Revolutions begin with a NO and they end with a YES. Revolutions begin when you say NO to those who claim to have power over you, and revolutions end when you accept a new status quo, a new normal, whether that new normal is an improvement or not. The causes of revolution are numerous in form, but there is one common root, and that’s discontent. Discontent is the emotion that builds and builds under the surface, it is a storm which brews in the mind of the people, just waiting to be unleashed. The trouble is that it is much easier to unleash that storm than it is to get people in agreement as to what should come next. It’s not easy to get people to see eye to eye regarding what needs to happen after the current system falls. So this is usually put off, or avoided altogether. This is a serious mistake. Without clear objectives, chaos usually sets in soon after the old regime falls, and then in the power vacuum that is created a tyrant rises to bring order. As a result the systems that follow revolutions are often just as totalitarian or more totalitarian than those that they replace. It should therefore be abundantly obvious that discontent is a not sufficient driving force for a revolution, that is if your goal is actually to leave a better world for your children and grandchildren. In order for an upheaval to have positive results it must be driven by a clear and realistic vision, a vision that accounts for the world and humans the way they actually are right now, not the way we wish they would be or hope that they might be, and it must differentiate between that which can and cannot be changed in the short term. There is nothing more dangerous that armed men with utopian dreams. So let’s be realistic shall we? We the people are divided. We have divided ourselves into classes and subclasses, liberals, and conservatives, libertarians, anarchists, socialists, anarcho-socialists, minarchists, state based free market capitalists, anarcho-capitalists, Resource Based Economy advocates and more. There is absolutely no chance that any one of you is going to convince all of the others that your way is the right way, unless of course one of you rises to political power in the fray and enforces your beliefs by the barrel of a gun. This is the way it usually happens throughout history, and this is what we must avoid repeating. A movement is only successful if it starts with an idea that is strong enough to take root in the mind of the population and inspires and motivates people to spread it. It is possible for a diverse and divided people to form a coalition in times of great need and unify around an idea, but it only works if that idea that meets the following 3 requirements: 1. It must articulate a clear and defined common interest which will allow the people to work together. The necessity for unification, even if that unification is temporary, needs to be evident to all stakeholders and it must be accompanied by a sense of urgency which impels people to reach out to others in their community and spread the idea. 2. A clear vision of what you are working towards. What are you going to replace the current system with? Ironing out the fine details isn’t actually productive. What’s needed is a broad, and abstract vision based on principles. In human societies extreme and abrupt changes are usually destructive. All efforts must be made to retain social stability and this means steering clear of any sort of utopian phantasies. The time to rewire humanity is NOT during a period crisis. Historically such attempts usually end in tragedy. 3. A plan of action, and a clear understanding of the rules of engagement. We’ll refer to these three elements collectively as the conscious revolution paradigm.You don’t have to get mystical about it, it just means think before you act. Let’s start with the common interest. Establishing our common interest is easy if you are informed and if the people around you aren’t informed then your job is clear: inform them. Whether you consider yourself liberal or conservative or none of the above the bankers and corporations which hold the puppet strings of the state have placed us all on a path that leads to complete and total destruction. Our common interest is the world we are leaving our children. The clear vision of what we are working towards is much harder. Again there is nothing more dangerous that armed men with utopian dreams, and there’s no greater symptom of utopianism than the illusion that we can convince the entire world to accept one monolithic belief system. Yet at the same time all great movements are driven by an idea, they are driven by a vision. How do we resolve this apparent contradiction? How do we find a common vision without falling for the naive phantasy that we can unify all world views? The answer is actually pretty simple, and that’s a good thing, because only very simple ideas can be transmitted from person to person without breaking down. Our vision must start with the foundational understanding that there is not one single right way for humans to live on this planet, and that it is unacceptable to force others into any system without their consent, or to use violence or coercion to compel them to obey a set of rules that they never agreed to. That should be common sense, but it’s really not for most people.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 11:22:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015