The Fate of Nations Is the Work of Genius

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrin M. McMahon
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
The People ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
The Many ◽  
Modern Mass

The French Revolution is often thought of as a crucible of modern mass politics, an event that led to the emergence of the people as an agent and actor of social change. Less often remarked, however, is the fact that the Revolution also witnessed the crystallization of a very different narrative and myth—that the single individual of genius and power, “the great man,” was the true motor of history. Although dismissed today as simplistic and naïve, the “great man theory of history” enjoyed widespread currency in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, feeding an ideology that depicted the historical process, as Thomas Carlyle famously remarked, as the “biography of great men.” This ideology, too, is a feature of modern political culture, the strange offspring of a Revolution intended to substitute the rule of the many for the rule of the few.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Stephen Lovell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Rhetoric ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Mass

The introduction considers the place of the spoken word in Russian history, presenting a pre-history of rhetoric and oratory in Russia before the 1860s. Examples are drawn from sermons, literature, theatre, and the universities, as well as from the political practice of Russia’s rulers. The introduction goes on to explain the significance of public speaking in Russia’s ‘stenographic age’, highlighting the challenges of modern mass politics and communications. It further offers comparisons between Russian political culture and the political culture of Britain, Germany, and the United States, paying particular attention to the place of oratory in the political imagination. It concludes by outlining the structure and rationale of the book.

Hegel's Critique of the Triumph of Verstand in Modernity

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (01) ◽  
pp. 54-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Houlgate
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
The People ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Revolution

In his lectures on the philosophy of history Hegel passes this famous judgement on the French Revolution. “Anaxagoras had been the first to say that nous governs the world; but only now did humanity come to recognize that thought should rule spiritual actuality. This was thus a magnificent dawn”. What first gave rise to discontent in France, in Hegel's view, were the heavy burdens that pressed upon the people and the government's inability to procure for the Court the means of supporting its luxury and extravagance. But soon the new spirit of freedom and enlightenment began to stir in men's minds and carry them forward to revolution. “One should not, therefore, declare oneself against the assertion”, Hegel concludes, “that the Revolution received its first impulse from Philosophy” (VPW, p 924). However, Hegel points out that the legacy of the revolution is actually an ambiguous one. For, although the principles which guided the revolution were those of reason and were indeed magnificent – namely, that humanity is born to freedom and self-determination – they were held fast in their abstraction and turned “polemically”, and at times terribly, against the existing order (VPW, p 925). What ultimately triumphed in the revolution was thus not concrete reason itself, but abstract reason or understanding (VPW, p 923). In Hegel's view, the enduring legacy of such revolutionary understanding was, not so much the Terror, but the principle that “the subjective wills of the many should hold sway” (VPW, p 932). This principle, which Hegel calls the principle of “liberalism” and which we would call the principle of majority rule, has since spread from France to become one of the governing principles of modern stat. It has been used to justify granting universal suffrage, to justify depriving corporations and the nobility of the right to sit in the legislature, and in some cases to justify abolishing the monarchy. What is of crucial importance for Hegel, however, is that such measures have not rendered the state more modern and rational, but have in fact distorted the modern state.

scholarly journals The French Revolution: The Origins of a Modern Liberal Political Culture?

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-193
Author(s):  
James A. Leith
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
General Will ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
The People ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The French Revolution

Abstract Recently it has been argued that the chief legacy of the French Revolution was that it provided a prototype of a modern liberal political culture. This paper argues that, while some of the features of such a political culture did appear during the revolutionary decade, the revolutionaries never discarded an ancient conception of sovereignty which insisted that political will had to be unitary and indivisible. This led to rejection of political parties, legitimate opposition, and pluralism. The debates in the Constituent Assembly already reveal these illiberal tendencies. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, with its apparent emphasis on individual rights, might seem to have counterbalanced these tendencies, but two clauses inserted at the insistence of Abbé Sieyès vested sovereignty in the nation and asserted that law must be the expression of the general will. These clauses transformed the rights of the individual into the rights of the Leviathan. The insistence on a unified will was revealed in the allegorical figures, symbols, and architectural projects of the period. The figure of the demigod Hercules, which came to represent the People, conveyed a monolithic conception of the citizenry in complete contradiction to the conception of them in a pluralistic liberal democracy. Also the fasces, the tightly bound bundle of rods with no power to move independently, suggested a conception of the body politic at odds with that of a variegated liberal society. If such unity did not exist, it was to be created by the rituals performed in Temples décadaires every tenth day, the republican Sunday. Those who would not join this vast congregation would be excised or coerced. Moreover, throughout the decade there were various theories of revolutionary government at odds with liberal ideals: the unlimited power of a constituent body, the concentration of power in a tribune or dictator, or the dictatorship of a committee. Such notions, too, were important for the future.

PENGARUH KEBUDAYAAN ASING DALAM PEMBENTUKAN RAGAM HIAS PELAMINAN NAREH PARIAMAN

CORAK ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nofi Rahmanita
Keyword(s):  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
The People ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Village

The Handicraft of embroidery “palaminan” in Nareh Pariaman is an old culture product which is used for social purposes. As the time goes, now, the “palaminan” is not only used by the king or noblesse. Right now, it has been used in mostly wedding parties of Minangkabau tradition. It is used as the seat of the bride groom and bride who are called king and queen for a day. Regarding this theme, when we see the several various of palaminan, it looks like been influenced by the Chinese and Hindi/Gujarat Custom. Such as phoenix 9(bird) and lion decorated at the “palaminan”, or for the Gujarat custom, there are embroidery with mirrors that decorate the palaminan. The mirror embroidered for the people of Nareh Pariaman has the meaning “suluah bendang” in the village. The art of embroidery palaminan Nareh Pariaman has many structures which are connected to each other. They can not be separated in each use. The structures are decorated by the many kinds of Minangkabau decoration. Most of the decorating comes from application of the Minangkabau’sphilosophy known as “alam takambang Jadi Guru”. The philosophy has symbolic meaning that contains some lessons about managing humans life, especially for people of Nareh Pariaman.Keywords: beyond culture, motif, pelaminan

Serge Moscovici's "Réflexions sur la popularité des conspiracy mentalities"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The People ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
The Masses

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.

The Many-Colored Cloak

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Malik Mufti
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Electoral Participation ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
The Many ◽  
Religion And Democracy

This articles argues (a) that democratic discourse has already become hegemonic among mainstream Islamist movements in Turkey and the Arab world; (b) that while this development originated in tactical calculations, it constitutes a consequential transformation in Islamist political thought; and (c) that this transformation, in turn, raises critical questions about the interaction of religion and democracy with which contemporary Islamists have not yet grappled adequately but which were anticipated by medieval philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd. The argument is laid out through an analysis (based on textual sources and interviews) of key decisions on electoral participation made by Turkey’s AK Party and the Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Particular attention is focused on these movements’ gradual embrace of three key democratic principles: pluralism, the people as the source of political authority, and the legitimacy of such procedural mechanisms as multiple parties and regular elections.

KEARIFAN LOKAL (LOCAL GENIUS) SEBAGAI SOKO GURU MENATA PERADABAN BANGSA YANG BERKARAKTER NUSANTARA (REFLEKSI KARYA KI DALANG TANGSUB)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
I Made Suarta
Keyword(s):  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Care Environment ◽  
Mental Attitude ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
The People ◽  
The Many ◽  
Written Traditions

Local knowledge (local genius) is the quintessence of our ancestors thinking either oral or written traditions which we have received to date. Thought that, in the context of real archipelago has the same thread, which has a valuable values and universal to strengthen the integrity of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia. Through our founding genius thought that we should be able to implement it in real life to be able to reach people who "Gemah ripah loh jinawi", no less clothing, food, and shelter!Some of the many concepts of mind for the people of Bali are reflected in the work of puppeteer Ki Dalang Tangsub contributed to the development of Indonesia and has a universal value is the concept of maintaining the environment, save money, and humble. Through mental attitude has not always feel pretty; like not smart enough, not skilled enough, and not mature enough experience, make us always learn and practice. Learn and continue lifelong learning will make a man more mature and a lot of experience. Thus, the challenges in life will be easy to overcome. All that will be achieved, in addition to the hard work is also based on the mental attitude of inferiority is not proud, haughty, arrogant and other negative attitudes. Thought care environment, managing finances, and humble as described above, in Bali has been formulated through a literature shaped geguritan, namely Geguritan I Gedé Basur Dalang Tangsub works, one of the great authors in the early 19th century.  Keywords: Local knowledge, a cornerstone of, the character of the archipelago

‘The greatest irregular’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Scurr
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dramatic Narrative ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

Thomas Carlyle claimed that his history of the French Revolution was ‘a wild savage book, itself a kind of French Revolution …’. This chapter considers his stylistic approaches to creating the illusion of immediacy: his presentation of seemingly unmediated fact through the transformation of memoir and other kinds of historical record into a compelling dramatic narrative. Closely examining the ways in which he worked biographical anecdote into the fabric of his text raises questions about Carlyle’s wider historical purposes. Pressing the question of what it means to think through style, or to distinguish expressive emotive writing from abstract understanding, is an opportunity to reconsider Carlyle’s relation to his predecessors and contemporaries writing on the Revolution in English.

The Lion Shall Lie Down With the Lamb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Auguste Comte ◽  
Traditional Institutions ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
Male Friend

As his time of crisis abated, Mill found himself attracted to voices beyond the confines of—even antithetical to—the ‘sect’ in which he had been raised: notably, S. T. Coleridge, the Saint-Simonians, Auguste Comte, and Thomas Carlyle, the author of Sartor Resartus. From Comte, Mill gained a theory of history that allowed him to appreciate the contribution that traditional institutions had made. Mill also made his best male friend, the Anglican clergyman John Sterling. Out of this period would emerge a lifelong instinct to try to create a via media between two ostensibly opposing ideologies or viewpoints. This mediating approach found expression in his articles, ‘Bentham’ and ‘Coleridge’. Mill added Romanticism to his Enlightenment birthright.

The State versus the People

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Rendle
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
State Control ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
The People ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
The Military

This book provides the first detailed account of the role of revolutionary justice in the early Soviet state. Law has often been dismissed by historians as either unimportant after the October Revolution amid the violence and chaos of civil war or even, in the absence of written codes and independent judges, little more than another means of violence. This is particularly true of the most revolutionary aspect of the new justice system, revolutionary tribunals—courts inspired by the French Revolution and established to target counter-revolutionary enemies. This book paints a more complex picture. The Bolsheviks invested a great deal of effort and scarce resources into building an extensive system of tribunals that spread across the country, including into the military and the transport network. At their peak, hundreds of tribunals heard hundreds of thousands of cases every year. Not all ended in harsh sentences: some were dismissed through lack of evidence; others given a wide range of sentences; others still suspended sentences; and instances of early release and amnesty were common. This book, therefore, argues that law played a distinct and multifaceted role for the Bolsheviks. Tribunals stood at the intersection between law and violence, offering various advantages to the Bolsheviks, not least strengthening state control, providing a more effective means of educating the population on counter-revolution, and enabling a more flexible approach to the state’s enemies. All of this adds to our understanding of the early Soviet state and, ultimately, of how the Bolsheviks held on to power.

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