Slippery Slopes on The left, Keep true

The world of 2019 is more divided on the idea of free speech than ever in modern history. With ideas of banning hate speech aka speech that offends someone getting more and more popular with young people. I think the problem is that for every person, history began the day they were born. Humans prove either uninterested or unable to grasp and learn from history hence we keep making the same mistakes again and again in a viscous cycle of stupidity fueled by ignorance, low resolution, short sighted black or white thinking.

Free speech is one of the keystones of a free functioning society and infringing upon this human right is a slope so slippery, it makes mount Everest look like a sand dune in comparison. This is something history has already showed us by playing out the French Revolution. 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' So let's look at the french revolution and see if we can learn something and dodge the bullet of censorship in the modern world. 

So, the French revolution is often described as a moderate success. It was great ! The revolution spewed ideas of equality, liberty and freedom all over the world. It was a grand and heroic moment in human history where a poor and oppressed working class  successfully organized themselves to overthrow a centuries long oppressive system. The revolution was inevitable as the monarchy had become incompetent, indifferent and ignorant due to the inheritance of the throne by  king Louis XIV. It was a Great Revolution, an amazing feat of human cooperation with some certain dark parts, like very dark parts.

Through this blog, pay attention to the chain of events that happened in France during the 18th century and see what can they teach us about the world, societies and the human nature. And i would urge you to specifically pay attention to what the role the ability to speak and spread ideas played during the revolution. The right to free speech. Both the good, the bad and the ugly

France was a monarchy, like many other European regimes. A slobbish, awkward kid became the king of France. His name Louis xiv. This kid was super ill equipped to rule.
France wasn't doing so hot at that time. Their economy was failing and people starving. During this shit storm, France lost a war with England. It lost territory and hence lots of money. This mostly affected only the working class as France had a very rigid class structure.  Shown below-

 But More accurately described below-

The working class kept working in harsh conditions, paying all the taxes whereas the nobility and the clergy indulged in non stop partying with no responsibilities of paying taxes and helping out. 

This is where the age of enlightenment began.

Age of enlightenment began with philosophers starting to think and spread ideas about the demerits of the rigid class structure. Their logos and speech were a force, so powerful and influential that it ignited the hearts of common folk with a flame of raging anger, vengeance, hatred and a longing from significant social reform. People were finally waking up to the incompetence of the rigid and oppressive class structures and freely started to express these ideas.

Meanwhile, The nobility and clergy continued to increase taxes on the poor to a ridiculous degree and a natural disaster struck. Harsh winters made bread scarce, which was everyone’s main food source and small riots started to break out as people started raiding bakeries.

As tensions increased , the king asked for a council. The council was useless and an archaic system where the entire 3rd class, the working class, which comprised of more than 90 percent of the population had only one vote and hence could not get their voices heard or achieve any goals.

Agitated by the stupid system, the 3rd state made a new assembly called the

Jacobin club. Originally, the club were discussing the demands of equality but the radicals started to  push for the removal of monarchy altogether. Fearing an uprising, the King brought in the military to protect himself but people got fearful about the motives of the army and they went from fearful to angry to violent very fast.

They called for a revolution

They Formed a military of sorts called the national guard, organized themselves, raided a prison and got weapons . This was the beginning of the French revolution.

The revolution was a vicious blood bath. The monarchy was pushed to the brink of irrelevance and later eliminated, with force by an armed populace. Cutting people’s heads off and put them on pikes and parading around was a common method of protest. Bands of angry peasants roaming around with the heads of the privileged stuck to the end of long sticks were seen everywhere.

There is no ambiguity to the nature of the Revolution from beginning to end: bloodshed was called for by the people, and later called for by those in power. Although a change in circumstances kept altering the degree of violence, that violence existed for the entirety of the french revolution.

Where did all this violence come from ?

The acceptance of violence is credited largely to a certain JEAN PAUL MARAT. This guy was an actual stereotypical a Hollywood master. Jean Paul was a man of science, a physician who had a horrible skin condition due to which he was forever confined to a medicinal bath. Yes! An angry scientist with horrible scapes all over his body, confined to a bathtub for his entire life. This guy started to write and spread his ideas.

He started Writing a  radical newspaper called  ‘Friend Of France’. It quickly became one of the most widely circulated and read publications in the entire country. His rhetoric ignited passion for the revolution and with the power of fear. He be like - king gonna kill us, so kill and execute em first ! He Wrote vicious letters against the monarchy and his words were so influencing that anything he put into pen , came into action. if he Wished for someone’s execution, the person's head would be found at the sharp end of a pike very soon.

National assembly made up of the revolutionaries, wrote a declaration of the rights of men. Which came from the ideas spread during the age of enlightenment. This new constitution guaranteed liberty and equal rights to all people .

The Revolutionary government started to strip away the king’s power slowly. The king had no choice but to comply out of fear. But one day the King tried to flee but got caught and his treachery was revealed. 

He Got stripped out of more power and the radicals now again wanted the monarchy completely gone. The tensions between the moderates and the radicals increase, resulting in a massacre where the national guards kill a bunch of radicals protesting for the removal of the monarchy. 

The divide between the radicals and moderates was now crystal clear. As you can imagine, it is very hard to revolt when the revolutionaries can’t decide on what precisely to demand keep and are busy fighting with each other.

With the revolution in full swing, the leaders also came up with the idea of equality in execution. The idea was that everyone would be executed the same way. Regardless of class, everyone must be sent to the guillotine. A device invented for the quickest and least painful mode of execution. Works as depicted below-

JEAN PAUL MARAT’s writing continued to aid in the execution of people he deemed unfit or privileged as a result of unjust systems of the past. He relentlessly continued to ask for execution of people from the clergy and nobility.

Other monarchies feared revolutionary ideas in their own countries and in an effort to protect Louis, sent letters threatening that if anything happened to the king they would burn Paris down to the ground. Well , the strategy and threat didn't work and enraged the peasants and the public even further. The revolutionaries raided the palace, fought with the royal guards and overthrew the monarchy. Just like that, the king was just a citizen now, and put to jail.

National assembly became the french republic and ideas of equality and democracy were implemented. Even the church was overthrown and a cult of reason was established.

Now all the clergy and nobility rested in prisons and the revolutionaries got afraid that other kings might come in to free the imprisoned who might be harboring feelings and ideas of a counter revolution.

Jean Paul Marat came in with the idea of preemptive action. With is writing (speech), he was able to convince the revolutionaries to burst into the prisons and KILL EVERY SINGLE ONE of the imprisoned nobility and clergy members. All the aristocrats and priests including women and children were murdered and executed on the spot. A total of 1600 casualties were counted in the September massacres of 1972.

  

The radicals advocating for rights, equality and liberty had slowly turned into this malevolent force of nature snatching away the right to live from thousands of unarmed prisoners. They didn't even necessarily needed to be anti revolutionaries, simply being a supporter of the king got you family brutally murdered. These radical revolutionaries preaching reason and moral virtues very quickly had turned into the vicious armies, protecting their interest at the first sign of trouble. Not even a sign , a hint of an idea of resistance turned had turned them into agents of destruction. The executions were not even limited to supporters of the king, Not hating the monarchy ‘Enough’ was ‘reason’ enough for these radicals to murder. 

As the London times pointed out at that time , ‘ were these the rights of men?’ ‘Was this the nature of human liberty?’ This was a clear example of the left going too far.

In the aftermath, the king Louis was put on trial. Moderates wanted to simply deport him whereas the radicals obviously demanded his head in a bucket. A vote was held. The result -

The nail biting conclusion of the vote showed 2 things . First,  how unlucky Louis turned out to be. And second - how divided the revolutionaries were.

Now, after the execution of Louis xiv,  the new revolutionary government was in full power and as expected, performed a shitty job. The peasants did not turn out to be the smart and noble war generals and intellectuals they thought they would be. The economy still kept crashing. The prices of bread kept rising.They fought wars against the catholic armies who were trying to regain some power. One of the revolutionary general tied catholic civilians, priests, women and children to a ship and sank the it (guy was later charged with war crimes). 

As shit kept hitting the fan, Economy kept getting worse and worse, what did the radicals do? Did they back track on their ideas and make sure their ideas are good ? Nah. Radicals never do that! Jean Paul Marat started to ask for the imprisonment and execution of the moderates in the government. 

The problem isn't with us, Its with the people with different ideas, said every like minded group of humans ever.

The moderates were now deemed the enemy and Jean Paul’s wishes were of course executed. The moderates were captured and put in prison. The radicals had doubled down and now controlled the entire legislative assembly.

The people had started to feel and realize that this degree of radicalization was not good. It was counterproductive and filled with vile sentiments of hatred with vicious ideas of vengeance in the name of protection of the revolution. Jean Paul Marat clearly had too much influence.  From his medicinal bath tub, the guy could single handedly (Whatever hand he wrote with), ask for a list of people to be executed, anyone he personally deemed worthy of imprisonment and death. His speech had become a problem. His logos was flawed and needed to be contained. He needed to be stopped because clearly his ideas were brutal, unintelligent and very very harmful to the people. Radical and harmful nature of his rhetoric was clear.

Charlotte Corday was a regular peasant lady who recognized and realized the evil of Jean Paul Marat. She was, like many at the time, horrified with the rapid radicalization and increasing violence of the revolution.  She wished for the cessation of Jean Paul’s speech. She traveled to Paris and asked to see Jean Paul. She claimed she had a list of people who were the 'enemy of the revolution'. Jean Paul, taking the bait, excitedly welcomed her and asked for the list.  

Charlotte, Stabbed and killed him.

Just like that, The vicious radical voice that spoke from the medicine bath from the sewers was no more. With the radical influencer gone the radicalization of the people was sure to halt and the assembly was destined to become more moderate and measured in their decisions and policies. The heartless and mindless killings of the so called ‘Enemies of the Revolution’ was sure to stop and the french revolution was to take a turn for the good. People would now realize their shortcomings and wrongdoings of Jean Paul Marat and the revolution would take a more peaceful turn.  It was a worthy sacrifice. So thought Charlotte as her head was guillotined in front of 100’s of people.

But you see, The death or assassination of the leader has the power to transform a Cult into a Religion. 

Charlotte’s well intended sacrifice had now converted Jean into a martyr. Marat's assassination led to his apotheosis. He was glorified as divine and given a god like stature. After Marat’s death, he was viewed by many as a martyr for the revolution, and was immortalized in various ways in order to preserve the values he stood for. His heart was embalmed separately and placed in an urn in an altar erected to his memory at the Cordeliers in order to inspire speeches that were similar in style to Marat’s eloquent journalism. his near messianic role in the Revolution was confirmed with the elegy: Like Jesus, Marat loved ardently the people, and only them. Like Jesus, Marat hated kings, nobles, priests, rogues and, like Jesus, he never stopped fighting against these plagues of the people.  Marat was made a quasi-saint, and his bust started to replaced crucifixes in the former churches of Paris. His bronze statues were erected and now the revolution was more vicious than ever. 

In death and silence, he became an evermore powerful force for the extreme violence.

At this point, If any of you readers are thinking that the French revolution so far is very bloody and violent, you aren’t seen nothing son!

The death of Jean Paul was the seed that bloomed into the reign of terror. In the legislative assembly, A 12 man committee was established called the ‘committee of public safety’. They were armed with the job of protecting the revolution. A new justice system to fast track executions of the deemed enemies of the revolution was established and anyone found guilty of treachery was sent to the guillotine. This sounds reasonable but you have to understand what their definition of treachery was!

Undercover cops were everywhere carefully monitoring public behavior and sentiments. Any doubt of you being even dissatisfied with the current system was enough to get you charged and sent to the guillotine. Want someone killed ?just go to your local police office and report them as acting sympathetic towards the king. They were sure to be executed. Using old words of greeting like ’monsieur’ would be categorized as sympathising with the monarchy and even accidental use would have you tried. Expressing discontent with the price of bread ? yes! Guilty!

Anyone even raising a voice saying - we are sending too many people to the guillotine - was sent to the guillotine. It was a chop fest. A total of 40000 people were killed in a year for SUSPECTED crimes against liberty! 

That's an average of 110 executions a day. 110 families ruined in a day! All In the name of liberty and freedom.

What Happened next? With such extreme terror in the hearts of the french people and Even the radicals , what did they do?

Did the terror slow down as things started to get better and the radicals suggested the executions to be slowed down ? Nope, anyone who suggested that was sent to the guillotine .

The next period called the The great terror ushered in. The leader of the radicals increased the number of executions fearing a threat to the revolution and now the executions were hitting closer and closer to home. Robespierre (the leader) started to propose executions of the radicals who weren't radical enough and was ultimately voted to the guillotine himself. 

The revolution kind of ate itself. With Robespierre now executed, more moderates took charge and sanity was restored but only after another violent blood bath. In all, the french revolution was a success if you only look only at the starting and final state of France from 1789 to around 1794. The process of transformation was nothing short of a disaster.

The french revolution taught us a lot of things. It showed us the resilience of simple people and the powerful things they can achieve if they organize themselves successfully. It showed us the power of truthful speech. The biggest influences were the voices of philosophers and political activists that spoke through the written word and influenced an entire nation towards liberation. But even more interestingly the revolution also showed us, in an amazing spin, the cost of silencing someone's speech.

Silencing of Jean Paul’s speech caused considerably more violence and killings of innocents than him freely being able to express his views. This shows that you cannot defeat a person’s sentiments by silencing their speech because, that will always have unintended consequences including but not limited to brutal, violent push backs. 

The only good way to combat bad ideas is by good and better ones. Death of Marat caused him to become a martyr and caused two of the worst execution sprees in human history. Not protecting even his speech was a mistake, the price of which was played by thousands of innocent french people.

The best way to deal with the viciousness of Jean Paul would have been to write or speak in ideas opposing him and let the public decide. But of course at that time anyone who would dare to do so would be obviously and swiftly executed. Without their being anyone challenging his views and finally him not being there to defend or explain his positions (cause he dead), his supporters were out of control. The benefits of open and free public discourse are clear!

Censoring, silencing, shaming or murdering are all weak, piss poor strategies that seldom work. Silencing your opponent is ugly and cowardly, It portrays intellectual insufficiency and is supremely ineffectual.

If you agree that there is something divine about a person’s life then you have to agree that there is something divine about the individual’s mind. If there is something divine about a person's mind then there is something divine about the person's thoughts and ideas and hence there is something divine about their speech where these divine thoughts manifest. Every person needs to be able speaks their truth. If life is divine then so is speech. 

All the good functioning societies of humankind are built on the premise of free exchange of both good and bad ideas. The well intended censorship experiment has been run thousands of times and without fail provides us with catastrophic results. 

If you think that these are things of the past then you are either wrong or ignorant. Silencing people you disagree with instead of rightfully combating their ideas with better ones and making a case is a strategy still being used in the modern world. Social media is the leading platform of public discource in today's societies. Politicians,l leaders, entrepreneurs, scientist, and the common people alike are able to express their views that reach a broader audience than ever. Deplatforming is becoming a common trend where popular controversial voices are banned from any and all social media platforms in a swift unexplained and illegal manner. A twitter ban is the modern day version of Marat's assassination. Once someone is banned from social medial, you almost never hear their ideas again.

Humans can achieve great things and great reforms in the organization of societies. But it always exclusively starts with some people’s truthful speech. A society depends upon free exchange of ideas between individuals. If you’re afraid of offence, then you should understand that almost every idea has the capacity to offend someone. The ideas of Charles Darwin and Galileo were deeply, deeply offensive to the religious majorities of that time. So what are we going to do? Not progress anymore?

Every voice deserves to be heard, Every person deserves a platform, And every individual has a right to speak their truth and; history tells us that these are rules that do not warrant any exceptions.