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Often, not always. I'm under no illusion that revolutions are bloodless, but I believe that sometimes they are the the only option when system becomes so corru
by ionised 10y ago
Often, not always.
I'm under no illusion that revolutions are bloodless, but I believe that sometimes they are the the only option when system becomes so corrupt and rigged in favour of a small, wealthy, ruling elite.
The French Revolution for example which was grisly as all fuck and the years of instability afterwards can not be understated. Yet I do believe that what eventually came out of it (the French Republic) is far, far better than what came before the people started chopping the heads off the insane, greedy, oppressive aristrocracy.
There are of course counter-examples. The Russian revolution. Though was the revolution itself the problem there, or the people that commandeered it for themselves in the years afterwards (e.g. Stalin)?
I cannot see a way to fix the current system. The populace is so suppressed in ways that are sometimes subtle as fuck. Decades of demagogue politicians playing on fears, dividing the demographics into us-versus-them tribes out for blood, fostering the paranoia and fear of the foreigner, engaging in massive orgies of deregulation of financial services that cause crash after econimic crash, where the average schmuck picks up the bill and those reponsible get to carry on as normal.
Repealing basic services like welfare and healthcare, fostering resentment between age groups, racial groups and classes as a misdirection of attention from the actual cause of our current ills, socially irresponsible banks and financial services that have no tangible value to society other than to move money around.
Intelligence services and police forces focused on inward threats from their own people lest they somehow upset the status quo of funneling up the wealth of nations into the hands of a few oligarchs at the top of the pyramid.
Western democracy is completely fucked. It has been corrupted and made a sick facsimile of what it was intended to be. There is no fixing this system without massive civil unrest, and that impending civil unrest is why (I believe) we are witnessing the insance lurch towards authoritarianism and watering down of basic rights all over Europe and the US, it's those with a lot to lose preparing themselves.
And they are winning. They will continue to fuck us all as long as we keep falling for the whole 'terrorist', 'immigrants', 'paedophile', 'hackers' bullshit as a reason why they must keep taking away our rights and liberties.
We are frogs slowly boiling alive in the cooking pot.
- arethuza 10y agoFrom a discussion of 1984: "beginning with the historical observation that societies always have hierarchically divided themselves into social classes and castes: the High (who rule); the Middle (who work for, and yearn to supplant the High), and the Low (whose goal is quotidian survival). Cyclically, the Middle deposed the High, by enlisting the Low. Upon assuming power, however, the Middle (the new High class) recast the Low into their usual servitude. In the event, the classes perpetually repeat the cycle, when the Middle class speaks to the Low class of "justice" and of "human brotherhood" in aid of becoming the High class rulers." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oligarchical_Collectivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoPeople forget two things when they quote Orwell as evidence for perma-cynicism: 1) Orwell as himself a democratic socialist, writing on behalf of democratic socialism. 2) The level of stratification between high, middle, and low varies massively across time and place. More egalitarian societies have actually existed.
- arethuza 10y agoFor what it's worth I probably have very similar political views to Orwell - my reaction wasn't "perma-cynicism" but deep skepticism that a violent revolution that calls for "culling" and capital punishment would actually make things any better for the average person - just replacing one ruling class with another.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoWell, to go back to cynicism for a moment, I think it partially depends on whether the ruling class has the basic sanity to relinquish enough of their power nonviolently that life for the masses can return to a tolerable norm. The French Revolution did not merely happen because inequality was too severe, but because of the "let them eat cake" attitude on the part of the elite. The English, in contrast, were once-upon-a-time willing to reform their system to reduce inequality rather than suffer yet another civil war.
- arethuza 10y agoI'd have said that the best example of a reform in the UK system was the post-war Attlee government that introduced the NHS. However, that required a desire for change that was driven by the "total war" exertions of WW2.
- Chris2048 10y agoForgive my ignorance, but wasn't "animal farm" by Orwell? What happens to the pigs in the end? The farm seems much happier without them..