The thing is revolution requires once special thing. Actual problems. What is an actual problem? Something that severely threatens ones chances of survival in the immediate future such as but not limited too: War, Starvation, Disease, Genocide, Slavery, etc. The government spying on the population or injustices existing in the legal system as well as financial recessions are what are known as first world problems. They are inconveniences, hardships, but not life threatening scenarios. Thus, revolutions do not incite over things that aren’t real issues. This is how modern governments control their masses. As long as the population has the basic needs of food (First world is obese now), entertainment (TV, internet, etc), and shelter (most of us have housing of some sort), other issues are easily overlooked or pardoned by the population. Laziness is the most effective weapon against revolution.
In addition there now exists an incredible imbalance between the governments military power and the populations man power. Throughout history there has always been an imbalance however, up until recent times, man power was enough to overthrow or overcome most armies as armies are usually comprised of a minority of the population rather then the majority. This is still true in many undeveloped countries where revolution takes place frequently because the imbalance is not too large and actual problems exist. In the USA for example, this is different. Basic needs for survival are satisfied and the government only infringes on what we have establish as our freedoms. Additionally the US government controls a military so powerful that few other nations or armies on earth can realistically compete with it (setting aside nuclear power). Thus it does not make any sense how man power could over come this obstacle. This again discourages revolt or revolution. The only way to overcome this obstacle is to appeal to the soldiers empathy as human beings. This is a knifes edge though. It requires quite a lot of death to appeal to a soldiers empathy. Too much though, and they become desensitized and cant be stopped.
The next issue is that a revolutionary population has not existed in the developed world for quite some time. This is unlike populations in eastern europe, africa, asia, or the middle east where many generations were the children of former revolutionaries. The last successful revolution in the USA was the end of segregation. The spirit that existed then has all but died out. The revolutionary spirit now exists in two kinds of people. #1 Establish intellectuals such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, etc. The issue is that although they make fantastic orators and writers they fail to take actual action themselves despite their incredible power due to fame. Instead they spend their efforts pleading with the world to do that job in their stead because they care to greatly for their own self preservation and lively hoods. They mostly appeal to the second kind of people who actually do take action albeit incorrectly. These are the young adults who want to bring about revolution. They can be anything from anarchists to modern communists. Their issue is firstly that they are far too divided. Unlike with segregation there isn’t any clear goal or method to bring about that change. There isn’t any united purpose. As a result there is a serious lacking of direction in the revolutionary population.
The next issue is the ridiculous obsession with freedom and power of the people which leads to the notion that a revolution should be without a leader. This was the failure of the Occupy wall street movement. Despite the warnings and urgings of Slavoj Zizek who actually appeared at the protest, the protestors failed to and actually refused to put forward a leader to represent their cause. This was because of their obsession with not having leaders, their inability to cohere on their plans or structure a plan, and their inability to create a reasonable set of demands that everyone in the revolutionary population could agree with, support, and fight for. Everyone went their for their own reasons rather than for a cause. Protests exist to complain, to point out issues, but not to provide solutions to those issues. Martin Luther King Jr. on the other hand structured simple solutions to the issues which he was attempting to solve (and did solve).
The next issue is the obsession with non-violence but also the resorting to unstructured violence when non-violence fails. Non-violence is an effective way to appeal to the empathy of those who have actually been assigned to subdue the masses. However, when non-violence seems to be failing, when the police or national guard actually get violent themselves, the population turns to rioting. This is because they lack a leader and they lack direction. They act out of animalistic instinct so primitive that its very easy to compare their behavior with that of other primates. There are two solutions to this. Train the population to resist that violence peacefully and appeal to human empathy as and Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi did. Or structure violence so that its not just useless rioting. People are far too concerned for their own well being. Extreme liberals condemn much of the population for being “the subdued masses who are glued to their office chairs” however those criticizers themselves are unwilling to risk everything. I’ve attended a few protests and you always see the “Hard” anarchist types and modern communists running their asses off. People need to realize that to bring about change you have to be willing to sacrifice everything.
TL;DR
In short Revolution requires the following things:
- Actual problems
- A united cause with clear objectives and solutions
- A Leader or group of leaders
- A trained population to commit themselves to either violence or non violence
Hope that helps.
[Edit] I think I need to make a clarification and justification in regards to my use of Dawkins and Hitchens. Firstly Im a huge fan of both of them so if Dawkins is somehow reading this, IM SORRY!
What I meant, but failed to get across, was that Dawkins and Hitchens are in the ideal positions to be leaders. They already have a huge body of support and are intellectuals. Instead of committing themselves to making change through action they plead that others do it instead or at least educating themselves. This is in its own way, a noble cause. Resistance is essentially futile. Dawkins realizes this. I don’t have any issue with Dawkins at all. He’s making the “right” decision in my opinion–to be an educator rather than a revolutionary leader. I’m saying that revolutions require intellectuals like him at their head. Since they are intellectual they realize how impossible it is thus they refuse to lead anything. This was meant to be a supporting point for why revolutions cant happen. Hitchens and Dawkins were more of an analogy.
I picked them to represent the “Highly intellectual population” because I’m a big fan of them. Again, the issue isn’t that Dawkins is or Isn’t a revolutionary. Thats the point is– that he ISN’T a revolutionary in any way. As intellectuals they are in the perfect position to be revolutionary leaders if they chose to be. The reason why revolutions won’t happen anytime soon is because intellectuals engage their efforts in other things such as education and the pursuit of advancing their fields. Revolutions do require intelligent people. Revolts, Riots, and Protests might not, but successful revolutions do.