The Lure of Revolution

Change is hard. Substitutes are easier, that is why we prefer them.

Jan 04, 2025

two men standing near wall with mural — Photo by Guille Álvarez on Unsplash

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John McWhorter is a professor of Linguistics at Columbia and a columnist at the New York Times. Glenn Loury is a professor of Economics at Brown and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. McWhorter reflected this past week on David Greenberg’s new biography of civil rights hero John Lewis as part of Loury’s podcast. Lewis was a contemporary of Dr. King and was the first leader of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and later a long serving congressman from Georgia. Lewis, along with King, led the civil rights movement forward through non-violent action. In 1966, Lewis was replaced as the head of SNCC by Stokely Carmichael as the organization turned away from non-violent interaction and moved in a more confrontational, and sometimes violent direction. McWhorter, reflecting on this change, bemoaned the path not taken. Through the inclusive, multi-racial, and non-violent approach of the early 1960’s, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. McWhorter noted that, after the turn away from non-violence and racial inclusion in 1966, nothing was accomplished that in any way compared to what was accomplished prior to 1966.

It is easy to understand why that might be the case. We live in a democracy, where persuasion and consensus building are an inescapable element of making lasting change. People need their minds and emotions engaged and challenged. They need to see a different and better way. They need to understand how they can be a part of making that better way happen. In our system, and really in any free system, a significant level of public participation is required to move in a new direction. Required, but difficult. More appealing is the lure of revolution or violent direct action. More appealing in some ways, but less effective - at least in our context.

Police hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO's ... — WBOY.com

McWhorter’s commentary on the path not taken came to mind as I reflected on the reaction to the recent murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare in New York City. We heard a number of “murder is wrong, but …” explanations that came just short, or perhaps they didn’t come short, of justifying the murder. In fact, a recent poll found that 41% of young people believe the murder of Thompson, a 50 year old father of two, is acceptable. The narrative is there is a lot of public anger toward healthcare companies and the healthcare system and this is one expression of it. Whether this is actually true is up for some debate. More than 80% of people with health insurance here in the U.S. rate it as “excellent” or “good”. We spend more on healthcare in the U.S. than is spent in other countries, but we spend more on almost everything in the U.S. because we have more money. Spending on healthcare presupposes that we have healthcare services to spend it on, and we certainly have that - including Cialis and Ozympic and other similar healthcare interventions that no doubt drive up the tally. And wait times in other countries is high, indicating that the amount of healthcare available per person is less. It is true that our life expectancy ranking doesn’t match our health care spending, but that may be because we eat badly, take dangerous drugs, and do violence to ourselves and others at a rate that is higher than in other places.

Surely, our system could well be improved, but the mechanics of identifying all that goes into that improvement is hard. The narrative is simpler. The narrative of an evil system exploiting a helpless populace. But, for the sake of this discussion, let’s say that the narrative is largely correct. Is violence “against the system” justified? Is it effective?

America's “Days of Rage”: The Extensive Left-Wing Bombings & Domestic Terrorism of the 1970s

I have written before of the bombings in this country in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s (just after the civil rights movement took a more violent turn, the anti-war and anti-capitalist movements took a violent turn). We averaged more than a bombing a day from the likes of the Weather Underground and other violent organizations in 1970. My purpose here isn’t to try to determine if they had a point, rather, to determine if all of that destruction (with some loss of life and serious injury) made any real difference - and, if it did, does that justify it?

First, I think it is pretty clear that it didn’t shorten the war, although some apologists assume that must be why the war ended. But the height of the bombings were 1969 through 1971, and Richard Nixon carried 49 states in the 1972 election for President. That is what we call a landslide - clearly, the population was not rallying to the cause. People thought the violence was arbitrary and disconnected from whatever the cause was. To the extent that people understood the cause, it was just as likely to make them less sympathetic to it. Just the point John McWhorter was making with regard to the more violent turn the civil rights movement took starting in 1966. Lastly, it was unclear how the violence could possibly do any good. How, exactly, would this end the war sooner? Or end capitalism? Or do anything in the real world? Real change is hard, this was seen as an inadequate substitute.

One of the ways I have heard the murder of Brian Thompson described is that it was an effective symbolic action expressing anger against a broken system. That there is anger is hard to argue, the extent to which the system is broken is arguable. But effective? I will make a prediction: that the healthcare system will not be changed in any meaningful, positive way as a result of this murder. Not only on the general principle that violent action does not normally result in meaningful, positive results - but because it is hard to see how this changes anything, in any direction. Already there is another person filling that role, and the company continues forward. Real change is difficult and complicated and requires us to set aside our narratives and our white hat, black hat classifications. It will cost us something that we don’t want to pay. That is the nature of it. It is easier to take sides and pick a narrative - but we don’t want to live in a country where random violence is justified by a narrative. There are lots of narratives out there, who knows what direction the violence will take. In time, violence becomes its own justification.

Often, at this point in the essay, I will reference a biblical passage bearing on our topic. In this case, we don’t have to reach very far for relevant biblical passages. Here’s one …

You shall not murder.

Exodus 20:13

Even if we think it justified, the commandment is pretty clear. The ability to decide if murder is appropriate is not given to us. I have written before about the difficulty of the death penalty. Here is an excerpt from that piece -

I have a complicated view of the death penalty. The articulation of this view on the lengthy survey apparently did not disqualify me for jury service. Most people are familiar with the injunction against murder in the Ten Commandments. The Sixth Commandment says thou shall not murder - that is pretty clear. That is a part of the moral code that Christians and Jews and Muslims would all agree with. That a Christian is against murder and that murder violates the Judeo-Christian law isn’t a surprise to most. But it can be a surprise to some that, before the Mosaic law was given, the penalty for murder had already been communicated.
And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
“Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made mankind.
(Genesis 9:5-6)
This is meant to show the horrible crime of homicide for what it is - something so deeply wrong that there is no real justice that doesn’t involve the death of the murderer. It is a crime against God as well as a person - an image bearer is killed and the image of God is defaced in the killer. That seems cut and dried. If someone is guilty of murder, they should face the death penalty. This is not part of the Mosaic code that applied only to the administration of ancient Israel - this declaration precedes Moses by many centuries. This biblical command (for the administration of public justice) is still valid.
But, in this real and fallen world, it can seem more complicated than that. That is what I put on my survey, anyway. The death penalty is an appropriate sentence. There may be times when it is the most appropriate sentence. But, there is often injustice in how it is applied. There are times when the death penalty would be an injustice because the defendant is innocent or received an inadequate defense. We know, in the real world, poor people get the death penalty, relatively often, people with means almost never do. And I would have great difficulty imposing the death penalty if there was any doubt as to the defendant’s guilt. In the case I was in the jury pool for and in the case of Nikolas Cruz, though, there isn’t any question about guilt or innocence - and both have excellent legal representation. I am not sure where the correct practical application lies here.

I’m still not - and this is in a case where the guilt of the perpetrator is beyond doubt. It is strange that those most likely to declare the murder of Brian Thompson justified are, it seems, also the people most likely to declare the death penalty unacceptable for the most heinous of crimes adjudicated in a court of law. To confidently proclaim that a person who has not been found guilty of anything in a legal system should no longer live is not my call. If I make it my call, then I take God’s place to decide the correct administration of justice. That involves another passage - one where we want to be like God - one set in a garden and featuring a snake.