Evolution and/or Revolution
Presentation by Corinna Lotz
Why important? A crucial point in history – of the planet, of human society – how can we help decide the outcome? Purpose is to grasp the world around us in its movement bring about the changes needed by humans and the planet
Some common assumptions we need to challenge:-
- evolution and revolution are mutually exclusively phenomenon
- that the thing (parliament, capitalism) can evolve for ever
- that consciousness or awareness of the thing we are opposed to is sufficient to make the change that is necessary
Evolution = “a gradual change in the characteristics of a population of animals or plants over successive generations” (Collins) = “Slow, natural”
Revolution = sudden, total, human/political: overthrow or repudiation of a regime or political system by the governed = “fast, unnatural”
Understanding how all things
- have a beginning, a development and an end
- evolve to the point where they can’t go on in the old way –
- reach a point where they become their own opposite – can no longer serve their function
- contain both evolutionary and revolutionary tendencies
In human thought (Newsweek Mar 07) – “The New Science of the Brain and DNA is re-writing the history of human origins”. Abrupt changes in human evolution: last summer gene called HAR1 (human accelerated region) discovered. High rate of change in brain 7m yrs ago. “Begat” theory invalid.
Nature The movement of time is both revolutionary and evolutionary – you can never go back to an earlier moment (except in abstract thought). R + E take place in the natural world outside us, in society and within us – long term and in each split second. The moments of birth and death. Social and thought transformations.
In social organisms and history, like at a birth, favourable change is not automatic. Conscious human action needed.
History and Society: The classes in power today arrived through revolutions 1640 – English and French revolutions. Periods of slow change, build-up to revolutionary upheavals to take power from one class to another. Prepared within religious ideologies and sciences.
1789 revolution – through “reason” + “a whiff of grapeshot from Napoleon” – established rule of capitalist classes. In Britain the formation of parliamentary democracy 1834 – to avoid revolution. 1848 revolutions on continent.
Situation today
Evolution of the thing (capitalist system of production) driving constant internal technological revolutions (Marx) has turned it into its opposite. Far from advancing humanity it can only produce wars and eco-disaster. Positive forces turned into destruction by confines of profit and private ownership. That is the source of greatest crisis in human history – for nature and for humans - and also provides conditions for solution – if they are grasped.
British state evolved over 300 years. From Cromwellian dictatorship to parliamentary democracy. For a long period, the state mediated between conflicting class interests and reforms were possible though the election of a Labour government.
Now welfare + reforms + rights peeled away as state “reverts” to or merger with corporate globalised interests. Parliament is sidelined and there is a crisis between judiciary (rule of law) and executive (govt). Democratic rule is rapidly giving way to authoritarian rule. Surveillance, bans on demos, detention without trial, stop and search of Muslims etc.
Now all the major parties stand for the same thing. The right to vote has lost its meaning and people are unable to influence events in a signficant way through the ballot box or protest. The right to representation has been transformed into its opposite.
For state and democracy to “evolve” rather than “regress” to full dictatorship requires revolution in both political and economic terms.
A revolution in consciousness is going on (Attenborough "society can under go rapid and profound moral shifts”.). Insufficient on its own. Lack of leadership can lead to stagnation and disaster. Germany 1933, Spanish Civil War 36-7, British Miners strike 85-86.
Disaster may concentrate the mind but does not automatically produce solutions. We need more advanced, holistic concepts to build revolutionay learning organisations. In this way we canunleash the potential contained within system (the result of evolution) but which is destroying it under present relations.
Other workshops:
