Before the French Revolution, a group nobles, Nobility of the Bailliage of Blois, saw the unsustainable nature of the absolutism and petitioned to grant more rights and voices to the commoners but they failed to prevent the social eruption and perhaps losing their own heads. Their tragedies were the most poignant amongst that upheaval. Before the Russian Revolution, nobles like Leo Tolstoy had the notion of enlightening people and sharing wealth amongst all, but, their efforts were just as feeble in the face of selfish or short-sighted political oppositions, indifference and collective inertia.
In modern days, Former Chinese Communist Party Chief Zhao Ziyang and current Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, championed or is championing, gingerly, a more democratic society with real freedom of speeches, but the hindrances proved as sturdy as the fortress of the Bastille.
The ever-larger income inequality in the US is marching the entire nation towards a precipice. In the face of a clear and present danger, someone in the upper crest of the society, such as George Soros, Bill Gates and Nancy Pelosi are trying valiantly to stem the redistribution of wealth from the middle- and lower- class to the supremely rich, in order to create a more sustainable social structure. But the oppositions from deceptive figures like Meg Whitman and Sarah Palin, some ignorant members of Tea Party, and indifferent "independent voters", thwarted their efforts repeatedly and at the brink of decimate such attempts. If that happens, it would be tragic for the people those enlightened insiders trying to help, and it would be even more tragic for these enlightened insiders if the order of the society collapses and they become personal victims to the situations they had tried to change, either out of selfless compassion or calculated long-term view. Then the scale their tragedy would mount to Shakespearean.
Leisurely © Matthew Felix Sun
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