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"> http://flashbak.com/la-porn-revolution-the-filthy-sex-propaganda-that-destroyed-marie-antoinette-38405/ > Hannah wants us to believe that that sort of co

"> http://flashbak.com/la-porn-revolution-the-filthy-sex-propaganda-that-destroyed-marie-antoinette-38405/ > Hannah wants us to believe that that sort of concerted, very > accurately aimed, propaganda to diminish the prestige of the French > royal family was not a "conspiracy". I feel the "slander conspiracy" against the Louis XVI household was only a tiny part of the entire French Revolution which started in 1789 -- if it ever was a conspiracy. All the beginning was a financial crisis faced by the French government, as a result of the enormous help they provided to the American people when they were fighting their war of independence (which could be further traced back as a revenge to the British, as they defeated the French during the Seven Years' war). And even this financial crisis was not that a decisive factor that led to the overthrown of the French monarchy. The overthrown was quite accidental, and it was the result only after the failed Estates-General convention of 1789 (which somewhat could be attributed to the arrogant attitude of the upper class representatives ) and later the failed attempt to establish a constitutional monarchy due to Louis XVI's reluctance to cooperate. It was just a series of accidents, with very little chance for all of them to be what they turned out to be...It was really a small probability event for Loius XVI to be tried and then guillotined. Further, if you read the whole paragraph, I feel what Arendt means for your quoted sentence is that the revolution, as it showed in its ostentatious appearance of violent riots, would never be possible had there been no "devolution of a regime", which was a process that happened in the everyday lives of people in that country. I think the "street" in her text means those upper middle class people in the Third Estate (i.e. a majority of whom were neither clergy nor nobleman but hommes de lettres).

eternalban 9y ago
Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for your thoughtful and informative comment. I think we agree to a large extent. The intent of my reference to one of the aspects of the effort to dethrone the standing societal order in France was not to imply that it was the only component of these efforts. I feel we don't have the necessary insight into the mindset of the society at that point in time. It seems perfectly unremarkable that a subset of society of that time would find the standing order, the role of the Church, and the monarchy as stumbling blocks to personal and collective ambitions. It seems equally unremarkable that the connected members of this subset would work together to do something about it! So yes, the path to the revolution may have begun as a comedy of errors, but at some point very organized and ideologically coherent forces assumed controlling interest in the unfolding of the events. It was an organized affair, without a question.
- 68c12c16 9y ago
  > Sorry for the late reply. Sure, no problem... and now it's my turn to apologize for my late response -- perhaps we could devise something like the TCP protocol to make sure that our good faith has been reliably exchanged... > It was an organized affair, without a question. that's the key issue...Yes, I agree that there sure to be a certain level of social organization behind those social events happened between 1789 and 1799 in France; but to what extent those events were organized or planned with an intention is the question... > I feel we don't have the necessary insight into the mindset of the society at that point in time. Yes, and it is usually quite difficult to restore a social image that was more than 200 years old -- and significant amount of efforts have been spent on rummaging through those old document to find some useful information. Somewhat fortunately, during the first several years of French revolution, it was à la mode for those French intellectuals to write letters to friends and family members and many of those letters have been preserved until this day, which could make us good voyeurs and give us a little peak into the mind of people living in those days -- of course, they were individuals and not a society as a whole. I remember that I have read an article a while ago by Timothy Tackett, Becoming A Counterrevolutionary: A Conservative Noble in the National Assembly, 1789-1791 http://www.h-france.net/rude/2005conference/Tackett2.pdf http://www.h-france.net/rude/2005conference/Tackett2.pdf (this is an interesting paper, and gives a good analysis on the psychological itinerary for one of the participants in those events based on those real letters.) It traces through some ninety letters written by a conservative deputy, Pierre-Marie Irland de Bazôges in the period of 1789 to 1791. As documented in that paper, Irland experienced a path of embracing the revolution (he was among those enlightened people after all), feeling disappointed, and eventually becoming a counter-revolutionary... One of the conclusions reached at the end of that articles is that “for most of the representatives neither radicalism nor counterrevolution was scripted in May 1789, but that both were profoundly affected by the complex, dynamic, and creative process developing during the Revolution itself." Nevertheless, this does not rule out the possibility that there existed certain people who intentionally schemed specific plans to make those events transpire as they turned out to be...And actually this somewhat deterministic view and the idea of collective will were actually the points of certain "revisionist" historians (such as François Furet)... There is another article, also by Tackett, Nobles and Third Estate in the Revolutionary Dynamic of the National Assembly, 1789-1790, analyzes a whole lot of election records (with names of the casters documented) and letters written by different deputies during that period. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1866828 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1866828 This is a very interesting article that analyzes the emergence of new political order in that period... And sure, there would always be certain level of organizations behind any political order -- statistically speaking, cliquing is a human inclination. But at the beginning of the revolution in 1789, at the stage of genesis, there was not any organization as it would later turn out to be a few years later, which was a result of a process that was quite dynamic and fluid with a series of perception and mis-perception by those participants...

eternalban 9y ago

Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for your thoughtful and informative comment. I think we agree to a large extent. The intent of my reference to one of the aspects of the effort to dethrone the standing societal order in France was not to imply that it was the only component of these efforts. I feel we don't have the necessary insight into the mindset of the society at that point in time. It seems perfectly unremarkable that a subset of society of that time would find the standing order, the role of the Church, and the monarchy as stumbling blocks to personal and collective ambitions. It seems equally unremarkable that the connected members of this subset would work together to do something about it! So yes, the path to the revolution may have begun as a comedy of errors, but at some point very organized and ideologically coherent forces assumed controlling interest in the unfolding of the events. It was an organized affair, without a question.

68c12c16 9y ago
> Sorry for the late reply. Sure, no problem... and now it's my turn to apologize for my late response -- perhaps we could devise something like the TCP protocol to make sure that our good faith has been reliably exchanged... > It was an organized affair, without a question. that's the key issue...Yes, I agree that there sure to be a certain level of social organization behind those social events happened between 1789 and 1799 in France; but to what extent those events were organized or planned with an intention is the question... > I feel we don't have the necessary insight into the mindset of the society at that point in time. Yes, and it is usually quite difficult to restore a social image that was more than 200 years old -- and significant amount of efforts have been spent on rummaging through those old document to find some useful information. Somewhat fortunately, during the first several years of French revolution, it was à la mode for those French intellectuals to write letters to friends and family members and many of those letters have been preserved until this day, which could make us good voyeurs and give us a little peak into the mind of people living in those days -- of course, they were individuals and not a society as a whole. I remember that I have read an article a while ago by Timothy Tackett, Becoming A Counterrevolutionary: A Conservative Noble in the National Assembly, 1789-1791 http://www.h-france.net/rude/2005conference/Tackett2.pdf http://www.h-france.net/rude/2005conference/Tackett2.pdf (this is an interesting paper, and gives a good analysis on the psychological itinerary for one of the participants in those events based on those real letters.) It traces through some ninety letters written by a conservative deputy, Pierre-Marie Irland de Bazôges in the period of 1789 to 1791. As documented in that paper, Irland experienced a path of embracing the revolution (he was among those enlightened people after all), feeling disappointed, and eventually becoming a counter-revolutionary... One of the conclusions reached at the end of that articles is that “for most of the representatives neither radicalism nor counterrevolution was scripted in May 1789, but that both were profoundly affected by the complex, dynamic, and creative process developing during the Revolution itself." Nevertheless, this does not rule out the possibility that there existed certain people who intentionally schemed specific plans to make those events transpire as they turned out to be...And actually this somewhat deterministic view and the idea of collective will were actually the points of certain "revisionist" historians (such as François Furet)... There is another article, also by Tackett, Nobles and Third Estate in the Revolutionary Dynamic of the National Assembly, 1789-1790, analyzes a whole lot of election records (with names of the casters documented) and letters written by different deputies during that period. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1866828 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1866828 This is a very interesting article that analyzes the emergence of new political order in that period... And sure, there would always be certain level of organizations behind any political order -- statistically speaking, cliquing is a human inclination. But at the beginning of the revolution in 1789, at the stage of genesis, there was not any organization as it would later turn out to be a few years later, which was a result of a process that was quite dynamic and fluid with a series of perception and mis-perception by those participants...