Successful revolutions require audiences who already know the script’s outcome

Evidence

The theater of revolution is essentially participatory, requiring more than the usual rapport between actors and audience. It depends on knowledge and empathy on the part of the public, who are not just spectators. As in Greek tragedy, the Japanese No, the Turkish or Egyptian shadow play, the English Punch and Judy, and the American western, the audience must know, preferably know intimately, the essentials of the plot, the characters and roles of the good and evil figures, and the desired, indeed the inevitable, outcome. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1456

Categorization

• XREF: Doctrinal fit: participants in ritual must already know the plot’s outcome. Fails the rules of decorum.