History What are some of your most contraversial takes on history?

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
The French Revolution ultimately left the country worse off than it was beforehand, and gave their culture scars that still haven't healed. It was a terrible thing that should have never happened, and while the people were somewhat justified in doing it (as the country had been mismanaged into bankruptcy for decades to that point), the righteousness of their cause was undermined by the fact that they had been complicit in sabotaging various peaceful attempts that had been made over the years to fix things, due to ease with which they could be manipulated by those simply trying to act in their own self-interest at the expense of the country as a whole (which also neatly describes the relationship between the people and the leaders of the revolution).

I see two sides to that.
On the one hand, the ancien regime was well past its sell-by date. Feudal monarchy no longer made sense in Western Europe of the late 18th century.
On the other hand, the people who got into power were a mixed bag indeed, with some outright crazy elements. Napoleon was indeed the saner option - if he could have avoided going on a rampage across Europe.

The irony is that over the Channel, the English had been there, done that, about a century earlier. King Charles and the Cavaliers, the Roundheads, the Calvinist Theocrats, Oliver Cromwell cracking heads and restoring order, finally the Restoration.

And the Puritan theocrats, even at their most extreme, were in practice far, far less bloodthirsty or destructive than the French devotees of the Cult of Reason turned out to be.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
I see two sides to that.
On the one hand, the ancien regime was well past its sell-by date. Feudal monarchy no longer made sense in Western Europe of the late 18th century.
On the other hand, the people who got into power were a mixed bag indeed, with some outright crazy elements. Napoleon was indeed the saner option - if he could have avoided going on a rampage across Europe.

The irony is that over the Channel, the English had been there, done that, about a century earlier. King Charles and the Cavaliers, the Roundheads, the Calvinist Theocrats, Oliver Cromwell cracking heads and restoring order, finally the Restoration.

And the Puritan theocrats, even at their most extreme, were in practice far, far less bloodthirsty or destructive than the French devotees of the Cult of Reason turned out to be.

I think its turned out that religion is a restraining bolt that keeps a certain kind of personality in check and with out it things can go horribly wrong.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
The more I learn about unions, the more I sympathise with the early 20th century industrialists that used machine-guns on striking workers occupying their factories.
Except it was exactly those sorts of actions which created unions in the first place. You abuse your workers, and kill them when they complain, you end up with unions; so if anything, you should be condemning those industrialists for ruining things for everyone.
 

Doomsought

Well-known member
Except it was exactly those sorts of actions which created unions in the first place. You abuse your workers, and kill them when they complain, you end up with unions; so if anything, you should be condemning those industrialists for ruining things for everyone.
Its not killing when they complain, its killing them when they decided to squat on your property and break the knees of anyone you try to hire to work instead of them. They were violent thugs.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Not all of it, just the French parts.

"The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the pursuit of happiness, sovereignty of reason and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.[3][4]"

Nothing good came out of that stuff. Enlightenment is basically a precursor to Communism - sure, we will create a perfect society, if only we can rewrite the fundamentals of human nature.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Its not killing when they complain, its killing them when they decided to squat on your property and break the knees of anyone you try to hire to work instead of them. They were violent thugs.
Which wouldn't have happened if their employers hadn't ripped them off at every opportunity with things like the company towns, or utterly refused to do even the bare minimum to make working conditions safer. Knowing that, is it any wonder that being treated like disposable slaves caused them to lash out violently? And mind you; it was the employers who escalated to murder to try and bring their employees to heel, as evidenced by events like the Ludlow Massacre.



Enlightenment is basically a precursor to Communism
It was also the precursor to the idea that individuals have any rights at all, and that things like slavery is wrong; so it wasn't all bad.
 

Bassoe

Well-known member
Yeah, I’m not for this at all. This is how we get an Arminius or worse.
I'd be less worried about foreigners with their own agendas getting into power, more about a scenario where foreign mercenaries have more loyalty to the politicians signing their paychecks than ideology and citizens. We've all seen the various articles about percentages of soldiers who'd refuse to fire on citizens in event of a civil war. I doubt the neo-varangian guard would have such hangups.
 
"The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the pursuit of happiness, sovereignty of reason and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.[3][4]"

Nothing good came out of that stuff. Enlightenment is basically a precursor to Communism - sure, we will create a perfect society, if only we can rewrite the fundamentals of human nature.

if humans are evil then giving anyone the monopoly of force isin't a good idea. being threatened by the wrath of God only works for so long until they realize that the magic lightning bolt is either A.) never coming or B.) not coming until the very end when everyone is dead and in the same boat anyway. (Sure I'm going to Hell but it's not like I'll be the only one.) The kind of people who fear for thier own soul are A) not attracted to that kind of power or B) the kind of people who will never be put into power because they lack the traits humans want from a leader (Most humans want to bully vicariously through someone else and are somehow shocked when the monster turns against them.) The kind of people who need government are the kind of people who will Never be affacted by it because they know how to grift and play the system. The closest humans were in terms of peace was when there was a giant nuclear world ending Mexican stand off, because no one wanted to go down as the leader that ended the world in a mass murder-suicide attempt. and even then they worked around that via satellite nations.
 

ATP

Well-known member
Half right. It was the sort of event that made the second coming of Caesar look like the one sane man in the room.

Vive l'Empereur!

On that tangent, after the cataclysm of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the best things that ever happened to France. Absolute goddamn chad who wins more battles than Alexander and Hannibal put together, yet also turns out to be really good at civil administration.

Yes,pity that England continues to pour gold in anybody who wonted fight him.And helped kill tsar smart enough to cooperate with France.
World would be better place if Napoleon win.

Althought - one bad thing was big shadow and vision of genius who come and safe X country.He did it for France,but many of would-be-Napoleons was nothing but disaster for their countries.Paraguay is worst case,i think.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
if humans are evil then giving anyone the monopoly of force isin't a good idea. being threatened by the wrath of God only works for so long until they realize that the magic lightning bolt is either A.) never coming or B.) not coming until the very end when everyone is dead and in the same boat anyway. (Sure I'm going to Hell but it's not like I'll be the only one.) The kind of people who fear for thier own soul are A) not attracted to that kind of power or B) the kind of people who will never be put into power because they lack the traits humans want from a leader (Most humans want to bully vicariously through someone else and are somehow shocked when the monster turns against them.) The kind of people who need government are the kind of people who will Never be affacted by it because they know how to grift and play the system. The closest humans were in terms of peace was when there was a giant nuclear world ending Mexican stand off, because no one wanted to go down as the leader that ended the world in a mass murder-suicide attempt. and even then they worked around that via satellite nations.

And this plays into another controversial opinion I have... Government is defined by monopoly on (legal) force, which means that having a government is not a good idea. And if you have to have government, then you should have as many competing centres of power as possible - and this results not in democracy, but in federal monarchy. Democracy in fact promotes centralization and tyranny by promoting the idea that government has mandate of the people. But if king is set up by God, then he has moral standards to uphold; if he is set up by independent federal units (say, cities or provinces) then he answers to their governments - and in both cases his power is far more limited than that of a "democratic" government.

To sum up: democracy is tyranny. What you need is federalism - and that means either federal monarchy or federal republic.
 

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
And this plays into another controversial opinion I have... Government is defined by monopoly on (legal) force, which means that having a government is not a good idea. And if you have to have government, then you should have as many competing centres of power as possible - and this results not in democracy, but in federal monarchy. Democracy in fact promotes centralization and tyranny by promoting the idea that government has mandate of the people. But if king is set up by God, then he has moral standards to uphold; if he is set up by independent federal units (say, cities or provinces) then he answers to their governments - and in both cases his power is far more limited than that of a "democratic" government.

To sum up: democracy is tyranny. What you need is federalism - and that means either federal monarchy or federal republic.

That's a relatively modern definition of government. Much of what is taken for granted today about such things would have puzzled or even horrified intelligent people from earlier times in history.
But otherwise I quite agree. The big problem with modern government is power without accountability.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Yeah, monopoly on force is a fairly nonsensical modern definition that seems to me to be the modern version of China's Mandate of Heaven.

The Mandate of Heaven meant that the Emperor was placed on his throne by the gods themselves and no rebellion could succeed, so if a rebellion did succeed that meant the Emperor had lost the mandate and the new emperor was placed there by heaven.

A nation has a monopoly on force which is part of being a legitimate government. Unless somebody else brings enough force to overthrow the government, in which case suddenly they get the monopoly on force and become the legitimate government. It's very circular.

I can only imagine how, say, medieval people would react to the idea that only the King is allowed to use force. Probably a lot of hysterical laughter at such stupidity.
 

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