Propagators of Revolution

Edmund Morgan, in Inventing The People, reminds us that "We assume too easily that popular sovereignty was the product of popular demand, a rising of the many against the few. It was not. It was a question of some of the few enlisting the many against the rest of the few."

But such is not always the case. Take for example, Gibbon's description of the subjects of Maximin in ancient Rome: "[They] were reduced to that uncommon distress, in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression than from resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth, inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in those civil wars which are artifically supported for the benefit of a few factious and designing leaders." The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Is a revolution of the people, therefore, only to be ignited by the indomitable instinct for survival? Or have less drastic means simply not yet been discovered by man?

Sanctuary

Outside the office where I work there was an area, cordoned off by four orange cones (of the usual, construction variety) connected by yellow "Caution" tape (of the usual, crime scene variety). The area protected by this formidable array, in the midst of a plaza, measures about six feet by six feet.

I see it when I walk in during the morning, via my usual circuitous route, by way of Dunkin Donuts. It stands in defiant opposition to the sprawling remainder of the plaza, practically staggering with the intoxication of its selection.

Though I'm unaware what danger lurks beyond that yellow tape (or, indeed, from which direction it might come. Above? Below?) I've often envied its ability to dissuade. It would be no great task for these barriers to be surmounted, yet the world, like a massive river, choose to move smoothly around its silent, repetitive protest.

What if I took up temporary habitation there? Is the worth of the thirty-six feet increased sufficiently by the addition of one person to draw the gaze of those passing by? What if, in an effort to tie into our mutual subconscious, I laid down to prepare for a chalking? Like on CSI? Or if I fell asleep? Would the world disturb me in a catnap? And, if I could dissuade, perhaps people of the same sentiments might cohabitate briefly? Could we all together establish a homebase? A refuge for any people who might not want to wrestle with the world for a little while? Or a long while?