A Revolution Against What?
I have been interested in the French Revolutions for many years now. If you have ever met me, I have without a doubt mentioned that I wrote my undergraduate thesis on them. If I do ever get into grad school it is certainly a topic I would like to continue writing on. However, here I want to talk about why those revolutions interested me in the first place, and how they correspond to contemporary American politics and culture.
The French
For my whole time at school as a boy I was taught that “the” French Revolution was a singular action that took place from 1789 to 1799 (or 1804 – different teachers, different dates). I recall hearing that somehow the revolution “lost the plot” or changed over time, morphing into the Napoleonic Empire. This was always couched as a failure of the revolution in a way, but that didn’t sit right with me.
During my research I decided to study how different political factions and special interest groups would form coalitions and work together towards a common goal. Later those coalitions would prove untenable and either break down into once again warring factions or be supplanted by an ever-greater faction with ever stranger bedfellows.
The trouble comes in letting change for the sake of change be ones guiding force. Change must be tempered by constancy.
It is here – in the constant coalition-making and shifting of the Overton Window that I most closely see a parallel to contemporary America. Today we see the American left has formed an uneasy alliance with anyone who is antagonistic to the status quo, regardless of why.
The Americans
I needn’t belabor the point that American politics and culture of the early 21st century is absolutely unrecognizable from the same of even 20 years ago, much less 50.
Religion
For over a century in this country, the political left has slowly cemented its grasp on both the polity and on the culture. Today we often hear the cry of “Progress!” but progress towards what, exactly? The Declaration of Independence claims to be stating the obvious when it declares that all men are created equal and are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. However, I cannot find sufficient evidence that the modern American left finds any right to be fundamentally unalienable or obvious, no matter how many times they cry out that something they like is a right. (Perhaps this incessant series of proclamations over what is a right is an example of their misunderstanding of where rights come from – rights are not man-made but instead granted by God).
The modern American Left explicitly targets Christianity (and frankly all religions) as backwards, outdated, unscientific, and not something one ought to discuss in the public sphere – only privately if that. However, without the foundation of Judeo-Christian presuppositions, where do liberals find their ideals?
We must operate under the assumption that those who came before us made their decisions for good reasons until proven otherwise.
Democratic systems of government are inherently religious, whether they acknowledge it or not is another matter. In the eyes of Almighty God, He created all of us as equals, therefore in human affairs it is right and just to treat one’s fellow man with both the dignity and respect he is due – after all, he is made in the image and likeness of God Himself.
One of the great liberal ideals of today is Equality, reminiscent of the second component of the Revolutionary French Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. However, even equality is being replaced with equity – proof that nothing stays en vogue for long. Even still, mere equality is not an objective foundation to build upon. Equality is the outcome of a system that believes all are created with the same divine dignity. An equality that is simply stated sans the divine has no upper nor lower limit. What are we equal in? Equally virtuous? Equally depraved? If we are all treated harshly every day by others and all treat others harshly every day, is that not equality too?
My problem with many devout liberals of today is that they feel so unmoored from reality - and not in any pithy Twitter-esque “own the libs” manner – I mean truly not grounded in a fundamental reason for their earnestly held beliefs. A concrete and unshakable reason to believe something not only is the wellspring of the idea, but also the arbiter and end of that idea. I believe all men and women have equal dignity regardless of occupation, class, history, or physical trait because of an innate divine spark given to us all by God. Where is an atheist’s or agnostic’s reasoning to treat other people equally, or with dignity at all, especially those who will only ever take from you, and never be able to pay you back?
Politics
It is the nature of left-leaning folks to question tradition and desire change (again, I refer you to the endless cries of “Progress!”). This can be healthy. A culture or polity that refuses to change meaningfully will ossify and fail spectacularly with far greater consequences than any incremental change would bring. The trouble comes in letting change for the sake of change be ones guiding force. Change must be tempered by constancy.
A healthy tension between reformers and restrainers is necessary to establish and maintain a flourishing society.
We must know why one wishes to change the current order of things and what their criteria for success are. If we do not demand satisfaction to these questions, then we are doomed to a Permanent Revolution – Hell. The French started off their revolutions by responding to a financial crisis. In just one year this led to forcing clergy to denounce their allegiance to the Pope and instead to the secular State, lest they be barred from serving in their own churches, which had already been confiscated by the state (and still belong to the state today – look at the fiasco of rebuilding Notre Dame).
It is exactly this example of giving an inch but taking a mile that I find to be in common between the French Revolutionaries and modern American leftists. I believe that liberals who argue in good faith want to help people, but their methods seem to have had far more adverse reactions than expected. I disagree with my liberal friends not because I view them as incorrigible, evil, or full of malice and vice. No, I disagree with them because they have left their virtue untempered and unfounded, left alone to find both its own beginning and end. It is virtue run amok and perverted again into vice.
It is good and essential that societies change over time to prevent cataclysmic failures and the breakdown of social cohesion, but the same is true for societies that too rapidly change and never find stasis. We must challenge our well-meaning liberal interlocutors when they call for change. What is the final goal of that change, and when do we stop changing? When does The Revolution end? At the very least, when does this revolution end? Humans are not comfortable in a world of effervescence and perpetual uncertainty. We must decide “here – and no further” in our lives, lest we no longer focus on actually living them. Constant fear of being outdated, using the wrong terminology, having last week’s popular opinion that is today repugnant. This is how one creates a society terrified of itself and will simply choose not to build, but only deconstruct.
A healthy tension between reformers and restrainers is necessary to establish and maintain a flourishing society. The improper excess of conservatives would be looking at the past and saying that straying from our ancestor’s vision is heretical and must never happen – but this is not nearly the issue we find ourselves in. More relevant to our present moment, the zealous reformer must be stayed by the cautious restrainer lest all options be on the table, and nothing held sacrosanct. We must operate under the assumption that those who came before us made their decisions for good reasons until proven otherwise. To neglect this is to eschew the collective wisdom of past millennia and start over anew every year, perpetuating a collective infancy that is always relearning and remaking the wheel.
Today we find ourselves with reformers who have had carte blanche for decades while the role of the conservative has been largely abandoned. Yes, there has been much ado made in speech (including my own) but what actual ground has the conservative movement conserved? Everything has been reformed by the liberals. For a time perhaps it wasn’t so detrimental, but now The Revolution has progressed so far along that it can no longer clearly see what it is revolting against. It merely stands for change in and of itself. The Revolution has become a parody of its own beginnings.
When these two opposing but complimentary forces push against each other we are left with gradual, effective, and positive change that is familiar enough to be recognizable but different enough to properly address the problems of the day.
Let us strive to achieve such balance.