I asked a question on Twitter that went something like this: Not counting Warhol, are the people who EMPOWER the revolution ever as remembered as those who LEAD the revolution?
The answer has to be no, right? Okay, in the American Revolution, there’s a bit of a pantheon, but I’d offer that more people think that Washington had more to do with America being a country than Franklin. And yet, it’s written out cleanly that Franklin did lots of negotiating, dealmaking, and other efforts to make everything work out.
Replace “revolution” for “movement,” if the term is bugging you. Change. Thing that made us go from A to F.
Does it make the supporters’ roles less important? I doubt it. But do people who weren’t on the inside remember who was there besides Jobs and Wozniak? Is there a fifth Beatle? (Eddie Murphy notwithstanding.)
For all the people talking, and helping, and supporting, and building community, and sharing, and sheltering, and feeding the people who are out there making the “new” happen, I think the power still has to be in those who are doing. Do. The verb.
And yet, orchestras are meant for orchestral works, not a stage full of solos.
Thinking.
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As I recall from some Tony Robbins tape, thousands of people work their entire lives to get to the Olympics. The difference between a Gold and Silver medal can come down to 1/1000th of a second! Does a large number of people remember the silver medalist from such a race? Well, if they have also won a gold, yes.
The point he makes is that the difference between average and good is pretty sizable. The difference between good and great measurable. The difference between great and extraordinary is often times just a 1/1000th of a second - but it is the little difference in how the person peformed on that day that is measured and remembered forever. Not the coaches who made it happen, the spouses who put up with the late hours of training nor the team mates who pushed them further and further each day.
So yes, to those who do, to those are courageous and willing to risk it all - to risk failure again and again out of a gut belief that they are on to something, even when others don’t see it as possible or probable. It is they who win. At least in a world where measurement of success is based on who garnered the most eyeballs or who performed measurably better (time, money, eyeballs, lives affected, etc..) - but many people don’t measure success in that way.
So the deeper question my friend, is how do you define success? Is popularity, relevancy or personal fulfillment more important?
From where I am sitting in the middle of all this evolution/revolution of media, the knowledge economy and the creative economy are ones of abundance, where it is no longer a zero sum game, where we can all participate and we can all be winners. It is some time coming before this ideal is freed from the frictions of the world of scarcity, fear and zero-sum games, but it is possible and I hope with what we are doing today, that we are able to show in some small way how…
What revolution was Warhol a part of? The not having to touch your art revolution?
I think evolution may be more appropriate. Is there not a survival of the fittest going on? I don’t think this is as much about shaking the shackles of the elitist government as it is about finding better, faster, and simply better ways to do things. More compelling content. Like the chimp who discovered you could get insects out of a tree using a stick, we are using new tools to change the way business is done, the way ideas are communicated.
Maybe it’s a bit of both. Lots to think about.
Whit
I like that evolution model. There has been some evidence that evolution may have been pushed forward as species interact. For example human beings carry different kinds of bacteria. These bacteria have helped us eat the food we needed to survive and push things forward. There are also certain viruses that have altered the evolution of humans to get us where we needed to be at this point.
As we meet and come together, we are influencing each other’s evolution. Ideas I’ve read on this very blog have altered the course of how I do my own podcast. I probably have done the same thing for someone else, but it’s hard to say. Just like with human evolution, this social networking stuff is going to evolve in its own way. It may not move in a straight line, but it will get us where we need to go.
{I may have to steal back this comment for my podcast}
I wonder if the idea of ‘revolution’ is harder to convey to people who live in a country or society that has never had one.
I recently read Malcom Gladwell’s book ‘The Tipping Point’ - it spends a long period talking about Paul Revere, and his famous ride. As an Australian we didn’t cover this in school - not surprisingly, I had to look it up to really know what Gladwell was on about.
Revolutions happen becasue of oppression, what if your landscape is one of ho-hum, uniterested middle of the roadness, inoffensive averageness - how do you start a revolution among the uninterested?
To Graeme: revolutions only happen when numerous people care about something enough to take action and incite change. It rarely happens among the contented in any class / society. One group or contingency needs to feel they’re being marginalized, unjustly, and therefore are driven by a primal need for self-actualization and respect from others.
Does what we’re doing with the new media (r)evolution qualify? I think it depends on exactly what you feel you’re able to do now that you couldn’t do before. I’m not sure portable media is enabling the marginalized to be heard and inspiring widespread institutional change based upon hard-fought ideals in quite the same way as the American or French revolutions gave power to the people.
Then again, I may be wrong.
Yes, an orchestra may play the music, but the composer creates it.
I guess if someone, anyone, had a compelling enough tune, and created excitement by doing something new or in a new way, possibly change would occur as a result of getting people enthusiastic about thinking or approaching things in a new way (or everyone copies him).