Aphrodite and Revolution
This theory, which I first heard from a friend in Armenia, holds that popular upheavals only stand a chance of success if a country’s most beautiful young women come out on to the streets.
The idea being that even the most politically indifferent young men want to be where the pretty girls are and that this creates a critical mass at demonstrations that causes a regime to lose confidence in its ability to prevail. To paraphrase Marx, the young men feel they have nothing to lose but their virginity.
Labels: politics
6 Comments:
Maybe it's just me, but I don't recall ever taking to a political change movement because of the presence of pretty girls. And I don't recall others doing that, either.
What mobilized folks was some sense of urgent common cause, not slways much beyond the local and immediate.
Not to agree that the presence and support of Aphrodite Pandemos wouldn't energize a change movement...
As you will notice in the excerpted paragraphs, the writer speaks in particular of "politically indifferent young men."
If you were not "politically indifferent," then you might have reacted differently, obviously.
Anyone who even vaguely remembers the 60's and 70's knows that there is more than a little truth to this!
One small detail has been overlooked, however. What attracts the pretty girls in the first place? Young, earnest, symmetrically featured Adonises who not only write poetry and play guitar but who also display physical courage when the cops/soldiers/thugs arrive.
That is often true, I am sure.
No offense, Pitch313, but a political change movement ain't the same as a revolution.
...Hence the T-shirt slogan: "Feminist chicks dig me."
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