The dynamics of soft revolutions
A dialogue between Niccolò the snake, Luce the squirrel, Charmide and Mickael the deer. Niccolò is secretive and manipulative but justifies himself by saying that it is for the common good. Luce thinks that males organize everything according to their nature and prefer to be independent so that she can live without concessions. Charmide and Mickael prefer to flee than to fight. Charmide thinks that temperance is the best rule of life; Mickael is wary of the power which always seeks to enslave.
Niccolò: he Luce, my dear, what are you doing around here?
Luce: I was looking for you, as a matter of facts.
Niccolò: you know I like you very much and I could not refrain admiring you dancing at the wedding of Socrates and Baguette?
Luce: Niccolò, stop the romance, I don’t trust you because I know how many you seduced only to better swallow them afterwards.
Niccolò: come on, Luce, I was not flattering you and I do not want to swallow you but never mind. If you haven’t come here for my good looks, what do I owe the pleasure of your visit to?
Luce: I wanted to apologize for telling Aurelius that you are hermaphrodite. He pissed me off and I lost it but I didn’t want to harm you.
Niccolò: ho, God and his sidekicks know me, don’t worry. And between us, Aurelius needed to be awaken, he had to change his ideas if he wanted to be listened to. I heard he decided to go for a refresher course.
Luce: yes and he is not the only one leaving. Socrates, Emilies, Baruch and now Peter and Davina. They are going to do their show elsewhere. As a result, Emmanuelles and Irinas have decided to stop theirs, the Emmanuelles because they no longer see its usefulness and the Irinas because, the poor ones, they are rotting more and more and will soon be at the bottom of the pond.
Niccolò: where they will be even closer to the turtles !
Luce: have a little compassion, Niccolò, and listen to me: these events give us the opportunity to make ourselves heard, you, the deer and me. Are they around?
Niccolò: they are hiding but they can probably hear us. They are over the moon with the fawn they found to adopt, can you believe it? Here they are.
Charmide: Luce, how lucky we are to see you! You take care of your children so well, will you give us any advice when we have our little one?
Mickael: since you told Aurelius we were gay, it freed us and we decided to adopt. Ange told us what to do before leaving and the process is underway.
Luce: I am happy for you and it’s a relief that my indiscretions did not bother you but I still want to apologize.
Charmide: don’t worry, Luce, you have opened doors.
Mickael: the one of the closet in the first place!
Niccolò: aren’t these crazy young people charming?
Luce: then it’s perfect and it may not be over: the frogs contacted me to take the Emmanuelles and Irinas time slot. They know I love cooking and they were thinking of a cooking show but how about making it a platform for the defense of our rights?
Mickael: a LGBTQ show, is that what you have in mind ? To fight against the oppression of which we are often victims?
Niccolò: would the frogs agree?
Charmide: come on, Niccolò, you know that they are sometimes hermaphrodites, why would they object?
Luce: we would give voice to the diversity that we represent but we would also invite inhabitants of the domain to come and talk about their life, we would evoke our particular interests, we would play music. Our best attack is showing who we are, don’t you think?
Charmide: Mickael and I love recent books, we could chronicle them regularly
Mickael: and talk about education. It would undoubtedly be very popular.
Niccolò: as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think I want to bepart of this because what is there to gain? Besides, the ponds are far away and dragging myself there regularly doesn’t appeal much to me.
Charmide: we would take you with us.
Mickael: Niccolò, when you disappear here and there for your business, the distances do not bother you!
Luce : please don’t start fighting, this is not productive! Niccolò, you could talk about ethics and politics because these are subjects that interest you; and you could be our guest at times if that suits you better.
Charmide: especially since you already have some experience in this area.
Mickael: and your comments about true and false were interesting .
Niccolò: he, yes, why not, it’s a solution that suits me better.
Luce: so it’s decided, we will soon revolutionize radio!
Analysis
How do gentle revolutions take place ?
In this dialogue as in the previous one, the animals no longer philosophize much as if the departure of some had already transformed the dynamics of the domain. It may also be that because most of the time, and contrary to popular belief, deep revolutions are gentle and go unnoticed: everything changes but gradually and smoothly so that at some point, the previous state of things has disappeared but the rupture does not appear until later.
Voids are created, filled by those who remained and by new arrivals. This initiates sweeping changes that will have consequences that are impossible to predict, but no one is fully aware of it at the moment. It seems it’s just life that goes on: for example, Luce, Charmide and Mickael have decided to talk about LGBTQ rights but will their listeners remember their talk about it or will they be more interested in and moved by the rest of the content?
Who knows? A new era is opening and we can only suspect that it will not resemble the one which preceded.
Possible discussions
Can we make a clean sweep of the past?
Are we always aware of what influences us?
Finally
Want to think a little more? See, for example, The structure of scientific revolutions where Kuhn explains that in science, moments of crisis generate transformations of paradigm.
Want to contribute to these dialogues? Write your comments and questions below.
Want to know more about the tastes of Luce, Niccolò, Charmide and Mickael ? Their favorite books are in the domain library.
Interesting, thanks