Don’t ya know
They’re talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper
— Tracy Chapman
Today is the 4th of July, also known as Independence Day in the United States. So it’s a good day to mention that The R-Word’s first birthday will be on Monday, July 10th — just days away.
Independence day in the United States is a thing very much related to revolution. It was a day borne of revolution. But did you know….
During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the thirteen colonies from Great Britain in 1776 actually occurred on July 2, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain’s rule. After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. (Source: Independence Day, Wikipedia)
So, apparently Americans could well be celebrating Independence Day on July 2. But it really doesn’t matter much to me one way or another. I’m not patriotic. (This article partially explains my lack of enthusiasm for the stars and stripes.) And while I loved fireworks as a kid, I’m not particularly fond of them anymore. So July 4th is just another noisy day for me.
The Tenth of July
… was the publication date for my (explicitly) non-manifesto (anti-manifesto?) titled Revolution 2.0, which I suppose was a sort of prose poem celebrating the possibility (as it seemed to me at the time) of a potent and transformative non-violent revolutionary movement — an explicitly eco-cultural revolution. This was the first article in The R-Word.
The R in The R-Word, of course, stands for Revolution. And my intent in beginning The R-Word nearly a year ago was—mainly—to try and spark a conversation about what revolution could mean today, a day in which shooting at people with muskets isn’t going to solve any real problems. But it’s also a day in which voting for representatives, proposing policy changes, writing to congressmen and waving a flag isn’t going to solve any problems either. At least that was my assumption, whether made explicit or implicit in my non-manifesto. My non-manifesto was meant to act as a spark, an initiation into conversation. It was meant to announce the putting up of a virtual big tent in which a conversation about non-violent revolution could occur. I wanted to invite us to re-imagine revolution for the 21st century.
Why call it a ‘revolution’? Why not simply call it a ‘movement’? Toward a taxonomy of kinds of revolution
… was the title of my very short July 15 article.
This paragraph is salient in answering the title question:
“When I thought seriously about what it would mean to amplify our movement/s toward sufficiency or adequacy, I could not help thinking that ours would no longer merely be a social movement. It would have to be a revolution. A revolution is passionate, intense, deeply engaging and engaged to the point of utter devotion and even plenty of personal sacrifices on the behalf of the revolution. A revolution has fervor, intensity, devotion, risk…. A revolution means to act swift and with gusto.
That, I thought, was what is required. And I still believe this 100%”
On July 16, roughly a week after the initial un-manifesto, I published Toward a taxonomy of kinds of revolution. It was a very short article, but it had a little meat on its bones. It provided a leaping off place for conversation about revolution (there can be no revolution without conversation about revolution). But no one commented in the comments section below the article, despite the fact that this short article could have served as a fine entry into an imaginative dialogue.
The Energy of a Word
I am a poet. Poets often have a tendency to toss familiar words into unfamiliar contexts, to set them down in strange places in order to liberate some trapped energy in the usual, familiar use of words. We often see such use of language (poetry) as a form of magic. It isn’t a supernatural form of magic, but a natural one. But it’s no less powerful for being natural.
Revolution is a word charged with a lot of energy. And I want to say that it is an apt word for what we’re up to here in The R-Word. (I called it The R-Word because, like the F-Word, folks tend not to want to use that word in polite company. It’s a dangerous word, a word with venom and fireworks, passion and exuberance.) But it’s also a misunderstood word. It’s so commonly and strongly associated with insurrection and violence that it requires a bit of rehabilitation — a bit of magic.
In various places on the web, I’ve explained that I am on a mission to make use of the energy in the r-word. It’s the energy I want. It’s this energy I hope to help liberate.
How to Celebrate The R-Word’s Birthday
Light a candle (just one candle, to mark one year, one trip around the sun).
- Assume a prayerful attitude, or just an attitude of reverence toward all of Life.
- Spend some quality time with yourself, contemplating the energy in the word, revolution.
- Write a poem, a short essay, an article, a letter….
- Send it to The R-Word as a submission. Address: jrivermartin at gmail dot com.
- Post a comment below.
- Raise your voice above a whisper.
Short notes, paragraphs, poems… will be published together in a single article, if folks will send these. Longer pieces will be published as articles, etc., in their respective sections.
Before we can spark a revolution we’re going to have to have a conversation about revolution, the dangerous, explosive word! And ours explodes with flowers and hugs!
Teaser photo credit: Juliescribbles, Creative Commons, via Wikimedia Commons
Comments
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Red Hornet –
“It’s too late for Revolution (peaceful or violent) because Civilization is going to collapse of its own accord.”
I have found that there are a thousand different definitions for “civilizational collapse”. So it’s anyone’s guess what you mean by the phrase.
In any case, in most collapse scenarios, transformational politics is likely more necessary than outside of a collapse scenario. People need to eat, for example, and if the grocery stores aren’t functioning urban people will require much more land access than they presently have. How will this work? Do people just show up on the land with guns and make their own laws with guns?
If we are anticipating financial collapse, now would be the time to begin moving very many millions out of cities and onto the land where they can begin to set up self-provisioning of food. That’s political in nature. There is no avoiding politics just because we may be on the verge of some kind or another of collapse.
Rather than preparing for humane adjustment to famine conditions our government seems to be readying domestic mass murder (and it’s legal justification) while protecting Oligarchs.
Herein you touch upon the core idea in my explanation both for why revolution is required and the sort of revolution which is required, Red Hornet. The kind of revolution required is one which moves in the opposite direction of centripetal power concentration — in a centrifugal direction. That is, it would be the sort of revolution which would seek to empower everyone politically — or toward genuine democracy. Democracy simply means governance of, by and for the people. Governance isn’t necessarily government.
What we refer to when we speak of politics within the state (state as polity) is what we call government. The revolution I’m advocating for occurs mainly outside of government. So the revolution I’m hoping for would be a politics not constrained by the various monopolistic constraints of government (the state). For example, our revolution can unfold and grow without our requiring a majority of the general populace to be on board with what we’re doing. A minority can begin and make huge progress. Nor would our aim be focused on persuading government (the state) to take up our cause by changing its stripes (a reference to the idiom which has it that “a leopard cannot change its stripes”).
My diagnosis has it that the politics of the state is, and always has been, oligarchical, oppressive, dominating, hierarchical, anti-democratic, and centripetal — and thus anti-communalistic and anti-communitarian. If we desire a kind of social and political world which differs from the state and its ethos, politics and monopolistic tendencies, then we’re going to have to step out of the politics of the state and enact another kind of politics altogether. But we have to be able to imagine another kind of politics, and that was the aim of The R-Word from the beginning — to re-imagine politics in order to re-enact politics. Not the sort of re-enactment which is done in re-enacting Civil War battles! Re-, here, as in doing it differently. Very differently.
This difference, I argue, cannot happen without a broad conversation about the sort of revolution which is required and how to enact it. How to bring it into being and how to unfold it from within its ethos.
In my writings on politics I keep insisting that “every politics is the politics of an ethos.” The reason we’re getting nowhere in shifting our politics in this world is because we’re trying to create egalitarian politics within the political ethos of hegemony. This obviously doesn’t work! And it cannot work. We require a centrifugal form of politics to replace the centripetal one, and it’s shape is fundamentally different in nearly every possible way from that of the politics of the state.
The state’s function isn’t liberty, but domination through hegemony and monopoly on politics.
Have you seen Eliza Daley’s latest recommending everywhere become Vermont-like?
Bring the condition “asymmetrical” into the proposition of countering centripetal with centrifugal force. The state’s primary purpose is to concentrate wealth and power by rule of law. At the core those elements possess the density and toxicity of plutonium and are controlled exclusively by a wealthy elite.
I live in relatively extreme poverty but I send $50 each year to John LaForge @ NukeWatch. He does the work I wish I could still do. Recently John served a sentence in a German prison convicted to trespassing in a compound of tactical nuclear warheads “shared” in Europe by the USA.
John, in eliciting my mite has squeezed blood from a turnip. John doesn’t work alone (He has a new article about Fukushima @ Counterpunch.) But the sacrifices of people like him seem to draw a feeble reaction. To go centrifugal you’d need a million such activists like him strategically placed.
What practical actions are you aware of that are in process now? It was all I could do today to prune about 20 dead branches out of the fig trees in my yard. I thought about what you say, and about John, and about Eliza Daley’s new article (about Vermont as a model) while I worked in 95F degree humidity. You guys kept me going. I expect high temperature records will be set around the planet as Summer drags on. Crops will fail.
Mary Wildfire tells me that slogans and word games are ineffective. Does discussion have substance? PattiMichelle Sheaffer says Elon won’t make it to Mars without peanut butter.
No. Have you a link my brother?
It’s right above your article on Resilience!
Wowee. Don’t you read Resilience?
I know you’re all the time claiming you’re doing research for your new article…
sounds like Herbert Spencer.
It’s a key to understanding receptivity of your centrifugal alternative.
I’m trying to be your trainer.
Yes, I do read Resilience, but not always all of the articles … and lately I’ve been a bit busy with other things. Anyway, I’ll check out that article.
I been trying to “call out the instant gators” for 53 years now.https://youtu.be/2OUCpKzMAbQ
(This is Tom Petty from about 30 years ago.) I apologize for not being aware of the R-word.
I would have had a response to your un-manifesto had I known.
But last night as I listened to intermittent weak consumer fireworks sputtering in my bedroom community I decided July4th, 2023 was the inflection point often referred to around the time R-word was launched last year. I doubt Dolly Parton will get the chance to attend a Paris Olympics watch party in 2024 or that the November elections will happen as planned. I get my main indications from economists like Radhika Desai and Jack Rasmus, and from discussions on places like Yale Climate Connections. A financial implosion is near and higher temperature records are being set around the world daily. It’s too late for Revolution (peaceful or violent) because Civilization is going to collapse of its own accord. Will any people be left to pick up the pieces? No way to know. Will the Biden warriors use tactical nuclear weapons and set off WWIII? Maybe. But James River Martin, I do admire the way you’ve critiqued Capitalism and Ecomodernism.
This past week I’ve been cutting wheat seed heads with scissors. These last years I’ve planted a small patch with winter buckwheat and clover as a ritualistic symbolic gesture. I put them in a food processor to separate the berries, then use a hair dryer to blow away the chaff. I ordered a Wondermill for $379 and it produces a strong flour suitable for pizza dough and pancakes. This has been a sparse year for my wheat and I may get about 8 lbs. of flour. I have gotten nearly 20 some years. My squash plants didn’t get fertilized though they has luscious blooms. There’s a message here corroborated in other evidence. Joseph (the brother sold into slavery, who interpreted Pharaoh’s dream- Genesis 41) is amused by the prospect of 7 starving cows devouring 7 fat cows but Pharaoh is not. My secular procedure predicts famine. Talk about feeling down… Pharaoh would be calling out crocodiles!