#5½: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... YEEEAAH..."
September 15, 2014 7:23 PM Subscribe
"10 Lessons From Real-Life Revolutions That Fictional Dystopias Ignore"...because sometimes the biggest problems with Science Fiction is less 'getting the Science wrong' and more 'getting the Social Science wrong'.
My high school history teacher had us read the book "The Anatomy of Revolution", and it was truly amazing. I strongly recommend it.
One very important thing I came away with from that book: the Proletariat doesn't commit revolution. Revolution is a sport of the Bourgeois.
People don't rise up in revolution when they have nothing. It's people who are already comfortable and afraid of losing what they already have who commit revolution.
And that's why I never took Marxist dogma seriously.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:52 PM on September 15, 2014 [13 favorites]
One very important thing I came away with from that book: the Proletariat doesn't commit revolution. Revolution is a sport of the Bourgeois.
People don't rise up in revolution when they have nothing. It's people who are already comfortable and afraid of losing what they already have who commit revolution.
And that's why I never took Marxist dogma seriously.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:52 PM on September 15, 2014 [13 favorites]
Hey, I got at least one of these right in my YA dystopia!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:23 PM on September 15, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:23 PM on September 15, 2014 [5 favorites]
"Revolution is a sport of the Bourgeois."
I'd take it one further: Revolution is the sport of bourgeois lawyers. The time to get worried is when lawyers are unemployed.
And yeah, from the article, SF dystopias always seem to miss the importance of mothers, children, and food in driving revolutions.
Americans had a rather unique revolution where a not-great British management with a mad king fell to a pretty good, actually, bunch of self-made men of letters who sorted it out without too much crazy and picked a good first president who comported himself in a statesman-like fashion. It took less than a decade from declaring war in 1776 to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the mother country in 1785. American authors always have such happy endings to their revolutions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:32 PM on September 15, 2014 [13 favorites]
I'd take it one further: Revolution is the sport of bourgeois lawyers. The time to get worried is when lawyers are unemployed.
And yeah, from the article, SF dystopias always seem to miss the importance of mothers, children, and food in driving revolutions.
Americans had a rather unique revolution where a not-great British management with a mad king fell to a pretty good, actually, bunch of self-made men of letters who sorted it out without too much crazy and picked a good first president who comported himself in a statesman-like fashion. It took less than a decade from declaring war in 1776 to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the mother country in 1785. American authors always have such happy endings to their revolutions.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:32 PM on September 15, 2014 [13 favorites]
When we studied what was called the American War of Independence in school in Australia the takeaway was mostly 'Americans will do anything to get out of paying taxes'.
posted by um at 10:54 PM on September 15, 2014 [26 favorites]
posted by um at 10:54 PM on September 15, 2014 [26 favorites]
Eyebrows McGee (or anyone) - Why are lawyers so important for revolution? I haven't heard that before.
posted by amtho at 4:02 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by amtho at 4:02 AM on September 16, 2014
I'm guessing it's because they are educated, know enough about the law to get worked up when they think it's being subverted, probably have enough free time to talk about it with other lawyers, and have some amount of money and ideals (not necessarily good ones).
posted by X-Himy at 4:18 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by X-Himy at 4:18 AM on September 16, 2014
A counterpoint to the "revolution is a sport of the bourgeois" claim: "Broke but Unbroken".
posted by eviemath at 5:21 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 5:21 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
The Top Guy Isn't Always the Problem
In fact, one of the reasons that early European modernisers often supported strong monarchies (which can seem strange to us) is that they wanted a strong king to centralise power in a bureaucracy which could be run by the educated middle class. To do that frequently meant taking power away from conservative rural aristocracies.
posted by atrazine at 5:57 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
In fact, one of the reasons that early European modernisers often supported strong monarchies (which can seem strange to us) is that they wanted a strong king to centralise power in a bureaucracy which could be run by the educated middle class. To do that frequently meant taking power away from conservative rural aristocracies.
posted by atrazine at 5:57 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
This seems, especially, to be a problem with a lot of YA books.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:57 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by Thorzdad at 5:57 AM on September 16, 2014
There have also been kings who supported the cause of justice and attempted reform, only to be stopped by a large group of people who had enough power and wealth to topple the monarchy more quickly than peasants could.
Obama administration anyone?
I feel like the Black Company books got these right generally, and US foreign policy in the Middle East doesn't...
posted by Foosnark at 6:27 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Obama administration anyone?
I feel like the Black Company books got these right generally, and US foreign policy in the Middle East doesn't...
posted by Foosnark at 6:27 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
The biggest problem I have with dystopian fiction nowadays is the depressing comparison with our actual dystopian present.
posted by norm at 6:50 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by norm at 6:50 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
what a great article! I too find a lot of the "revolutionary" stories and games I consume to fail miserably along most of these points.
posted by rebent at 6:52 AM on September 16, 2014
posted by rebent at 6:52 AM on September 16, 2014
In fact, one of the reasons that early European modernisers often supported strong monarchies (which can seem strange to us) is that they wanted a strong king to centralise power in a bureaucracy which could be run by the educated middle class. To do that frequently meant taking power away from conservative rural aristocracies.
Tangential counterpoint: The aristocracy of Ragusa/Dubrovnik used hilariously short term limits - like, six months - in order to maintain their hold on the city.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:59 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Tangential counterpoint: The aristocracy of Ragusa/Dubrovnik used hilariously short term limits - like, six months - in order to maintain their hold on the city.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:59 AM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Revolution is the sport of bourgeois lawyers. The time to get worried is when lawyers are unemployed.
*buys Pakistani-revolution futures on the double-quick*
posted by psoas at 7:04 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
*buys Pakistani-revolution futures on the double-quick*
posted by psoas at 7:04 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
Good article, but I have a couple of nitpicks:
And if a whole family can't be deified, perhaps one member of it can. The myth of the young Anastasia surviving the deaths of her royal family lingered for decades - and spawned multiple impostors and multiple movies so people could ooh and ah over the lost world of Russian royalty.
Uh, the entire goddam family has been canonized.
Louis XVI, known today as the husband of Marie Antoinette but known in the 1700s as the king of France
what
posted by languagehat at 7:12 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
And if a whole family can't be deified, perhaps one member of it can. The myth of the young Anastasia surviving the deaths of her royal family lingered for decades - and spawned multiple impostors and multiple movies so people could ooh and ah over the lost world of Russian royalty.
Uh, the entire goddam family has been canonized.
Louis XVI, known today as the husband of Marie Antoinette but known in the 1700s as the king of France
what
posted by languagehat at 7:12 AM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
what
I SAID, "LOUIS XVI, KNOWN TODAY AS THE HUSBAND OF..."
No, seriously, the joke is that far more people in the English-speaking world are aware of Marie Antoinette than of King Louis XVI. I'd say that's true, even if the joke itself is pretty awkward.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:26 AM on September 16, 2014 [6 favorites]
I SAID, "LOUIS XVI, KNOWN TODAY AS THE HUSBAND OF..."
No, seriously, the joke is that far more people in the English-speaking world are aware of Marie Antoinette than of King Louis XVI. I'd say that's true, even if the joke itself is pretty awkward.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:26 AM on September 16, 2014 [6 favorites]
Great list. Numbers 3 and 5 are especially important to remember. The Iranian Revolution was an uprising against an oppressive dictatorship. There were lots of Socialists and Communists, in addition to all sorts of secular and Islamic groups, rising against the state. Once the Shah was toppled, Khomeini's crew crushed all the idealists and forged a theocracy.
All the "patriots" on the right and revolutionaries on the left advocating uprising in the US appear to believe that they'll end up on top, but I'd put pretty solid odds on a second American revolution becoming more like Atwood's Gilead than the rural libertarian or urban socialist utopias they seem to imagine. There's been enough Dominionist infiltration of the armed forces and government, as well as general evangelical indoctrination of the general populace, to push us over into a Christian theocracy.
posted by Lighthammer at 7:48 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
All the "patriots" on the right and revolutionaries on the left advocating uprising in the US appear to believe that they'll end up on top, but I'd put pretty solid odds on a second American revolution becoming more like Atwood's Gilead than the rural libertarian or urban socialist utopias they seem to imagine. There's been enough Dominionist infiltration of the armed forces and government, as well as general evangelical indoctrination of the general populace, to push us over into a Christian theocracy.
posted by Lighthammer at 7:48 AM on September 16, 2014 [8 favorites]
The Mars's series (red/green/blue) spend a lot of time on the social aspects of a new planet's revolution/rejection of Earth, and all the politics etc involved thereof.
posted by k5.user at 9:05 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by k5.user at 9:05 AM on September 16, 2014 [4 favorites]
Eyebrows McGee: "Revolution is a sport of the Bourgeois."Gandhi was a lawyer.
I'd take it one further: Revolution is the sport of bourgeois lawyers. The time to get worried is when lawyers are unemployed.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:27 PM on September 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Gandhi is the exception that proved the rule, kinda.
I still scoff at anyone who considers the Magna Carta a big victory for Liberty in general. It did diddly for the little people, just passed power from the centralized Monarchy to the local Aristocracy. A great example for those who though the American Revolution was so great, though.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:47 PM on September 16, 2014
I still scoff at anyone who considers the Magna Carta a big victory for Liberty in general. It did diddly for the little people, just passed power from the centralized Monarchy to the local Aristocracy. A great example for those who though the American Revolution was so great, though.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:47 PM on September 16, 2014
I still scoff at anyone who considers the Magna Carta a big victory for Liberty in general. It did diddly for the little people, just passed power from the centralized Monarchy to the local Aristocracy. A great example for those who though the American Revolution was so great, though.
It enshrined the concept that there is a law higher than the king which is does not stem from the church. It created a weapon that would later become significantly useful in expanding rights to those outside the aristocracy, and not incidentally, by creating a situation where the interests of the formerly absolute monarchs and his nobility were directly opposed to each other (the Magna Carta opened an era of increasing attempts by the nobles to devolve power onto their regional holdings from the Plantagenets) also increased the monarchy's need to seek allies to oppose powerful regional lords, which led to further development of a bureaucratic, rules-based governing and judicial system.
Social evolution is complicated. The American Revolution achieved a great deal (formal democracy which expanded, over the next forty years, from purely property-holder franchises to most of the white population, application of the concept of human rights grounded in human nature as the formally underlying ideology of a functioning state, which could lately be taken up on behalf of non-white and female members of society). Tools forged to protect or enable one element of society often evolve, in time, to be utilized by others. The Anglo-American Revolutionary tradition is hardly perfect or universally useful, but even when you include the English Civil War and Cromwell's Irish massacres, as well as the later American Civil War, it's not really bloodier than the French and Russian continental revolutionary legacies, and has held up at least as well in its long-term effects.
posted by AdamCSnider at 12:59 PM on September 16, 2014 [10 favorites]
It enshrined the concept that there is a law higher than the king which is does not stem from the church. It created a weapon that would later become significantly useful in expanding rights to those outside the aristocracy, and not incidentally, by creating a situation where the interests of the formerly absolute monarchs and his nobility were directly opposed to each other (the Magna Carta opened an era of increasing attempts by the nobles to devolve power onto their regional holdings from the Plantagenets) also increased the monarchy's need to seek allies to oppose powerful regional lords, which led to further development of a bureaucratic, rules-based governing and judicial system.
Social evolution is complicated. The American Revolution achieved a great deal (formal democracy which expanded, over the next forty years, from purely property-holder franchises to most of the white population, application of the concept of human rights grounded in human nature as the formally underlying ideology of a functioning state, which could lately be taken up on behalf of non-white and female members of society). Tools forged to protect or enable one element of society often evolve, in time, to be utilized by others. The Anglo-American Revolutionary tradition is hardly perfect or universally useful, but even when you include the English Civil War and Cromwell's Irish massacres, as well as the later American Civil War, it's not really bloodier than the French and Russian continental revolutionary legacies, and has held up at least as well in its long-term effects.
posted by AdamCSnider at 12:59 PM on September 16, 2014 [10 favorites]
Gandhi is the exception that proved the rule, kinda.
Castro was a lawyer. Lenin was a lawyer's assistant. That's it from the top of my head. There must be more.
Other revolutionaries I can think of had been soldiers, spies, machinists, pastry chefs, line managers at GM, attachés, and so on.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:15 PM on September 16, 2014
Castro was a lawyer. Lenin was a lawyer's assistant. That's it from the top of my head. There must be more.
Other revolutionaries I can think of had been soldiers, spies, machinists, pastry chefs, line managers at GM, attachés, and so on.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:15 PM on September 16, 2014
Gore Vidal's novel Burr: (paraphrase) "Nobody really wants a revolution. The only people who want a revolution are some ambitious New York Lawyers."
posted by ovvl at 5:33 PM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 5:33 PM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
"Why are lawyers so important for revolution?"
Revolutions tend to have organizers and leaders who come from the more educated classes -- typically professionals, who worked their way up and have reasonable money but not (a lot of) inherited money and aren't noble/elite. Your great mass of serfs or slaves or peasants are a) too beaten down and exhausted to get riled up and b) often don't have the organizational skills and c) often don't have the knowledge of the levers of power and how to do damage to them. Lawyers are uniquely well-positioned among professionals to put voice to revolutionary issues, as they argue professionally, practice rhetoric, and spend a lot of time thinking about justice and law. Lawyers are less-likely to suffer retaliation from the state violence apparatus (at least early in the revolution). (It's also why revolutions depend so heavily on idealistic young students.) Lawyers also make their living off the state and its legal apparatus, so they have a strong incentive not to notice that it sucks balls; when lawyers start to reject the state as unjust, whether because of its abuses or because of economic failure, that's a sign that the cancer in society has spread pretty far.
(Discomfort with the fact that academics and professionals are trying to lead the proletariat serfs into revolution, rather than the serfs themselves leading, is a recurring motif in writings by Russian communist revolutionaries in their letters to each other -- they recognized the inconsistency, but also knew that you can't start a revolution without dedicated organizers.)
About half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers (including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and John Jay); here's a prior ask discussing the role of lawyers in the French Revolution (disproportionately large -- 400 of 663 in the "Third Estate"); the Glorious Revolution in England has been called the "triumph of lawyers over the king"; the various German revolutions of 1848 largely elected local/regional parliaments dominated by lawyers; Gandhi, as noted, was a lawyer; Fidel Castro was a lawyer; Nelson Mandela was a lawyer; Lenin was a lawyer (although, yeah, mostly worked as an assistant); Karl Marx's father made him go to law school although he was never a lawyer.
(Many notable Reformation-era Protestant leaders also were lawyers or had significant legal training -- Martin Luther (dad made him go to law school), John Knox, John Calvin, etc. -- for much the same reasons.)
Here's a paper on it (PDF) looking at the Glorious Revolution, American Revolution, and French Revolution.
It's also one of the reasons why in-depth news reporting and analysis is typically so interested in whether lawyers in "Arab Spring" areas are coming out to protest, and which groups they're supporting. When lawyers start protesting a dictator in the street, shit's about to get real. When the state can't command the support of its own legal apparatus, and the middle-class members of that legal apparatus are willing to lose their livelihoods over it, the state is so delegitimized that collapse is a very real possibility.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:07 PM on September 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
Revolutions tend to have organizers and leaders who come from the more educated classes -- typically professionals, who worked their way up and have reasonable money but not (a lot of) inherited money and aren't noble/elite. Your great mass of serfs or slaves or peasants are a) too beaten down and exhausted to get riled up and b) often don't have the organizational skills and c) often don't have the knowledge of the levers of power and how to do damage to them. Lawyers are uniquely well-positioned among professionals to put voice to revolutionary issues, as they argue professionally, practice rhetoric, and spend a lot of time thinking about justice and law. Lawyers are less-likely to suffer retaliation from the state violence apparatus (at least early in the revolution). (It's also why revolutions depend so heavily on idealistic young students.) Lawyers also make their living off the state and its legal apparatus, so they have a strong incentive not to notice that it sucks balls; when lawyers start to reject the state as unjust, whether because of its abuses or because of economic failure, that's a sign that the cancer in society has spread pretty far.
(Discomfort with the fact that academics and professionals are trying to lead the proletariat serfs into revolution, rather than the serfs themselves leading, is a recurring motif in writings by Russian communist revolutionaries in their letters to each other -- they recognized the inconsistency, but also knew that you can't start a revolution without dedicated organizers.)
About half of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers (including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and John Jay); here's a prior ask discussing the role of lawyers in the French Revolution (disproportionately large -- 400 of 663 in the "Third Estate"); the Glorious Revolution in England has been called the "triumph of lawyers over the king"; the various German revolutions of 1848 largely elected local/regional parliaments dominated by lawyers; Gandhi, as noted, was a lawyer; Fidel Castro was a lawyer; Nelson Mandela was a lawyer; Lenin was a lawyer (although, yeah, mostly worked as an assistant); Karl Marx's father made him go to law school although he was never a lawyer.
(Many notable Reformation-era Protestant leaders also were lawyers or had significant legal training -- Martin Luther (dad made him go to law school), John Knox, John Calvin, etc. -- for much the same reasons.)
Here's a paper on it (PDF) looking at the Glorious Revolution, American Revolution, and French Revolution.
It's also one of the reasons why in-depth news reporting and analysis is typically so interested in whether lawyers in "Arab Spring" areas are coming out to protest, and which groups they're supporting. When lawyers start protesting a dictator in the street, shit's about to get real. When the state can't command the support of its own legal apparatus, and the middle-class members of that legal apparatus are willing to lose their livelihoods over it, the state is so delegitimized that collapse is a very real possibility.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:07 PM on September 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
Gandhi was a lawyer.
Gandhi is the exception that proved the rule, kinda.
If the rule is "Revolution is the sport of bourgeois lawyers," Gandhi is a typical example. Born into the merchant caste, became a lawyer in England, aided the civil rights movement in South Africa, then started a revolution in India. Sure he used nonviolent resistance instead of typical warfare tactics, but his goal was the same as any revolutionary.
posted by Rangi at 10:09 PM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
Gandhi is the exception that proved the rule, kinda.
If the rule is "Revolution is the sport of bourgeois lawyers," Gandhi is a typical example. Born into the merchant caste, became a lawyer in England, aided the civil rights movement in South Africa, then started a revolution in India. Sure he used nonviolent resistance instead of typical warfare tactics, but his goal was the same as any revolutionary.
posted by Rangi at 10:09 PM on September 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
For that matter, Nehru was also a lawyer.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:15 AM on September 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:15 AM on September 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Koča, Tempo, and Boris Furlan were prominent Yugoslav revolutionaries with legal backgrounds.
Koča was an interesting cat. He was a Surrealist, in Breton's social circle. Here's an admittedly slanted Radio Free Europe bit from 1966 which mocks him for being a "tough Eastern proletariat raised by Western governesses", while also accurately recognizing him as a well-educated, multilingual general and politician. Radio Free Europe of course had a vested interest in simultaneously praising and undermining Yugoslav officials.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:45 AM on September 17, 2014
Koča was an interesting cat. He was a Surrealist, in Breton's social circle. Here's an admittedly slanted Radio Free Europe bit from 1966 which mocks him for being a "tough Eastern proletariat raised by Western governesses", while also accurately recognizing him as a well-educated, multilingual general and politician. Radio Free Europe of course had a vested interest in simultaneously praising and undermining Yugoslav officials.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:45 AM on September 17, 2014
oneswellfoop: Gandhi is the exception that proved the rule, kinda.Gandhi follows the rule. He was a lawyer before committing himself full-time to fomenting revolution.
An exception to prove the rule would have to be a revolution sans lawyers. Perhaps if it happened at Antarctica - or the Caine Mutiny?
posted by IAmBroom at 10:11 AM on September 17, 2014
Or perhaps you are thinking of "revolution" too narrowly, as a phenomenon that follows one particular and militaristic Western model rather than as any social transformation that radically alters the basis and locus of power within a society.
If your revolutionary social movement envisions a different power structure entirely, not just a change of actors within essentially the same power structure, then "winning" a revolution is going to look very different. Specifically, if your goal is a more directly democratic distribution of power, then the new structure will include people who used to be in positions of power in the old structure - not as continuing bureaucrats or technocrats; but this sort of revolution has less clarity than a coup.
If your ideology entails a concentration of power into different and fewer hands, then "winning a revolution" gets more obvious again; but then we also have to talk about the backgrounds of all the various military coup leaders and brutal dictators throughout history, no?
posted by eviemath at 3:47 AM on September 19, 2014
If your revolutionary social movement envisions a different power structure entirely, not just a change of actors within essentially the same power structure, then "winning" a revolution is going to look very different. Specifically, if your goal is a more directly democratic distribution of power, then the new structure will include people who used to be in positions of power in the old structure - not as continuing bureaucrats or technocrats; but this sort of revolution has less clarity than a coup.
If your ideology entails a concentration of power into different and fewer hands, then "winning a revolution" gets more obvious again; but then we also have to talk about the backgrounds of all the various military coup leaders and brutal dictators throughout history, no?
posted by eviemath at 3:47 AM on September 19, 2014
« Older I ain't sure it's puddin'. | "A Complicated Grief" Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
The Top Guy Isn't Always the Problem
I'm not gonna be specific here, because I don't want to spoil anything, but this is a recurring theme in The Dagger and the Coin. It's epic fantasy, not a dystopia, but it's really social science fiction that happens to be in a fantastic setting.
Two Downtrodden Groups Will Usually Be Fighting Each Other
A friend of mine once pointed out that he liked the later Mass Effect games somewhat less than the first one because instead of fighting robots you are mostly fighting mercenary gangs. "They're just kids from the wrong side of the tracks," he said, and it was pretty much true, if you trace back the worldbuilding to see where the thousands of disposable mercs you end up shooting your way through over the course of the series. You spend almost all of that game fighting through the lower-class pawns of upper-class people, who you occasionally can even arrest instead of killing, but the game doesn't encourage you to actually THINK about this, it's a gameplay/story separation thing, and it's super creepy when you actually think about it. This also makes me think of Batman, who used all those resources to go and fight street-level crime.
This is actually one of the things that I thought was really well-done in Harry Potter, which isn't really a dystopia but sure looks like one from the 5th book onward: the Voldemort is really good at pitting everyone against each other, and ultimately the fact that this divisiveness is also at work in his ranks is what leads to his downfall.
Hunger Games does this well, too, with the "career" districts being set up above their fellows and then used as shock troops.
posted by NoraReed at 8:42 PM on September 15, 2014 [6 favorites]