Dangerous words, those are. We hear a word like "revolution" and alarm bells start going off. Yes, "revolution" is one of those words we think about very specifically or not at all.
Were the subject astronomy, it's a mere circumnavigation of one celestial body around another, like the earth around the sun, or the moon around the earth. Perfectly harmless, and most people know little about astronomy anyway, so it's not important. Were the subject mechanics, well, if we're a horsepower fan, revolutions, as in per minute or second, makes our hearts beat just a little faster. Perfectly harmless, and most people don't know about mechanics anyway, so it's not important. Should we simply approach the word abstractly, any procedure or course or circuit that starts and ends in the same place is a composed of revolutions. Nascar is, in this sense, a perfect example thereof. Perfectly harmless, and most of us don't care much about Nascar, so it's not important. But, this is just the I-don't-think-much-about-it part of the word.
Were there a sudden, marked change in how we design and construct, say, buildings, we could talk about a revolution in architecture. Again, perfectly harmless, and most of us don't know anything about architecture anyway, so it's not important. Move the field of observation ever so slightly from the buildings to those who use them; that is, the society; and all of a sudden, an unexpected, marked change in how we design, organize and operate our interactions with one another makes us very uneasy very quickly. We tend to be afraid of such things, and suddenly, "revolution" becomes an undesirable word. Even though most of us don't know much about society and, following the same reasoning as above, it really shouldn't matter all that much. For some reason, we think it does. The only time we really get involved in using or talking about the word, though, is when governments are involved. It's quite clear: revolutions are not nice at all and should be avoided at all costs ... even if one's own current state of political existence is the result of one. That one was OK, all the rest must be avoided. It's an odd creature that can think so differently about the same thing.
Since I don't want to frighten any of you, and I certainly don't want my American friends stocking up on more guns and ammo than they have already, I'm here to tell you that I'm not talking about that last meaning of the word at all. Too often, revolutions end up being violent, and it has been very precisely documented and soundly analyzed that violent revolutions tend to beget violent societies. If you don't want to believe me, try Chenoweth and Stephan for the whole story. I see little point in trying something again that has never really worked before.
No, if there is going to be any kind of revolution at all -- and as I hope I've been making clear for the past 5+ years and hope to continue doing so in the future -- it can start at only one time and in only one place. Now, and with you.
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