“Mirror, Mirror”: “In every revolution…

[FredH]

“…there’s one man with a vision.”

But wait a minute: that sounds great, but it just isn’t so, is it?

No single person started, or even led (for very long) the French Revolution. The American Revolution certainly wasn’t just a pet project of George Washington’s. Lenin had to come back to Russia to try to wrap the Russian Revolution around himself.

Thoughts?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Kirk: "Don't call me on this sh--. I'm trying to get a point across!"

He meant there has to be at least one man (this was 1967). He meant nothing will budge without Spock becoming the first man to move the ball forward.

 

[Metryq]

Wyoming dear lady, revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice.
—Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist—and they do—some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state.' Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.
—Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

The man with the vision may not be the "leader" of the actions. And revolutions are not limited to politics. In science, many may be exploring the same field. Many times in science the "revolutionary" may be a complete novice, not a career scientist or researcher. But they come up with an idea or new way of looking at things that they up-end the establishment.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Captain, GET IN THE CHAMBER!!!!

 

[Phaser Two]

Captain, GET IN THE CHAMBER!!!!

Nice! One of Scotty's funniest lines in TOS—in a wide field.

And as Zap said, saying there's one man with a vision doesn't mean there's only one.

 

[Metryq]

Nice! One of Scotty's funniest lines in TOS—in a wide field.

It's stuck! Push the button!

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

It's stuck! Push the button!

''Whut yer sayin' is that the Captain 'n the others're still alive!"'

Spock raises an skeptical eyebrow at him.

''Wull.........the REGULARS, anyway!''

 

[FredH]

Wyoming dear lady, revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice.
—Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

My point is that one person is responsible. Always. If H-bombs exist—and they do—some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state.' Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.
—Prof. Bernardo de la Paz, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

The man with the vision may not be the "leader" of the actions. And revolutions are not limited to politics. In science, many may be exploring the same field. Many times in science the "revolutionary" may be a complete novice, not a career scientist or researcher. But they come up with an idea or new way of looking at things that they up-end the establishment.

See, I just don’t think Heinlein’s correct here. Revolutions only happen when a mass movement builds up, and/or a bunch of different ideas from different people coalesce into the push for it. Individual would-be revolution-instigators just get themselves shot or exiled. (And atom bombs are totally run by a system, not one guy with a button. One President can give the order, sure, but it takes the military network and the guys in the silo to fire it. Without a whole preexisting network, nothing happens. I think this was just Heinlein projecting his individualism again, over a world that just doesn’t actually work that way.)

 

[David cgc]

I think you're interpreting "one man with a vision" too narrowly. I wouldn't use George Washington as the example for the American Revolution, for instance, but perhaps Thomas Paine, or even Locke or Rousseau. For the mass movement to being, someone has to begin by articulating a vision of a different way of doing things, something that feels attainable to someone who thinks the society they live in is the only natural order of things and whose instinct will be to reject anything outside of that box.

It's like the joke, an old fish swims past a couple of young ones and says, "Lovely water today," and then one of the young fish asks the other, "What the hell is 'water'?" I don't think Kirk was proposing Spock be the leader or face of the alternative to the Empire (though that's what ended up happening), but to be the grain of sand at the center of the pearl, the first pebble in the avalanche, the person who shows it's possible to say "no" to the Man and win, even a little.

 

[FredH]

I think you're interpreting "one man with a vision" too narrowly. I wouldn't use George Washington as the example for the American Revolution, for instance, but perhaps Thomas Paine, or even Locke or Rousseau. For the mass movement to being, someone has to begin by articulating a vision of a different way of doing things, something that feels attainable to someone who thinks the society they live in is the only natural order of things and whose instinct will be to reject anything outside of that box.

It's like the joke, an old fish swims past a couple of young ones and says, "Lovely water today," and then one of the young fish asks the other, "What the hell is 'water'?" I don't think Kirk was proposing Spock be the leader or face of the alternative to the Empire (though that's what ended up happening), but to be the grain of sand at the center of the pearl, the first pebble in the avalanche, the person who shows it's possible to say "no" to the Man and win, even a little.

Yeah, but again, I don’t think there even is a first pebble, just (say) a whole bunch of separate pebbles that gradually coalesce. It isn’t Paine or Locke or Rousseau or Washington (or Franklin, or Jefferson, or whomever drafted the Magna Carta, or etc); it’s that point at which all of them have gestalted into an increasingly popular mixed meme.

EDIT: That’s not to say say that one person doesn’t or can’t become the popular face of the revolution (Lenin, Lech Walesa, Alexei Navalni RIP, etc). But that’s not the same thing.