You Say You Want A Revolution

This past week I was watching some video taken during the Occupy Movement’s demonstrations in Washington DC. The key video is below with the poster’s description.

Occupy DC protesters tried to force entry into the Washington Convention Center on Friday, where Americans for Prosperity was hosting its “Defending the American Dream Summit.” The protesters also formed roadblocks, surrounding the convention center and only allowing non-luxury cars to pass.

What struck me most about this footage was the sheer naiveté of the protestors. I think that this is in fact one of the key issues of our time and needs to be addressed.  In my writings on metaphysics, I explore the three types of reality: Objective Reality, the world that is, Subjective Reality, the world as we perceive it, and the Artificial Reality, the world humans have created. What we see here is a crisis in Artificial Reality.

Imagine a snowy day but you are nice and warm in your heated home padding about wearing next to nothing. This is Artificial Reality. A huge and complex chain of events has made possible the luxury of heated accommodation that you take for granted, but the grim truth is that without the thousands of links that comprise the supply chain you would freeze to death, or at least be less comfortable.

The metaphysical crisis epidemic in our society is that this great machine has become so vast and complex that anyone without a basic knowledge of history and economics has no idea how it functions, is psychologically overwhelmed, and emotionally unprepared. To them, the act of simply turning on the heat creates the heat as if by magic. Of course that is not literally true, but in terms of attitudes and behaviours it might as well be.

As you look around your world, you will no doubts see all sorts of things from bottles to books to bed sheets. All these things are the result of human production involving thousands, if not millions, of people. This concept was illustrated in the essay “I, Pencil” by Leonard Read in 1958 which discusses all the various production requirements it takes to produce a pencil. Artificial Reality is just as vast, complex, and interconnected as the ecosystems we find in Objective Reality.

If you were to ask a child where money comes from, the child may answer, “from Dad’s wallet”. In their tiny subjective world this makes perfect sense because that’s where they see it come from. This is their immediate contact with money. They do not understand the labour markets, budgetary constraints, or other complex economic systems that brought that cash to the wallet. If Dad refuses to give his money, this is perceived as an act of refusal rather than what might be an economic necessity.

I believe that our understanding of the three “realities” of the Objective, Subjective, and Artificial is critical and we are constantly balancing the three. For many people the balance is off and too much emphasis is placed on the Subjective. This predominantly subjective orientation to reality produces solipsism where the world is evaluated and acted upon solely on the basis of personal perception, experience, and feelings. They have in essence a child mind and this is what I see in most modern protestors, including the Occupy crowd.

I have identified seven forms of power. Power can be defined as the means by which we work our will in the world. The seven include: characteristic, physical, material, social, legislative, titular, and time. I want to focus here on social power.

When protestors gather they are exerting social power. The more numbers they can produce the more powerful the protest. A large number of people with a singular intent can be a very intimidating force if you are not one of them and a strong visceral event if you are. This makes them dangerous.  It is essentially a show of force and a threat. That is what a protest is, whether you call it peaceful or otherwise.

Unfortunately, post-1950’s protestors in the West, particularly in America, do not see this fact. In understanding Artificial Reality it is important to recognise a luxury rather than take it for granted. Objective Reality is the norm and anything good beyond the norm is a luxury. So a man-made fire in a cave against the cold is a luxury. Likewise in human conflict the kindness of an oppressor is a luxury and not a moral given. If a child punches an adult man and the man does not respond with physical force, then he is being kind. The child is foolish to think otherwise.

Ghandi and Martin Luther King both successfully used non-violence as a tactic to achieve their goals. People tend not to realise that it was a tactic and one that worked well against the sentiments of the British and American governments respectively. The same tactics would have failed against Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union.  Historically, revolutionary change is achieved through extreme violence. That is the norm and anything better is a luxury.  Modern protestors in the West take the luxury of the non-violent protest for granted as the norm when it is not.

The June Rebellion of 1832 is known to most people through the book and the musical Les Miserable. When the students took to the barricades they did so with rifles in hand and prepared to die for their cause.  Contrast that concept with the Occupy protestors. Their tactic was to harass their fellow citizens. This included those either going to a public gathering, as is their Natural Right and a right as per the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and by blocking traffic, particularly what were deemed luxury cars. The protestors appear to believe that they could engage in these actions with impunity and responded with outrage when their victims did retaliate.  Whereas the students of 1832 fully expected to shoot and to be shot at.  They understood the basic fundamental of action/reaction as any adult brain would.

I’ve seen this same behaviour in footage from protests in London where a pregnant woman was injured by the mounted police and a demonstrator expressed moral outrage. In another video from the same Occupy protest above the camera man is questioning the morality of the protestors bringing children along. He did not challenge the protestors or their right to protest. He was simply pointing-out what I am illustrating here. The reality is that all protests have the potential to cause physical harm. Therefore, it is not a safe place for pregnant women, children, and those who are not prepared to be hurt for their cause, and that harm is in itself a luxury compared with the historical norm where you would possibly be killed protesting your cause.

There are powerful forces at work in world. There are governments who command armed soldiers adept at killing resistors. There are mega-corporations, media moguls, central bankers, and special interest groups who have monetary resources beyond your wildest dreams at their disposal. There are entrenched politicians, adept at manipulations, which use their positions to acquire vast wealth and influence. All these forces are aligned to promote their agenda and the status quo. Then you have your fellow citizens who just want to live peaceful, productive, and plentiful lives – yes, the “comfort zone” is also a powerful force.

In the face of this you have a growing number of people calling for revolution. The most visible are those belonging to a protest subculture dating back to the 60’s. These are people who enjoy the thrill and group dynamic of protesting. They hold up their signs, make outrageous demands, harass anyone in their way, and then go home patting themselves on the back on how they are changing the world. More and more we see people joining this subculture who find that vandalism is also fun and they can get away with it because of the perceived moral imperative of their cause.

Looking back over the history of this protest subculture we find that they have been amazingly ineffective. This is not hard to believe given their naiveté. They are successful in expressing their opinions, but not in changing the world. They did not end the Viet Nam War, the Cold War, the Gulf War, or the current wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. They have not changed monetary policy or even affected grand social change through their protests.  For the men and women in power playing Risk or Monopoly on the global scale, the concerns of protestors means nothing unless it serves their interests.

A common trend seen over the last century is illustrated by protests against short-haul railway fares in the United States during the 1890’s.  For long-haul fares multiple operators brought fares down due to competition, however for short-haul there was sometimes only a single operator in a particular area and this made fares more expensive.  In answer to the protests against high local fares the United States government created the Interstate Commerce Commission to address the problem.  The victorious protestors, satisfied that the issue was now sorted, moved on to other concerns.  Thomas Cooley, a lawyer for the railroad industry, was named the first ICC commissioner in charge of regulating the railroad industry.  The solution to the fares issue was to raise the costs of long-haul travel to match local levels thus increasing the corporate profits for the long-haul railroad companies.

The pattern is this.  People protest something in society that they do not like, if government takes notice they agree to create an agency for dealing with the problem, the protesters see this as a victory and move on because they have no real vested interest in problem, and then those who do have a vested interest, such as the companies and industries affected by the problem, move into the newly created government agency and regulate themselves to their benefit and against the interests of potential competition and the public at large.  So when the protesters “win”; they loose.

Where the protest subculture has succeeded is in promoting their ideology in the fields of education, media, and politics, but once there they are subject to the same social and market forces that they preach against and thus are perceived as hypocrites biting the hand that feeds them, but still taking the food and becoming very wealthy and influential in the process.

The Occupy Movement has achieved a great deal in raising public awareness and bringing key issues into public debate. Unfortunately, the group lacked any real ideological cohesion; many of those who rallied to the banner had no understanding of the complex social and economic systems of Artificial Reality so they made outrageous and childish demands like, “abolish money”; some engaged in acts of violence and disorder with no achievable goal in mind and with no understanding or accepting of the consequences of those actions. In other words, the movement devolved into a university frat party.

Let’s take a look at a couple of true revolutionaries, Lenin and Trotsky. They were chess players. The people of the Occupy Movement would be their pawns, fodder to throw into the fray as foot-soldiers. When Lenin returned from exile to Finland Station he declared that the Communist Revolution was to be non-violent. Why? Because the other side had all the guns. Once he drew a significant portion of the military to his cause, only then did the revolution become violent, as with all revolutions with few exceptions. It is estimated between five to nine million people died in the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War that followed.  The pattern in revolutions is this.  All the small dogs join forces against the big dog.  Once the big dog is defeated they turn on each other.  This is why revolutionary outcomes are so unpredictable and deadly.

So you say you want a revolution. You want to tear down the system. Fine, but remember the system has the guns, the money, the power, the resources, the influence, and it does not want to be torn down.   Also, whatever it is that you are revolting against might just be connected through the interconnected supply chain to something that you either hold dear or are dependent upon.  If you go ahead with the revolution,  first you will be ignored, then you will be ridiculed, and then gassed and beaten. These are all luxuries, acts of kindness and tolerance. Your protests are nothing more than a minor annoyance played for entertainment value on the 24 hour news cycle and then forgotten. If you become too violent, then you will be hunted down and shot as terrorists. Revolutions are not a game or a party, and they don’t end like in the movies.

Successful revolutionaries play it smart. They understand the Artificial Reality and how the world works. They know the resources at their disposal and how to use people and materials coldly and effectively. They adopt whatever tactics are necessary with a full understanding of the effort and sacrifice required, sacrifices that they and their followers are willing to make.

Even then, most successful revolutions fail in the long-term. Lenin’s Soviet Union collapsed after only 72 years. Eighty years after the American colonist fought against a central government authority they fought each other over the same issue. The French Revolution only traded King Louis for Emperor Napoleon.

History demonstrates time and again that real change comes from cultural, social, economic, and legislative evolution, not revolution. But if you want a revolution, at least accept what you’re signing-up for and don’t go crying when you reap what you sow.