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French revolution started with a riot. While the terror state that came soon after is condemned, it was the violent spark that realized the Enlighment ideals in
by trgn 6y ago
French revolution started with a riot. While the terror state that came soon after is condemned, it was the violent spark that realized the Enlighment ideals in Europe.
1830 was a riotous year globally. Belgian independence started with a riot, and was successful in a sense, carving out a place for libertarian optimism and industrial expansion from a war-weary continent.
These are both fairly conventional pop-culture interpretations. But maybe similar developments would have happened without the flash in the pan of some undirected mob breaking things.
- hirundo 6y agoThe French revolution led in fairly short order to the French empire, which is generally not considered to have been a net social benefit. I suppose the Boston Massacre could be an example.
- 082349872349872 6y agoAfter the fall of the french empire, my country kept the new laws, the new roads, and the new social structure. We just got rid of the french who had been running things and put locals in their place.
- recursivedoubts 6y agoLife is complicated and lines are grey. For example, while I am in general opposed to rioting, I am deeply sympathetic to the miners in the coalfield war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Coalfield_War I would argue that the French Revolution was functionally fundamentally, albeit cryptically, illiberal (classical sense) with De Sade as the crux. And to Napoleon as the illiberal tyrant that came out of the chaos of that time.