I will start my blogging career with this post. I had considered naming my blog Awaiting the Revolution but decided not to because it might be confusing, since the rest of the site is The Midnight Hunter. So what about this revolution? What revolution? And why wait for it?
You might think that as an Historian, I could be referring to the American Revolution, but that would be silly since it happened two and a quarter centuries ago, so there’s not much need to wait for it. Or you might think that as a Socialist, I could be referring to some revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system. Here you would be a little bit closer, but I refer to something larger than even that. The world, or at least America, today stands ripe for change, and not just some evolutionary minor adjustments, but truly revolutionary change.
Change seems to be a popular word these days; popular enough to risk becoming cliché. But for all the talk of change, all the demands for change, all the declarations of change, not much seems to be actually changing. At least, that is, changing for the better. In fact there has been significant change over the past few decades and none of it good. More people are uninsured; more people are under-employed; more people are over-educated. Our infrastructure deteriorates at a frightening pace, our schools, our highways, our airports and our planet are increasingly overcrowded. Our warms, our seas rise, our farmland and wilderness disappear beneath acres of asphalt, all with alarming speed.
And yet, despite years of debate, argument and protest, despite promises upon promises of change, nothing has reversed these worrisome trends. One could blame Mr. Fukuyama and his End of History theory, but I am no fan of his. Socialism is far from dead and capitalism’s star shines much less brightly these days as banks go bust weekly and unemployment soars. A future such as that envisioned by Mr. Fukuyama, in which no one challenges the ‘accepted norms’ of political and economic reality, would inevitably degenerate into a dystopian hell that would look very much like… well, very much like the world we live in now where everyone demands change and yet no one seems to be able to actually achieve it. The famous popular definition of insanity comes to mind: doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results.
This is exactly why I believe the world is ripe for change, true change; revolution. The changes we haven’t been able to stop; climate change, economic decline, social disengagement, are on the verge of making the world we’ve lived in simply no long viable. Change will come not because people want it too. In fact, many of those most loudly demanding change fear actual change more than anything. But true revolutionary change will come simply because it has to come. There is no possibility of maintaining the status quo ad infinitum. It is just not an option.
“So,” you ask, “why wait for it? Why not get off your ass and do something to make it happen?”
Well. I’m not young enough, or healthy enough, or wealthy enough, for that matter, to go rollicking around the country protesting in the streets, engaging in acts of non-violent resistence, etc… Besides, the type of waiting I’m referring to is not the passive, sit and stare at the walls type of waiting. Quite the contrary. The Biblical parable of the ten bridesmaids comes to mind(Matthew 25: 1-13). In the parable, the five bridesmaids who squander their ‘waiting time’ miss out on the party, while those who take time to prepare for the eventual arrival of the bridegroom are rewarded.
This is the type of waiting I am referring too. Keeping watch. Keeping an open mind. Looking out for real, revolutionary change, not the tired, meaningless clichés we are constantly fed.
Until the revolution, yours,
T. E. Tyler