The driving force behind any sort of cultural change seems to be whether the general feel of the culture is optimism or pessimism. That is whether the culture views things as good or bad, in general. Not whether the society IS good or bad, but merely how it is viewed.

I don’t think I’ve ever lived in an actual optimistic culture or at least an optimistic sub-culture. So, I’m a little shaky on whether this even exists. But here’s what I THINK it should look like: An optimistic society, for example any great empire in its heyday, believes that things are generally good. Not perfectly good, but they are happy with the way things are. They believe that their current way of life is better than those they’ve experience before AND they believe that their leaders and ethics are better than they have been before. An optimistic society needs no revolution. They need conservatism. I suppose that’s what conservatives are, in many ways. they are people who like what IS or perhaps what HAS BEEN.

A pessimistic society thinks that things: quality of life, ethics, the world at large and their leaders are generally worse than things have been before, or worse than things could be. A pessimistic society leads to revolution: Obviously if you take action to change things, you believe that the world needs to be changed. But that is not the only criterion for revolution. If it were that simple I would have lived my whole life in a world of revolution, because as I said, the world that I inhabit has been a generally pessimistic one. No, there are other factors.

There are two other factors that lead to revolution:

The culture’s perception of their own power.

And the culture’s faith in the system.

Let’s start with the culture’s faith in the system. This is similar to the optimism-pessimism scale, but instead of focusing on how things are RIGHT NOW, this scale focuses on how good people believe things can GET! If you are system pessimistic, you think that the system is inherently broken. It’s not that people have made the wrong decisions, or not known how to make the right decision, but rather that the system itself is inherently broken. There is no way the the right decision can be made. The system optimist thinks that things can be fixed, we just haven’t gotten to it yet. With the right education, and the right people, the system can be used to get to a better place. In fact, I guess that what these people believe is that the system actually hasn’t come into its own yet! They might believe that the democracy we have isn’t a TRUE democracy because its not producing the right results.

The third axis of preparation for revolution is the culture’s self-confidence, the perception of their own power or rather their perceived fragility of the world. The power pessimistic believe that the world can’t be changed. That either because of the nature of other people, the mechanics of human nature, or the state of the current system, no change can be achieved. The power optimistic believe that the power that like-minded people can exert is enough to transform the current nature of the world. They believe that either they are powerful enough, or the world fragile enough that change is achievable, if desired.

Now, let’s bring it together.

There are three dichotomies:

The world optimistic vs. the world pessimistic

The system optimistic vs. the system pessimistic

The power optimistic vs. the power pessimistic.

There are eight combinations of these factors, eight separate cultural states, and revolution only takes place in one: When the people are world pessimistic, system pessimistic but power optimistic, sweeping change can be made. They believe that 1) the world needs fixing, 2) it can’t be fixed through the usual means, and 3) it’s worth trying to fix it.

Just because I love complete and detailed sets, let’s look at what the other seven world states look like:

World: pessimistic, System: pessimistic, Power: pessimistic ~ THE PESSIMISTS ~This culture thinks the world is shit, that the system (capitalism and democracy) got it there, and that there is no point in trying to save it. No change can be made. I would hazard to guess that a lot of us have met these people. They are just generally called pessimists and they shout doom and gloom. In fact, I would hazard that a considerable amount of the populace is this person a considerable percentage of the time.

World: pessimistic, System: optimistic, Power: optimistic ~ THE OPEN POLITICIANS ~This culture believes the world is in trouble but that the system can fix it. Also, they believe that the world could be changed if they put their mind to it, but they probably don’t want to. They think that they have a system worth using! I think that this is just about always the political enthusiastic among us. They are passionate about politics because they think 1) the world needs it and 2) it can fix the problems at hand.

World: pessimistic, System: optimistic, Power: pessimistic ~ THE CLOSED POLITICIANS ~ Similar to the culture above, these people think that the world needs to be saved and that the current system is the hero it needs. They act in a very similar way to the last group, but they believe that revolutionists are ridiculous. There is no system but the current one. Stop wasting time and get on board.

World: optimistic, System: optimistic, Power: optimistic ~ THE TRIUMPHANT ~ These people are strange, they are happy with the world, and confident that humanity, through the current system or through positive revolt can always keep the world in the place that it is. They keep the status quo like the rest of their world optimistic brethren, though they do it in more of an optimistic way. These are the retired revolutionaries. They have fought for the world that they wanted, and now they have it.

World: optimistic, System: optimistic, Power: pessimistic ~THE DESTINED~ These people believe the world and the system to be in check and don’t think that there are any alternatives. A pleasantly happy group who think that humanity has found its destiny in the current situation.

World: optimistic, System: pessimistic, Power: optimistic ~THE HAPPY CYNICISTS~ Um, these people think the world is good, but the system is broken. The world is good in spite of the system?! I guess they also have to believe that the system is not all powerful and can easily be superceded. These people are potential revolutionists, if the broken system gets their hands on their precious utopia. They might join a revolt just to ensure the safety of their utopia.

World: optimistic, System: pessimistic, Power: pessimistic ~THE HUMANISTS~ These people think that the world is in a good place but the system is useless and irrelevant and also neccesary. A strong belief in inherent human goodness. That can defeat all badness, and an absolute distrust in any ability to change global systems or the benefits that could be derived from it.

Okay, fun exercise, mostly invaluable, sorry to waste your time. Back to the point at hand. Three criteria for revolution:

Is society optimistic?

Does society trust the system?

Does society think it has the power to change the system?

I would say that currently the prevailing answers are:

No, yes, no.

And,

No, no, no.

(Maybe a couple No, yes, yessers in their somewhere.)

So, say you think revolution needs to happen, you’re a No, no, yesser, how do you get the world on the same side as you? You need to challenge two core beliefs.

The lesser being: The system works.

The greater being: The system can’t change.

Donald Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States, while in all other contexts is bad news, is in fact good news in this quest.

Any left-leaning person, or more broadly, anyone who does NOT support Trump can clearly be persuaded that the system doesn’t work.

And anyone can see, from his surprise election, going against anything that we’ve seen before, that the system can change.

(Some might say that this is proof that a large part of the populous of the west is not ready for change, that they are falling into retrograde. Falling back into a fascist, racist and misogynist regime. I want to say that this is false, that these people misunderstand the fury that rose Trump to power. But I can’t with all confidence. Trump’s ascendance was due to a demand for change, people: scared and hurting, raging against a system that wasn’t treating them right. This is undeniable. This supports the idea that the world is ready for change, but perhaps it isn’t ready for change in the direction of love and acceptance. If it is only ready for change towards hate then this election only makes more no, no, noers.

What I’d urge you to remember here, is that at the same time that Trump rocketed to an uneasy, unwelcome power, a large number of progressive ballot measures were passed: 7 out of 9 states legalized (or decriminalized) marijuana, 4 out of 5 states raised minimum wage, 3 of 5 improved socialized healthcare measures, 3 out of 4 passed higher gun regulation. That’s not the same terrified, generally regressive state that put Trump in power. That is a country that wants change, change coming out both ends. That is a state that has the potential to be a no, no, yesser.

Come with me and see the silver linings.

Spread the two main ideas: The system doesn’t work. And the system can be changed.

Things are darkest before dawn. Everything goes down before it goes up. This is simple story structure. This is simple human parabolas.

People are scared right now, I think we should give them something hopeful to latch on to.

It starts in private. It starts on social media. 100%. The revolution will not be televised, it will be scrolled through.