I recently completed Mike Duncan’s epic podcast series on the French Revolution, starting with Revolutions Podcast episode 3.1. It’s become a habit of mine to listen to podcasts while washing dishes in the evenings. Throughout this one, I was amazed by the historical parallels to what I observed in US and global politics throughout my lifetime.
While righteous change can be achieved through violence, it is always at the expense of the values that would have made the change righteous. As an example, any good that could have been achieved by removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq has been eclipsed many times by the disastrous effects of the US invasion and occupation.
Interestingly, a quote from David Brin’s blog post, Cryptocurrencies, stock buybacks, regulations… they are counting on you being bored!, caught my attention at the same time the revolution was wrapping up.
The idea of the political ‘left’ and ‘right’ originated in the French National Assembly in 1789 when supporters of the king gathered on the right side of the hall, and supporters of the revolution were on the left. Why has such a context-specific dichotomy overwhelmed our political thinking for over two centuries?
This is a time of complexity, but are people’s thinking processes and understanding of the world in which we live keeping up? Considering that after decades of ‘education’, I had virtually no knowledge of the French Revolution, I would say not.