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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27567 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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I'm not terribly familiar with French history but didn't he walk back a lot of the more progressive things the various post-Revolution governments did?

Pseudoerasmus made a somewhat adjacent argument that in the broad sweep of things the revolution and Napoleon mostly ended up recreating what we think of as conservative institutions. Or at least that we underrate the extent of the revolutionary nature by which other countries achieved similar reforms:

The French Revolution was seen as 'radical' at the time, only because much of Europe undre 1789 was feudal

From a modern perspective, the French Revolution should be seen as conservative. The Directory & Napoleon, both conservative reactions. Even under the Terror, principle of private property was never under threat. Confiscated lands were privatized. Feudal land redistributed to market relations.

Modern pseudo-Burkeans decry the French revolution in part because they believe England could gradually reform its institutions without violence, without destroying aristocracy & monarchy - except these people overlook England's entire 17th century ;-)

Yes, but on a broader scale he was still significantly to the ‘left’ of most of his continental rivals. Conservatives of the day never really stopped seeing him as the revolution incarnate. And a lot of the changes he reversed were less actual significant material reforms and more silly LARP stuff like getting rid of the revolutionary calendar.

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