A History of Modern Western Thought: 1789 to the Present, (U.S.) Roland Strombberg, translated by Liu Beicheng and Zhao Guoxin, CITIC Publishing Group, June 2021.
The French Revolution
Ideas played an important role in the French Revolution. The French Revolution began in 1789 and dominated the European scene in the years that followed. The Revolution was spearheaded by the remarkable "Philosopher" movement, which showcased a glorious gallery of thought leaders. These figures did not emerge until the late 1740s, and in the 1760s and 1770s, they nurtured future revolutionary leaders. A recent historian quoted a Frenchman during the Revolution as saying: "They use speech to achieve their ends, and speech is indeed invincible." These statements came from Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rousseau and their disciples. These people were regarded as authorities and were later even enshrined in the Pantheon established by the revolutionary government. The main factions in the revolution were divided more according to the ideas they believed in than by their social class components. One eminent scholar pointed out that sleeveless Hanism, this Revolutionary Worldview in Paris, "is more of a state of mind than a socio-political and economic reality." The Jacobin ruling clique of 1792-1794 was made up of people from all walks of life. Revolutionary leaders also tend to see revolution as a product of Enlightenment ideas. Brisso boasted in September 1791: "Our revolution is not the result of an uprising, but the product of half a century of Enlightenment." An important magazine declared in April 1793: "Philosophy has guided a great revolution in France."
Unfortunately, enlightenment philosophers' ideas on social and political affairs were often vague and proved insufficient to guide revolution. After a heroic beginning, the revolution descended into a bitter and bloody civil strife that led to the horrors of 1793-1794. Some blame this situation on the confusion and contradictions of Enlightenment thought, while others blame it on the impracticality of Enlightenment thought. The Irish-British politician and philosopher Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution became the "bible" of all French enemies. The conservative manifesto accuses the revolution of being based on abstract ideas, arguing that in the political sphere only concrete interpersonal ties and entrenched traditions work. It should be admitted that, as the modern historian of thought John Lowe put it: "Attempts to find the enlightenment philosophers' views on the future government almost always result in nothing."
In fact, almost all the surviving representatives of Enlightenment thought (most of the great men of that generation had died by the time of the Revolution) were horrified by the Revolution from the outset. In the final analysis, they advocate rational progress through intellectual enlightenment rather than violent revolution; Most of them despise the people and pin their hopes on some kind of enlightened tyranny. They believed in a rational order and a scientific method, which were trampled upon in the carnival turmoil and gibberish of the revolutionary period. As has been pointed out, the word "revolution" is hardly found in the writings of Enlightenment philosophers. In their hopes, creating a better world "is not the result of a violent revolution, but of gradual, constrained, and largely predictable reforms." Baron Holbach, one of the most radical Enlightenment philosophers (an atheist who at least called himself "God's private enemy" in the absence of his servants), wrote in his political work The Politics of Nature (1773): "In the period of revolution, people were indignant and hot-headed, and never resorted to reason." Enlightenment thinkers (not entirely unanimous) were mostly verbally hostile to the church, but wanted to replace Christian friars with rational priests. Moreover, they usually did not want to abolish the monarchy, but wanted the monarchy to be a tool of enlightenment.
The so-called Girondins gathered most of the Enlightenment intellectuals. The Jacobins, led by Robespierre and St. Juist, fiercely denounced the Enlightenment thinkers and the encyclopedics. In 1793-1794, they either sent members of the Girondins to the guillotine or forced them to commit suicide in desperation. "Literati" has become almost synonymous with traitor. The radical Jacobins believed that their enemies were "the most educated, scheming, and cunning men." Robespierre declared that those people "tried their best to take care of the selfish rich and equal enemies." The Jacobins revered only one important Enlightenment thinker, Rousseau, and quoted it everywhere as if they were enchanted. Robespierre called him a "saint." But the Rousseau whom they worshipped as a protector was an enemy of Voltaire and Diderot; He was a completely different Philosopher of enlightenment, rejecting deep reason and favoring natural emotions. Robespierre declared that if Rousseau lived to see the revolution, "who can believe that his benevolent heart will not embrace the cause of justice and equality with ecstasy?" But the moderate Brisso and Madame Roland were also followers of Rousseau, based on different interpretations and treatises. This difference has caused controversy in the academic community to this day. In contrast to Robespierre, Madame Roland's lover Puzo said in a letter written on death row that if the Enlightenment philosophers, including Rousseau, were alive, "they would all die together." If only they weren't in exile like us... Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Mabli will all be sentenced to death; they will all die at the guillotine."
Jean Jacques Rousseau.
The Girondins were a faction of rationalist intellectuals. They oppose bloodshed and mass violence and loathe the kind of force their political enemies use to eliminate them. The controversy over what to do with the king (1792-1793) led to the fall of the factions and eventually to the fall of the Girondins. The Girondins were reluctant to send Louis XVI to the guillotine, fearing the consequences of such a drastic move. But it was precisely under the leadership of the Girondists that France began its wars with Prussia and Austria. The war led to more than twenty years of almost continuous European slaughter, making the French Revolution a world revolution. Among the Girondins were some of the fiercest opponents of "clerical intrigue" and "superstition," or encyclopedic, atheist, and rebellious clerics. They supported (in fact, they created) the controversial Law on the Organization of Clergy citizens, which nationalized the church. Some of them advocate this reform of Christianity, while others advocate the establishment of non-Christian faiths.
The Jacobins of the left put forward a concept of democracy based on their own interpretation of Rousseau's "common will." Their goal was equality, and the concept of "public will" and the mass action that often became the basis of their power led them to glorify the masses. This tendency to think less about individual rights and parliamentary institutions is seen as selfish and corrupt. The Jacobin Constitution of 1793 did not provide for decentralization at all, nor did it guarantee individual freedoms. It approved a dictatorship based on the will of the people and resulting from a referendum, the power of which was vested in the exercise of a minority.
Robespierre declared, "I speak for the people." Sometimes, this "totalitarian democracy" is democratic in a deep sense, that is, with a sense of proximity, equal enthusiasm, and a desire for direct rule by the people (Robespierre wanted to build a general hall that could accommodate 12,000 people and let the people watch the activities of the legislators). However, it flouts legal procedures and individual rights. The result was a reign of terror under the critical conditions of extreme war in 1792-1793.
Maximilian Robespierre was a fanatical revolutionary propagandist and leading political figure of the Period of the Republic of the Virtues. As a believer in the Enlightenment, he was skeptical of Christianity, but advocated the worship of the supreme being, the goddess of reason. He declared that atheism was something aristocratic. His God is some kind of abstract incarnation of the people. He was a good agitator, but his relationship with the real populace was largely cold and unpleasant. He was rigid, sincere, hard-hitting, verbal and clumsy with action (Robespierre did almost nothing but speech). Robespierre, who prides himself on integrity, is first and foremost an actor, a completely politicized figure without selfish interests. He saw himself as the embodiment of the spirit of history. He trembled at the sight of blood, but in the name of humanity he ordered the execution of thousands of people. Edmund Burke accused the revolution of being slow on abstract theories and lacking pragmatic judgments. This accusation seems to be fully embodied in Robespierre. This principled man became a bloody dictator, eventually destroyed by the revolutionary machine he used to destroy his enemies.
Robespierre.
Robespierre was not the most radical product of the French Revolution. Although Jacobinism, in accordance with Rousseau's spirit of social contract, advocated the supremacy of the community over the individual, it did not fall into the category of socialism. Robespierre and his comrades advocated that private property could be regulated in various ways for the sake of social welfare, but they believed that the best social order should be to allow every citizen to own a little property, as Rousseau suggested. This can be called a petty-bourgeois utopia or a utopia of the handicraft workers. Socialism emerged in the revolution, but it had not yet had time to develop it to its fullest. In the desperate days of 1795, the revolution seemed to be on the verge of collapse, and a small group of socialists tried to start an uprising. This "conspiracy of equality", led by Babeuf and Bonnerotti, failed, but left a strong tradition. These socialist pioneers also drew inspiration from some of Rousseau's writings, albeit their crude interpretations, hating private property, commerce, and luxury, and extolling the virtues of poverty, honest labor, and simplicity. Bonnerotti survived as a link between the socialist currents of the 1840s. This kind of trouserless socialism, which spread throughout Europe, had great appeal to the representatives of the empty theories of the poor class, and was close to the basic spirit of Christianity. The Italian Babeufist Russo reiterated Savonarola's idea of a return to the Middle Ages, calling on the rich to abandon their jewelry.
The extreme phenomena of the revolution have only discredited the revolution. As civil wars, persecution, terror, and international wars swept across the continent, the euphoria that revolutions had initially provoked across Europe had turned into disappointment and disillusionment by the 1790s. Initially, intellectuals across Europe were mostly ecstatic by the revolution, including many who later became sworn enemies of the revolution. Young Wordsworth chanted, "How blissful it is to live until the dawn of time." In addition to Wordsworth, there are also Meister, Chateaubriand, Kant, Fichte, Novalis, Goethe, etc., many of whom initially had this excitement. Rousseau also had fanatical admirers in England, for example, Thomas Malthus's father wanted people to call him only "Friend of Rousseau". In 1799, Gilbert Wakefield, a believer in Rousseau, was accused of publicly wishing for France to invade and conquer Britain and was imprisoned for it. During this period, everyone was reading Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon worked hard for more than 20 years, and it was not until 1787 that he completed this monumental work. The work exudes republican spirit, and it was interpreted in at least the atmosphere of 1789. The great historian seems to be telling people that ancient Rome has been declining since it had its first emperor, and Christianity eventually brought it to an end.
But the French Revolution lost its way and fell into violence, looting and injustice. In the end, it ends with the terrible scene of devouring its own "children." As a result, people go back and re-examine the assumptions of the age of reason and reject them, thus contributing to the romantic turn. After 1794, the original Enlightenment philosopher Saint-Martin became the leader of a new mystical religion linked to the mysterious branch of Freemasonry. Rousseau's influence also spread in the direction of intuition and imagination.
A critique of the revolution
The French Revolution soon drew an ideological backlash. Burke of England was the first to attack and published his Reflections on the French Revolution in 1790. Burke declared that the revolution had gone into a misunderstanding because its leaders wanted to destroy the entire political system and wanted to create a new one overnight. He blamed this error on the basic ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers and political rationalists. Their approach is the approach of abstract theory, and playing with abstraction in such a field is doomed to failure. This accusation is justified. Burke wrote sarcastically: "Father Sieyères had many pigeon cages filled with ready-made constitutions, labeled, categorized, and numbered." But the constitution should not be selected from the goods sold by political theorists, but must grow like a tree over the centuries from the soil of a nation.
Burke's work embodies his style, showing a stunning insight into the subtle structure of realpolitik. If it is considered a literary work, then it is one of the main prose works of the emerging Romantic style. The main idea that emerges from this eloquence is that society is a vast and complex product of history that cannot be patched up at will like a machine; Society is a reservoir of human wisdom that should be revered and, if reformed, must also take full account of the continuity of its institutions. In addition, there are related ideas that the political community is shaped by history, and it has formed an indivisible bond between people, making it possible for a free government to exist; Social organisms have their own hierarchical systems, so in a healthy society, the common people will respect the "natural nobility"; General rules and abstract principles do not help politics in any way. He expressed doubts about the restless innovators, believing that they did not have the patience to draw on the wisdom of their ancestors, but had to paint a blueprint for radical social transformation, as if they were prophets and prophets.
Rethinking the French Revolution, by Edmund Burke, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, July 2014.
Burke rejects the "abstract rights" preached by the French on the one hand, and on the other hand, he tries to clarify the true rights of man; He did believe that man should have this right, but he also stressed that when he entered civilized society, he gave up some freedom to some extent in order to obtain various benefits from the government. This real right is based on Christianity in Western political societies and has deep historical roots. Man is a social animal, and if he is separated from the ancient customs and traditional structures that sustain his existence, he is nothing less than a beast. Moreover, man is a religious animal, and without Christianity he would have turned to another religion that might not be so satisfactory. Therefore, honoring God and respecting social order are the two major duties of life. The two are interrelated. For history is the manifestation of God's will. Burke was blamed for promoting the church simply because it had a long history, but his piety was genuine.
The Irish orator had a profound influence on later conservative ideas. Reflections on the French Revolution was reprinted in a European edition. Louis XVI himself translated it into French. It was popular not only because of its palatial style, but also because of its seemingly mysterious prophetic nature, because Burke declared it inevitable to fail shortly after the french revolution began. Many argue that Burke's treatise transcended conservative factionalism and made a real contribution to political thought and even to the theory of social reform. He is indeed not opposed to change, provided that it should be properly controlled. Coming from humble beginnings, his own experience was one passionate battle after another—supporting American independence, advocating for irish and Indian interests1, and finally opposing the French Revolution. By temperament, the Irishman was not at all a conservative of the kind one might think; one of his biographers pointed out: "His nature always most eagerly prompted him to serve some great cause, to correct some terrible injustice." Many of Burke's ideas were seen as essential wisdom for those who wanted to participate actively in politics. Harold Lasky, a socialist of the 20th century, declared: "A politician who does not understand Burke is like a ship without a compass, lost in the stormy sea." Of course, many of Burke's views were also incorporated into the ideology of modern conservatism: the reverence for social order, the distrust of hasty reformers and their one-shot plans, the idea of the organism of social growth.
Burke's style of writing profoundly influenced his contemporaries and played a major role in both the cause of counter-revolution and romanticism. In the 1750s, when Burke was a struggling young lawyer, he transformed into a man of letters and wrote his essay "On The Sublime Beauty and the Beautiful Beauty." The paper is often considered a sign of a shift from neoclassicism to romantic taste. He argues that when the realm of beauty is actually ruled by the classical rules of harmony, equilibrium, and elegance, there is another realm of sensation, and that is the "sublime." It evokes fear and awe, and it does not make us polite and socially assimilated like classical beauty, but makes us feel lonely and at the same time excited and ecstatic. Burke himself has always had a little romantic overtones, and his career is even more so. Perhaps paradoxically, his last great work is conservative in content and romantic in style. So, in a sense, this important advocate of counter-revolution is also a revolutionary.
Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution has no shortage of challengers. In 1794, Paine fought back. His "On Human Rights" was a bestseller in London. William Gurdvin's Treatise on Political Justice, imbued with the French spirit, established a rationalist utopia based on the ideal of the perfect state of the individual. Godwin was the father-in-law of the poet Shelley. Gurdvin's wife was the feminist advocate Mary Wollstonecraft. They are surrounded by an English left-wing group. Godwin was a philosophical anarchist who was hostile to the state and all institutional organizations (for example, he also attacked the public education system). Paine writes, "Government is like a cloak, a sign of the loss of virginity." Even without a government, a consensus society "should be able to perform all the necessary social functions usurped by the power of government." This idea may have been derived from Rousseau's thought. Free from government intervention, society would function on its own—the idea of Adam Smith's political economists, but it became more radical in Godwin's case: "If we make everyone listen to the progress of their own hearts and minds, and don't try to regulate them with any kind of public facility, it won't be long before humanity becomes truth-only."
As Britain gradually confronted revolutionary France, Godwin's admiration for Rousseau became unpopular. The famous chemist Joseph Priestley held a pro-French political attitude, and a mob destroyed his laboratory. In Scotland, crude criticism has been rife, forcing Dugard Stewart to announce the withdrawal of his praise for France's moderate political leader, Condossé. At first, both Coleridge and his friend Wordsworth sympathized with the revolution, but later "lost the loud rebel trumpet" and turned against the revolutionary heresy. Coleridge was inspired by Burke and is on a par with Burke, and is regarded as the founder of British conservatism. However, the radical newspaperman William Krobert also joined the anti-Jacobin cause. Within the Church of England, the evangelical movement led by William Wilberforce stood up against the 18th-century church's indulgence of deism and went on to rebuke the ungodly French.
Napoleonic era
Burke, as a "defender", strives to defend tradition and "convention", which can be said to be against the current. As the great English historian Lord Acton later pointed out, the French Revolution did take place despite the atrocities, and "it teaches that one regards one's own wishes and demands as the highest standard of rights"; It makes both men and women accustomed to change; It makes the old order irretrievably swept away. Even Burke could not imagine the possibility of restoring the old ways in Europe, because he was indeed a realist. Soon, the French army spread the revolution throughout Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte's dictatorship (1800-1814) turned much of European intellectualism against revolution, but Napoleon's military victories continued to subvert the old pattern. He also found some prominent intellectuals to support him in unifying Europe and ending "feudalism" with a new order in which all men were equal before the law.
Bonjaman Gunsdown, Madame De Starr and René Chateaubriand led a group of talented French exiles. These people escaped what they call tyrant rule. Other Europeans, such as Goethe, the greatest figure in the history of German literature, never lost faith in Napoleon, believing that Napoleon's appearance was providential and that the mission given to Napoleon by Heaven was to unify Europe with a progressive law. Still others retreated to neutrality. In France, the so-called school of ideas, the intellectual followers of the former Enlightenment philosopher Testi de Trassi (who luckily escaped the guillotine), faced with the political defeat and disillusionment of the revolution, became more and more cold and objective, and tried to study the human mind like a rigorous scientist: to advance Condorcet's "social mathematics", "to communicate the living and non-living worlds". (Desti's influence on Comte shows his connection to the rise of modern sociology.) )
Napoleon like.
A group of outstanding French scientists, including biologists Lamarck and Cuvier, proved that science, which was relatively neutral under Napoleon, could flourish. Napoleon also became accustomed to the interest in history and the Orient of that era. During his expedition to Egypt in 1798, he brought with him 200 scholars to study the fascinating and mysterious ancient land. Laplace improved Newton's laws of physics, thus perfecting classical mechanics. He published his famous Theory of Cosmological Systems, which attempted to explain the operation and evolution of the universe without Newton's "first impulse" miracle. (When Napoleon asked him why he didn't mention God, he replied, "Your Majesty, I don't need that assumption.") )
When Napoleon spoke privately, he liked to shock people with his atheism and cynicism. But he was convinced that "only religion can give the country long peace", so he could not tolerate any overt atheism and quelled the controversy between the Revolution and the Pope. Privately, Napoleon called adultery "a small mistake, a small episode at a masquerade ball," but the Napoleonic Code, a great code of law that he had instituted under his auspices and established a new egalitarianism, provided for severe punishment for adultery, because "the stability of marriage is conducive to the promotion of social morality." He opposed feminism, saying that women "are nothing more than machines for childbearing." He despised intellectuals and artists, contempt for "so-called literary styles". He claimed that his favorite of the books in his collection was statistics about his army! But he reads everything himself. He did not spare any books circulating in the world of art, science, philosophy, and even politics, and often made incisive comments. He really did not appreciate the new Romantic literary style adopted by his political enemies Madame Starr and Chateaubriand. In general, in Napoleonic France, speculative thought was not developed.
Napoleon did not consider himself a tyrant, and was surprised to learn that people looked at him that way. After being exiled to the remote island of St. Helena, he declared on his deathbed that his mission was to eliminate feudalism, reunify the European continent, and "ensure human dignity" with fair and just laws. To this end, he adjusted the revolution, made it pragmatic, quelled the unrest in France, and opened the door of opportunity for ordinary people with the principle of meritocracy. He exported freedom and equality under the rule of law to Germany and Italy. He restored the independence of Poland, so he was always without supporters in Poland and elsewhere in Europe; During the 15 years of his reign, wars were almost uninterrupted, and they resembled a civil war in Europe, although many outside France saw it as a manifestation of French imperialism. Some, like the poet Shelley, initially cheered him up and ended up denouncing him as a traitor to the cause of freedom. Beethoven originally dedicated the title of his Heroic Symphony to Napoleon, but when the first ruler put a crown on himself, Beethoven tore off the title. This story has always been questioned, but it may be believed that it is true. The German philosopher Hegel and other important thinkers have also been staunch Bonapartists. There have been mixed reviews about this great man. According to the Dutch historian Piet Gayle's classic of historiography, Napoleon: Praise and Denigration, this will continue. To be sure, this little man from Corsica has risen from an unknown man to a prominent world master, and the world left behind him is no longer what it used to be. The power he expresses and embodies is far greater than his own extraordinary personality.
French painter Delacroix's painting Liberty Leads the People.
In these epoch-making years, Europe experienced earth-shaking shocks. Ancient landmarks like the Holy Roman Empire have been uprooted, crowns have fallen one by one, and new masters have appeared. Napoleon was the best candidate for many years to assume the role of the Antichrist. It is estimated that between 1803 and 1814, the London prophet Joanna Southcott had hundreds of thousands of followers. The illiterate Devon village woman caused a stir by the announcement of christ's coming again. Her message coincided with a turbulent time, when the British feared a French invasion and suffered from rising prices and rising unemployment. Thomas Macaulay was astonished: "We see that such an old woman, who has no other skill but the cunning of a fortune teller, who has been educated by no more than one employer, is enshrined as a female prophet, surrounded by tens of thousands of believers. It all happened in the 19th century, in London. At that time, various millennial evangelical denominations also emerged in southern Germany and Switzerland with a Tradition of the Reformation.
The debate about Napoleon was endless. The English essayist and literary critic William Hazlitt, after learning of Napoleon's eventual defeat, described him as "physically and mentally ruined", according to his friend Haydn; "He was disheveled, walking around, rarely awake during the day, and always drunk at night", which lasted for several weeks, until one day, he seemed to wake up from a big dream, and never drank anymore. Haydn considered Napoleon a shameful betrayal of the real cause, but when the great man died in 1821, he wrote in his diary: "Posterity will never understand the feelings of the people of this era toward Napoleon"—how much his rise, glory and failure had a great impact on people. Those moments were exciting. Not surprisingly, from the dawn of the Revolution in 1789 to the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Romanticism arose during this turbulent twenty-odd years.
The most obvious political impulse that emerged in the course of the fight against Napoleon was nationalism. Its birth is usually set after the crushing defeat of Prussia at the Battle of Jena in 1807. German intellectual giants Fichte and Herder, as well as some lesser-known writers and youth organizers, preached nationalism. The Enlightenment itself has always advocated cosmopolitanism. Fichte was convinced that this was one of the many mistakes of the now derogatory era (referring to the Enlightenment). The French led the Enlightenment; Now, Germany in the time of Goethe, Beethoven, Schiller, and Kant is assuming the leading role of European thought and culture. In his widely circulated Speech to the German Nation (1807), Fichte declared that Germany had awakened ideologically and culturally, and that it should also be politically awakened. The goal of the revolution — equal rights for all — is indeed worth pursuing, but rights need to be rooted in a particular human family, not in the ambiguous universal human race. The revolution itself contained a strong element of nationalism. It was a French Revolution because it took place on that land, bringing together the various provinces of a once highly feudalized country. (Arguably Paris was the epicenter of the revolution, and many provincial cities followed suit.) The war against the enemies of the revolution unites the whole country. This was accompanied by an impulse to establish a centralized government, to unify cultures, for example, to unify the local dialects into one French.
Nationalism is the proper meaning of the subject of revolution. Once the old social hierarchical order disintegrates, the nation becomes the natural carrier of the new social equality. Why are people equal? Because they are all children of the motherland. The state is no longer ruled by the privileged classes, but becomes the property of all, the guardian and symbol of equal rights. German nationalists chanted, "Kingdom of Freedom!" Everyone is equal!" In the people's state there is no privileged hierarchy, only equal citizens belonging to the same people.
Nationalism was a compelling ideology of the 19th century, and we will discuss it in the next chapter. At the same time, Napoleon's army uprooted the old monarchy of the countries and made it impossible to restore them to their original appearance. In 1815, after Napoleon's final defeat, dignitaries gathered in Vienna to rebuild Europe. They tried to use "dynastic orthodoxy" as the guiding principle of political authority, but this approach was ineffective. Soon, the Italians were the first to rise up in an attempt to free the Italian peninsula from Austrian control. The Charcoal Burning Party and the Young Italy Party went forward to succeed. They were the most romantic revolutionary nationalist movements since 1820.
Written by | Roland Stroenberg
Excerpt and editor| Li Yongbo
Introduction Proofreader | Li Shihui