Introduktion til kilde 3.14: Jonathan Israel. Revolutionary Ideas (2014)
Jonathan Israel er britisk historiker med speciale i oplysningstiden og de europæiske jøders historie. Israel har i akademiske værker forholdt sig stærkt kritisk til Robespierre og Jakobinerne, som man mener forrådte oplysningsfilosoffernes idealer ved at understøtte autoritære styreformer, ytringsfrihed og basale menneskerettigheder. Denne kilde er et uddrag fra bogen Revolutionary Ideas, der går i dybden med oplysningstænkernes idéer og herefter forklarer historikeren, hvilken betydning idéerne fik for persongalleriet i Den Franske Revolution.
Kort version:
The French revolution, we may conclude, was really three revolutions – a democratic republican revolution, a moderate Enlightenment constitutional monarchism invoking Montesquieu and the British model as its criteria of legitimacy, and an authoritarian populism prefiguring modern fascism. These distinct impulses proved entirely incompatible politically and culturally, as well as ideologically, and remained locked in often ferocious conflict throughout. It is true that two other social movements largely unconnected with these – the peasant risings and the by no means wholly inchoate sansculotte street movement preoccupied with subsistence – had a massive impact on society and the political scene in one way or another at nearly every stage of the Revolution. But however essential these elements in the picture they were not revolutionary movements in the sense that they attempted to transform the whole of society and its laws and institutions, they did not represent comprehensive plans for change in the same sense as the three main ideological tendencies.
In shaping the basic values of the Revolution and the Revolution’s legacy, the first, the democratic republican revolution, was from 1788 onward always the most important, the ’real revolution’, despite its successive defeats. Obviously, the causes of the French Revolution are very numerous and include many economic, financial and cultural as well as social and political factors. But all of these can fairly be said to be essentially secondary compared with the one major, overriding cause driving the democratic republican impulse – the radical enlightenment. This is the factor that needs to be placed at center stage. (…) The valid conclusion to draw from Robespierre and the Terror, they maintained, was that democratic republican revolution is impossible without first enlightening and preparing the population. (…) The radical philosophers viewed the societies of their time as inherently oppressive and corrupt (...)
Kilde: Israel, J. (2014). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. Princeton University Press. S. 670.
Lang version:
The French revolution, we may conclude, was really three revolutions – a democratic republican revolution, a moderate Enlightenment constitutional monarchism invoking Montesquieu and the British model as its criteria of legitimacy, and an authoritarian populism prefiguring modern fascism. These distinct impulses proved entirely incompatible politically and culturally, as well as ideologically, and remained locked in often ferocious conflict throughout. It is true that two other social movements largely unconnected with these – the peasant risings and the by no means wholly inchoate sansculotte street movement preoccupied with subsistence – had a massive impact on society and the political scene in one way or another at nearly every stage of the Revolution. But however essential these elements in the picture they were not revolutionary movements in the sense that they attempted to transform the whole of society and its laws and institutions, they did not represent comprehensive plans for change in the same sense as the three main ideological tendencies.
In shaping the basic values of the Revolution and the Revolution’s legacy, the first, the democratic republican revolution, was from 1788 onward always the most important, the ’real revolution’, despite its successive defeats. Obviously, the causes of the French Revolution are very numerous and include many economic, financial and cultural as well as social and political factors. But all of these can fairly be said to be essentially secondary compared with the one major, overriding cause driving the democratic republican impulse – the radical enlightenment. This is the factor that needs to be placed at center stage. (…) The valid conclusion to draw from Robespierre and the Terror, they maintained, was that democratic republican revolution is impossible without first enlightening and preparing the population. (…) The radical philosophers viewed the societies of their time as inherently oppressive and corrupt. At the same time, they sought to discredit and delegitimize existing constitutions and legal systems on the ground that they depended on authority rooted in religion, tradition, received thinking, and aristocratic values. Radical enlighteners and democratic revolutionaries rejected the whole edifice of their society’s laws, precedents, charters, and institutionalized inequality unequivocally, and this inevitably involved rejecting all religious authority as well. By the 1780s, this kind of reform radical thinkers envisaged had become a potent , massive factor of disturbance and renewal in European politics, not just in France(…)
Kilde: Israel, J. (2014). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. Princeton University Press. S. 670.