Repealing Revolutions

According to Ann Patchett:

Here's the thing about revolutions—there is no taking them back. You may review history and wish that it had gone the other way; perhaps you always longed to be a British colonist and regret the outcome of the American Revolution. Or maybe you liked the idea of a man behind a horse and plow and feel that the Industrial Revolution was all a big misstep.

I stopped reading there. The entire article had just received a DBtR (Don't Bother to Read) classification.

The English Revolution was taken back by Charles II; the French Revolution was taken back by Napoleon; the Dixie Revolution (also known as the American Civil War) was taken back by Abraham Lincoln; the Russian Revolution was taken back by Boris Yeltsin …

The only way to claim that revolutions are never taken back is to reclassify those revolutions that are taken back as right-wing (and Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, comrade!).

A brief comparison between the sexual revolution and the industrial revolution

One plausible consequence of the industrial revolution that didn't happen was the abolition of the work ethic. One plausible consequence of the sexual revolution is the abolition of the chastity ethic. I don't think that need happen either.