Office Hours is a new feature of my newsletter where you can “come to my house” and ask me anything you’d like. Put any topics or questions in the comments and I’ll answer in a coming Office Hours post in two weeks.
In our first Office Hours post,
asked whether gradual reforms are over, whether we are headed for revolution, and how we should personally respond to that. Here is his question (edited for clarity):“Currently the grievances against the global economic/power system are coming to a perilous state again—like the end of 19th century which, with historic hindsight, resulted in two world wars and the current global power system. How does one survive power struggle revolutions? That is: Join the revolution, smash the system, and hope for the best? Or be steadfast in gradual reforms?”
I think the time of gradual reforms are over—the grievances are too great and they are coming to a head. Our options now are massive reform or revolution. As I’ve mentioned before, if we don’t make massive reform happen now without violence, it will come to violence soon—it already is. This week a Republican speaker at our local college was gunned down. And this is just the latest in a string of escalating violence.
In the US, I think this will come to a head during our next election.