M1 Stable permanence in the current section

Topic

Stable persistence within the prevailing phase is the default mode of the worldview—the track that drives Culture and ideology while leaving echoes in Power and Conflict. As long as a society remains in the same phase of legitimacy, there is no inherent oscillation within that mode; that is, there is no internal cycle causing it to alternate between distinct states, as happens in other modes. The worldview simply remains in the prevailing phase, without shifting due to its own internal dynamics.

Stable persistence in the prevailing phase is interrupted only when the trigger for a worldview transition is activated. Until that trigger—the sustained and widespread collapse of the dominant source of legitimacy, with no recovery within a generation—is activated, stable persistence in the prevailing phase remains the state of the worldview, even if the invoked source of authority is questioned in specific decisions within that same phase. Only with a worldview transition does stable persistence in the prevailing phase come to an end, and the society moves from one phase of legitimacy to another.

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