Things I've learned about Revolution so far
So, strangely, I've chosen to pursue the topic of African American revolution as the center of my academic studies. The theorists are inclined to find within the dark abyss that is human society a path toward viable resistance, sort of like that part in Lord of the Rings where Aragorn leads his friends into the dark chasm of the spooky mountain to gather hordes of the undead to fight the bad guys. Except substitute Aragorn for "human spirit", dark chasm into "society", hordes of the undead for "the working classes" and the bad guys are of course none other than the "rich bourgeosie"/"capitalist warmongers"/"middle class social climbers".
I hope the next movie somebody makes is "Gandolf vs. Magneto"
Right, so theorists aside, the cultural revolutionaries have divergent opinions on the whole business of revolution, but all would agree that they are made possible only through violence, extreme and horrible violence, involving a huge group of disenfranchised and pissed off people. Proper guidance and channeling of such anger can result in a revolution. After the revolution there is usually a period, often brief, of jubilation at having defeated those horrible rich ruler types, and then eventually in the process of rebuilding a non hierarchical government, certain individuals forget about the people and lay the groundwork for building a flawed and fragile system thinly veiling their own egoistic personal desires and needs. The people who fought for their own freedom from tyranny feel betrayed as their former leaders use and abuse them, and then things slowly transform into a new type of hierarchical social system that is not necessarily better and often no different from before. Like Stalin. He was a bad man.
And then there are those who suggest that something is wrong with people, they desire tyranny and totalitarianism like it's going out of style, like all those who joined the Nazi party, and those who didn't join, but didn't resist it either. It would seem that preservation of what one already has, which is often very little, is more important than what one might have. It is this mentality that drives most people to do nothing.
Most of the more optimistic types believe strongly in the power of collective action, not just holding hands and agreeing on something, but surrendering the substance of one's individual desires for something better. Which is curious because it would seem that the fundamental forces that drive revolution and dictatorship are very similar. The difference of course is that one means working for the good of the people, the other means...huh...working for the good of the people, except the good of the people is a euphemism for the good of a satisfied upper class that supports the illusion of everyone working together when they are secretly working for themselves. But how to root out the difference is beyond me right now. Many have willingly surrendered themselves to an idea with the best of intentions, only that idea turned out to be a piece of shit--like the extermination of "inferior people", global economic domination, things like that that . And their best intentions turned out to be a primativistic urge to kill the neighbouring camp, eat their babies, and move into their plot of space.
But throughout all this reading of a bunch of books ranging from mildly depressing to soul crushing, I am most blown away by the long and horrible history of slavery, the fact that all western global powers have built their economies upon the work of slaves and the slave trade, that what some used to call xenophobia and now racism represents the long and arduous journey human society has traversed from agrarianism to capitalism. The crux of capitalism: Everybody would rather have someone else do the work for them. Which is why I find it odd that our government elides capitalism and democracy as though one were the cause and the other a logical effect.
I should actually be reading right now.
Remember that onion headline "You Learn Something New and Depressing Everyday"? I do.
I hope the next movie somebody makes is "Gandolf vs. Magneto"
Right, so theorists aside, the cultural revolutionaries have divergent opinions on the whole business of revolution, but all would agree that they are made possible only through violence, extreme and horrible violence, involving a huge group of disenfranchised and pissed off people. Proper guidance and channeling of such anger can result in a revolution. After the revolution there is usually a period, often brief, of jubilation at having defeated those horrible rich ruler types, and then eventually in the process of rebuilding a non hierarchical government, certain individuals forget about the people and lay the groundwork for building a flawed and fragile system thinly veiling their own egoistic personal desires and needs. The people who fought for their own freedom from tyranny feel betrayed as their former leaders use and abuse them, and then things slowly transform into a new type of hierarchical social system that is not necessarily better and often no different from before. Like Stalin. He was a bad man.
And then there are those who suggest that something is wrong with people, they desire tyranny and totalitarianism like it's going out of style, like all those who joined the Nazi party, and those who didn't join, but didn't resist it either. It would seem that preservation of what one already has, which is often very little, is more important than what one might have. It is this mentality that drives most people to do nothing.
Most of the more optimistic types believe strongly in the power of collective action, not just holding hands and agreeing on something, but surrendering the substance of one's individual desires for something better. Which is curious because it would seem that the fundamental forces that drive revolution and dictatorship are very similar. The difference of course is that one means working for the good of the people, the other means...huh...working for the good of the people, except the good of the people is a euphemism for the good of a satisfied upper class that supports the illusion of everyone working together when they are secretly working for themselves. But how to root out the difference is beyond me right now. Many have willingly surrendered themselves to an idea with the best of intentions, only that idea turned out to be a piece of shit--like the extermination of "inferior people", global economic domination, things like that that . And their best intentions turned out to be a primativistic urge to kill the neighbouring camp, eat their babies, and move into their plot of space.
But throughout all this reading of a bunch of books ranging from mildly depressing to soul crushing, I am most blown away by the long and horrible history of slavery, the fact that all western global powers have built their economies upon the work of slaves and the slave trade, that what some used to call xenophobia and now racism represents the long and arduous journey human society has traversed from agrarianism to capitalism. The crux of capitalism: Everybody would rather have someone else do the work for them. Which is why I find it odd that our government elides capitalism and democracy as though one were the cause and the other a logical effect.
I should actually be reading right now.
Remember that onion headline "You Learn Something New and Depressing Everyday"? I do.
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