Revolutions

[Speaker to Animals]

Because it's not as if there is such a thing as affirmative action that uses state power to discriminate against white people..


And, isn't it very interesting how, when we are discussing crime statistics, "white" includes all the hispanics that migrated here, but when we are discussing affirmative action, they are not white?

[DrYouth]

I am really loving the French Revolution series...

Wow is this ever a fresh take on a topic that was covered so poorly in my high school history course...

The roots of Marx, Lenin and Stalin are so in your face that it amazes me this was somehow understated in traditional versions of the narrative.

I suppose we want to polarize Liberty and Marxism.... but in the French Revolution we see the overlap.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I am really loving the French Revolution series...

Wow is this ever a fresh take on a topic that was covered so poorly in my high school history course...

The roots of Marx, Lenin and Stalin are so in your face that it amazes me this was somehow understated in traditional versions of the narrative.

I suppose we want to polarize Liberty and Marxism.... but in the French Revolution we see the overlap.

That’s exactly why it’s not taught that way.

[DrYouth]

Parallels also with modern day efforts to impose "liberty" on others through the use of foreign power...

Many lessons here.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Parallels also with modern day efforts to impose "liberty" on others through the use of foreign power...

Many lessons here.

Yeah, I was pretty amazed at how similar the “political” landscape sounded to today.

[DrYouth]

Yeah, I was pretty amazed at how similar the “political” landscape sounded to today.

Well...

Except for the starving masses, the death squads, the regicide, the foreign armies at the gates and all that...

There are some similarities.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Yeah, I was pretty amazed at how similar the “political” landscape sounded to today.

Well...

Except for the starving masses, the death squads, the regicide, the foreign armies at the gates and all that...

There are some similarities.

The liberal and conservative lines of thought are very similar, IMO. They were essentially fighting over the same ideas.

[DrYouth]

The liberal and conservative lines of thought are very similar, IMO. They were essentially fighting over the same ideas.

Which is what makes this so important.
As he mentions our terms left and right originate from the seating arrangement in the National Assembly.

The right, of course, wanted to preserve some elements of the old order.
The monarchy, some privileges for the nobility and the clergy... although very quickly the right was neutralized and within short order there was merely the left and even more radical left...
That is what was so remarkable about the French revolution.

The rebellion in the Vaudet region, represents the only true counter revolutionary efforts... and this is one of the most fascinating parts of the podcast. The Vaudet was insular and represented a region where the old order remained truly functional and uncorrupted... one imagines that at one time all of France would have been like this... but the rest of France was not functioning under the old regime so change was coming.

Mike does a great job illustrating why more reasonable change did not happen... and why the French Revolution continued to escalate into the "Zombie Apocalypse" that it became... most of the blame falling with the hapless responses of the monarchy... but much of it also with the spirit of the times and the nature of Paris where social change had reached peak mass.

[Speaker to Animals]

Fuck the tennis court, fam. Burn it all down.

[DrYouth]

Fuck the tennis court, fam. Burn it all down.

I could see the appeal of life in the Vaudet...
The nobility and the clergy remained engaged and responsive to the local people.
This is a perfect example of a natural and adaptive hierarchy... which the people spontaneously defended.

But this hierarchy had become unaccountable and non responsive throughout much of the rest of France which is why few could disagree with the proposed reforms... The system was so dysfunctional in the majority of France that it was doomed. Much of the nobility could see how dysfunctional they had become, the high ranking clergy for the most part, were so out of touch with the people that they could hardly defend their privileges.

The system was doomed to fail... propping it up was no longer possible... reforms were inevitable...
But bloody revolution could have been avoided if the monarchy had shown leadership...
Monarchs have risen to this challenge in various nations... but because monarchy provides inconsistent leadership with no effective means of removing grossly inadequate leaders... monarchy often wasn't up to the task of responding to the social changes of the times.