chaos
• Nothing But a Pack of Cards
• We’re All Mad Here
• The Wood Where Things Have No Names
• In All This Shit, There Must Be a Counterculture
• The Alchemical Marriage of Chaos and Holism
• When the Vertical World Turns Horizontal
• Everything Changes

 
Multiculturalism and Creative Imagination Emerge

• “Alice–Mutton. Mutton–Alice.”
• Unalienable Rights and Universal Consciousness
• You’re Doing It Wrong
• Russian Nesting Dolls
• The World Beyond the Hill
• On the Mungly Planet
• Living in the Material World
• Coming Unglued
• Chaos Tamed
• Mirror, Mirror
• Holistic Utopianism
• Why Don’t You Build a Spaceship?

 
Dominant Partnerships and Romantic Breaks

• Democracy Inverted
• Theories of Everything
• He Who Tastes, Knows
• The Romantic Break
• You’ve Got the Look
• The Revolutionary Mode
• A Multiplicity of Worlds
• Tech Toys

 
Multiculturalism, Creative Imagination, and the Hacker Ethic

• The Coming of Multiculturalism
• “Brain’s Wiring: More Like the Internet Than a Pyramid?”
• And Then There’s 4chan
• The Soul of Multiculturalism Expands
• Make It Work!
• The Improvisational Universe
• The Land-Pirats
• Heretics of the 1980′s
• What Is To Be Done?
• Eggs Before Chickens

 
The History of Chaos

• Prelude to Chaos
• Thrice Great Hermes
• Wild Talents
• Weird Science
• Chaos and Science Fiction
• All in His MInd
• Curioser and Curioser
• Chaos Mark I and Chaos Mark II
• Chaos is King!

 
Higher Knowledge Examined

• The Parameters of Higher Knowledge
• Higher Knowledge and Elite Control
• Higher Knowledge and Popular Culture
• Keeping the Peasants in Line

 
The Birth of A New Vision

• Democratic Chaos
• The Birth of a Vision
• Multiculturalism vs. the Hacker Ethic
• Dualism, Monism, and Holism
• A Resonance of Visions
• The Mechanical Philosophy and the System of Nature
• The Birth of a Vision, Reconsidered
• Of Gaps and Gears

 
How a New Vision Takes on Definition

• Materialists and Vitalists
• Clearing the Field
• The Unity of the Organism
• Of Parts and Wholes
• Democratic Materialism
• Holism’s Moral Center
• The Sticking Point