# OK, so where are all the "enlightened" revolutions? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2015, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003 "2015-09-30T00:39:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003/21 "2015-10-01T05:53:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s not about the goals; it’s about the means. > > Enlightenment figures would say the best course was to be rational. They would sit down in a meeting and work out the reasons why they needed to sever the social contract which had bound them to the existing regime. Having done so, they would send a letter to the head of that regime, explaining why they were acting, and then take the appropriate steps to resolve the situation. > > Romantic figures would say that you must act on your passions. They’d be out in the streets, summoning the masses, and telling them, “Can’t you feel it in your blood? It’s the spirit of freedom calling out to you. Rise up and answer her!” > > This difference in philosophies explains why when America succeeded in its revolution it sat down and wrote a Constitution and when France succeeded in its revolution it got out the guillotine and had a reign of terror. Well, I have to point out that both the French and American revolutions involved assemblies, parliaments, committees, petitions for redress, etc. And they both involved actual bullets and actual deaths. Followed by new constitutions, bills of rights and the like. The French revolution did of course go off the rails in a rather spectacular fashion and, while we might debate why this was so, I think the explanation has to be a bit more than the fact that the French were just too damn passionate. The fact that they were surrounded by hostile powers supposedly bent on crushing the revolution, whereas the US was simply too far away for any major power to be able to interfere, might have something to do with it. Plus, the US revolution also doubled as an assertion of national independence; they didn’t have a large, wealthy political and social establishment that was displaced by the revolution, and that might be expected to oppose it, on quite the scale the French had. In short, I think the circumstances in which the American revolution occurred were much more favourable to successful promotion of the enlightenment ideals of the revolution. But I’m not convinced that the revolution was itself any more enlightened inherently. And we should also note that many of the enlightenment ideals of the French revolution survived through the Terror, and the ensuing dictatorship, and fundamentally changed - in a progressive, enlightened and rational direction - the political culture not only of France but of Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003/22 "2015-10-01T07:11:33Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I also wonder about the Tories, or Loyalists, who fled to Canada. Who’d they sell their stuff to? To no-one. It was confiscated by the state governments. When the US signed the [Treaty of Paris with the UK in 1783](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)) to end the hostilities, the US government undertook to “earnestly recommend” to state legislatures to recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands and “provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects”. The United States also agreed to prevent future confiscations of the property of Loyalists. All of which was ignored by the individual states, who merrily confiscated property of loyalists without compensation. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003/23 "2015-10-01T07:44:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This difference in philosophies explains why when America succeeded in its revolution it sat down and wrote a Constitution and when France succeeded in its revolution it got out the guillotine and had a reign of terror. In point of fact, France never stopped writing constitutions (if memory serves, it was usually Abbé Siéyès who wrote them). The problem was, none of them produced a stable government capable of securing a prosperous economy and the defeat of those powers that wanted to restore the Bourbons. And even Napoleon had two constitutions. (Am I right in thinking that the US went through a fair bit of constitutional and political experimentation and amendment around the balance between central and local fiscal and financial powers in the same period? But the difference was, no Continental alliance threatening to invade and overthrow your revolutionary government). ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003/24 "2015-10-01T07:59:07Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > In point of fact, France never stopped writing constitutions (if memory serves, it was usually Abbé Siéyès who wrote them). The problem was, none of them produced a stable government capable of securing a prosperous economy and the defeat of those powers that wanted to restore the Bourbons. And even Napoleon had two constitutions. > > (Am I right in thinking that the US went through a fair bit of constitutional and political experimentation and amendment around the balance between central and local fiscal and financial powers in the same period? But the difference was, no Continental alliance threatening to invade and overthrow your revolutionary government). Yes. The US had the Articles of Confederation, but they turned out to be not really fit for purpose, so after a few years they got replaced with the Constitution. That in turn was revised after a few more years by the addition of the Bill of Rights. It wasn’t until 1791 - about fifteen years after the Declaration of Independence - that the US Constitution arrived at substantially the form we are familiar with. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003/25 "2015-10-01T08:44:43Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > If you look around at history since the American Revolution, it is hard to find one as enlightened as ours seemed to be. Now, right off the bat perhaps you can argue that, for most Americans, it was not (selfish self-interest being their main stake in it, not any highfalutin’ ideals). But it is rather striking to me-rarely do you see the new regime come in and sweep away all corruption, cruelty, and oppression-the impression I get from most revolutions is that the new boss is essentially the same as the old boss, even as he spouts rhetoric proclaiming just how different he is. > > So, where are all the enlightened revolutionaries? Is that kind of “forward” thinking associated too strongly with the perceived excesses of Western democratic societies, in that the revolutionaries in question see only our decadence and not our progressive attitudes (if they give the latter any credit at all in the first place)? You’d think that a group of progressive thinkers would grab their people’s attention by promising them a future era of peace and prosperity, and not by advocating a return to the rule of the axe and the repression of certain minorities (if not sexes). But you never seem to hear about such groups-so why is that? If you call a revolution “enlightened” if it succeeds in replacing the current political system with a better one, I am surprised that you believe that the American Revolution is the last time that has happened. In or around 1990 most of the states in Eastern Europe replaced their communist single party regimes with western style democracies. South Africa abolished the apartheid regime between 1989 and 1994. Many South American nations replaced military dictatorship with democracy during the second half of the last century. More recently Myanmar has changed its constitution to become a “discipline-flourishing democracy”. Now, no one will claim that everything has been just peachy in these countries after their revolutions. But you can hardly claim that all of them have just created a situation where “the new boss is essentially the same as the old boss”. If you were going to say that a \*violent \*revolution rarely finds success, you might be closer to the truth. Those have a tendency of creating a situation of instability. But violence is not in the definition of “revolution” - just a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. Those have happened a lot since the American Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003/26 "2015-10-01T15:11:53Z")
I did not mean to give that impression-examples of the kind that you mentioned ( **Hiker** ) were precisely what I was hoping for. But yes, the violent ones are the ones which usually get all of the press… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-so-where-are-all-the-enlightened-revolutions/733003.md?page=1)