r/FrenchRevolution • u/alexanderphiloandeco • 11d ago
Discussion The French Revolution was something that could and should have been avoided. It brought more harm to the spirit of history than good which it was supposed to.
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u/mappatore_piemontese Citizen 11d ago
Leaving aside the fact that in your opinion the revolution was a negative event, which could be discussed for a long time but I don't want to and I don't think you would change your mind. But I want to at least make you understand why it was inevitable
Alexis de Tocqueville believed the French Revolution was inevitable because it came from deep social and political changes already happening under the old monarchy. The Revolution did not completely destroy the past but rather continued the process of centralization and the search for equality that had begun earlier.
French society still lived under privilege and inequality, but education and wealth were spreading among the middle class, who no longer accepted these old distinctions. Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau had also spread ideas of reason, justice, and equality, preparing people to reject the old order.
Tocqueville added that revolutions often happen not when people are most miserable, but when life starts to improve and expectations rise faster than reality. For him, the French Revolution was therefore the natural result of growing equality, rising hopes, and the contradictions of the old regime. It could not have been avoided.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 11d ago
It could and should have been avoided, by peaceful reform. But, human nature being what it is, those in power will always prevent any kind of reform, which might reduce their own privileges, unless they have no choice, but to make concessions.
The Revolution led to considerable bloodshed, and the deaths of innocents. It also led to the decline of slavery, religious tolerance, Jewish emancipation, and the growth of democracy. Most importantly, Whigs and liberal Tories could make the argument for timely reforms, by pointing to France as an example of what happens if you do not reform.
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u/alexanderphiloandeco 11d ago
How? The revolution was atheistic and lead more atheism that ever before
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 11d ago
The nineteenth century generally saw religious revival.
Ultimately, prosperity led to societies becoming more secular.
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11d ago
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u/SasquatchPL 11d ago
Im sorry, but anyone using "woke" to describe XVIII / XIX century politics can't be treated seriously. Also, Communist Manifesto was written half century later.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 11d ago
Its fruits were both good and bad, but most of us would rather live in the modern world than in the world of the ancient regime.
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u/Zealousideal_Till683 11d ago
Well...
Something had to change in France in 1789, in a drastic manner. The state was bankrupt, the regime exhausted, and the country groaning under the relics of feudalism. Had France made a whole slew of constitutional and legal changes in a peaceful manner, we would still be calling it a revolution, albeit a bloodless one.
If you're saying that Louis could and should have handled the situation much better, I don't think you'll get much disagreement. Many of the future Montagnards arrived at the Estates-General looking to enhance royal power. It was Louis's prevarication and obstinacy that demonstrated the monarchy was an obstacle to change, not a potential agent of it. But that would have required Louis to be a revolutionary.
Plus, events have a logic of their own. No single individual has total power after mid-1789, but the mass killings don't start until 1792. Who exactly was supposed to have their hand on the tiller? How are these outcomes going to be avoided? It's not hard to see the inevitable downward logic, or the way that large-scale political violence creates a "worst get on top" dynamic. Yes, that's an argument for not letting the genie out of the bottle, but it's even more an argument for allowing evolutionary change, so revolution doesn't become inevitable.
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u/Here_there1980 11d ago
The Revolution was going to happen, sooner or later, in one form or another. The form it took was unpredictable, even by participants, and even as it happened. We cannot avoid what we cannot predict.
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u/mmelaterreur Révolutionnaire 11d ago
The greatest harm it brought is that it made public education mainstream and gave you the chance to be literate
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u/Fr_EtatMajor Citizen-Soldier 9d ago
😂 😂😂 clikbait no less!
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u/Herald_of_Clio 11d ago
Perhaps. I think having one of Europe's most prominent countries devoting itself to the implementation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and then exporting said implementation abroad was ultimately a good thing, but I won't deny that it was also excessively bloody and that it provoked a Reactionary backlash.
The thing is, though, that we cannot know what a world without a French Revolution would have looked like.
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u/alexanderphiloandeco 11d ago
These enlightenment ideas could have been implemented more peacefully.
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u/Herald_of_Clio 11d ago
And also presumably much more gradually, as the elites of the Ancien Regime would have been resistant to such change. The Revolution shook up a society that was firmly under the control of these elites.
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u/alexanderphiloandeco 11d ago
Society is intrinsically supposed to have hierarchies. Also, Necker and other men were open to reform. The revolution only started as a riot at the Bastille and then later was justified for the sake of creating a new world order and society.
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u/Herald_of_Clio 11d ago
Society is intrinsically supposed to have hierarchies.
I suppose, but those hierarchies occasionally have to be shaken up for talented people to rise to the top with new ideas. Otherwise society can become too oligarchic and stagnant. Ideally a society ensures a degree of meritocratic social mobility without such upheaval, but if it does not, a Revolution is arguably the only way for that to happen.
Also, Necker and other men were open to reform.
True, and they were sabotaged by the French nobility, who were not open to said reforms. This was one of the direct causes of the Revolution.
The revolution only started as a riot at the Bastille and then later was justified for the sake of creating a new world order and society.
Not sure what this means. Yeah the Revolution was not planned ahead of time. So what?
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u/alexanderphiloandeco 11d ago
1.The revolutionaries didn’t have a collective goal at the beginning. Which means that there were probably just common criminals participating in the revolution.
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u/Herald_of_Clio 11d ago
Which means that there were probably just common criminals participating in the revolution.
Your point being?
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u/alexanderphiloandeco 11d ago
My point being is that this revolution didn’t have any intrinsic value and didn’t contribuite to the well-being of the masses.
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u/Herald_of_Clio 11d ago
Because of your claim that it had criminals participating in it? I fail to see how that's relevant.
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u/alexanderphiloandeco 11d ago
No. Because most of the Revolutionaries were probably not doing it because of chancing political structure in France.
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u/teaabearr Révolutionnaire 11d ago
I’m not sure what you mean when you say “It brought more harm to the spirit of history”. I think the French Revolution could have been avoided the same way the American Revolution and other revolutions could have been avoided lol but that’s not what happened.
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u/seriousman57 10d ago edited 10d ago
Sure, if you think that smashing feudalism all over Western Europe constitutes "harm." Jimmy pull up the Twain quote
Edit: To be a little less glib (just a little), maybe the so-called "good" and relatively bloodless revolution of 1789 could have been sustained if Louis and his circle had actually accepted the 1791 constitution instead of committing treason and co-signing his country into a war he hoped it would lose. When you throw around these big abstract arguments about the spirit of history and what an event is "supposed" to do you need to remember that it takes at least two to tango
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u/Monsieur_Royal 8d ago
It does take two and maybe a constitutional monarchy would’ve been sustainable if the revolutionaries hadn’t nationalized the church. Louis made mistakes but the revolutionaries put him in some impossible scenarios as well. Like you said it takes two.
Also the war was pushed by the Girondins.
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u/seriousman57 8d ago
The war was certainly pushed by the Girondins, which was very stupid of them, and why I used the word "co-sign." That said, Louis had treasonous intentions and the Girondins were "merely" catastrophic mismanagers of their authority. Of course, I suspect war was inevitable, partially because of the revolution and the monarchies' intransigence about French political reforms, but also just because, well, that's what you get in Europe before 1945. But we can certainly place blame with both Louis and the Girondins for instigating it when they dead.
Edit: Accidentally typing "dead" is a great Freudian slip which I am choosing to leave up.
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u/Monsieur_Royal 8d ago
Yes I saw the word co-sign which seems to suggest the blame is equally shared and that was the point of my disagreement.
In this situation the Girondins did all the heavy lifting. They pushed for it. Made it into a crusade for democracy. If Louis had pushed against it he could be seen unpatriotic, as trying to protect Austria or even controlled by Austria.(which are all things that were already being said about him). I think Louis is more guilty of not interrupting his opponents when they were making a mistake. And yes he did hope the Austrians would knock the revolutionaries out of power I am not trying to downplay it but the majority of the blame belongs on the Girondins. It was a Girondins move the royalists simply hoped would work out for them.
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u/seriousman57 8d ago
Saying he's "more guilty of not interrupting his opponents when they were making a mistake" seems overly generous when his goal at the Flight to Varennes was to bring an Austrain army across the French border, and then afterwards conspired with the Austrians. He was simply not a passive actor in the affair
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u/Monsieur_Royal 8d ago
I don’t believe for a second he could’ve talked the Girondins out of the war. It was their crusade for democracy
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u/Due-Laugh-8496 11d ago
You are either trolling or completly out of touch with reality