“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”   Jose Marti

Over the years, I’ve met people- some unpleasant and deplorable, others filled with good intent- who, unhappy with the current government, support, promote and/or call for a “revolution”. At this moment in time, there seems to be several factions, some similar, some quite different, who periodically incite or call for revolution. These include idealists, religious zealots/fanatics, fantasists and wanna-bes; misogynists, the politically illiterate, and one more category: cunning men in power who want to establish a permanent hold on a nation.

First, consider the definition of revolution (1): a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system. This is from the Latin revolvere, for “roll back”. Keep that in mind: roll back. If we use the Latin “revolution”, or turn around, we refer to “a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic) or political incompetence. Of course, oppression can be quite real, and has been a motivating factor in revolutions. There are also cases of revolution when a plutocracy, autocracy or oligarchy hold power over the policies and processes that govern people’s lives and hopes.

 The problem is that, while revolutions are relatively easy to foment and manipulate, they are often just exchanging one dominant group for another, both with the similar or same attributes. (We also have to learn to distinguish between revolution, rebellion, resistance, reformation, and secession- all of which have different objectives and different methodologies).

If we look at the groups who call for revolution, we find the following traits, ideology or mindsets (2):

(1) The idealists who fantasize that if there was no government, everyone would sing kumbaya together and love everything and care about the planet and go live in a simple life to have minimum impact on the earth and other living creatures, totally ignoring the reality of human nature and history. They hold to the belief that everyone would enjoy freedom to be themselves, and everyone would recognize the rights of others and without controls, there would be no scarcity, no crime, no frustrations in life.

Sadly, the idealists ignore the all-too-real nature of individuals and groups within the human species, in which sharing is perceived as weakness, greed is considered to be ambition, and bullying is all too real.

(2) The religious zealots who hope for the end of the world as we know it so they can live in armed enclaves of the holy, with a few men overseeing the whole kingdom, totally ignoring the reality of human nature, the corrupting influence of absolute power and history

The problem is, religion is no guarantee of peace and love. Like the fundamentalist couple I knew, nice people, good parents- who told me that if they could just crucify all the homosexuals things would be better- and who, in that same year, found that one of the grandfathers had been sexually molesting both a boy and a girl in the family, but refused to report him because “family is important”.

(3) The fantasists, including the wanna-be-kings, overlords, tyrants and including the “every man for himself” brigades who think no government is good, who live amidst their gun hoards and off the grid, having complete domination over their families or living in fear of everyone, forgetting that there are those who, without control or regulation, behind iron gates or in open towns, become rapacious, feeding their sociopathic tendencies towards other humans, other living things, forgetting history, human nature and the fact that isolation creates its own emotional, mental and physical problems, and narcissism is often rampant in families controlled by one domineering voice

(4) The ignorant and uninformed: individual men and women who are ignorant of human nature, ignorant of the proper function and purpose and even benefits of living in social orders, who have no awareness of what they do gain from government or a collective society, don’t even comprehend their own lack of skills to survive alone and who wake up and go through each day without ever considering where their food, clothing, vehicles, homes, electricity, water, protections, education, etc comes from, who don’t think much beyond the next meal or next distraction.

(5) The misogynists are an especially dangerous group, kin to the fantasists. These are the unhappy incels and other groups or individuals who harbor resentment that they have no power over women, and they dream of going back to a time when women were legally, politically, financially and physically powerless or subordinated to the desires, entitlements and control of men.

(6)The coup d’état, or a seizure of power from the top down, in which those already sharing power seize power from others in governing positions. Though experts define a coup d’état as “an overt attempt by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting head of state using unconstitutional means.” (3), a modern coup d’état can be achieved through a group at the top manipulating, deceiving and directing those at the bottom to appear to be a revolution of ‘the people” against the government, while leaving those in power who staged the coup d’état in power.

There are many people who long for the downfall of society because they see themselves as apocalyptic heroes or anti-heroes or kings and commanders in their “new world” vision… I’ve yet to meet any one of them that I would deem worthy of leading much of anything, nor have I met any I would trust with power.

I know there are many good people, people who could live peacefully and kindly with no government- but they are not people pushing for revolution other than from within themselves, on an individual and small group basis. They are creating change on small collectives and in circles of friendship, doing what they can to make themselves better, to make the world better for other living things, making decisions to treat the planet kindly and carefully- but this seems to happen on a small scale and often through using the collective benefits of government that are positive.

The problem is, and will always be, the moral questions that address what revolutionaries are willing to do to win, and how those actions may impact the moral core, or compass, of the people leading a revolution as well as what their moral character- and their possible private agenda- was prior to instigating or directing the revolution.

This is why evolution, combined with resistance and civil disobedience on an individual or group scale is a more productive, peaceful, long term and possibly permanent solution that revolution ever was or will be…if there is to be real change long term.

That Said

“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.”  Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric

Is there ever a time when revolution is both justified and likely to produce the desired results for the majority?

Men such as Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Malcolm X, and others, from both the right and left sides of politics, have debated when and if revolution is justified. John Locke wrote that revolution was justified if and when the government betrayed the purpose for what it as created: to act for the good of the people to preserve and protect their rights to life, , person, liberty and property.

If a government conducts human rights violations, restricts freedom of the press, restricts their freedom of association, assembly and speech, subjects the people to arbitrary arrest or random search and seizure, silences criticism of the government or controls the avenues of news and information, when a government takes their rightfully owned property, targets select groups of persons for arrest and discrimination, denies select groups their equal rights under the law or equal application of the law, and when all other avenues have been tried and failed, then it can be argued that the people are justified in revolution.

If a government has deliberately and intentionally undermined democratic  procedures such as preventing people from voting, interfering in the election process, misinformation to control the outcome of an election, or promote policies that undermine the equal application of the law or undermine equality under the law, the people, having tried all other means of reform to correct the problem and failed, can justify a revolution, so long as that revolution would not result in anarchy, a collapse of society in general or dismantle the natural rights of the people, male and female alike.

Interestingly

“It is unusual,” said Cristina, “for a revolution to call for fewer rights for people, not more.”  Cassandra Clare

The recent attempted insurrection in the US against the national election by the political right, a major conservative party and a sitting president, promoted as a “revolution for freedom” by those who participated in it, encouraged it, aided and abetted it, does not meet the criteria for a justified revolution, but instead meets the definitions of intentional election violence (as seen in other fragile democracies), an attempted coup, terrorism and domestic terrorism. Indeed, if we look at what they hoped to achieve, if we examine many of the complaints they offered, we can see that the intent was not to ensure the civil rights of all citizens and expand access to self-government, but was to limit the freedoms and rights of select citizens, limit their access to government and the election process, deny them equal due process, deny equal application of the law, and reduce or do away with the separation of church and state.

The people of the US, even those incited to insurrection, deserve better, but only by understanding the myths of revolution and the differences between rights for a few and the rights of humanity will we understand the wisdom of evolution and the dangers of revolution.

© 2018 Eschate

(1) To aid in understanding the position this article is taking, I am using the following definitions, all from Chambers Dictionary and the on-line Google dictionary:
Revolution: a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system
Rebellion: an act of armed resistance to an established government or leader; the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention
Resistance: the refusal to accept or comply with something; a secret organization resisting authority, especially in an occupied country
Secession: the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state
Coup: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government
Terrorism: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims
Domestic terrorism: the committing of terrorist acts in the perpetrator’s own country against their fellow citizens
Reformation: the action or process of reforming an institution or practice
(2) mindset: “Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation
(3) Was it a coup? No, but siege on US Capitol was the election violence of a fragile democracy, January  2021, Clayton Besaw and Matthew Frank

Related articles of Interest

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm  Second Treatise of Government, John Locke

It goes back to “Those who don’t remember history are condemned to repeat it”… humans repeat these things because humans get “lazy’- they look to someone else to do the weary work of governing and taking of the responsibility of governing- instead of spending the time required to study a candidate, or thinking about the issues and their impact on others, instead of self-examination and self-improvement or growth, too many of them look for a person/group/political party who best espouses their fears or panders to their prejudices…the person who promises to make them “top dog” and who appeals to their egos…to be a free person requires thought, study, reflection, empathy, and conquering the fearful toddler inside the brain- and we don’t teach people that sort of thing anymore.

So a government requires less and less civic participation from the people, less and less self-education, less and less critical thinking, and teach less and less civic responsibility and knowledge to fewer and fewer- and we end up with a president like Trump. Because as people understand less and less they become more vulnerable to the rabble-rouser, the populist, the authoritarian figure promising they can abnegate their responsibilities to each other and to posterity, promising they can be the ones who have more rights than others if they just sell their minds to those grabbing power; the people become incapable of analyzing the messaging and deceit behind political rhetoric or religious rhetoric and enslave themselves to the very people they ought to reject the most. And even when those seeking power make it clear they have utter contempt for the citizens below them, those same citizens still hand them power over the people, the nation, the economy, the resources, the very rights of the people…. and that is why history repeats and repeats:

1) the people for whom it matters most begin to care less and know less and understand less
2) “bread and circuses” becomes more important than civic duty and responsibility

Human nature, in other words. So change that nature by educating it, refining its understanding, preparing it for responsibility and participation, and training; teach self-discipline, duty and responsibility, make merit more important than money, praise character over wealth and celebrity, make intelligence and knowledge something to be admired, not sneered at; make the concepts of equality, egalitarianism and unity something that is admired rather than always showcasing the greedy, the selfish and the cruel…and start presenting positive media that showcases humanitarian, contributing people exhibiting positive behaviors and words rather than feeding people a steady diet of the lowest and the base as “reality”

– and yes, evolution and reformation is a slow, “boring” process- but it is the only way to change humans and make them let go of their toddler self and grow into functional adults

 History is not just the story of failures; it is also the hidden story of the moments humans have tried to better their societies- but too often, those stories are rejected from the history books by the very people with agendas served by not teaching us there are other possibilities

 Humans can do better- they simply choose not to, because it serves those who would be tyrants to keep the people ignorant and afraid and less educated than they could or should be.

I question if we can find any “revolution movement” in the modern world that gains easy traction that is not led by the absolute worst sort of men- men who lie, deceive, manipulate, play to the worst in human nature, play to extremism and play to the most base human prejudices and bigotries and often, religious manias.

And sadly, in most cases, those these master wanna-bes are appealing to those who think they will be “top dogs”, not realizing that in an authoritarian, extremist government, there are only the few- the very few- in power at the top and everybody else at the bottom, snarling and biting each other for the crumbs these “top dogs” throw them, each cur believing he will be welcome at the top table one day if he obeys- or cowering in the back room waiting for scraps- the education of the oppressed is brutal and ugly