How a passionate few capture conversations, with implications for how we do what we do.
During the recent Thanksgiving season, my historical reflections drifted towards a consideration of the French Revolution. This drift was inspired, perhaps, by the recent cinematic treatment of the life of Napoleon, whose career in many ways marked the apex and the end of that revolutionary era. In studying the French Revolution, one is struck by how many currents of thought were swirling around France in that period. The constant political swings—from radical to reactionary, from reformist to an embrace of violence and terror—reflect an era when anything seemed possible for society. In this sense, the period is representative of a characteristic common to many politically unsettled times, the present moment included. That characteristic is the presence of many voices speaking for movements and speaking within movements, all with the potential—with each sudden shift of circumstance—to become the guiding philosophy of masses of people or even of governments, with results both good and bad.
Read more here