# Who Was Right in the French Revolution? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 14, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378 "2011-06-14T00:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/41 "2011-06-15T15:32:39Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > **Qin** , I mean this sincerely: you have spoken of becoming an historian, and I think you’ve got the passion and the intellect to do it. But you need to make a paradigm shift: we don’t study history to find out who was _right_. We study history to try to figure out _what actually happened_. 😕 Have you ever **read** a book of history?! **Thucydides** would have laughed! ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/42 "2011-06-15T15:57:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 No, the **Declaration of Independence** was radical. The Constitution . . . [here’s a good place to start.](http://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Republic-Constitution-Paralyzing-Democracy/dp/0156004941) Well, maybe I should euthanize that pup.. 🙂 But yes, the declaration of independence was more radical, but the radically egalitarian and liberal elements of the Constitution can not be ignored. I do realize where the writer of the book you link to is coming from, but I also had a bit of my theory that I had not mentioned yet, while the radical (for the day) parts of the constitution allowed for an eventual growth of egalitarianism, there were others that almost destroyed the US (slavery) but the radical parts of the constitution allowed the USA to progress (kicking and screaming sometimes, but progress) But, as the writer on the link notices, we are hitting a wall, when needed things like progress on health care access can be virtually obliterated by the current system we have, (and make us virtually the last developed nation on earth to not give access to all their citizens) one can see that a serious change is needed. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/43 "2011-06-15T16:17:25Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > **Who Was Right in the French Revolution?** Why The Left bien sûr. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/44 "2011-06-15T16:19:05Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > [linguistic pedant]Dynamite explodes. Heads asplode. The distinction is similar to that between hanged and hung.[/lp] Who led the Pedant’s Revolt? Answer; Which Tyler ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/45 "2011-06-15T20:04:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 Have you ever **read** a book of history?! **Thucydides** would have laughed! When I think of the current academic discipline of history, I don’t think Thucydides. H ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/46 "2011-06-15T22:32:20Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > **Qin** , I mean this sincerely: you have spoken of becoming an historian, and I think you’ve got the passion and the intellect to do it. But you need to make a paradigm shift: we don’t study history to find out who was _right_. We study history to try to figure out _what actually happened_. Even there, it’s a wildly imperfect discipline. As you advance in your study of history, you’ll start to read the primary and secondary sources that histories are based on, and I think you’ll be surprised to discover how very little we really know for certain: what we have are a lot of educated guesses, constantly refined. And that doesn’t mean it’s pointless–it’s just never sure. > > I teach high school, and you are making the same mistake so many of my students do when they are on the verge of adulthood: you want the world to be morally simple, the way it appears to a child. You want to be able to apply some complicated moral calculus and come out at the end and say “X was the bad guy”. It doesn’t work that way. People are complicated, context is complicated, and we only know half of what happened anyway. > > Study history for what it is: the story of what happened. If you want to figure out morality, go study philosophy. Well this is Great Debates, and a lot of the debates are of a historical nature (ie who was right in x or something like that). Certainly such bias shouldn’t be present in history books but you can certainly discuss such matters. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/47 "2011-06-15T22:34:28Z")
Wait, since when are we are trying to guess what political opinions someone might have held or hold in the future if they lived some totally different life and were a completely different person or in the completely indescribable future? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/48 "2011-06-15T22:56:44Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Well this is Great Debates, and a lot of the debates are of a historical nature (ie who was right in x or something like that). Certainly such bias shouldn’t be present in history books but you can certainly discuss such matters. Of course people can discuss whatever they want. My point is that if you seek to become a serious historian, don’t think these are the sorts of questions you will work on; if you want to work on these sorts of questions, become a philosopher. And asking who was right or wrong isn’t bias. It’s ethics. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/49 "2011-06-16T00:58:22Z")
I love G. K. Chesterton, but I think on the subject of the French revolution the man was flat wrong. I grant it was romantic, heroic, and even noble in intent. For all their faults, the men who formed even the cruellest Revolutionary governments had a rare strain of courage. However, they used it badly. Humans should not aim for perfection. They should _ **strive** _ for it. The difference is subtle but critical. The French monarchy and nobility weren’t heroic: they were selfish, stupid, short-sighted - and human. The revolutions were generous, cunning, and far-sighted - and inhuman. I do not claim it was obvious at the time, but given history we should not be surprised that a Napoleon took power. Napoleon was very human, and humanity tends to win out over inhumanity in the end. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/50 "2011-06-16T01:09:37Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Humans should not aim for perfection. They should _ **strive** _ for it. The difference is subtle but critical. I agree. Pure ideals can be (depending on what they _are_, naturally) great as a reference point, but actually trying to impose them on real life results in disaster. Whether it’s the Perfect Free Market or the Perfectly Equal State you are trying for. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/51 "2011-06-16T02:29:55Z")
I do wish, rather wistfully, that the Revolution could have been carried out without so much wanton destruction of chateaux and art collections and estate archives . . . but, that’s just me, I’m the sort who will at least be tempted to burn the orphanage to save the library. :o ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/52 "2011-06-16T02:33:18Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Wait, since when are we are trying to guess what political opinions someone might have held or hold in the future if they lived some totally different life and were a completely different person or in the completely indescribable future? Since we joined the Dope. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/53 "2011-06-16T03:01:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I do wish, rather wistfully, that the Revolution could have been carried out without so much wanton destruction of chateaux and art collections and estate archives . . . but, that’s just me, I’m the sort who will at least be tempted to burn the orphanage to save the library. :o Gruesome French Revolution trivia: the bath tub where Marat was murdered was saved for posterity, it was reported that P.T Barnum even tried to get a hold of it, but in the end the Musée Grévin in Paris has it: [http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1845947](http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1845947) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/54 "2011-06-16T16:03:52Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > **Qin** , I mean this sincerely: you have spoken of becoming an historian, and I think you’ve got the passion and the intellect to do it. But you need to make a paradigm shift: we don’t study history to find out who was _right_. We study history to try to figure out _what actually happened_. Regarding what happened and “the French Revolution,” I found Barbara Tuchman’s book, _A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century_, which focused on France, greatly affected my thinking about the French Revolution, even though it’s not a topic of the book at all. But it does extensively discuss the class struggles and misbehavior which would imbue the much later conflict of 1789 with centuries of fossilized resentment and fear. Reading the book, turning page after page of horrendous mistreatment, abuse, folly, financial mismanagement, and bloody reprisal, I constantly thought “_how_ could they stand it?” Ultimately, of course, things came to a head. So to speak. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/55 "2011-06-16T16:24:49Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Gruesome French Revolution trivia: the bath tub where Marat was murdered was saved for posterity, it was reported that P.T Barnum even tried to get a hold of it, but in the end the Musée Grévin in Paris has it: > > [http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1845947](http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1845947) What do you expect from the culture that gave us the [Grand Guignol](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/976/whats-the-story-on-the-grand-guignol-the-original-shock-theater)? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378/56 "2011-06-16T16:33:19Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Regarding what happened and “the French Revolution,” I found Barbara Tuchman’s book, _A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century_, which focused on France, greatly affected my thinking about the French Revolution, even though it’s not a topic of the book at all. But it does extensively discuss the class struggles and misbehavior which would imbue the much later conflict of 1789 with centuries of fossilized resentment and fear. Reading the book, turning page after page of horrendous mistreatment, abuse, folly, financial mismanagement, and bloody reprisal, I constantly thought “_how_ could they stand it?” > > Ultimately, of course, things came to a head. > > So to speak. If by “they” you mean the peasants, the [Jacquerie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie) was in that period. **That’s** how they could stand it, I would guess: By remembering that every time the peasants revolted, they seemed to get stomped. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-right-in-the-french-revolution/585378.md?page=2)