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Right/Duty of Revolution

  
 
SMS
18:52 / 04.07.03
Right of revolution

As I write this, it is Independence Day, here in the states, in which we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and, by extension, our victory over the tyrrany of George III and the British. This topic will be to discuss the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, specifically the right or duty of revolution, recognized in this excerpt.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Alternative views to those expressed by Jefferson and the other 55 signatories to the document are, of course, relevant. I ask that discussion here please stay on topic. Here is a complete transcript of the Declaration:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
   Button Gwinnett
   Lyman Hall
   George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
   William Hooper
   Joseph Hewes
   John Penn
South Carolina:
   Edward Rutledge
   Thomas Heyward, Jr.
   Thomas Lynch, Jr.
   Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
   Robert Morris
   Benjamin Rush
   Benjamin Franklin
   John Morton
   George Clymer
   James Smith
   George Taylor
   James Wilson
   George Ross
Delaware:
   Caesar Rodney
   George Read
   Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
   William Floyd
   Philip Livingston
   Francis Lewis
   Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
   Richard Stockton
   John Witherspoon
   Francis Hopkinson
   John Hart
   Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
   Josiah Bartlett
   William Whipple
Massachusetts:
   Samuel Adams
   John Adams
   Robert Treat Paine
   Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
   Stephen Hopkins
   William Ellery
Connecticut:
   Roger Sherman
   Samuel Huntington
   William Williams
   Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
   Matthew Thornton
 
 
cusm
22:52 / 04.07.03
I have to note that the preamble does do a good job of answering these questions, outlining what should be expected of government, that revolution is called for when these expectations fail, and also that revolution should only be undertaken with great prudence. They were a smart lot, I have to give them that.

I have to agree with the bit on prudence, that revolution should be a form of last resort only when internal change within the system of government is no longer possible due to an eroding of the democratic process into despotism. So I would see the call as involving two points: That the government has failed to fulfill the needs of the people, and that the people are no longer able to change the government to correct this by peaceful means.

I also have to agree on the responsibility part as well. For even without resorting to violent revolution, knowing that such will be the outcome should a government continue to practice as it is becomes incentive for the government to change peacefully before violent revolution becomes necessary. However, this pressure is only effective if those in power believe that the people are actually willing to use force if it goes that far. It is the threat of violence that in many cases is a more effective cause for change than violence itself. Only if it can be shown that the people are committed to this option can negotions be held in its place.

But that is ever the politics of war and diplomacy, isn't it?
 
 
Linus Dunce
23:07 / 04.07.03
Well, it's all John Locke an' that, innit?

Seems fair enough to me. Revolution can be a right and a duty. But it could also be mob rule, couldn't it?
 
 
GreenMann
11:33 / 07.07.03
In revolutions, like anything else, there is excess, or the mob, embittered by generations of social repression, poverty and disempowerment.

Sometimes, in the process of reclaiming rights, abuses do happen, but we have to keep our eye on the ball, the big picture, and revolution is a duty when, beyond doubt, the existing system is destroying us and our planet.
 
 
Cat Chant
12:07 / 07.07.03
The thing that is crucial here, I think, is the question of signature: the definition of the "one people" or revolutionary agent in whose name the Declaration speaks & is signed... f'rinstance the 'one people' here I imagine was mostly the white, slave-owning class? But my American history is sketchy at best.
 
 
Linus Dunce
19:10 / 07.07.03
Deva -- and, of course, male. It is crucial, though I think applying twenty-first-century definitions of "the people" to eighteenth-century documents could be considered an anachronism. And they didn't, for example, write, "We, the male, white slave-owners ... "

GreenMann -- "the mob, embittered by generations of social repression, poverty and disempowerment." I can't see, for example, daily guillotine shows or placing a lighted car tyre around someone's neck as an acceptable and blameless way to carry on. The point of revolution, after all, is to make things better again.
 
 
SMS
19:27 / 07.07.03
As I read it, the "one people" bit refers to colonials under British rule, and this would seem to refer to the slaves as well. That is, after the revolution, they were no longer slaves in the British Empire, but in the American Republic. It certainly didn't refer just to slave owners, as if owning slaves gave one a special status. There was an effort to emancipate slaves at the birth of our country as well as an effort to give women the right to vote, but the former was defeated because it would have meant some of the colonies would never join th Federal Union, and the latter was defeated because Americans still had their eyes closed to the need for it. (Interestingly, women have always had the right to serve in the congress in America, and this did, in fact, occur before suffrage.) The bit about inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must refer to everyone in the world. These are rights you aren't allowed to give up even if you want to, so that would make slave-owning against the spirit of the declaration.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
20:32 / 07.07.03
But given that slaves had had their inalienable right of liberty taken away from them, the Declaration cannot be taken to have referred to them, surely? Slaves weren't colonials, they were the property of colonials.
 
 
Linus Dunce
21:19 / 07.07.03
IMHO, SMatthewStolte is overstating the abolitionist intent of the constitution. While some of the Founding Fathers had mixed or even antipathetic feelings about slavery, they were more concerned at getting everyone to agree to sign the damn thing.

The subject of slavery was pretty much talked around without being directly addressed. The southern/pro-slavery states read what they wanted to read, as did the northern/anti states. So the answer's yes and no really, though it was sorted out after the civil war. At least, on paper.
 
 
Cat Chant
07:26 / 08.07.03
they didn't, for example, write, "We, the male, white slave-owners ... "

and

As I read it, the "one people" bit refers to colonials under British rule, and this would seem to refer to the slaves as well.

Yeah, you see, this is what interests me (and gives me hope for the future): they didn't write "we, the male, white, slave-owners" on the basis, presumably, that this went without saying under the definition of "the people", and you're right that it's an anachronism to apply 21st-C notions of enfranchisement to it. But a good anachronism. However transparent, clear, and set-in-stone the Declaration seems to be, it's always, as MatthewStolte's phrasing highlights, open to reading: so we can either choose to interpret the Declaration in the spirit in which (we imagine) it was written, ie "the people" as defined at the time, or to use it against itself to demonstrate that slaves are also in possession of the inalienable right to liberty...

... all of which is a bit dated, since I hear you people have repealed slavery. But I think it's a nice example of how something that's designed to be a straightforward, easily-intelligible program or blueprint can change its meaning and generate more (r)evolutions over time. So we have a right and a duty, not just to revolt, but to read, creatively, attentively, and responsibly, and to set these hidden implications of our culture's self-representation in motion against our culture's more horrible bits...

... but then I would say that
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:09 / 08.07.03
And having said it, you may wish to tie it a little more tightly to:

This topic will be to discuss the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, specifically the right or duty of revolution, recognized in this excerpt.

And:

When, if ever, is revolution a right or a duty?

To which latter question I would submit the following:-

Revolution is neither a right nor a duty. It preceeds either; it can be seen as a convulsion in the body politic, a structural upheaval, the consequence of a 'value dissynchronisation' in which the differences between the perceived 'right' state of affairs and the actual state become so glaring as to produce 'relative deprivation' or relative unfreedom; or as the consequence of the combination of actions by political agencies. What is common to them is that the initial animus for the revolution is a massive rejection of the current state of play (however this rejection comes about, and whatever happens to it thereafter). This moment of rejection possesses no ideology, though it is often given the rhetoric of any nearby revolutionary ethos. It takes no account of right but expresses necessity and reaction; it does not assert a duty but is the assertion of a bottom line: the societal entity under stress can retreat no further without ceasing to be what it is - the Free Men who framed the US Constitution could retreat no further from conflict without becoming serfs rather than subjects; without abandonning aspects of life by which they defined themselves.

Revolution is the breaking point. Duty and Rights are expressed later.
 
 
alas
14:12 / 08.07.03
it does not assert a duty but is the assertion of a bottom line: the societal entity under stress can retreat no further without ceasing to be what it is - the Free Men who framed the US Constitution could retreat no further from conflict without becoming serfs rather than subjects; without abandonning aspects of life by which they defined themselves.

Or that's what they perceived. I'm interested in playing more with this, because clearly, these men were much further from serfdom than were their slaves or their wives, many of whom suffered double consciousness, and often some serious awareness of it, rather than revolting, because the stakes were simply too high. In other words, double consciousness is a third option, between passive acceptance of one's low status and open revolt, and it is the state that most of us live in most of the time. Only those who've been raised to believe not only that they deserve better but that they have access to the power to change things seek to change it. And they're gambling that they can get something better by risking everything. What does it take to be willing to make such a gamble? In otherwords, rather than a bottom line, I think those most likely to revolt are those whose lives have assured them, again and again, that they can get what they want and deserve the best. This is not a position of stress and desperation, but relative privilege, arguably. (Depending on how you define privilege, of course.)

Re: slavery. Jefferson wanted to blame all of slavery on George III, but not just the Southern states but the northern representatives, many of whom made a lot of money in the shipping of slaves and from the cotton industry, weren't buying it. They wanted the "cake" of defining humanity as endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, etc., but they also wanted to take those rights away from others for their own profit.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:15 / 08.07.03
clearly, these men were much further from serfdom than were their slaves or their wives

As I said, it's about relative not actual deprivation.

Only those who've been raised to believe not only that they deserve better but that they have access to the power to change things seek to change it.

Hmmm. I think you'll have to prove that. History appears to be against you.

rather than a bottom line, I think those most likely to revolt are those whose lives have assured them, again and again, that they can get what they want and deserve the best

That's a startling assertion indeed. You will no doubt be producing evidence for it.

This is not a position of stress and desperation, but relative privilege, arguably.

Obviously, you can't suffer 'relative deprivation' unless you have (or believe you should have) something of which you can be deprived. If you read the text of the above declaration, you'll see what they were pissed off about. Ted Gurr's point (he's the theorist behind 'relative deprivation') is precisely not that these people were suffering from absolute deprivation, but as I said, that the world they lived in was being progressively removed from the world in which they thought they should live. If you want to argue that, compared with more disenfranchised groups with whom they had contact, the framers of the Constitution had nothing to complain about, I'm not going to disagree - but it doesn't alter what I'm saying. If you're saying that there should have been a slave revolution in the nascent US, or that there should have been feminist eruptions, well, fine. It changes nothing.
 
 
wiracocha
12:22 / 09.07.03
I think, if I can be permitted for moving the debate in a different direction, that when a government goes away from being 'for the people' revolution should be the outcome not just to maintain what the people at present require but for the future of mankind.

All great leaders are inevitably criminals, like Dostoyevsky said, because in writing a new law they are breaking an old one. On the issue of revolution as a right/ duty, whether the old was a just or unjust law to be overthrown is not really my concern here. If someone possessed a revolutionary idea that was for the eventual betterment of all mankind would he be justified to cause bloodshed to get the new idea through? If the revolution is a rather bloody way to quickly install a new law is it really justified? All major revolutions have inevitably betrayed themselves, is the gap between the idealogy and the materialistic terror necessary for it to be enforced justified? To a certain extent I think it depends on the importance of the idea in which the action is taken for. But are there any new ideas of this kind possible anymore?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
12:57 / 09.07.03
I think, if I can be permitted for moving the debate in a different direction, that when a government goes away from being 'for the people' revolution should be the outcome not just to maintain what the people at present require but for the future of mankind.

Always assuming that revolution - in the bloody, mass uprising sense of the word - is a positive force of change. I'm not convinced. It's certainly faster and simpler than the more lengthy process of gradual reform, but I'm not sure it works better.

If someone possessed a revolutionary idea that was for the eventual betterment of all mankind would he be justified to cause bloodshed to get the new idea through?

Is any idea which requires bloody murder for its achievement actually better?

All major revolutions have inevitably betrayed themselves, is the gap between the idealogy and the materialistic terror necessary for it to be enforced justified?

All major revolutions have been betrayed by their formation: they begin as convulsions of rejection and are appropriated by political groups hoping to profit from the dissatisfaction expressed, but whose agendas are markedly different from those dissatisfactions. For example, 'Bread, Peace, and Land', the slogan of the Bolsheviks, was in marked contrast to their actual political agenda. The revolution was not betrayed; the convulsion was hijacked and the revolution confected from it.

But are there any new ideas of this kind possible anymore?

In the industrialised world, there may not be. It's possible that the political apparat here is sufficiently reflexive to avoid provoking this kind of uprising, although interestingly as media control is centralised and unaccountable corporations appear to puppet governments through economic and lobbying pressure, it's not impossible. The difficulty is the lack of a clear target; obfuscation is the order of the day, but that in itself is now becoming an issue.

The new styles of imperialism and corporate governance require new methods of opposition; perhaps blood-in-the-streets revolution isn't the way to go. I'm a fan of teh Chinese approach to invasions, myself - give them the city, the country, let them get comfy, and then just offer to administer the whole thing for them while they get on with the serious business of, you know, ruling. Something like that (in reverse?) might be very powerful.
 
 
alas
20:47 / 14.07.03
Ted Gurr's point (he's the theorist behind 'relative deprivation') is precisely not that these people were suffering from absolute deprivation, but as I said, that the world they lived in was being progressively removed from the world in which they thought they should live.

But as I understand it, Gurr does also argue that the leaders of revolutions tend to come from the middle/upper classes, no? In other words, I think there's value in seeing _those_ relatively privileged folks not so much as acting out of stress and desperation, as those in the peasant classses are more likely to be, so much as convinced they _might_ be able to be successful in violently seeking to change the course of things, based on their past success, their relative access to power.

Let me take what might seem to be an example to the contrary. Nat Turner, leader of an unsuccessful slave revolution, was, clearly stressed and desperate, as a slave. It's not clear whether he had a sense of "relative deprivation," in fact, because his statements have a kind of "Revelations According to John" feel to them. His world was defined in spiritual terms. But, still, arguably, he only able to attempt a revolution because he was convinced that God was on his side and working through him--if the dubious transcripts of his confession are to be in any way trusted. In other words, unlike many slaves, he could act because he believed that he had access to a divine power to change things and (wrongly, unfortunately) that he would be successful because of that divine power.

I would argue that the U.S. founders (who I understand seriously and knowingly exaggerated some of the claims in the rather incendiary document of 4 July '76, for rhetorical effect) gained a similar sense of self-confidence from their worldly success, which gave them the cojones to seek a revolutionary overthrow of British rule.

I guess I'm just arguing that there has to be not _just_ desperation and stress but _some_ real sense of self-confidence, from some source (divine or more mundane), in order for revolutionary actions to occur. Is that too simplistic? (And/or, is that pretty much what you've been arguing? I sense that all I'm doing is changing the emphasis of yours/Gurr's point? Or?)
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:36 / 16.07.03
I think we're close to agreement, and certainly your take on Gurr is as good as mine. I'd say that it's not necessary to come from an empowered class to suffer relative deprivation - you need only come from a group which has a notion of 'right situation'. Nat Turner's a good example - his 'right situation' was religiously derived. So maybe he believed God was on his side and this felt empowered, and maybe he simply felt he had a right to xyz because it was God's Will.

Certainly, though, the ideologies which ride shotgun on revolutions tend to be from a middle class intellectual background, because those are the people who most often generate social critiques - almost by definition: if you're sufficiently articulate and perceptive to offer a critique or a revolutionary rhetoric, you may end up getting defined as an intellectual on that basis alone, and the place of intellectuals in a class-scheme is always a little vexed, but tends to default in simplistic constructions to a blurry middle class equivalent. I remember seeing footage of a man in post-Amin Uganda who has survived Amin's purges of intellectuals solely because, as a silversmith, he was both educated and a manual worker: when Amin's men examined him, they saw the callouses on his hands and took him for a prolatarian (or whatever Amin's term for that was).

The thrust of what I was saying, in any case, was that revolution is not primarily an ideological thing, but a thing of discontent; whether you parse that through Gurr's construction is something we can discuss - I'm not fixed on 'relative deprivation', but I think it has a lot going for it. Revolution becomes ideological through political manouever and through the perceived need for a hierarchy to coordinate action. The ideology of the organising cadre or party is adopted, and its rhetoric comes to be used to express the anger which is the animus of the revolution.

It's possible that today there are models coming into being which don't require a hierarchy of this kind, though I'm not entirely sure, and equally uncertain whether this is a good thing - since it seems to offer the worst of the liberal democratic shape that John Dunne once criticised - is such a formless entity capable of reacting positively to macro-needs? Or can it only deny and gratify in the small? And can such a pattern evolve to be a form of society? [Sorry, thinking on my feet a bit there.]

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that if one accepts this position, the notion that revolution is a right or a duty is redundant; those things are artifacts of ideological assertions which come after the fact. Rights and duties are products. Revolution is (re)action.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:22 / 22.07.03
Here's a thought, inspired by another thread: there has never been a 'revolution', in the sense of a radical departure from established timelines of threat, persecution, and counter-persecution. All we do is swing the pendulum and change the names of those in power. A revolution has to escape the cycle of violence and oppression - it has to pull itself up by its bootstraps and reject becoming the expression of the nightmares of the ancien regime. And it never has yet.
 
 
BioDynamo
18:52 / 25.07.03

The revolution of the spread of Christianity did this, in my opinion. Gave a totally new level to operate on, a whole new form of encouraging people to participate in the struggle, several forms of feeding on the oppression it in itself produced.

It is no coincidence that many radical leftist authors are saying we live in an Empire and that the theory we need to produce is one that will go straight to the heart of this Empire and through it, exiting on the other side, signifying at the same time total participation in the workings of Empire and a totally antagonistic attitude towards it.

That this Empire should be brought down by the same means the Roman Empire was brought down. Or.. totally different means, but in a similar manner. Or something.

The great thing with this "theory and movement to be" is that it doesn't exist yet, so everything we write and do will (hopefully) be a part in creating it.

Ooh, I'm getting messianistic about this. Negri as John the Baptist...
 
  
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