revolution’s evolution

Everything is illuminated by nostalgia, even the guillotine. The French Revolution, or one of them, anyway, inspired so many works of fiction, some even still remain drenched in nostalgia, put to music and characters’ stock cutouts of revolutionaries even some two hundred, three hundred, years after the last head rolled off its body.

The death of the United Healthcare CEO only again unites those who struggle, who have spent hours of their lives on the phone begging for coverage, sometimes denied care completely due to bureaucratic loopholes and profit motive, just as the French Revolution united those who hungered without bread from the Royalty who were armed only cake and cluelessness. Who would wistfully remember the guillotine, when the state who has a monopoly on violence detests people putting their rights to good use?

Rights were only real after the Revolution, after all, and we risk losing what our ancestors fought for. That's because as time marches on, nostalgia leaving some buoyant against the rising tide of political ideologies. Others drown, just as the heads that rolled were not always cake-eating royalty. Ideally, the next revolution ought not to be violent, but what else has ever brought about change? People's hearts are harder than ever, both literally and metaphorically.