|
|
Post by kj on Jun 7, 2017 11:46:10 GMT
I think there is a need for Conservatives generally to get their act together regarding their historical knowledge. A standard myth is that all was well in Europe until the Evil French Revolution came along and blew everything apart. For the record, the French Revolution was a massively complex period which contained within itself several phases and trends.
Most importantly, let us recall that there was a King for the first few years of the Revolution. Also, that favourite figure of Christian Conservatism Joseph de Maistre welcomed the Revolution in its early phases and thought its reforms were needed.
Something similar also applies to Christian views of History, ie everything was fine until the Reformation.
The question people who hold to these "Fall" narratives need to ask themselves is why did these revolutions occur and prove so popular if everything was so fine, splendid and ordered beforehand?
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 7, 2017 12:02:01 GMT
That last question could equally apply to the Bolshevik Revolution, the Nazi Revolution and the Iranian Revolution.
I do understand your point and I have sympathy for it, but you can deplore something without saying that it had nothing to be said for it or that the status quo ante was perfect. In fact, I would say there is as much a "liberal myth of the imagined golden age", a point Peter Hitchens often makes. Just as, during the same-sex marriage referendum in Ireland, anyone who opposed SSM was accused of idealizing heterosexual marriage and the history of Irish domesticity.
As I understand, De Maistre saw the French Revolution as Divine retribution for France's (or perhaps Christendom's) sins. Charles Dickens portrays the oppression of the people in a very sympathetic way in "The Tale of Two Cities" before utterly deploring the Reign of Terror.
I must admit that I deplore the French Revolution for the same reason Burke did-- the whole idea of erasing the past and starting anew (whatever classical progenitors the Revolutionists looked towards). That, I think, is the fountainhead of all progressivism and (bad) liberalism. It's the thing I hate most of all in progressivism. And it started with ten day weeks and renaming the months after weather conditions and all that lark.
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Jun 7, 2017 12:28:10 GMT
I think you're making a false equivalence between the FR and the Nazi, Iranian and Bolshevik revolutions. It's just question-begging. The Terror was a 14 month period in a process that overall lasted for eight years if we assume Napoleon as being the end of it.
Progressivism was around long before the FR, the Whig tradition in England being the most obvious one.
As for re-naming the days and weeks, it was no more arbitrary than having days and weeks named after Roman gods and Emperors as we do now.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 7, 2017 12:31:29 GMT
In my view, the Whig tradition is best expressed by Tennyson's lines:
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent.
Burke's differing attitude to the American Revolution and the French Revolution is based on this difference, I think.
I didn't mean to equate the French Revolution with those other revolutions; I was just pointing out that the argument, "If X was so great, why did Y happen?" could apply to all of them.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 7, 2017 12:48:24 GMT
By the way, I agree it's never good to have a cartoonish vision of any historical event or period.
|
|
|
|
Post by seangladium on Jun 8, 2017 2:35:10 GMT
I find this myth similar to blaming Vatican II for all the current ills in the Church--something must have not been alright beforehand.
Prior to industrialization Europe was dependent of agriculture; therefore, I have often wondered if the climate in Europe affected the rise of these revolutionary forces due to the shorter growing seasons brought on by the Little Ice Age after the relative prosperity of the Medieval Warm Period (which also coincided what may be the peak of Christendom). The Little Ice Age arguably began in the mid-13th century and lasted until the mid-19th century. The Black Death (possibly partially linked to widespread famine due to shorter growing seasons), the rise of Protestantism, the "Enlightenment", and the revolutions that followed of course also fall within this period. Since I am interested in climatology, I have often wondered if there is at least a partial explanation by this change in climate but I am not an expert in this area so I want to learn more about this period in history.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 8, 2017 9:00:40 GMT
My problem with the French Revolution is not so much a romanticizing of the ancien regime or a dismissal of the injustices of the people. It's more the philosophical currents that underlay it; the Englightenment, rationalist principles which seeks to engineer society like a machine.
I'm a big, big, big fan of G.K. Chesterton. There are some areas where I differ from him. His measured praise for the French Revolution is one of them. I think the spirit of rationalism and negativity which the Revolution unleashed has caused endless destruction and continues to do so. The whole radical tradition grew out of the French revolution, including the radical tradition in Irish nationalism which we see today in Sinn Féin and various republican microparties.
|
|
|
|
Post by MourningIreland on Jun 8, 2017 10:58:33 GMT
I'm really interested in this topic but know very little about it, at least relative to the rest of you. Has anyone watched Ann Barnhardt's videos on the Vendee War? She is a Catholic convert.
I am aware of the evils of the French Revolution in both origin and practice, but what I can't get my head around is what I call the "paradox of the French Revolution" meaning, that the concept of individual rights (the "rights of man") is ultimately rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I'm oversimplifying this of course (I am not an academic and I don't have an academic mind), but whenever I think about this topic this paradox is always on my mind.
There is a great deal of academic expertise on this board. Can anyone comment on the above subject?
|
|
|
|
Post by kj on Jun 8, 2017 21:20:48 GMT
Yes, you are correct. Liberalism has its seeds in the Christian idea of the individual whose soul was responsible and answerable to God alone, regardless of whether that person was "Greek, Jew, Freedman or slave" etc etc. Paul was the first person to articulate this. It is from idea of the individual detached from his contingent human circumstances that the later idea of the Liberal individual subject was born. That's why the caricature portraits of the FR painted by so many Christians is laughably ironic, given that there would have been no Revolution had it not been for Christianity in the first place.
|
|
|
|
Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 8, 2017 21:33:50 GMT
The relations between liberalism, Christianity and conservatism is (in my view) a very fruitful subject for discussion, and one I'm hoping to see discussed here at some stage. Certainly I am not the sort of conservative who would simply dismiss liberal ideas or see no value in them-- by no means. I would even subscribe to some of them.
I even hope it might be possible to have some self-described liberals posting on this forum and have a calm and thoughtful discussion on liberalism and conservatism, in all their varieties and inter-relations.
|
|
|
|
Post by MourningIreland on Jun 11, 2017 22:42:01 GMT
Yes, you are correct. Liberalism has its seeds in the Christian idea of the individual whose soul was responsible and answerable to God alone, regardless of whether that person was "Greek, Jew, Freedman or slave" etc etc. Paul was the first person to articulate this. It is from idea of the individual detached from his contingent human circumstances that the later idea of the Liberal individual subject was born. That's why the caricature portraits of the FR painted by so many Christians is laughably ironic, given that there would have been no Revolution had it not been for Christianity in the first place. Political forces that seek to destroy Judaism and Christianity have often used the language of individual rights (I avoid the term "liberalism" because I feel it's been hijacked by US politics - although I think it is the correct term) in order to impose regimes that embrace de facto the opposite. As George Orwell wrote, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." This technique can only work on a populace that is predominantly dumbed-down, secular, and nominally Christian (lukewarm). Perhaps the FR was the first to employ it successfully. |
|
