Societal healing cycles

Societies experience multi‑decadal cycles of disintegration and recovery—periods of rising social violence, overdose, and civic fracture that later revert as institutions, norms, and technologies adapt. Documenting and modeling these cycles would help distinguish temporary crises from structural decline and guide policy timing. — If such cycles exist and can be measured, they would reframe policy from panic responses to calibrated, timing‑aware interventions in health, policing, and civic infrastructure.