| 19931 | Every state is more frightened of its own citizens than of external enemies [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: People have never succeeded in devising a form of government that was not in greater danger from its own citizens than from foreign foes, and which was not more fearful of the former than of the latter. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.04) | |
| A reaction: The sort of lovely clear-headed and accurate observation for which we love Spinoza. Only very powerful despots can afford to ignore the threat from the people. Stalin was paranoid, but eventually murdered almost everyone who seemed a threat. |
| 19902 | Any obstruction to the operation of the legislature can be removed forcibly by the people [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Having erect a legislative with the power of making laws, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 155) | |
| A reaction: I doubt if he was thinking of the French Revolution, but this will clearly have application to the English events of 1642. The Speaker of the Commons was held down in his chair in the 1620s, so that some legislation could be enacted. |
| 19908 | Rebelling against an illegitimate power is no sin [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It is plain that shaking off a power which force, and not right, hath set over any one, though it have the name of rebellion, yet it is no offence against God. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 196) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hezekiah at 2 Kings 18.7] At this time the English Civil War was referred to as the 'Great Rebellion' (so this is an interesting and brave remark of Locke's), though few people would think that Charles I had illegitimate power. |
| 19911 | If legislators confiscate property, or enslave people, they are no longer owed obedience [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. | |
| From: John Locke (Second Treatise of Government [1690], 222) | |
| A reaction: This might fit Louis XVI in 1788. Locke was certainly not averse to consideration the situations in which revolution might be justified. He was trying to be even-handed about 1642. Locke seems to think that without property you ARE a slave. |
| 19747 | Revolutionaries usually confuse liberty with total freedom, and end up with heavier chains [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: If people try to shake off a yoke, they put more distance between themselves and liberty, because in mistaking for liberty an unbridled licence which is its opposite, their revolutions usually deliver them over to seducers who make their chains heavier. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Intro letter) | |
| A reaction: This 'Animal Farm' thought was presumably ignored in 1789 and 1917. There must be basic rules for revolutionaries, of which priorities they must never drop from sight, and which priorities are dangerous and misleading. |
| 19837 | If inhabitants are widely dispersed, organising a revolt is much more difficult [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The greater the area occupied by the same number of inhabitants, the more difficult it becomes to revolt, since concerted action cannot be taken promptly and secretly. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.09) | |
| A reaction: Revolutions since then have all occurred in large cities, which have become huge. The dispersal of the rest of the population (as in Russia) doesn't matter. |
| 19843 | The state is not bound to leave civil authority to its leaders [Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: The state is no more bound to leave civil authority to its leaders than it is to leave military authority to its generals. | |
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], III.18) | |
| A reaction: He assumes that a meeting of the citizens can articulate a new expression of the general will, but this idea also endorses revolution, if the prince or magistrates refuse to call this national AGM. |
| 21756 | All revolutions result from spirit changing its categories, to achieve a deeper understanding [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: All revolutions ...originate solely from the fact that spirit, in order to understand and comprehend itself with a view to possessing itself, has changed its categories, comprehending itself more truly, more deeply, more intimately in unity with itself. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II) [1817], §246), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
| A reaction: Some Hegelian waffle here, but it focuses on what seems important, which is how societal thinking has shifted, so that what was previously tolerated now triggers a revolution. |
| 22971 | In moving from capitalism to communism a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is needed [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Between the capitalist and communist society lies the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program [1875], IV) | |
| A reaction: This hugely influential idea was catastrophic for the twentieth century, because the leaders of the proletarian dictatorship adored and abused the power, and wouldn't give it up for some feeble next stage. |
| 21991 | The middle class gain freedom through property, but workers can only free all of humanity [Marx, by Singer] |
| Full Idea: Where the middle class can win freedom for themselves on the basis of rights to property - thus excluding others from their freedom - the working class have nothing but their title as human beings. They only liberate themselves by liberating humanity. | |
| From: report of Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844]) by Peter Singer - Marx 4 | |
| A reaction: Individual workers might gain freedom via education, marriage, or entrepreneurship, or by opting for total simplicity of life, but in general Marx seems to be right about this. But we must ask what sort of 'freedom' is needed. |
| 21990 | Theory is as much a part of a revolution as material force is [Marx] |
| Full Idea: Material force must be overthrown by material force. But theory also becomes a material force once it has gripped the masses. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844], Intro p.69), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 4 | |
| A reaction: A huge problem, I think, is that every theory (even conservatism) has to be simplified in a democracy if it is to grip the imagination of the majority. My current hatred is labels in political philosophy. They give us a cartoon view of the world. |
| 20273 | The French Revolution gave trusting Europe the false delusion of instant recovery [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The 'Great Revolution' [in France] was nothing more than a pathetic and bloody quackery, which understood how, through sudden crises, to supply a trusting Europe with the sudden hope of recovery. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 534) | |
| A reaction: Whenever a new leader comes into power there is the same honeymoon period, where dreams of salvation have a moment in the sun. |
| 23867 | After a bloody revolution the group which already had the power comes to the fore [Weil] |
| Full Idea: There is no real break in continuity after a bloody struggle for regime change; for the victory just sanctions forces that before the struggle were the decisive factor in community life, patterns which were replacing those of the declining regime. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Reflections on Liberty and Social Oppression [1934], p.73) | |
| A reaction: [from Marx] I assume she has in mind the French Revolution, and perhaps the Russian Revolution, though in the latter the new bourgeois leaders also got swept away. So revolutions are not nearly as dramatic as they appear to be. |
| 23856 | Spontaneous movements are powerless against organised repression [Weil] |
| Full Idea: A spontaneous movement is fundamentally impotent when it comes to fighting against organised forces of repression. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Prospects: Proletarian Revolution? [1933], p.2) | |
| A reaction: Her example is the Paris Commune of 1870. Hence revolution requires prior penetration of the corridors of power. Hence the phenomenon of 'entryism' of more radical people into reformist parties. |
| 21997 | In Marxism the state will be superseded [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It is a famous Marxist doctrine that the state will be superseded. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Marx [1980], 9) | |
| A reaction: Why is that final state communism rather than anarchism? |
| 20288 | You can't condemn violent revolution without assessing the evils it prevents [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It would be one-sided to say that violent revolution is always absolutely wrong, without taking account of the evils that the revolutionaries are trying to stop. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: This seems like common sense, but there are plenty of right-wing authoritarians who would claim that stable authority has priority over all social wrongs. I think that view is mistaken. But the problem is, how to know the future? |
| 22258 | Passion for progress is always short-lived [Sandel] |
| Full Idea: Progress demands passions that cannot last for long. | |
| From: Michael J. Sandel (Beyond Individualism [1988], p.35) | |
| A reaction: The obvious example, for me, is the Labour Government in the UK, 1945-51. This is the kind of realism which progressive politicians must face up to. Unfortunately it is the logic of very ruthless revolutionaries. |
| 23125 | Most good social changes are incremental, rather than revolutionary [Gopnik] |
| Full Idea: More permanent positive social change is made incrementally rather than by revolutionary transformation. | |
| From: Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard liberal response to revolution. Revolutionaries obviously consider such a claim to be very naïve, and a failure to grasp how deep the changes need to go. |