political/Social interrogations: I don't want a revolution

It seems to have two very different usages, one being to come full circle, as in "the revolution of the earth around the sun takes one year," and the other to bring about a complete change, as in "the face of governance was forever changed by the American revolution." It also connotes going around something, but not touching it, which, may be the factor that connects the two usages. Inasmuch as the earth circles the sun, the sun is a part of the revolution. In the same way, inasmuch as the colonies worked to distance themselves from Great Britain, the revolution was always constituted by their relationship to Great Britain. It seems then that any revolution is always already limited to what it can become. This can be seen simply by looking at the historical texts that influenced and informed governmental texts that arose after any major country achieved it's revolution. We can also see how any revolution, though it may have the best of intentions, is still something that goes around in circles. It is still something that is influenced by and not necessarily contrary to that which it is revolting from.

So, why do we call for revolution? Does it come from a need to act? A need to see our actions change the world? That's all I can think of. I don't want to sound corny and say that I think it would be more productive to strive for evolution instead of revolution, but I can't think of a better way to put it. The problem with evolution is that there is no significant change that we can see in our lifetimes. There are no significant changes in evolution that happen over a hundred lifetimes. However, it seems to be the only way that things do change permanently. We have seen many times, in the last century alone, where the moments of revolution breeds change that then continues revolving until it's back to where it started. Think Stalin. Think Hitler. Think the Ayatollah Khomeini.


Real change, it seems, would require something greater and more frightening than bloodshed. It would require a certain amount of faith in ourselves as well as in others. It also requires that this faith would be equal in both cases, i.e. I must have the same amount of faith that I have in myself that I have for others. For one to be greater would be to tip the scales. For me to say that I have more faith in others is to breed lethargy, whereas to say that I have more faith in myself might lead to me thinking that I am better/stronger/more capable than I actually am.

So, the question I have then is how do we start/formulate/initiate an evolution? Should we strive to make our own communities better places to live? It's a start, but can a cultural evolution happen without organized action? I would like to think that that is the very basis of what a cultural evolution would be. I feel like we spend a lot of time trying to organize projects saying that we need such and such a number of people to start. Why not, instead, choose a project that can be accomplished on your own, and allow the positive effects to trickle through the community. A hypothetical: you decide to plant a community garden. You buy a small piece of land and place a sign in front of it that says "community garden." you plant a few things but no one else does. you keep tending the garden until you get old and die, or until you move on, and in all that time, you are the only one who has tended it. There are a million possibilities as to what might happen to the garden after you have left it. One of those possibilities is that someone else might take up where you left of. They might expand the project and make it bigger, and more people might join in.

Sure, it's idealistic, but I don't think so much so. If people never come to the garden, that should be no bother, as you would still be able to appreciate it for yourself. You would still be doing as much for you as you were for others. The worst case scenario seems to be that the patch of ground would go untended and eventually get built over. At least you had fresh vegetables for a while. If you start out with hopes of evolution you still might end up with only a slight revolution, but at least you moved something.