A Two-Person Narrative Trying to Find One Answer in One Voice:

When is Revolution Wrong?

That question has been staring at me from the notebook cover on which I tattooed it for years, now. There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought of that question - but to think of and think about are two very different things.

I truly began to think about the question - its meaning, relevance, subtext - when, in my studies, an instructor of mine posed a question regarding the action one takes when confronted with ineffective or corrupt legislation: Does one follow it and go through the proper channels to have it repealed? Do they merely ignore it? Or, do they find a third alley that serves for both effiecncey and change - do they revolt?

In the middle of the conversation I, became inflamed with passion, and I got to thinking about why we revolt in the first place. Oppression? (I know that’s not the only reason but work with me, now). Then I began to challenge myself. Go step by step with me, here:

1) Look at everything that’s oppressing you: from the highest of magistrates to the blue jeans that tell you you’re a pear because your hips don’t fit them like the mannequin’s did the prototype.

2) Imagine all those things stripped straight out of your life - again, everything from the oppressive leaders to the oppressive denim.

*So, now you’re standing stark naked in an infinite universe where there are no natural nor any human laws to confine you.

3) So, what’s left? If you’ve eliminated everything you consider even remotely oppressive, what did you leave?

4) Actually, why did you leave it? Did you keep your jeans? (I did - they fit like a glove. I kept them because I was comfortable in them and with them — but certainly there are jeans that oppress my form, and that I would not have kept, and I bet not everyone kept theirs to begin with).

5) If I kept it, should you have, too? Is it wrong that something someone can find so ludicrously binding is still there for me? Should I fight back for them? Should they do away with whatever for me? Certainly the answer to all this “no.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need to replace that first question. I don’t really think revolution is a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter of construction. There is no ill fated or pointless revolts, just poor organizing. It’s more about passion and conviction for the cause than the spirit of the resistance, itself. I think we’ve lost that today: either we’re up in ‘arms’ just because we can be, or we don’t give a damn. It has, for the most part, become focused around the images of the vigilante and the apathetic. Just a thought, but, maybe we should be keeping our jeans unless they really cut into our sides. And what works for one wearer won’t work for all…so why do we try to change it for a total group where the balance may not fit the proposition? New question: “How is revolution dictated?” Oxymoronic and certainly not as pithy, but…

-C. Leroux and J. Connelly

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