We developed 4 excellent definitions of revolution:
1. dealt with the idea that revolution is the movement the follows a change in belief of truth/paradigms (I know I don't have all of it here so please feel free to post the actual definition that you guys developed)
2. introduced the idea of revolution being a cradle to grave process that replaces the paradigm of a culture
3. that revolution is an ever changing/growing/adapting term that results from complex interactions between people, environment and ideas to bring something novel
4. dealt with the idea that revolutions can be cyclic, specifically leaving out certain words like novel or culture (I can't remember quite what the phrasing was on this one, it would be awesome if one of your group could post it)
From these definition questions were raised about:
- the meaning and range of culture: how many people does a change need to reach before it can be a revolution, one? a country?; if a culture can be defined as any group/number of people, what implications does that have on what a revolution is
- what role does time play into revolutions: cradle to grave? no significance? Immediate change over long term?
- does a complete shift in paradigm have to occur before something is a revolution?
- does a paradigm have to be fully rejected before a revolution takes place? does something novel have to be achieved for a revolution? (we mentioned that some social revolutions are chain affects, one country overthrows a dictator and then a neighboring country follows suite, is it still a revolution? for the 'copy cat' country)
- discovering truth vs paradigm shift (same thing or different?)
We began some really interesting discussions on some of these but I would like to open up that discussion again for people to challenge or ask for explanation of an idea or to pose their own opinions.
Google defines paradigm shift as "a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions." I realize how useless formal definitions can be in our discussions but I think this one is pretty spot on. Based on the way we discussed the ideas of novelty paradigm and truth I think the answer to your third question "does a complete shift in paradigm have to occur before something is a revolution?" is no. I would like to emphasize the word complete in the question you posed because I think it suggests total overhaul. Some measure of fundamental change is important for revolutions because it creates identity or the idea of form (from meno), but I do not think total overhaul to something totally 100% new is necessary. Novelty does not necessitate complete or total fundamental change, it does however, require some degree of originality. I think that something like an idea or movement can have its roots tied to some previous form and still be original/novel, and I think the same principle applies for the discovery of truth. You can be close to something that closely resembles truth initially, but the discovery of objective real truth will lead you to something novel and perhaps a revolution. I think both the novelty concept and the discovery of truth are tied quite closely to the idea of paradigm shift, but shy away from the idea of achieving something completely brand spanking new from the ground up. After all, many revolutions take derive their principles from ideas and truths that mankind has always held, in some esteem, to be fundamentally important (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness etc..).
ReplyDeleteI really wanted to bring up the discussion about crisis in last nights class but we ran out of time.
ReplyDeleteWe all conveniently avoided dealing with conflict in our definitions of revolution, but i'm not so sure we can move it out of the picture entirely. After replaying many of the revolutions that we have covered in the past month or so, I noticed that several of them deal with some sort of conflict whether it is violent, mental, or moral. For example, Einstiens paper seemed academic, but during the fallout of world war II a major global moral crisis developed around nuclear arms. Other revolutions end in physical violence (many of the socio-political revolutions of the 21st century) etc. Anyone else have thoughts on if overcoming some sort of crisis should be included in our definition? It would seem logical to me that during a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions that some sort of conflict would need to be overcome. Should this be a revolution's end point?
I don't think so, Kyle. I think that conflict might be an inevitable outcome of the attempt to shift paradigms, but I don't think it goes so far as to be required. But I suppose, like always, it depends on how you define conflict. The act of shifting a large worldview requires overcoming the previous one. In some cases this has proved more difficult than others.
ReplyDeleteIf overcoming crisis or conflict includes overcoming previous attitudes, than I'm not sure why it is distinctly different than what our definitions included. Sure, we probably implied such difficulties, but I don't think explicitly stating "this will be hard" is really necessary. And, some revolutions might have turned out to be quite swift changes, although I can't think of any off the top of my head,
If we define conflict in a more narrow sense that includes violence, criminal persecution, etc, than I don't think we can include it in an overlying definition, at least not yet. While many cases of revolution certainly include such factors, many scientific and personal revolutions do not.
I do not think that crisis is a necessary part of revolution. I think about change in technology and I do not think that a lot of modern technological revolutions are completely necessary, or in response to a crisis. The ongoing improvement or smart phones are not in response to a crisis, yet I would consider to introduction of newer and newer technology to be revolutionary.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, in some of the scientific papers we read, like Bohm for example, the scientific discoveries were revolutionary, but not necessarily in response to a crisis. Marie Curie's discovery of radium proved revolutionary for the medical field, but she did not discover radium because of a crisis or any particular reason, but for her pure scientific research.
This idea of crisis in revolution presents a really interesting idea. Initially, I thought no. A revolution could come from anywhere without a certain criteria, but then I started to realize that most revolutions have some sort of crisis. When we shift the fundamental belief of society, someone is likely to react. I doubt that when Einstein published his theory everyone jumped for joy and said yes. There was most likely one naysayer. The revolutions we have studied have shown some sort of crisis,but does that mean that all revolutions follow this path? Additionally, if we want to get technical, we could reference the Discovery poem and show an individual's crisis when realizing something revolutionary. However, to counter Emma's and Bradley's points, I don't think that crisis needs to start or end a revolution, but be somewhere in a revolution. This does not mean violence or whatnot, but instead someone or some group of people saying, "I don't like this." That creates a conflict. We are changing the roots of society. We are going to create some sort of crisis.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to bring the discussion back to Kayla's post, where does the line exist between revolutionary impact. Could something be revolutionary if it effects solely the individual? I like to think yes, bu then I remember Meno. Everything would be considered revolutionary because we don't know that we don't know something until we know that we don't know it, therefore, everything would become revolutionary because we did not know it before we knew it. With this, does it mean that a revolution is only revolutionary once it impacts and shifts the views of a group of people? What size must the group be. Essentially, can we qualify what a revolution is at all?
There are so many problems when trying to define, and exactly convey an idea or word via other words. There are so many ways in which words can be interpreted and ways in which things get muddled. With regard to the idea of crisis, I think it depends on how you define crisis (like everything else we talk about). I don't think that having someone or a group of people saying "We don't like this" necessarily constitutes a crisis. I think that crisis is something where tension leads to conflict in an intense form. In which case, if this definition is accepted, I do not think that crisis is an essential part of revolution, though I think that it appears many times within revolutions. But then again, I know that we could interpret it many different ways.
DeleteIn regards to your second paragraph, I personally feel that it would be important to be able to distinguish, or label differently the scale of revolutions. I think that revolutions that impact the most people come with the largest amount of change to human history. But I also do not believe that a personal or individual revolution should go unacknowledged. Maybe being able to apply different terms to different 'types' or scales of revolution would make finding a definition more manageable.