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Notes -
The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert. This is my second attempt to learn about the French Revolution, having previously read Mencius Moldbug's recommendation, same title, written by J. F. Bosher. I'm starting to think that there is so much going on that a single volume treatment leaves stuff out and the reader notices the gaps and goes "Wut!"
Hibbert is great on how terrible the Terror is. I've read as far as the execution of Danton, and now Robespierre is getting nervous. His denunciation of atheism as aristocratic has gone down poorly. I'm feeling a little lost. Is calling something aristocractic a general purpose insult, like calling some-one a NAZI is today? Was there an actual link, with atheism arising due to wealthy aristocrats sponsoring philosophes. Did the denunciation upset atheist sans culottes?
Ten years ago I wouldn't have had a problem with Hibbert's description of the Terror. But in recent years I've read the line "They tell you what happened to them, but they don't tell you why." too many times. Perhaps The Terror is warning me that we live on a frail raft bobbing on a sea of psychopathic cruelty and must be careful that it doesn't capsize. Perhaps The Terror is darkly hinting that the outbreak of unhinged violence is a response to previous horrors, too terrible to mention.
I have a weak clue that it might be the later. I recently blundered across this paragraph
in Voltaire's wikipedia page. This hints that aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France abused their power unconstrained by any sense of honour or proportion. And general principles suggest that the lower classes would have got it a lot worse than Voltaire. But by page 257 Hibbert hasn't yet addressed the issue, so I don't think he will.
I am particularly troubled by the executions of nuns. If The Terror had involved gang raping the nuns, in an attempt to fuck some hedonism into them, the gears in my head would have turned and I would have computed: wait, I'm on Earth, this is a mammal thing isn't it?
But execution? Is this the Lizard People resenting that mammals are viviparous? No. I have turned aside from reading science fiction (worried that it is just made up) and I'm reading orthodox history, stuff that really happened. Yet it makes no sense. Hibbert doesn't notice that it makes no sense and makes no attempt to explain it. Hibbert is doing his job correctly; as a historian he should be telling me what happened and not filtering out the bits that make no sense. There is a dark abyss containing peoples motivations. I don't know how to look inside it, and rather suspect that it will be better for my sanity that I never do.
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