Sophie Wahnich,Slavoj Å½iÅ¾ek,David Fernbach
For two hundred years after the French Revolution, the Republican tradition celebrated the execution of princes and aristocrats, defending the Terror that the Revolution inflicted upon on its enemies. But recent decades have brought a marked change in sensibility. The Revolution is no longer judged in terms of historical necessity but rather by â€œtimelessâ€ standards of morality. In this succinct essay, Sophie Wahnich explains how, contrary to prevailing interpretations, the institution of Terror sought to put a brake on legitimate popular violenceâ€”in Dantonâ€™s words, to â€œbe terrible so as to spare the people the need to be soâ€â€”and was subsequently subsumed in a logic of war. The Terror was â€œa process welded to a regime of popular sovereignty, the only alternatives being to defeat tyranny or die for liberty.â€
History,Politics,Nonfiction,European History,French Revolution,Philosophy,Cultural,France,History,World History,Writing,Essays,Philosophy,Theory,Literature,18th Century
In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution