Bastille Day

4 comments to Bastille Day

• Anonymous

  July 14, 2012 at 4:39 pm Log in to Reply

  LA Times – France will celebrate Bastille Day Saturday. Like its sister republic on this side of the Atlantic, the French Republic will mark its liberation from the yoke of monarchical rule.

  But despite the shower of fireworks, parades and speeches in praise of liberty, don’t be deceived. Just as America’s red, white and blue is the mirror image of France’s blue, white and red, liberté isn’t quite the same as liberty, especially in the 21st century…[]

  For many Americans, the liberty tree would shrivel and die in France’s tax-soaked, socialist soil, tended by a powerful state. Why is it, we wonder, that the bumpers of Peugeots and Renaults are not festooned with “Take France Back” stickers?

  After all, like the English colonists, French revolutionaries were rebelling against monarchical despotism. The rubble-strewn space they left where the Bastille prison once stood reflected this newfound sense of “negative” liberty: It was freedom from. From arbitrary rule, from invasive institutions, from hereditary privilege. They were free, in short, from being thrown into the Bastille on the whim of a nobleman.

  But, as it turned out, the French also wanted freedom from material insecurity, want and illness. During the revolution there also surged a “positive” understanding of liberty, most powerfully expressed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and based on the notion of the common good. By obeying the general will, individuals merge their particular, personal interests with those of others. Only on such foundations are men and women able to fully realize freedom. Here, the French became free to. To work with others, to commit to a greater good, to sacrifice their individual desires in order to achieve something bigger and better. more at the link

  
  _{The origin of the universe has not as yet been shown to be a conspiracy theory}

• Cheryl Rofer

  July 14, 2012 at 4:52 pm Log in to Reply

  Fireworks are fun, and the Eiffel Tower is great.

  But the American Revolution went well, the French Revolution not so much. They traded a king for instability and bloodshed, and then a war-crazy dictator. They did get it right eventually.

  With the revolutions now going on in the various Arab countries, this is something to keep in mind.

  I’m not going to draw any close parallels, just to say that nothing about a revolution is foreordained.

• Anonymous

  July 14, 2012 at 5:33 pm Log in to Reply

  “Fireworks are fun, and the Eiffel Tower is great.”

  The ideas spread from the French revolution were more significant I think than the extreme means by which the French achieved it – though that violence cannot be denied.

  Most revolutions fail, in the immediate sense.

  The impact of the reaction or counter-reaction in other countries both for and against the the fact of the French Revolution and the ideas surrounding it affected much of Europe for at least a hundred years after- offering more than instability.

  The revolution in France hasn’t gone wrong, as of today. At some other
  time there might be some other verdict.

  Revolutions today? That’s a wider subject indeed.

  
  _{The origin of the universe has not as yet been shown to be a conspiracy theory}

• Anonymous

  July 14, 2012 at 5:53 pm Log in to Reply

  about today’s activist movements” -

  Nicholas Pell: Today’s protesters should remember the lessons of revolutions past, but most of all they should remember the importance of debate, discussion and argument. – text at the link.

  
  _{The origin of the universe has not as yet been shown to be a conspiracy theory}