Posted on 04/17/2006 5:51:06 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Whenever any lefty says the Nazis were conservatives, I just say that the Jacobins were liberals.
Seriously though, if it was not for the French Revolution, does anyone think Britain might have tried to reconquer us around 1810-1820? Probably would have been in a stronger position to do so without all the resources Napoleon was taking up.
I know lots of seemingly decent people, myself among them, who would just question whether the horrors really were horrors. "Call no man decent until he is dead."
I'm not sure ideology and ideologue are useful categories for what the author is trying to describe and prevent.
Wow. This is a great post and thread.
As I read of the horrors, it reminded me of the great wisdom of our nation's Founders, particularly in their framing of the Second Amendment.
Ping. Good article.
but Robespierre has a good claim to being the firstI dunno. Seems to me Savonarola beat him to it.
Wikipedia has a pretty good biography of Robespierre.
Apparently, Robespierre was executed by guillotine, face up.
An ideology is a worldview that makes sense of prevailing political conditions and suggests ways of improving them. Typical ideologies include among their elements a metaphysical outlook that provides a God’s-eye view of the world, a theory about human nature, a system of values whose realization will supposedly ensure human well-being, an explanation of why the actual state of affairs falls short of perfection, and a set of policies intended to close the gap between the actual and ideal. This last component—commitment to a political program and its implementation—is what distinguishes ideologies from religious, personal, aesthetic, or philosophical systems of belief. Ideologies aim to transform society. Other systems of belief do not involve such a commitment; if they do, they become ideological.I'm thinking this one through to find a distinction between the French and American revolutions based upon it. What I can find is this:
...and a set of policies intended to close the gap between the actual and ideal.The American Revolution is based not upon an inconsistency between the actual and the ideal but upon the most ideal actuality. The American view starts with the ideal, and moves from there to the practical. The ideal is God's view. The practical is man's best attempt to make good upon it.
Big, big difference.
One of the great tragedies of modern history is that the template for violent political revolution is the French rather than the American revolution.
The French Revolution, with its Terror and guillotines and mass executions and Committees of Public Safety, is the father of what later came to be called genocide.
In contrast, the American Revolution--in a country where a full third of the population had Tory sympathies--is remarkable in its lack of Terror. The symbols of twentieth-century revolutions, with their Chekas and up-against-the-wall rhetoric, are all very familiar to students of the French Revolution.
Without the war, it would have been harder to mobilize the mob and paint the remaining aristocrats as enemies of the nation. Thanks to the war, the Jacobins could turn a questionable ideology into a matter or national survival.
In an atmosphere of rationing and inflation, it was also easy to direct popular anger against black marketeers and supposed war profiteers. Anyone who lived better than others could be painted as taking bread out of the mouths of children.
LOL! Beethoven's, to be precise, and he wasn't joking. The Eroica is still one heckuva symphony.
Publius, thanks for the ping. Robespierre is such a fascinating study, an example of the "great man" interpretation of history that is a case where the historical role was far, far greater than the individual fate decided to place in it. I do not honestly respect the man, and I do respect such excrescences as Stalin and Hitler, such as they were.
The real "hero" of the Revolution was probably equally distasteful to modern sensibilities, and that was a fellow named Marat. Charlotte Corday did him and I must say that was the best thing that ever happened in a bathtub. But it was this that left the field open to Robespierre, and what he did with that is better detailed by the likes of Carlyle and Schama - not an unclean pen but one more robust to atrocity than my own. Which is not, incidentally entirely unclean of itself - I can relate one historical trivium that may relate the mood of the Parisian mob - Marie Antoinette was presented with a portion of the poor Princesse de Lamballe stuck on a pike - her genitalia. There was a bestial nature to this that is difficult even for those of us inured to the atrocities of the 20th century to contemplate with equanimity.
A detailed study of this is beyond the limitations of this post, but briefly I submit that Robespierre happened on the power of class warfare in a place where class was precisely defined enough to make it practicable. There is a dehumanizing aspect to this that Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot understood full well - the politically besotted will treat other human beings with astonishing brutality as long as they may be presented as representatives of a hated class, as symbols rather than people. The cutting of the hair of the victims of the guillotine is a case in point - not only does it enhance the accuracy of the blade, it reduces the victim to a creature less likely to evoke empathy from the onlookers. The keepers of the Spanish Inquisition learned that lesson long before this.
This is more than symbolic, it is what the proponents of class warfare would do to all of their opponents. Their greatest fear is that these opponents will appear as individuals to be pitied. It is one thing to butcher a symbol, quite another to butcher a political opponent who is a person. Beware the people who treat other people as symbols. They are the executioners, the bombers, the terrorists, the ones who can justify to themselves the unjustifiable. They are less than human because they make themselves that way.
Which political, ideological or moral side do you take today in the battle for human survival?
The answer to this fundamental question seems to be hidden in the heart of every man. The question can be answered by explaining that well know emotion we all know as hate. It's been around since the beginning of the ages.
No one, no nation, peoples, political class or ideology have been able to contain it. Everyone claims their nation or party does not have it and everyone claims they are the victims of it. Everyone believes they have the perfect solution for it and yet it lives on.
Through the need for the survival of the species we all build up or defenses and war against the chosen enemies of today who we define as the perpetrators of this eternal hate.
Who is this enemy? Is it really just a person or group of persons? Of course we say, most certainly it must be that other person, country, or party, not us. It was the one who struck first. It was their fault. But who really is the one who struck first? Can we recall a real beginning point to this hate?
I say it will take until the end of time to try to stop it. Hate must be in the air we breath. It cannot possibly be part of me so it must be in you because I know it is there and I cannot place my hand on it.
Will you accept that someone must pay for the hate? Will it be you or me? It must be stopped. We all know it must be stopped.
I do not want to pay for hate. Will you please pay the price of it for me? No you say, I must be the one, my people and my children. Sorry, I am not that strong. Find someone else.
And so we will go forward searching for the true evil in each other, on and on and on, feeding the insatiable desire to defeat the real enemy. Mankind is destined forever to look from one place to the other for the one to blame today for yesterday.
Won't someone please volunteer to pay so we can just stop this insanity? Is there no one who is willing? Not even for the whole world?
Surely that person will be worshiped for saving us, but no, even if that person did pay for us we would not recognize it, all we have ever known and have been taught is hate. We know how to deal with it. Blame someone else.
How can we live without hate now? We all worship the familiarity of it and take comfort that we have correctly identified who or what the enemy is. We feed the need for freedom from todays enemy daily with wars and clashes of all kinds and will forever and ever until the end when we all pay hate it's due.
Choose you this day the "side" that will ensure your survival. There has never been another choice available but to choose.
ED
Plus ca change, plus le meme chose.
bttt
Yes. For example, Tom Paine's reputation in America was greatly damaged by his association with the French Revolution, especially the anti-religious aspect of it.
Translates to..
The more ca changes, the more the meme thing.
????
"The more things change, the more they stay ( or remain ) the same."
Thanks
It's a VERY well known saying; even in just the French. At least it used to be. LOL
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