I can see no middle ground.this man must reign or die.
― tell it to my arse (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 05:23 (eleven years ago) link
i don't really understand any vote that isn't for marat.
― Clay, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 05:26 (eleven years ago) link
i mean dude was glenn beck in a bathtub, he's totally the best.
― Clay, Tuesday, 26 February 2013 05:29 (eleven years ago) link
not familiar with nearly enough of these people but -> mme du barry
― seriously, THIS GUY (daria-g), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 05:48 (eleven years ago) link
Obviously Danton was kind of a cool dude too, though I think he gets a bit of a bad rap bcz of depardieu.
― doctor, doctor, what's in my shirt (askance johnson), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 15:52 (eleven years ago) link
i feel i know robespierre
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 16:09 (eleven years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Saturday, 13 July 2013 00:01 (ten years ago) link
Well it was either going to be Sade or Robespierre so I went with Robespierre.
Sade = in prison not for saying it was okay to hit women (which was perfectly acceptable) but for saying women had orgasms
Robespierre = what a monster, killing people left right and centre, paranoid that they were agents of the monarchy! They were agents of the monarchy
― cardamon, Saturday, 13 July 2013 01:32 (ten years ago) link
I read this two weeks ago: http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/bookchat-12-terror/
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 July 2013 01:35 (ten years ago) link
was gonna vote Saint-Just then realized i already had
― the SI unit of ignorance (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 13 July 2013 09:44 (ten years ago) link
i feel i know robespierre― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 26 February 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I just feel..
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 13 July 2013 10:38 (ten years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Sunday, 14 July 2013 00:01 (ten years ago) link
still too early imo
― """""""""""""stalin""""""""""" (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 14 July 2013 00:21 (ten years ago) link
strong showing for saint-just!
― max, Sunday, 14 July 2013 02:40 (ten years ago) link
he and robes: bros forever
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 July 2013 02:41 (ten years ago) link
this was a great poll. i wanted to vote in it but i don't know anything. i really wanna read that martel book but i keep telling myself i'll read a general history or two first. anyway, enough of this bourgeois shit:
We Must Do Away Once and for All with this Papist-Quaker Babble about the Sanctity of Human Life: a Russian Revolution Poll
― """""""""""""stalin""""""""""" (difficult listening hour), Sunday, 14 July 2013 06:41 (ten years ago) link
dlh come vote in my to the Finland station poll
― max, Sunday, 14 July 2013 12:07 (ten years ago) link
also I'm disappointed that this poll didnt generate as good a discussion of war and revolution as the thirty years war poll did
― max, Sunday, 14 July 2013 12:08 (ten years ago) link
Famous British children's series ChuckleVision has featured Robespierre as a villain trying to steal the Countess and defeat the Purple Pimple. Citizen Robespierre calls himself "the best swordsman of France". Featured in Series 17 and 18 (2005/2006).
― Roberto Spiralli, Sunday, 14 July 2013 12:10 (ten years ago) link
Was revolution possible without terror, y/n
― cardamon, Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:20 (ten years ago) link
American Revolution.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:22 (ten years ago) link
Does it matter that for the American revolution the king and ruling classes were not directly in the territory - and could lose that territory whilst retaining power in homeland + India?
― cardamon, Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:27 (ten years ago) link
Hannah Arendt's On Revolution, one of my desert island books:
"Nothing, indeed, seems more natural than that a revolution should be predetermined by the type of government it overthrows; nothing, therefore, appears more plausible than to explain the new absolute, the absolute revolution, by the absolute monarchy which preceded it, and to conclude that the more absolute the ruler, the more absolute the revolution will be which replaces him."
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:30 (ten years ago) link
early in her book she posits that in its early stages the American Revolution was really a counter-revolution: what Franklin and the Adams cousins wanted was a restoration of their rights as Englishmen, which Parliament had ignored bit by bit.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:31 (ten years ago) link
I've always assumed that British royal power, compared to the French equivalent, was weakened since the Civil War and Cromwell, in a way that the French wasn't. So yeah, that quote makes sense.
But I still think the American and French revolutions are more different than they are similar, because one is a colony fighting for independence, that leaves the metropolis intact, whereas the other is a complete shake-up of the homeland. I don't think the Americans needed a terror because in that case the English King wasn't as bothered as the French King.
― cardamon, Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:35 (ten years ago) link
Also French revolutionary terror vs slave trade and treatment of native americans, that's another angle.
― cardamon, Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:38 (ten years ago) link
oh yeah the thesis of the book is explaining the uniqueness of the American revolution -- and why the French, Chinese, and Russian ones were bloody, protracted, and lead to various kinds of 18 Brumaires.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 July 2013 13:47 (ten years ago) link
glorious revolution deserves some mention also, esp to the extent the american revolution is just an extension of that made more radical thru ideological bottleneck created by geography (mangling gordon wood there but whatever). there's also a post-revolution purge w/ loyalists losing property and effectively exiled iirc (and who knows maybe treaty of paris moved the goalposts to 'yeah fuck that we're taking their land' from 'yeah fuck that we're taking their heads'). you eventually even have effective one party rule from jefferson (or at the very latest hartford convention) to whenever the whigs arise (like one election before william henry harrison i think?). also obv big difference between american and french/russian revolutions: george washington.
― balls, Sunday, 14 July 2013 16:09 (ten years ago) link
and John Tyler came out of the closet as a Dem as soon as the old man pooped.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 14 July 2013 17:46 (ten years ago) link
I don't think the Americans needed a terror because in that case the English King wasn't as bothered as the French King.
Tell that to the loyalists who were forced to emigrate
― Lectures of Pelé (Michael White), Monday, 15 July 2013 14:52 (ten years ago) link
The American revolution is hardly a revolution, though, is it? More like a fight for independence. More akin to India than France.
― Frederik B, Monday, 15 July 2013 15:08 (ten years ago) link
it could plausibly be argued that america had two revolutions -- the civil war being the second and much more radical one.
ironically the british 'terror' against british civilians under pitt the younger that happened during the french revolution era -- suspension of habeas corpus, mass arrests of radicals and dissidents -- was probably much worse than anything experienced by the american colonists under george iii.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 15 July 2013 20:42 (ten years ago) link
― doctor, doctor, what's in my shirt (askance johnson), Tuesday, February 26, 2013 3:52 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Was thinking about watching this. Bad?
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Tuesday, 5 November 2013 23:26 (ten years ago) link
also some classic zizek here on Robespierre (taken from a BBC docu on the bro which is a solid little hour of fun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orv1kmkiEpk
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Tuesday, 5 November 2013 23:29 (ten years ago) link
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/05/robespierre/?insrc=hpma
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 10:43 (nine years ago) link
hmm, can i enjoy that as poetry and hate it as history?
― coign of wantage (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 11:06 (nine years ago) link
You have my approval :)
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 11:46 (nine years ago) link
So Jonathan Israel has apparantly written a book about the revolution, in which he claims that Robbespierre and his cronies, rather than being thought of as left wing reformators run amok, should be thought of as proto-fascists, believing in mob rule and the ability of priviliged individuals to perceive and embody the will of the people. Then the girondists become the left wing intellectuals instead. And boy, do I want to believe in that, it makes so much sense, and put all the bloodshed on right-wing beliefs. But checking up on it, the girondists were the war-party, which really might be the central disaster of the period, as far as I can tell. So yeah, can't really get it to work out.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:05 (nine years ago) link
the ability of priviliged individuals to perceive and embody the will of the people
this is kind of the central aporia of The Social Contract tbf to the lads
― coign of wantage (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:07 (nine years ago) link
Yes, Robbespierre was supremely Roussauian. Apparantly, that's a no-go in Israel's world.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:08 (nine years ago) link
Know nothing about the French Revolution, but Israel's not an interpreter I trust, judging from the previous books – I've read good chunks of the first two Enlightenment ones (Radical/Contested), and they feel like a lot of evidence shoved together to fit a sympathetic but not particularly tenable thesis.
― woof, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:22 (nine years ago) link
Rousseau's been described as a proto-Fascist since Fascism happened, so Israel's stance here isn't uncommon
― coign of wantage (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:23 (nine years ago) link
unfair, but not uncommon, i meant to add
― coign of wantage (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:24 (nine years ago) link
dunno if Bertrand Russell originated this line of thought but he lays the tar and feathers onto Rousseau pretty severely in his History of Western Philosophy iirc
― coign of wantage (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:25 (nine years ago) link
feel like the Queen thread is appropriate
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:26 (nine years ago) link
so… in Israel's terms, would Robespierre be an inheritor of the 'moderate enlightenment' (which in his eyes is bad and wrong and not actually Enlightenment)? As opposed to the radical materialist/democratic/toleration package (which iirc, for israel, is monolithic & the actual only Enlightenment) coming down through Spinoza etc?
― woof, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:29 (nine years ago) link
i have always considered Robespierre to be the pragmatist overcome by contingencies, i.e. Israel's "moderate enlightenment" backed up against a wall, i guess, whereas Saint-Just wd be yr hardcore rationalist. feel like Rousseau wants to be the latter but enjoyed the finer things too much to fully follow thru?
― coign of wantage (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:34 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, woof, that would be my guess. Haven't read any of his books, just the articles written by the commentator in my newspaper, who is a big Israel-fan, and writes big articles on his thougts every couple of months. It sounds to me a lot like you described it: 'like a lot of evidence shoved together to fit a sympathetic but not particularly tenable thesis.'
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:36 (nine years ago) link
Reading Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution last summer, I thought the only coherent parallel between Robespierre and Hitler was his abstemiousness. Otherwise his vision for France was closer to totalitarian necrocracy: "If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue,” Robespierre wrote, “its basis in a time of revolution is both virtue and terror — virtue, without which terror is disastrous, and terror, without which virtue has no power."
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:36 (nine years ago) link
not a very good book btw. I wrote at the time that it boasted the stupidest sentence I've ever seen in a preface: "“I have tried to be his friend and to see things from his point of view."
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 12:37 (nine years ago) link
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/188/b26/44452f4a73fd2a6cb18f27c644c5c7a1f0-9-smurfs-1.2x.rhorizontal.w700.jpg
Reckless and Unrepentant Smurfs Continue Their Defiance
― mark s, Thursday, 17 November 2022 13:54 (one year ago) link
it seems like this is the thread we come to when we’re rabbitholing the revolution due to mantel’s place of greater safetyhi it’s me this reread has convinced me i finally need to do actual history reading to get a better grasp on all the players & surrounding events etc thinking of - Christopher Hibbert “french revolution”- RR Palmer “twelve who ruled”any other recommendations? i don’t think Schama is for me - too populist? idk. i liked his art history years ago but this seems out of his lane. but i do need a ~good~ overview, and at least one good specific robespierre bc he intrigues me
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:12 (one year ago) link
how are we doing on this fine Ventose day
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:14 (one year ago) link
I liked Jeremy D. Popkin's 2021 A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:14 (one year ago) link
i tried schama but i didn't vibe with him at _all_, he seemed to be coming from a very different place than i was and nothing he was saying seemed to make much sense to me.
― Kate (rushomancy), Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:21 (one year ago) link
from cursory research seems like a few of revolution historians disagree w him too
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:24 (one year ago) link
xxpost that looks like exactly what i’m after, thx Alfred!
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:34 (one year ago) link
schama shd turn his mind to the reckless and unrepentent smurfs imo
― mark s, Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:36 (one year ago) link
is Ruth Scurr's Fatal Purity any good? I bought the paperback but the print was too small and a struggle for my bad eyesight. I managed to acquire the e-book but seem to recall someone on here being unimpressed with it.
― calzino, Saturday, 4 March 2023 20:53 (one year ago) link
i enjoyed mike duncan's revolutions podcast on this particular revolution: he was good at clarifying who was thinking what and how this or that group's political stance could be genuinely radical one month and then cofusedly reactionary the next without having changed much in-between
― mark s, Saturday, 4 March 2023 21:02 (one year ago) link
I think "Twelve Who Ruled" was the first thing I read on the French Revolution - I've never read the Hilary Mantel novel - anyway it rules. "Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life" by Peter McPhee is also very good. Both are fairly favourable towards Robespierre. I wouldn't go anywhere near Simon Schama on this particular subject.
― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Saturday, 4 March 2023 21:16 (one year ago) link
― calzino, Saturday
I mentioned it upthread. Solid as research but his identification with Robespierre gave me the creeps.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 4 March 2023 22:06 (one year ago) link
omg i forgot abt mike duncan’s revolutions podcast! i love him. maybe i’ll give that a goi was listening to a different podcast abt the revolution but he keeps likening things to star wars & lord of the rings & game of thrones & it makes me deeply eyerolly
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 4 March 2023 23:08 (one year ago) link
the haiti season of revolutions is short and dovetails nicely with the French Revolution one
― flopson, Sunday, 5 March 2023 10:01 (one year ago) link
update: i finished Popkin’s “A New World Begins” - it was exactly the kind of overview i neededand really well-written. he has a lovely light touch that i appreciated thx for the recommendation Alfred! now i am digging into RR Palmer’s “Twelve Who Ruled” and i am loving itit’s surprising that his conversational-style narrative was written in the 1940’s. Quite a fresh take for the times!
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 7 April 2023 21:13 (one year ago) link
Forgot about TWELVE WHO RULED.
― Beatles in My Passway (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 April 2023 04:42 (one year ago) link
omg it’s so freaking good!! i’m halfway through
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 14 April 2023 05:35 (one year ago) link