Revolutionary Waves

Amar Murray

Ninth Essay

Some people speak with great simplicity, seeing only their immediate circumstances and the present moment. They make no attempt to adopt a wider view of events, one capable of taking in the whole picture: a perspective deep enough to reach back into history, pass through the present and look beyond it toward the future. They imagine that the revolutions, or the profound rejection of existing conditions, have come to an end, or that they merely brought about the collapse of social arrangements better left intact. From this have emerged many interpretations. Some attribute events to a foreign conspiracy intended to destroy society. Others see divine punishment for departing from the straight path and failing to obey God’s commands, as the interpreter understands them. There are many other explanations that cannot be addressed here.

Yet someone who studies events through a scientific approach and the patterns of history reaches a different conclusion. First, we can define revolution as the radical, comprehensive and successive transformation, through revolutionary waves, of all the social, political and economic structures that produced public and private corruption, social weakness, moral collapse, cultural and ethical decline, economic failure, troubled relationships and hypocritical conduct. These are replaced by new revolutionary structures that understand the problem and propose solutions: revolutionary intellectual theories. They also offer a considered road map for implementation: strategic thought, planning and execution. Every element of this definition requires examination and clarification if we are to understand our circumstances, anticipate the future and know how to help shape it.

Let us begin with revolution as radical, comprehensive and successive change: revolutionary waves. The historical patterns of revolution show that it spreads both horizontally and vertically. It reaches all social groups and the different components of society, while also working through every sphere of social life: thought, culture, conduct, economics and politics. New relationships, structures and revolutionary formations emerge. This does not happen all at once. It unfolds through what we may call successive revolutionary waves, each expressing a particular stage.

1. The first revolutionary wave

This wave arises from a sense of injustice and the need for an identity that expresses human dignity and worth, giving existence significance and meaning. It is no longer acceptable for a person to remain a mere number or source of tax revenue, deprived of agency, forbidden to think or speak, or even to dream of doing so: a fragile, weakened human being at the mercy of corrupt desires.

This stage is marked by intellectual lifelessness, the primary source of social corruption. It is also violent and bloody, driven by pain, emotion and pent-up anger rather than reflection. It therefore stumbles blindly, without direction or discipline. It encounters what may be called a social counter-reaction from the old, established forms, which still possess experience, the capacity to think and, consequently, plans. The first revolutionary wave, by contrast, has passion but lacks deliberation.

Here begin the simplistic interpretations that declare the revolutions a failure. In fact, the first wave has achieved its objectives, even if the price has been immense. It has ended the condition of lifelessness and sepulchral immobility, replacing it with vitality and movement. The second revolutionary wave can now prepare to rise.

2. The second revolutionary wave

This is the wave of reassessment and confrontation. It revisits every detail of the first: its mistakes, individuals, leaders and ideas; its lack of revolutionary theories or alternative visions of society; and its absence of strategic thinking and planning, the revolutionary road map.

This wave is characterized by confrontation and moral and intellectual courage. The confrontation is between the traditional model responsible for decline, in all its components, and the new, rebellious revolutionary model. The latter’s awareness begins to take shape. Its parts and branches come together to form an intellectual current distinguished by depth, awareness and resolve. Ethical conduct and self-awareness begin to develop vertically, forming an identity. Important concepts consequently emerge as elements of that identity, including concern for the common good and a sense of public duty. The individual self recedes as the collective self comes to the fore.

Then begins the third revolutionary wave: the wave of internal revolutionary confrontation and victory. We shall discuss it in subsequent articles, God willing.