How Cultural Revolutions Die - or Not

Unlike coups or political revolutions, cultural revolutions don't just change governments or leaders. Instead, they try to redefine entire societies. Their leaders call them "holistic" and "systematic."

Cultural revolutionaries attack the very referents of our daily lives. The Jacobins' so-called Reign of Terror during the French Revolution slaughtered Christian clergy, renamed months and created a new supreme being Reason.

Mao cracked down on supposed Western decadence like the wearing of eyeglasses and made peasants forge pot iron and intellectuals wear dunce caps.

Muammar Kaddafi's Green Book cult wiped out violins...