the so-called Terror: a dialogue

or: Why some concerns about the concept of revolution isn't worth your concern.

Frev happened 235 years ago. Rusrev happened 107 years ago. Chrev happened — do people still care when and how Chrev happened, or how Chrev was precisely inspired by the violent and popular aspects of Frev? No. Nein. Pas du tout. In all possibility, all that you hear is "Here is Why You Must Not Do Any More Revolutions".

That each of the Frev, Rusrev, and Chrev happened many years ago is a fact now misused and abused by those with no introspection in history or politics, only to show how "we are no longer living in the age of revolutions".

Against the Logic of the Guillotine. Because, as we all know, Louis Capet certainly survived by finding good talking points, and he loved facts and logic, and he facted so factually and he logiced so logically, that he won the rap battle against every member of the Third Estate and every petit bourgeois in each city and every peasant in each village and every enslaved person of Saint-Domingue, and therefore retained an absolute monarchy through the power of open reformist liberal discussion marketplace free-speech... (mumble jumble) ... both sides can have a point ideas opinions scientific human nature requires permissive modern enlightenment.

Enlightenment. It was philosophy that started the frev, and whether or not a person thinks highly of the frev, they cannot but admit: making sense of the frev is definitely very brain-consuming. This is where troll questions come in, and they are extremely brain-consuming if you, like me, sometimes get tempted to answer in good faith.

Most of the time, though, we on the left would brush away these troll questions. We'd respond... by not responding, because it's a waste of your time and energy to serve nuance, context, empathy, and primary sources, when, to the person who trolls you, if you know too much then you're an elitist, and if you know too little then you're a fake leftist, and if you know just the correct amount of things, then you're an elitist-fake-leftist. There's not even a sense of victory if you manage to fact-and-logic your way out.

But then, you log off, you do your twenty-five-hour-per-day paid shift, you eat, you shower, and you lie awake at night thinking: what if that person who comes off as a troll could unlearn what was certainly only a social condition? What if most trolls can become my leftist comrades?

Leftism. The title of a "leftist" is indeed a broad and vague one, and I totally understand that, for some of my fellow Marxists, it can be extremely annoying to debate a person who criticises capitalism as much as you do, but who, unlike you, does not take inspiration from any historical attempt at making a sustainable alternative. I mean, even Steve Bannon tries to brand himself as following Lenin, and he's already more specific in his wording than the liberal whose reason for calling themselves a "leftist" is that they would welcome trans people to become cops.

So what happens when the lines between Marxists and liberals constantly get blurred? And what if, in the night of the world, in the sombre stretch through each trembling horizon, all the way up into your own shadow, you hear what might as well be guns?

Well... To paraphrase Slavoj Žižek, himself paraphrasing someone whomst must not be mentioned: when I hear guns, I reach for my pop culture. I reach for my cultural osmosis, and I reach, and I reach, until I realise that the culture has not really osmosed upon me yet, because I never watched superhero films as a child, and cannot really name the so-called evil revolutionary villains in Gotham, and even without meaning to side-eye, I already am looking askew. The only problem, is how I, as someone who cannot have enough of Žižek's works, should be doing this looking-askew thing ...

Let's watch an instructional video to learn more.

Thank you for tagging me, I'm glad you found our exchanges helpful ✨ (even though my academic background is so broad so far I'm more of an enthusiast than anything else)

Kudos for being intellectually brave enough some very tough questions (like the Indulgents trial, the role of MA, as well as many others). I also appreciate how you've managed to tie the analysis of the French Revolution with current issues in such an effortless way!

I can definitely see the inspiration with Contrapoints, but in the best way possible. I think the format really works, because it manages to be both enjoyable and informative.

But it's not just Natalie who does it - there's a great tradition in philosophy of a similar format. Call it Socratic Dialogues if you want to be a little pretentious about it (I know I do!) but hey, it's precisely what makes Plato's philosophy still fun to read, even though it was written in 5th century BCE.

Dialogues then definitely continued to be a popular philosophical genre in the 1700s - shout-out to Bernie and Denis for instance. It's a big part of the reason why I have such a soft spot for 18th-century philosophy I think. So it's actually quite fitting to use a popular format of enlightenment philosophy when discussing the French revolution!

I think it's amazing that Natalie helped to resurrect this genre. I think it really works! You want philosophical works to be well-thought out of course, but you also want them to be engaging, since it is the texts (and the videos) that are fun to read that have the potential to reach more people and - best case scenario - actually change something.

So tl;dr, the more people make use of this format the better I think, and you did really well! ^^

(also side note but the little 'and so on and so on' one of your characters murmurs at one point got me!)