Slow Revolutions?

October 29, 2012

Years ago, studying for my history classes, I kept coming across passages something like this. “That (the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Congress of Vienna, Printing, etc) was a revolution in world history.” That certainly sounded important, so I made sure to remember their names and dates for future quizzes. Later – much later -- I began to wonder, what exactly would life be like, living through such a revolutionary time? And, even more, would we know (and how) that we were in one? In fact, I believe that we are now living in the midst of such a social revolution. The textbooks ( or memory cubes or knowledge capsules or implants) in 2112 or so will probably be telling students that this was a revolutionary time. If that is true, we have an opportunity to find some answers to those questions. What does a revolution look like from within, and (how) can it be recognized?

The first part of the answer is easy. Mostly a revolution in process looks like business as usual. Most of ordinary life, life for Lillian Lieber’s T.C.Mits (“The Celebrated Man in the Street”), continues with little change. There is a line in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” that puts it nicely (though a bit condescendingly). Gandalf the wizard explains it to Frodo more or less like this. “We need to fight secretly so that ordinary people can live their lives undisturbed.” That makes it sound as though revolutions can take place over the heads or behind the backs of the population at large, which I think was once true, but is now in the process of becoming false, at least in relatively highly developed societies.

Is it possible to recognize a social revolution while living through it, and if so, how? I think it is, but to do it first requires putting away the idea that revolutions are sudden. They are in fact, actually, and necessarily, always very slow. History is like a telescope in that it foreshortens the appearance of events; the farther away (or back) you look, the sharper and more sudden the change appears. I suspect that most of think of the Renaissance as a relatively brief period in which Europe awoke after a thousand years of sleep. On the contrary, as Stephen Greenblatt  shows in his wonderful book, “The Swerve,” it developed over a period of more than 200 years. No one saw or even could have seen any systematic difference from one day to the next.

History is not an experience; rather, it is an intellectual discovery or recognition. A revolution is not an experience; it is a cognitive reconceptualization of some past period. What, then, are the elements we would need to find in a “typical” revolution? Presumably, if there is such a thing, we must be able to distinguish it from periods which are not revolutions (and will later be seen as relatively stable). So we should start with the nature of societal change in general. All complex societies are always in the process of changing; it is a condition of modernity. Even the most apparently stable societies are changing, in small ways and large. A “revolution” is therefore necessarily a somewhat arbitrary label, marking a time when the changes were both relatively large and relatively consistent.

I find the most useful way to think about social change, and therefore about revolutions, is in terms of their momentum. An object’s momentum, by definition, is the product of its velocity and its mass. It is essentially a measure of the strength of its tendency to continue on its current path; the greater the momentum, the harder it is to change its course. By analogy, we can say that every social object (system, world, country, etc) has a certain amount of social momentum. As changes take place, that momentum must also change, either in direction (Which way are we headed?) or speed (How fast are things changing?) but most of the time it probably changes in both senses.

In the normal course of events both of these factors are likely to be changing, but by rather small and more-or-less random increments in day-to-day observation.  However, since the ultimate momentum of any system is determined by the combined effect of all these internal movements and forces, the actual overall momentum reflects their combined effects. The net effect can only be confirmed after the ultimate path of the system’s momentum becomes clear. In most circumstances, this will require some time to pass because there is generally likely to be a lot of variability in the actual path of the system.

But in some circumstances, that path will be clear and consistent fairly quickly. What does that require? It requires that the local changes in momentum are relatively aligned so that an early look will predict the final shift pretty well. It follows that the most sensitive indicator is likely to be the extent to which all social changes in process are relatively well aligned. In that case, the revolutionary quality of the changes will be clear. The other relatively early indicator will be the amount of the shift; significant deviations from the earlier path will be likelier to be permanent and to signal a revolution in progress. There’s one other point. When the various regions or elements changing are changing in concert with one another, the likelihood that eventual movement in that direction will be permanent is higher, and therefore more reliable.

To sum up, it seems plausible to consider social change, and particularly revolutionary change in terms of three different observable factors; first, the speed with which things are changing, second, the direction in of those changes, and third, the consistency of smaller and more local changes visible in elements of the system. If these three indicators are all moving in the same direction (meaning they will increase the probably of leading to a similar result)  there is a good case to be made that a revolution is underway.

I believe that is the case now (2012). The main indicators are: 1, a dramatic change in individual capacity and interaction by new technologies , 2, a strengthening of national and territorial interdependence, 3, recognition that the world is faced with a global climate problem, and 4, the existence of WMDs that can put everyone at risk. These all lead to or at least encourage a shift in the old idea that territories – defined by lines on a map -- have sovereign rights and need not concern themselves much with other territories. It used to be possible for countries to declare themselves wishing to be left alone and able to operate in that spirit. That is no longer true. Now, more than ever, everyone is responsible to be their brother’s and sister’s keepers.