Today’s Thinking Allowed included a debate about whether revolutions were inevitable and necessary to really progressive change. Plenty of discussion as to whether the downside of revolution was forever tainted by the totalitarian aftermath of the Russian communist revolution and whether the other revolutions had really created lasting change that was any different than would have evolved anyway.
In terms of “making progress” my natural style of “activism” is one of evolution with and away from existing reality, excluded middles, win-wins etc, and it got me thinking why revolution was unattractive in itself.
It occurred to me that revolution necessarily involves the power of will conflicting with an established order, whether applied with violence or not, and that there should be no reason to suspect an outcome significantly different from evolution, unless the revolutionaries maintain that enforced will to sustain their aims thereafter. Natural evolution itself involves major crises and catastrophes as well as the accumulation of minor mutations. So revolutions, and violent conflicts of other kinds, no doubt trigger releases of action, lifting the lid on repressed potentials, but no reason why the “aims” of any revolution should, have any bearing on the steady state outcome.
Are we not men ? Devo.
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