Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution

Thanks

I could not imagine a better hour and half documentary.

A right-wing view of the French Revolution—What else would you expect from the BBC!!

symbol,

is that so? Is that your assessment after actually watching this or just a comment in anticipation of watching it?

Because I read a pretty damning review of this documentary over at Lenin's Tomb (a great leftist, socialist blog for those in the know). Here's the link to the review:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/07/proposal-for-refoundation-of-committee.html

I highly recommend everyone read that review to understand why this documentary is fundamentally right-wing and conservative with an anti-leftist, anti-revolutionary agenda.

If you know your history, conservatives and the right-wing in general hate the French Revolution just like they hate revolutions in general for obvious reasons: it scares the hell out of them because it means an overthrow of the existing social order and it means the current set of elites lose their position of power and privilege. Burke for example, one of the pillars of conservatism, is famous for his criticisms of the French Revolution, and conservatives point to the bloodbath and terror that followed the French Revolution to discredit revolutionary change. Conservatives claim the way the French Revolution turned out, and Burke's warning about it, proves that revolutionary change is always doomed to failure and that it always preferable to retain existing social structures and traditions that supposedly have been tested by time, and it is preferrable to favour only gradual change over revolutionarly change.

There certainly is some wisdom in that way of thinking, but sometimes, revolution is the only means to get rid of an oppressive, brutal class-structure and social order. And while conservatives may point to the excesses of the French revolution to discredit it, the leftist rebuttal to that conservative argument has been to put those excesses in perspective with the much greater suffering and brutality inflicted on the lower classes by the prevailing social order of the time, i.e, feudalism for CENTURIES.

To quote Mark Twain:

'There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.' --Mark Twain

I agree with your comments, but still I enjoyed the film. Of course it did have a heavy bourgeois interpretation, zizek being the only sane commentator -- and his contribution obviously heavily edited.

That being said, I felt there was enough information to make it worthwhile...

Schama rekindles my faith in physiognomy as his sniveling snobbish face reveals his identity as a bourgeois historian from the disgusting halls of columbia university. As Rousseau himself once wrote:

"Multiply the iron doors, the locks, the chains, the guards and watchmen, everywhere raise gibbets, wheels, gallows, every day imagine new forms of torture, harden your soul at the sight of all the sufferings of the indigent; **establish pulpits and colleges where only the maxims that suit you are taught. Attract, ceaselessly pay new writers in order to make the poor man's theft even more infamous and the rich man's even more respected**; every day imagine new distinctions in order to authorize in the one and punish in the other the same intrigues under other names."

Oh schama, stick to the art documentaries!

I felt Zizek's defense of the terror was fair albeit muted.

And of course, to an extent, I rather like being reminded of the danger of revolutionary zeal in the form of a romantic tragedy set in the french revolution. I mean to say, while I acknowledge that the bourgeois historians paint actual anti-revolutionaries as "innocent dishwashers," I almost believe that the taking of life deserves a rather judicious reflection. Whether Robbespierre's crimes are trumped up or not, this is a moral I support.

And considering that the people's assembly itself took his life I believe there is some evidence that perhaps it was out of control.

Likewise, keep in mind, Thomas Paine was imprisoned during this time period, himself set to be executed and spared only by chance. Thomas Paine, anti-revolutionary?