HKB
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Often appears with: fate, destiny, and necessity · forms of government · the passions and the emotions · revolution and the fall of states · political legitimacy and consent · the nature and attributes of God · supreme being · sacred sentiment · religious persecution and toleration · reflections on the revolution in france · prudence and practical wisdom · providence and divine governance
Usually: argument (4) · detachment (4) · reflection (3) · skepticism (3) · crisis of belief (2) · the fall of the great (2) · ambition and its cost (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1) · censure (1) · curiosity (1)
“The Crusaders believed that they felt God present in the midst of them, enjoining them to go to the conquest of the Holy Land; Joan of Arc believed that she obeyed celestial voices.” Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life · observation
“Now this greater activity results in a general stimulation of individual forces. Men see more and differently now than in normal times. Changes are not merely of shades and degrees; men become different.” Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life · insight
“The forcing manure used to bring about the French Revolution, and to give a greater freedom and energy to the human mind, has burst the calyx of humanity, the restraining bond of all society; and, however large the separate petals have grown, however strongly, or even beautifully, a few of them have been marked, the whole is at present a loose, deformed, disjointed mass, without union, symmetry, or harmony of colouring.” Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population · vivid
“Democracy, dear Englishmen, is like a stream, which all the peoples of Europe will have to cross: they will come out of it cleaner, healthier, and stronger” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts out of Season, Part I · observation
“Without exception and inexorably, economic development has attained its goal. The last most striking example of which we have already called attention to, the French Revolution.” Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring" · observation
Durkheim argues that collective shocks and revolutionary gatherings intensify individuals into heroes or butchers, and that crusader and Joan of Arc beliefs show how social pressure becomes religious conviction.
sentiment. The passionate energies he arouses re-echo within him and quicken his vital tone. It is no longer a simple individual who speaks; it is a group incarnate and personified. Beside these passing and intermittent states, there are other more durable ones, where this strengthening influence of society makes itself felt with greater consequences and frequently even with greater brilliancy. There are periods in …
During the French Revolution, public enthusiasm turned secular ideas into a short-lived civil religion with dogmas, symbols, altars, and feasts, revealing society’s ability to create sacred objects.
to the free examination of everything tend to place above discussion and to regard as untouchable, that is to say, as sacred: this is the very principle of free examination. This aptitude of society for setting itself up as a god or for creating gods was never more apparent than during the first years of the French Revolution. At this time, in fact, under the influence of the general enthusiasm, things purely laïcal…
It explains Burke’s changing attitude toward the French Revolution: he grows skeptical after visiting France, publishes Reflections in 1790, breaks with former allies, and spends his last parliamentary years writing about the Revolution.
It made clear the cruel methods sometimes pursued under the guise of civilization and progress. The moral victory is claimed for Burke, and without a doubt the claim is valid. The second of the great social and political problems, which employed English statesmen in the last half of the eighteenth century, was settled in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The affairs of America and India were now overshadowed by th…
Malthus frames a debate on whether humans can achieve unlimited societal improvement, but says neither side fairly examines the other, while he will explain the population-based obstacles to perfectibility.
Question stated--Little prospect of a determination of it, from the enmity of the opposing parties--The principal argument against the perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly answered--Nature of the difficulty arising from population--Outline of the principal argument of the Essay The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffu…
Using the example of a florist’s plant, Malthus distinguishes unlimited human improvement from improvement with an unknown limit, arguing social change can “burst” society like a ruined flower.
an improvement the limit of which cannot be ascertained. The former is an improvement not applicable to man under the present laws of his nature. The latter, undoubtedly, is applicable. The real perfectibility of man may be illustrated, as I have mentioned before, by the perfectibility of a plant. The object of the enterprising florist is, as I conceive, to unite size, symmetry, and beauty of colour. It would surely…
Engels concludes that political force originates in economic functions and usually follows economic development, using counterexamples like religious destruction of irrigation and arguing that economic progress ultimately destroys political supremacy.
classes have become superfluous and even an obstacle to social progress, and so now for the first time they will be unceremoniously brushed aside in spite of their "pure force." When Herr Duehring then shows his scorn of the Greek civilisation because it was founded on slavery he might just as reasonably reproach the Greeks for not having steam engines and electric telegraphs. And when he explains that our modern wa…
The editor argues that democracy is English in origin but more fervently pursued on the Continent, where the French Revolution undermined institutions, while England remained conservative and thus delayed the need for Nietzsche’s counterbalance.
hand, in so doing you would, I quite agree, be most unfaithful to your own traditions, which are of a more democratic character than those of any other European nation. For Democracy, as every schoolboy knows, was born in an English cradle: individual liberty, parliamentary institutions, the sovereign rights of the people, are ideas of British origin, and have been propagated from this island over the whole of Europ…