Explanation: “We should bring back the guillotine” or similar is a common internet quip in response to billionaires doing billionaire things, when in reality the guillotine was invented to provide equal and humane deaths to people of all classes, and from there it was always a tool of the state rather than the people. Not the best euphemism for “we should depose the bourgeoisie.” In fact plenty of Revolutionary justice folks were themselves offed by the guillotine during the Terror.
I mean, why do you think it was?
The under class quite literally overthrowing the ruling class?
After which they promptly began killing each other.
Just because they had no exit strategy doesn’t mean it didn’t start as a class war.
Yet to call the entirety of the French Revolution a class war is wrong, see my previous statement.
Why only speak in extremes? The French Revolution was a class war. It was also a great many other things. Requiring that it only be defined by a single trait is diminutive and disparaging to history.
So your point is that the French Revolutionary War was a class war but we shouldn’t define it by that trait?
Why even have words at this point? I should just start grunting emotionally.
No, that isn’t my point at all. My point is that it is one aspect of it, so defining it solely by that trait in such a binary way, yes or no, is infantile and anti-intellectual.
Words are meant to share ideas, not bonk other people over the head to prove your rightness. Try reading them, and consider what would happen if someone else said them, rather than how it might fit into your own narrow world view.
And what I’m saying is that if a campfire turns into a wildfire it’s no longer a fucking campfire.
Indeed. But parts of were, and the guillotine was certainly used during those.
It didn’t, though. See my previous comment. The French Revolution started as everyone trying to figure out a way to make the bankrupt French Treasury not bankrupt.
Ah yes. I’m sure the starving peasants who did the uprising was very concerned about the treasury and not avoiding starvation by misrule.
Just in case, which uprising are we talking about here?
The French revolution
Which part of the calling of the Estates General was a violent uprising again?
That is a disingenous description. You are just describing the initial phase, basically even before the Revolution even started. It very quickly escalated to become something very different.
The other person said the French Revolution was a violent uprising by hungry peasants, so by that description even the initial phase should be a violent uprising. If they wanted to make a more nuanced point they should and could have.
Well that was me. I believe most people would associate the French revolution with “eat cake” and blood flowing on the streets of Paris. So yeah, a violent uprising by hungry peasants.
So most people associate the French Revolution with events that either never happened (“eat cake” is ahistorical) or weren’t nearly as prominent as portrayed, and? We’re talking about the real French Revolution here, which was absolutely not like that. If you disagree, you’ll need some sources.
Like about any workers revolution 🤷 Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a class war.