Man's Search for Certainty

De Simple Silence.

[modifier] Rebellion

Rebellion has been an essential escape valve for human pressures as far back as we know man's history. When the burden of successive events becomes too great to bear, some part of society calculates the odds and triggers the catch to rebellion.

Rebellion may be against imposed authority, or it may be against the burden of natural events. In the former case it can be bloody, and in the latter it may be as simple as the effort to escape to a more favorable environment, just as the European peasants emigrated at the time of the great potato famines. Sometimes a majority may be moved to rebellion. More often, however, it is a minority that considers itself unfairly oppressed or the majority too stupid and inert to pursue the course of "progress," in which case the minority rebels essentially against the stagnation of the majority.

Rebellion comes, above all, when communication has deteriorated. Argument, supplication, entreaty are over. A communications barrier, for whatever reasons, has arisen. The resentful see no hope for change through further talk. They regard the opposing side as unresponsive, deaf, heedless. No further effort is made to communicate. Instead the discontented begin to analyze the arsenal required to force acceptance of their viewpoint.

Ours is a time of unused energy seeking satisfying forms of expression and, therefore, a time especially vulnerable to unexpected ravages by discontent. As mentioned repeatedly, energy on the loose involves potential disaster, for it may select with almost no logic any point in environment for its discharge. It searches out especially the unworthy, seeking to tear it down and replace it with the worthwhile. Energy on the loose can seek to build, but more often it tears down not knowing what to substitute for what it condemns.

Social structure at best is a vast compromise between infinitely complex and often opposing needs. Further, it is always filled with residues of antiquated answers to situations no longer capable of total solution by the old ways. As a consequence, existing political and social structures are literally sitting ducks for the vast charges of energy set loose in disoriented times. Energy that will no longer flow peacefully into the old patterns focuses instead on the first apparent wrong. Energy that is normally constructive quickly becomes critical and destructive energy. For lack of ability to progress towards a meaningful ultimate, restless energy then attacks existing political, social, and family forms. It knows only that it is unfulfilled, and it associates its discomfort with the first faulty element observed in environment.

We do not pretend that present institutions are not in need of serious overhaul. It would be foolish to suggest that the social patterns of our day answer fully the needs of modern man. However, this is not the issue. The real question is whether the restless energy now on the loose in the world can possibly be constructively contained in the innovations that should and can be made in social institutions. The answer is probably a flat no. It is as if a 220,000 volt current were shunted down a 22,000 volt capacity line. The conductor melts and fails. This is the tragedy of energy that mistakes its true goal. When it goes into the wrong circuit, it is likely to overcharge it and burn the house down.

The ultimate quest for meaning, secure aims, and emotionally secure action in life is too powerful a psychic force to be shunted into even the massive requirement for innovation in social structure. The form society takes is the result of concepts of ultimate purpose and so is at a secondary or even lower energy stage in the scheme of things. Therefore, the mechanical structuring of society cannot absorb without serious damage the voltage involved in the quest for the ultimate, for this is a more primary and a more concentrated energy.

Energy shunted into rebellion seizes upon the first visible ailment in environment and vents its force upon it. Often it is energy wasted and produces only chaos. For questing to bring positive results, it must be clearly focussed on the real goal. When the true objective begins to yield to persistent, patient effort, then subsidiary matters fall into place. The question of our day is that of the ultimate purpose of creation and a sense of certainty in pursuing that purpose. When this aim is clearly focussed upon and the mainstream of concentrated effort directed to that ultimate end, then the restless energy of today will be properly harnessed and adequately utilized.

Don E. Stevens. © 1980 Don E. Stevens