the french revolution cannot be summed up as positive or negative unless you purely view it through an ideological lens.
if you're a marxist, good. if you're a conservative/loyalist, bad. the margin for debate is pretty small.
[QUOTE=thisispain;33494638]the french revolution cannot be summed up as positive or negative unless you purely view it through an ideological lens.
if you're a marxist, good. if you're a conservative/loyalist, bad. the margin for debate is pretty small.[/QUOTE]
If you're a libertarian, human rights advocate, constitutional advocate, oversight advocate and a bunch of other positive advacements then the revolution was good.
You don't have to a marxist to see the good it brought forward. You don't even have to view it trough an ideological lens.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;33496300]If you're a libertarian, human rights advocate, constitutional advocate, oversight advocate and a bunch of other positive advacements then the revolution was good.
You don't have to a marxist to see the good it brought forward. You don't even have to view it trough an ideological lens.[/QUOTE]
How do you make a value judgement without an ideological lens?
[QUOTE=Contag;33497393]How do you make a value judgement without an ideological lens?[/QUOTE]
A lot of ways
[QUOTE=gra;33498396]A lot of ways[/QUOTE]
Then you'll find it really easy to identify one.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;33494100]Except the russian and french revolutions were completely different in their end results. The french revolution was essentially perpetrated by the middle class and as a result was fairly stable.
As to communism in Europe. You have to remember that it was a number of factors that actually influenced European communism, and in a lot of cases this was done without a revolution or a coup. (We're talking post ww2 europe here, not the original communist revolution)
And it's also good to note, that the communist coup in Prague essentially stopped almost all communist support in the rest of western europe, helped kickstarted the Marshall plan and a slew of other things.
Or perhaps are you against the revolutions which took Europe in 89? Because they were too fast and sudden?[/QUOTE]
As I see it, the French Revolution ended with Napoleon, wars in Europe and despotism. The Russian revolution lead to the rise of the Soviet Union which supported and strengthened despotic communism throughout the world. Both the French and the Russian revolution were carried out because of high poverty and new political ideas about how to defeat "injustice" (a very vague word) in the society.
It's important to remember that Edmund Burke actually wrote his Reflections on the Revolution in France before Napoleon reached his powers, and calculated the consequences of the revolution by using his conservative principles.
About your last comment on sudden and fast change; "The cure must be better than the disease." It's hard to imagine how capitalism and democracy could create something worse than the despotic communism that existed in eastern Europe. That's probably why conservatives often support the revolution in Libya at the moment; because it's hard to imagine that things could be worse than they were with Kaddafi.
Keep in mind Edmund Burke didn't have the same long term view as we did. In retrospect we can sort of postulate what would happen, had the siege of the Bastille and the rest of the French revolution failed.
Apart from an amount of death sentences that would probably second Robespierre's, you would get a situtuation where the absolutely most absolutistic king of the era got a carta blanche on enacting his rule.
This would probably echo more or less all across Europe, would delay the formation of the nation states , delay human rights all acrosss Europe, and would still not have prevented most successive wars.
The French revolution was absolutely full of the denying of rights to people and the mass murder of innocents.
Even the storming of the Bastille was gruesome in its own right. A beleaguered group of veteran soldiers who were too injured to fight and some Swiss mercenaries were its only defenders. During the negotiations the mob attacked the fort unprovoked. After some fighting the governor of the fort surrendered and was then beheaded by the mod with knives.... but all people are taught is the "glorious storming of the Bastille where the French people finally stood up against the oppressive structure over them."
[QUOTE=Contag;33502867]Then you'll find it really easy to identify one.[/QUOTE]
Ok. You can make a value judgement based on ethics, economics, morals, a whole lot more than just ideologically.
I think the revolution started for the right cause, and the people who rewrote the government and started the nation for the forward had the right thing in mind. They made many changes that are used today and showed that a government copying the American style could actually work, albeit for only a small amount of time. But the republic was weakened, I argue that it was caused by the Tennis Court writers, who voted that whoever worked on the constitution could not hold office in the new parliament or whatever the legislative branch was to be called. The legislature was filled with people who might not have been really involved in the framework of the country and therefore did not know how to actually work in the new type of government. When the Committee of Public Safety was formed, and people were being beheaded everywhere, shit got bad. Even Napoleon established some nice things and codes that we use today. Overall, it started good, went to shit, then recovered a little.
[QUOTE=sgman91;33506386]The French revolution was absolutely full of the denying of rights to people and the mass murder of innocents.
Even the storming of the Bastille was gruesome in its own right. A beleaguered group of veteran soldiers who were too injured to fight and some Swiss mercenaries were its only defenders. During the negotiations the mob attacked the fort unprovoked. After some fighting the governor of the fort surrendered and was then beheaded by the mod with knives.... but all people are taught is the "glorious storming of the Bastille where the French people finally stood up against the oppressive structure over them."[/QUOTE]
there were like 16 soldiers against 100 middle class/peasants and they saved about 6 prisoner
it was glorious
[QUOTE=Onirik;33519968]there were like 16 soldiers against 100 middle class/peasants and they saved about 6 prisoner
it was glorious[/QUOTE]
... Not sure if being sarcastic or not.
Every revolution turns on itself in the end. This includes the United States. The goal was to resist tyranny but we've turned into exactly that.
The revolution itself, negative outweighs positive; in long term, the positive outweighs the negative.
Good effects of the French Revolution:
Napoleonic Code (in which many parts of the world are using or influenced)
The dismantling of the obsolete feudal system and reforms into a proper nation-state.
The rise of Nationalism in Europe
The rise of modern ideologies such as Liberalism, Socialism and Fascism
Constitutionalism and Republicanism as oppose to Absolutism
Secularism and Anti-clericism
Meritocracy (at least, in the military)
Metric system
Abolition of slavery
The liberation of Spanish South America
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