Sunday, March 20, 2005

Revolutionary Language

An interesting story about protests in Cuba by the wives of "dissidents" who were jailed there two years ago. Because they are extremely brave, these women have been holding silent protests over the past year, which is unheard of in Cuba.
Meanwhile, a group of female Castro supporters has been breaking the protests up. What fascinated me was their reason for doing this. To quote one woman:
"We have to support the revolution," said government supporter 70-year-old Aida Diaz.
I can find few better examples of the counter-intuitive logic of totalitarian regimes. Not only do they give people an overarching idea to ascribe to; but they also provide an entire reality matrix. The strength of this matrix is actually demonstrated by how counter-intuitive its beliefs are. For a true believer, the sky is never blue. To quote Rev. Groucho Marx:
"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Outside of the Castro reality matrix, a "revolution" is defined as:
1) The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another.
2) A drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving.
Note that these government supporters are actually opposing both of these things, and yet they believe themselves to be "supporting" a revolution. This would be like... well, a "pro-life" advocate killing a doctor.
And so, Logic is the first casualty of "answers".

1 comment:

Daphne said...

What exactly you're writing is a horrible mistake.