Page 69 - The Irony Board
P. 69
Into the World
Sinkers
Don’t red doughnuts rise
Warmly enticing
Then cooling like pies
Wait for black icing?
From theory to practice: the next group of epigrams deals with
social and political ironies, as Gluckman perceived them. The
outstanding contralogical consequence of revolutions is the
metamorphosis of revolutionaries into repressive dictators, a
phenomenon explainable in less exalted terms of human nature.
Like doughnuts, leftists drop into a crucible of boiling oil: in their
case the battle against the military and secret police of the fat and
insatiable ruling class. The rebels emerge victorious, proclaiming
rights and privileges for all; thus they gain the support of the general
population. But time brings a change: as the new government
consolidates its power, it gradually takes on the characteristics of the
old one. The common situation of exercising power (cooling like
pies, much richer pastries) exacts the same toll in corruption; despite
their formal continuation of revolutionary slogans and trappings, the
leftists become rightists (black icing). The leaders who once had
risen, now fall back: sinkers.
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