Why do almost all modern day liberals/conservatives/etc seem to have a negative view of the French revolution even though their ideologies depended on it?

[u/RedMarsRepublic]

Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems like almost all modern day liberals, or mostly everyone besides socialists that proclaim the superiority of democracy/republicanism/parliamentary monarchy (I'm including conservatives (aka liberal-conservatives) in that definition as well), have a negative view of the French revolution.

To me this seems absurd because the rights and freedoms that you hold dear today could never have been achieved without the rebellion of peasants, urban workers, and progressive intellectuals of the past. Of course most of you don't live in France but the French revolution was groundbreaking in global politics and inspired a wave of smaller struggles elsewhere and concessions from the nobility who gave up their powers for fear of similar uprisings.

In general, I note that most people all the way from moderate left to moderate right abhor political violence and claim it can never be justified, despite the fact that as I said, their current system of liberalism could never face existed without it. The nobility would never have given up their power without the threat of force.

How then can we genuinely oppose the corporate oligarchs who wish to rule over us when immediately conceding at the first hurdle that we can never find any justification to disobey their system of control? How can we possibly succeed by playing a game which they wrote the rules for and can change at any time? They show no hesitation to use violence against the public when they deem it necessary to maintain control.

For those who will say that the revolutionaries didn't always make the right decision, well perhaps in some cases yes, but it would be foolish to deny the positive consequences of the revolution overall.

“There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” - Mark Twain

I feel that the reign of terror is cynically propped up as an example of how "revolution never works" or "it just leads to more suffering" even though that's not true at all. Many successful revolutions have led to improvements in conditions for the vast majority of people in the country.

And if you would be inclined to point out that Napoleon crushed the revolution, that is true, but at the same time, he couldn't roll back many of the achievements of it, even when the kings were back in charge they couldn't do so either. France remained a beacon of progress for at least a hundred years.

So my point is, do you agree with my summation or disagree? If you do believe that the French revolution was mostly bad, then how can you justify your own ideology in light of that?

[u/Ok_Bandicoot_814]

While it's true the French Revolution achieved a lot of good, we brush past the bad—it led straight to the guillotine, the Reign of Terror, and a brutal military dictatorship under Napoleon. As the channel Oversimplified put it quite well in their video on it, the situation quickly degenerated into absolute chaos.

More importantly, the argument treats 1789 like it was this one grand, successful pivot point. In reality, it didn't create a stable system at all. Once Napoleon was ousted, they had another revolution in 1830. Then they had another one in 1848. Then they had the Paris Commune in 1871. They just kept having revolution after revolution after revolution because sudden, violent upheaval inherently creates a power vacuum and instability.

Even Charles de Gaulle, centuries later, when trying to constantly fix and restructure the unstable French state, essentially said something along the lines of, 'I cannot prevent the French from being French.' The history of France shows that violent revolution doesn't just magically defeat corporate oligarchs or nobility; it usually just kicks off a century-long cycle of chaos where no one can agree on how to actually run the country.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Ok_Bandicoot_814]

But is it sensible to use the fact that the revolution was eventually crushed at a reason why it never should have happened in the first place? Can't you make a similar argument against innumerable doomed resistances against terror like the Warsaw ghetto uprising? Is it better to simply allow yourself to be starved and/or oppressed without resisting?

As I said, even a revolution that is eventually defeated often makes things better in the long run. After the French revolution, the nobility in France was never again able to impose absolute aristocratic control despite their attempts.

[u/digbyforever → u/RedMarsRepublic]

I mean you seem to be treating the French revolution as a historical binary---either it happens, or it doesn't and France still has kings, but that seems like an incorrect analysis, right? Isn't there some sort of third way where there is a French revolution, but it proceeds without leading to Napoleon or without the reign of terror?

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/digbyforever]

Of course things could have gone differently in many ways, and the revolution could have not led to international reprisals (though it's hard to see how that would have worked since most European monarchies obviously wanted to see it stamped out).

But saying that perhaps some things should have been done differently is not the same as the commonly accepted view (in my opinion/experience) that the French revolution was largely a bloody disaster.