I.
Initially, Black Lives Matter was a civil rights movement for a younger, angrier, more woke generation of activists and campaigners concerned about issues to do with racial justice and equality. But it seems to now be in the vanguard of a broader movement demanding a full-scale cultural revolution and an end to what they perceive to be a violently oppressive and institutionally racist old order.
Of course, we've seen this call for a total transformation of everyday life (and the subsequent humiliation or destruction of one's enemies) before: in Hitler's Germany in the 1930s, for example; and, more recently, in Mao's China in the 1960s.
It wasn't pleasant then and it isn't pleasant now. Nor do I think it's going to end any happier. Restrictions on freedom of speech and the insistence that everyone toe the politically correct line or face the consequences, never do. Nor do attempts to sanitise the past and purge society of undesirable elements.
To protest and to rebel may be justified; and, doubtless, there are many old habits, customs, and ideas that need to be challenged. But to destroy works of art and historical artefacts in the name of an ideology that believes itself to be infallible and morally superior is something we should be extremely wary of.
For I think the poet Heinrich Heine was right in 1820 and he's still right now, two hundred years later: Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people. To their credit, even The Beatles understood this; as their counter-revolutionary track 'Revolution' demonstrates ...
II.
Inspired by anti-war protests and student uprisings, John Lennon's lyrics express sympathy with the need for radical social change, but serious reservations over the violent tactics adopted by some on the so-called New Left. The song concludes that there's no need for direct action as everything's gonna be alright (that is to say, ideals of peace and love will triumph in the end). It also explicitly dismisses the cult of personality surrounding Chairman Mao.
Of course, countercultural comrades and hardline communists of every variety immediately branded Lennon a traitor and collaborator. They were shocked not only by his Transcendental fatalism, but by his humour and expressed need to see details (or a plan) for how a revolution might work. The New Left Review dismissed the song as a 'lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear' and even the French film director Jean-Luc Godard denounced the Beatle for his apoliticism and suggested that he and other band members had been corrupted by money.
Duly chastened by the criticism he received, Lennon subsequently declared himself to be a revolutionary after all. However, in an interview shortly before his death in 1980, he again voiced his rejection of political violence and terror and reaffirmed the more pacifist sentiments expressed in 'Revolution': 'Don't expect me on the barricades unless it's with flowers.'
Initially, Black Lives Matter was a civil rights movement for a younger, angrier, more woke generation of activists and campaigners concerned about issues to do with racial justice and equality. But it seems to now be in the vanguard of a broader movement demanding a full-scale cultural revolution and an end to what they perceive to be a violently oppressive and institutionally racist old order.
Of course, we've seen this call for a total transformation of everyday life (and the subsequent humiliation or destruction of one's enemies) before: in Hitler's Germany in the 1930s, for example; and, more recently, in Mao's China in the 1960s.
It wasn't pleasant then and it isn't pleasant now. Nor do I think it's going to end any happier. Restrictions on freedom of speech and the insistence that everyone toe the politically correct line or face the consequences, never do. Nor do attempts to sanitise the past and purge society of undesirable elements.
To protest and to rebel may be justified; and, doubtless, there are many old habits, customs, and ideas that need to be challenged. But to destroy works of art and historical artefacts in the name of an ideology that believes itself to be infallible and morally superior is something we should be extremely wary of.
For I think the poet Heinrich Heine was right in 1820 and he's still right now, two hundred years later: Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people. To their credit, even The Beatles understood this; as their counter-revolutionary track 'Revolution' demonstrates ...
II.
Inspired by anti-war protests and student uprisings, John Lennon's lyrics express sympathy with the need for radical social change, but serious reservations over the violent tactics adopted by some on the so-called New Left. The song concludes that there's no need for direct action as everything's gonna be alright (that is to say, ideals of peace and love will triumph in the end). It also explicitly dismisses the cult of personality surrounding Chairman Mao.
Of course, countercultural comrades and hardline communists of every variety immediately branded Lennon a traitor and collaborator. They were shocked not only by his Transcendental fatalism, but by his humour and expressed need to see details (or a plan) for how a revolution might work. The New Left Review dismissed the song as a 'lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear' and even the French film director Jean-Luc Godard denounced the Beatle for his apoliticism and suggested that he and other band members had been corrupted by money.
Duly chastened by the criticism he received, Lennon subsequently declared himself to be a revolutionary after all. However, in an interview shortly before his death in 1980, he again voiced his rejection of political violence and terror and reaffirmed the more pacifist sentiments expressed in 'Revolution': 'Don't expect me on the barricades unless it's with flowers.'
To be honest, I don't have much affection for Lennon. But I admire the stand he took here and his scorn for the militant asceticism and extremer than thou snobbery of those on the far left openly motivated by resentment and hatred. And I think that those who call naively for revolution today and pose with clenched fists held aloft, should stop to consider that they ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow ...
Play: The Beatles, 'Revolution', B-side to the single release 'Hey Jude', (Apple, 26 August 1968): click here.
Note: the above promo film, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was first broadcast on Top of the Pops (BBC One) on 19 September, 1968.
See: Daniel Chirot, You Say You Want a Revolution?, (Princeton University Press, 2020). In this new study, Chirot - a Professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at the University of Washington - examines why most modern revolutions have ended in bloodshed and failure and what lessons they hold for today's world of growing extremism. The image above is from the front cover to this text.
Note: the above promo film, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was first broadcast on Top of the Pops (BBC One) on 19 September, 1968.
See: Daniel Chirot, You Say You Want a Revolution?, (Princeton University Press, 2020). In this new study, Chirot - a Professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at the University of Washington - examines why most modern revolutions have ended in bloodshed and failure and what lessons they hold for today's world of growing extremism. The image above is from the front cover to this text.
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