Wednesday, August 9, 2006

The failure of the 1789 French Revolution

The arrogance and danger of socialism can be traced directly to the events of 1789

by StFerdIII

There are 3 basic visions to human nature and all philosophies and ‘isms’ are based on a particular view of man and man’s nature. The oriental view epitomized in its extreme by Islam is that man is a slave and must unthinkingly obey a higher force which will determine all aspects of his life including his salvation or damnation. If he prostrates himself and pleases the all powerful spirit he will be saved. The Western ‘tragic’ view of man believes that man is fallible, riven by genetic and social failure and that the best we can do is to construct society so that the general good is enhanced through the selfish advancement of the individual. The Western ‘utopian’ view is that man is a creature only limited by out of date and backwards institutions and a lack of education. This view believes that man and society can be rebuilt and reformed through the efforts of an educated intellectual class that will be all-knowing and superior. It rejects all historical evidence to be meaningless. It is this vision that is at the core of modern liberalism and which poses a direct threat to our civilization.

The ‘tragic’ view of Western society has lead to market economics, realism in politics and ‘conservatism’ in social affairs. This 'tragic vision' to quote esteemed writer Thomas Sowell, has a deep and conservative respect for the millennia of experience and the efforts of millions of humans to produce ideas and processes which have developed concepts of social success and which limit social failure. In opposition to this we have the Western liberal-socialist-utopian view which believes in the perfection of man and rejects past historical ‘memories’ and customs as obstacles to fulfilling man’s destiny. In this view a wise technocratic and all powerful elite will form society in the ‘correct’ image and reject the past since the past was limited by a lack of information and intelligence. The French Revolution, Communism, Fascism and Post-Modernism are philosophies that support such idealism. It is this vision which poses as supreme a threat to civilization as does fascist pagan Islam.

The 1789 French Revolution was the decisive event that led to the view that society must be refashioned in the view of all powerful and well educated philosophers and intellectuals. The French Revolution was markedly different than the American Revolution. In the American version the founding fathers of the US Republic were quite aware of man’s limitation as an animal. Man had not changed much in 100.000 years and was genetically defective though capable of enlightened reason, thought and action. It was folly according to this view, to suppose that man could be ‘remade’ and that we can ignore the rules of genetics and natures. Man’s nature was viewed by the US founding fathers as an egotistical, flawed and at times ignorant creature, beholden more to emotions and irrationality then some godly vision of perfectibility. In this vein the US Constitution and State created checks on power, balances on viewpoints and tried to ensure that a technocratic elite would not be able to seize control and upset the basic ideals of the American Revolution, namely; freedom, pursuit of happiness, equality before the law, and free speech. The French Revolution of course had other ideas.

European historical development and its associated cultural, political and military problems can be traced back to the French Revolution. This Revolution was ostensibly to topple a corrupt monarchy which had taxed France into poverty and weakness and which was shamefully criminal and class ridden. Public work projects like Versailles, fruitless and pointless military campaigns and government corruption that makes modern day France look like a paragon of virtue, combined with the enlightenment revolution on reason, rationality and human capability, soon incited mass mobilization against l’ancien regime. After deposing the desperately fraudulent monarchy the French Revolution soon mutated into a struggle for the commanding heights of the French nation by self-proclaimed ‘intellectuals’ and enlightenment philosophers who decided that they would rebuild the world in their ‘educated’ vision. The only question was which group would claim and wield such vast power.

The French Revolution was a failure because the radical ‘philosophes’ that created the governing class truly thought themselves superior, more enlightened and more omniscient than the grubby working classes, and the millions of humans who spent millennia discovering right and wrong; processes to allow societal development; and concepts of virtue and cultural success. This Platonic arrogance in establishing the elitist view of the world, and the rejection of systemic processes that over millennia were able to identify good and bad in building a functioning society, directly led to Napoleon, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and Post-Modernism. The egotism of this concept is breathtaking. Just imagine the narcissistic hubris of a group of people who believe that millennia of experiences, trial and error, and efforts of all varieties, including signals across billions of human activities and lives, should all be forgotten as wise Platonic guardians mandate the creation of a perfect society managed by themselves where all processes are changed to suit their particular philosophy at hand. It is incredible that such nonsense would be tolerated.

French and German intellectuals along with some American and Russian additions have been of course the exponents of activist utopianism. Rousseau declared that the institutions of society obstructed man’s perfection and all institutions should be torn down and rebuilt – be they physical or moral constructs. Condorcet believed that pre-18th century Europe was unenlightened, immoral, base and largely stupid and that education and knowledge would lead man to an ever upward rise towards perfection. Thomas Paine also believed in man’s intellectual and moral perfection and the infallibility of reason. Intellectuals and philosophes poured out optimistic utopian tracts dedicated to the vision that man was only a rational, intellectual creature and had no need of religion, spirituality, or indeed, individual self realization. The common good was more important than the individual attainment of goals and the only method to ensure the creation of a common good was by affirming the power of an elite to manage affairs.

Such concepts are the direct antecedents to the ‘Great Man’ theory of history, and the creation of massive and immoral socialism. Saint Simon, Voltaire, and the French ‘philosophes’ proposed that only through rationality, education, and rule by enlightened philosopher Kings would Europe create the perfect man. The great ruling elite in this vision would be perfect intellectual and moral beacons. Nietzsche in Germany and Maxim Gorky in Russia both believed that the modern decadent world had to be destroyed and that a ‘superman’ leader, perfect in all ways, in combination with an all powerful elite were necessary to lead mankind out of mediocrity into heroism.

From these ideas of course arise the twin fascisms of national-socialism and communism wherein the individual is subsumed into the greater cult for his/her own good. Society under these twin fascisms was to be remodeled on the great, the heroic and the perfect. There is no compromise in such a society nor is there any reason to respect the travails of millions of humans over millennia who found systemic methods and concepts to build a well functioning society. In the post French Revolution world such quaint ideas of historical norms, virtues and experience became unnecessary. Society would be managed and people ‘educated’ into role models of perfection.

The same ideas inform today’s obsession with Post-Modernism. A direct descendant of both the French Revolution and Fascism the post modern ‘thinker’ much like his 18th and 19th century progenitor views the modern world as an irritant - immoral, stultifying and chaotic. In order to bring society in line with the utopian vision of perfectibility the post modern ‘intellectual’ devises untold numbers of schemes, programs, and ‘causes’ to reshape society. Everything from poverty, to social services, to welfare, to medicine, to business, to morality, to marriage, to judicial processes and the military must be changed, rebuilt, micromanaged, and informed by the all-knowing elite.

This intellectual arrogance is as much a danger to our civilization as is fascist Islam. Putting society under the control of people with no regard for systemic processes, historical truisms and the intelligence and efforts of literally billions of humans over millennia is an absurdity. Yet this is what we have in the Industrialized West - the unfortunate bastard step child of the French Revolution. It is called modern liberalism.