W.J. Astore
Speaking Truth to Power Isn’t Enough
I was reading R.F. Kuang’s fine novel, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence, and came across this passage:
Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against its own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence. (p. 432)
It’s hard to disagree with that, especially within imperial settings in countries dominated by rich and powerful interests. Kuang’s novel is set in the British Empire during the 1830s and 1840s, as Britain was ramping up its first opium war against China. Her quote readily applies to the U.S. empire today and its various global wars of dominance.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the so-called Capitol Insurrection on January 6th and the heavy-handed response to it, especially the long-term prison sentences being handed out. Too much attention is being paid to punishing Trump’s so-called coup supporters and not enough to how Washington, D.C., is increasingly fortifying itself against potential protests. Recall, for example, those Democrats who said they wanted to “defund” the police even as they voted for an expansion of the Capitol police force.
As my wife and I watched the January 6th “coup,” we both had the same thought: What if those protesters hadn’t been so misguided? What if they were truly protesting and “breaching” the Capitol for meaningful change? What if they had been advocating for universal health care, higher wages, an end to expensive and unnecessary wars? Would they ever had gained access to the Capitol? Would members of the Capitol police have moved the barricades, or posed for selfies, with the protesters? I highly doubt it.
America today has a rigged political system that is thoroughly captured by the moneyed interests. You don’t change that by speaking truth to power because the powerful already know the truth. Indeed, they create the truth. The golden rule is that he who has the gold makes the rules. And that’s what America means when it talks about a rules-based order. The wealthiest, most powerful, nations and people have the gold, want to keep and expand it, so they make the rules with that goal in mind.
How to effect meaningful change in a rigged system without violence is one of the huge questions of our age or any age. In her novel, Kuang suggests that powerful interests only respond to the demands of the less powerful when they are forced to “by acts of defiance” they can’t ignore. She may well be right.
The problem, of course, is that violence that drives change doesn’t always make things better. The French Revolution produced a Reign of Terror followed by the Napoleonic Wars. The Russian Revolution produced Lenin, Stalin, gulags, and ruthless five-year plans. Here I recall an Alexander Solzhenitsyn quote: “All revolutions unleash the most elemental barbarism.”
Yet, if America’s so-called elites continue to close all legitimate avenues to meaningful change, they may be making elemental barbarism inevitable. And I’m not sure they care, in the sense they believe they will always come out on top, that they will, in a word, win, because the masses can always be manipulated or bullied into compliance.
Bracing Views 
My immediate gut reaction to your title question: No. I appreciate fully the read (and wish I had time and the attention span for Kuang) but haven’t/won’t change my mind. America has too much baggage, too little reasoned discourse (like yours), etc. We’ve reached our shelf life; the expiration date approaches. So be it.
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By claiming that a revolution could be good, you’re implying that there’s an underlying force of goodness that could better shape society. I encourage you to thinking long and hard about what that source of goodness is, try to understand it, try to understand its opposite, even try to build a personal relationship with it.
Try to lift it up and bring yourself into alignment with it. Try to find a path that can reconcile you personally with this goodness. Then as you know it better, speak about it so that your family, friends and community might also be strengthened in their relationship with that underlying goodness.
And hopefully, as this knowledge spreads, our nations will voluntarily be lifted up and brought into alignment with what is good and right, not with what is powerful and expedient.
(sorry if this comes off as condescending, I can see that this is what you’re doing with your writing already 🙂
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“Let it be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.” — Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
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How true. But how about presenting it as a return to the old order of things, the proper order? A restoration rather than a revolution, as in restoring the republic.
Unlikely, of course, but “radical” change might be easier to achieve if it’s sold as returning to America’s roots.
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Reading this article and the comments, I am not discouraged believing these Biblical insights, and a Dream I had in 1973.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God […] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. John 1
As for the 1973 Dream, I posted it to my Blog 12 years ago and it’s been many years since WordPress Stats informed me it was looked at.
Those Stats tell me so far Today it had 3 views from China, Taiwan and Germany.
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And now 3 from the U.S.
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Lyrics from a video in I HAD A DREAM linked above
Had a dream
I was born
Took me naked in the eye of the storm
And now it’s standing right in front of me
What’s it gonna do to me?
Who knows?
Had a dream
It was time
To be taken to the front of a line
Well, that is not a place you want to be
Sleeping with the enemy
You know
I don’t care
What the future brings
Give a damn
About anything
I’d be fine
If they’d only leave me alone
But it’s time
Gotta take a stance
‘Cause I won’t
Get a second chance
And I know
Now I have to make it alone
Had a dream
It was war
And they couldn’t tell me what it was for
But it was something they could lie about
Something we could die about
You know
Anytime
Anyplace
When you look that man in the face
Well, it is not a face you want to see
Sleeping with the enemy
You know
Mary, can you hear me?
Can you tell me what it’s all supposed to mean?
Holding out a photograph of all that I have seen
I wish I could hold you
I wish I could hold you
Had a dream
It was time
To be a witness at the scene of the crime
Well, that is something you can analyze
Something you can criticize
Who knows?
So we wait
Hesitate
And we’re making such a mistake
Oh, whatever can the matter be?
Sleeping with the enemy
You know
I don’t care
What the future brings
Give a damn
About anything
I’d be fine
If they’d only leave me alone
But it’s time
Gotta take a stance
‘Cause I won’t
Get a second chance
And I know
Now I have to make it alone
But, you wanna know
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no…. the usa has the best government money can rent. voting doesn;t mean much which is why we are allowed to vote. the money class won;t allow major changes. they spill blood to keep their wealth and power.
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