Resistance and Revolution Key Terms

We'll see if I add study questions, but for the time being, this is every key term offered...

Forms of Disguise (James Scott)

Forms of disguise are subversive, communal techniques of societal resistance utilized by subordinate groups under oppression to insinuate and spread their (often negative) opinions. It isn’t as much a cunning or deceptive practice as it is born from much more of a necessity for anonymity, as they do not have the luxury of direct confrontation.

Forms of disguise include gossip, rumors, spiritual possession, drunkenness, carnivals, and threats/violence. Anyone has the means to resist in any way they can. These are not empty gestures, as they all have political implications.

On gossip: It is “a disguised democratic practice in that it is propagated only to the extent that others keep it alive.”

Social Bandit (Eric Hobsbawm)

An individual, part of an oppressed society, who wants a traditional world where men are justly dealt with. They are uplifted by community engagement and folklore, who sees no wrong in social banditry provided that it is a sensible response to injustice (a wrong charge, etc). They are regarded as a criminal by state/local rulers, not by local conventions, for some grievous injustice that goes unreckoned. This support can easily be lost, though, should the social bandit commit to unjust means themselves. Murder, for example.

Pre-political in that it is rectifying an immediate situation, not system of oppression as a whole.

Mafia (Eric Hobsbawm)

A more complex development of social banditry with roots in social protest and resistance. Unlike social banditry, it is less grounded in a series of individuals/individual revolts than it is a new, institutionalized system of law and order existing outside of the official law/government. It is by no means revolutionary, as those who become the instruments of men of power or maintain aspirations of power cease to be effective forms of social protest.

Millenarianism (Hobsbawm)

A Christian-Judeo inspired ideology grounded in a Chiliastic rejection of the ‘evil present’ in favor of a better, independently crafted one. The Chiliastic thought in question concerns a belief that a thousand year reign of peace and love on planet earth awaits them, though they’re all generally vague and unclear on how this will come about.

Inherently revolutionary in a way mafia and social banditry are not, as they do not wish to work in a reformed, newly just system or restore a more moral past, but rather an entirely new thing.

Davide Lazzaretti (Eric Hobsbawm)

“Long live the Republic of God” – Self-proclaimed Messiah with a huge Communist backing, also grounded in Millenarianism. Prophet-turned-leftist who, after a vision proclaiming that he would have to liberate all oppressed peoples, set forth on a spiritual mission to unite the oppressed with a godly message. His teachings were already leftist as a priest, so it extended here. Amassed a very large supporter base who advocated for new change and a new system (Republic of God as opposed to Republic of 1849, thus leading the Kingdom of Italy to deem them a subversive group.)