Question
Is large-scale cultural change a prerequisite for political revolution?
Answer
This question assumes that there is an evolutionary historicist path of increasingly superior political systems starting with "Man in the state of nature" to "liberal democracy."
I agree. I am just calling the assumption out, since many do not. This is the Hegelian model, and Fukuyama's "End of History Model" and also the frame used by dissenters such as Huntington and his student, Fareed Zakaria.
Is cultural evolution necessary? Depends on whose point of view you are talking about. From the POV of the governed, absolutely. If they aren't evolved enough (or oppressed enough) to demand democracy, then it isn't going to happen. If everybody is peaceful and prosperous, believes in the same religion and lives in a benevolent theocracy, revolution won't happen and is not necessary really. Democracy is work for citizens. Why do it if some poor benevolent schlub is willing to take on the thankless task of good governance without it? Some oil-rich Gulf states are in this state. Oil helps postpone democracy.
From the POV of the incumbent political system that thinks "the people are not yet ready," absolutely not. The level of evolution THEY think is necessary is generally not even an evolutionary "level." It's just "revolution with an anti-guillotine clause."
This applies, for instance, to people who believe only college-educated people should have the vote.
As far as I am concerned, if a population is evolved enough to demand a certain sophistication of governance, they are evolved enough to have it. Sure there will be transient pains, bloodshed and messiness and even perhaps a dark age where things get worse before they get better. But I know of no historical examples where the "wait till the people are ready" strategy, with the incumbents determining "readiness" has ever worked. Deng Xiaoping's China is sometimes proposed as a counter-example, but it isn't really.
I'd say the people got to an evolutionary point where they demanded capitalism, and Deng Xiaoping gave it to them.
Tiananmen and Falung Gong may be early isolated signs of the Chinese people demanding democracy, but the people as a whole aren't yet demanding it en masse.
When they do, I pity the fool who tries to resist 1.5 billion people demanding the vote with the "they are not ready" argument.
I agree. I am just calling the assumption out, since many do not. This is the Hegelian model, and Fukuyama's "End of History Model" and also the frame used by dissenters such as Huntington and his student, Fareed Zakaria.
Is cultural evolution necessary? Depends on whose point of view you are talking about. From the POV of the governed, absolutely. If they aren't evolved enough (or oppressed enough) to demand democracy, then it isn't going to happen. If everybody is peaceful and prosperous, believes in the same religion and lives in a benevolent theocracy, revolution won't happen and is not necessary really. Democracy is work for citizens. Why do it if some poor benevolent schlub is willing to take on the thankless task of good governance without it? Some oil-rich Gulf states are in this state. Oil helps postpone democracy.
From the POV of the incumbent political system that thinks "the people are not yet ready," absolutely not. The level of evolution THEY think is necessary is generally not even an evolutionary "level." It's just "revolution with an anti-guillotine clause."
This applies, for instance, to people who believe only college-educated people should have the vote.
As far as I am concerned, if a population is evolved enough to demand a certain sophistication of governance, they are evolved enough to have it. Sure there will be transient pains, bloodshed and messiness and even perhaps a dark age where things get worse before they get better. But I know of no historical examples where the "wait till the people are ready" strategy, with the incumbents determining "readiness" has ever worked. Deng Xiaoping's China is sometimes proposed as a counter-example, but it isn't really.
I'd say the people got to an evolutionary point where they demanded capitalism, and Deng Xiaoping gave it to them.
Tiananmen and Falung Gong may be early isolated signs of the Chinese people demanding democracy, but the people as a whole aren't yet demanding it en masse.
When they do, I pity the fool who tries to resist 1.5 billion people demanding the vote with the "they are not ready" argument.