Nathan Eckstrand, "Liberating Revolution: Emancipating Radical Change from the State"

SUNY Press, 2022

What is a Revolution?

By Nathan Eckstrand

It is relatively common these days—sometimes unnervingly so—to hear arguments for revolution. But what does it mean to revolt? Generally, the term is understood to mean a radical changing of a particular socio-political order, including the ideologies that compose it (i.e. the state).

To bring about such a change is difficult, and not just because of the exertion required to make it successful. Theories of revolution have historically been constrained by the states that produced them. Revolutionaries who seek to overturn governments and ideologies rely on concepts they draw from the very governments they oppose. To give one example, American revolutionaries justified the American Revolution using references to human rights, a concept that was well-established in the British system of government. While this is the case, revolutionaries face a frustrating paradox—when they revolt, they do so by repeating significant parts of the state (which is, by definition, counterrevolutionary). Can movements like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and Antifa be truly successful without overcoming this challenge? I argue the answer is no, but that a solution exists.

Finding the solution requires a new theory which does not does not use the same method to examine both the state and revolution. Assuming the same forces underlie both the state and revolution is a mistake, for to do so takes that which opposes order (revolution) and reduces it to an order (the state) or makes both order and change functions of a larger system. Revolutionary change should not be subordinated to discussions of policy, representation, law, economics, ethics, race, gender, and other similar subjects. A theory of revolution must be unique to revolution and incapable of appropriation by the state. This requires developing a new language for change, which I will discuss later.

Historically, revolution has been categorized in two different ways. First, multiple theories situate revolution among other state structures that do not change. This idea underlies social contract theory’s claim that the state begins with an exchange of power. Revolution is given no creative power, nor is it possible to see revolution as a collective endeavor since collectives only exist following a contract. Revolution operates only within the larger system of the state. While individual states can rise and fall, the way that states function will persist regardless of what revolutionaries want. Revolutionaries using social contract theory can only advocate for a state that obeys the social contract, and in that sense speak for the state rather than critique it. A similar criticism can be leveled at various other political theories, including those of John Rawls, John Stuart Mill, and Jürgen Habermas.

Other theories, many inspired by Marxist thought, describe processes that must be followed to get from one state to another. These processes are characterized in different ways (sometimes as natural, other times as ideological), but they restrict the path that political change can take. Although the specific form of the state can change, theories articulate how change occurs. These articulations describe processes which produce change, develop teleologies for change, and identify who will carry out change. This is most notable in some of Marx’s original accounts of revolution as well as the theories of Lenin and Mao. However, later Marxist thinkers including Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Althusser, and some works by the Frankfurt School support the idea that revolution has a telos. Revolution, under these conditions, is more creative but is still limited. In this case, it is limited by the state that is coming (i.e., the one following the revolution) and the people and processes that will bring it about. (To an extent, theories of civil disobedience fall into this category; however, civil disobedience is often treated more as a tactic than a theory of revolution.)

I develop my own theory by first looking at several theories of event ontology (Badiou, Kuhn, Foucault, and speculative realists, among others). Change, according to them, must be seen as a radical rupture irreducible to a larger order. There is no unity or order that can be ascribed to all being, which parallels my claim that revolution cannot be reduced to the state. According to event ontology, the study of existence yields many accounts (i.e. paradigms, axioms, or narratives) of how things work which cannot be unified or reconciled. Revolution, in a similar manner, separates different political orders which cannot be unified or reconciled either. As a disruption of order, revolution cannot participate in any mode of political existence.

Second, I incorporate the emerging field of complex adaptive systems to provide a new account of radical change that sees change as the outcome of a whole system in motion. Systems theory rejects the paradigm shift, discursive, or set-theory based approaches of the event ontologists described above, where change is presented as the outcome of procedures and/or existents. Instead, change is situated as something integrally part of systems that are complex and adaptive. In other words, change is a fundamental feature of systematicity, and not a conditioned outcome of pieces within a system. To do this, I reference research on emergence, adaptivity, holism, and more to prove that a system is always more than the sum of its parts. This anti-reductionism means that the order of a state never captures all that complex systems are. It is systems theory’s ability to situate change as something other than a result which is the basis for my conclusion.

Finally, I connect these discussions of systems and events to political philosophy by drawing from various strains of anarchist theory, particularly their attempts to think of a politics independent of the State. Anarchism sees the State as something more than just the government and emphasizes the organic development of society as something to be embraced. I show that by connecting theories of Anarchism to systems theory and this new understanding of change, you can develop a new understanding of Anarchism that is similar to but distinct from post-Anarchism. All of this leads to the novel revelation which provides the source of the book’s title: change must be seen as irreducible as Being, but whereas Being has attributes which are describable (albeit changing), change has no attributes that be described without first connecting it to Being. Radical change of the type found in revolution comes from nowhere, and seems as such until after a revolution ends.

After developing this theory of change, my book tests its ability to function as a ‘liberated’ theory of revolution. First, it evaluates whether the theory is able to avoid the problems discussed in earlier theories of revolution. The same critiques are put to the new, systems-theory based concept of revolution and shown to be inapplicable. As the dynamic phenomena described in systems theory prescribe no forms yet are able to undo them, there is no State to which revolution is attached. Second, the book studies several accounts of revolution and asks whether this theory has the ability to help us understand them without reducing them to a particular State. It shows that the systems theory-based approach to revolution helps us develop a vocabulary unique to each revolution which can, in retrospect, help us see how the strategies and tactics of revolutionaries overcame the State.

The final chapter of my book shows that despite the claim that revolution has no program to follow, it is still possible to make this theory effective. It does this by studying the tactics employed by several different revolutionary movements: the American and French revolutions, civil disobedience, guerilla warfare, anti-colonial struggles, American black radicalism, and social media activism. The chapter shows that the fomenting of revolution requires a comprehensive and integrated approach to systems focused on pushing them to their limits, while the building of a new state requires thinking creatively about one’s end goals while being mindful of how to intervene most effectively. In the American and French revolutions, I look at the revolutionaries’ usage of declarations, pamphlets, battlefields, and courtrooms. For civil disobedience, I discuss publicity and staged demonstrations. For guerrilla warfare, I study at the emphasis on community support, isolated groups, spectacular displays, constant yet low-intensity engagement with the enemy, and propaganda. For anti-colonial struggles, I explore the relationship between colonizer and colonized, and how that changes revolutionary tactics used earlier. For American Black Radicalism, I look at the advocacy for the organizing of the black population, the strategic (as opposed to wholesale) undermining of the system, and the practice of autobiography. Finally, for social media activism, I analyze memes, virality, and hashtag slogans.

What makes this book unique is the ideas it uses to analyze revolution. While the field of complex adaptive systems (i.e. the study of highly interconnected networks composed of agents capable of responding and adapting to their environment) has grown substantially in recent years, no one has applied it to the topic of revolution. To the extent that political philosophy has engaged the field, it has been through epistemological discussions about emergence. Similarly, Event Ontology (i.e. the exploration of how Being relates to radical change) engages systems theory indirectly, through side notes or by discussing associated topics. Finally, while anarchism has been brought into discussions of Event Ontology and revolution, it has not yet been connected to systems theory. The overlap between these three theories is noteworthy, and I hope my work provides a helpful contribution to their study.