Aging & Wisdom Quote by Hu Shih

Revolution, Hu Shih insists, isn’t a costume change for the same cast of rulers; it’s a structural failure of the stage itself. The sting in his line is the word “always.” It’s less prophecy than diagnosis: when people call something a revolution, they’re usually admitting that the previous sources of legitimacy - emperor, clan, canon, custom - have stopped commanding obedience. That shift is bigger than any slogan. It’s psychological, institutional, and often irreversible.

Hu’s intent reads as a warning to romantics and a rebuke to authoritarians. If old authority has truly broken down, you can’t simply scold society back into order, nor can you paper over the crisis with new rhetoric while keeping the old hierarchy intact. Revolutions happen when the traditional machinery of consent fails: the law no longer feels lawful, the moral vocabulary sounds hollow, the gatekeepers lose their aura. In that sense, revolution is less an eruption than a vacuum - and vacuums invite opportunists as readily as idealists.

Context sharpens the point. Hu Shih lived through the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the May Fourth intellectual revolt, warlordism, and the rise of mass politics in China. As a pragmatist and reform-minded thinker, he preferred gradual change grounded in reason and experiment. Calling revolutions “breakdown” is his way of demystifying them: not heroic destiny, but a sign that a society failed to renovate its authority before it shattered. The subtext is almost clinical: if you want stability, you don’t suppress dissent; you keep authority deserved.