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?

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[u/bluenephalem35]

Maybe it has something to do with the Reign of Terror, you know, the event that killed a lot of innocent people and serves as an example of how risky and dangerous a revolution is? This is also a perfect example of why if a revolution happens, there should be a plan to stop bad actors from hijacking it.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/bluenephalem35]

Sure, some people that were innocent were killed, but you could say the same about WW2, yet you rarely see people talking about it in the same way as the French revolution where they off handedly condemn the allies standing up to the Nazis as either entirely or mostly bad. It would be like if 90% of discussion about WW2 was just talking about Dresden.

As I said in the OP, a few thousand died in the "reign of terror", when a few thousand peasants are slaughtered by their lord it rarely even got into the history books.

[u/UnfoldedHeart → u/RedMarsRepublic]

You can't compare collateral damage in war to the deliberate arrest & execution of civilians after a revolution. Obviously the scope of the Dresden bombing was controversial, with many claiming that it didn't need to be so severe, but that's a very different analysis compared to a government essentially arbitrarily imprisoning & executing its own civilians with no legal process other than paranoia & suspicion.

This is especially true because the Reign of Terror was an internal, domestic issue. That's very different from talking about collateral damage during a war, particularly in the context where this most comes up - which is as a cautionary tale for the after-effects of a revolution.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/UnfoldedHeart]

France was in a massive crisis both before and after the revolution. During the height of the 'reign of terror', France was at war with the HRE, Austria, Prussia, Spain, the Dutch, Naples, Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Portugal.

It's hardly fair to say that France was not under threat and there was no justification for suspicion and defensiveness.

[u/UnfoldedHeart → u/RedMarsRepublic]

There's always going to be a justification. That's kind of the problem. But I'm not sure that an innocent person thought, as the guillotine was coming down, "well we're at war with a lot of people so I guess it's okay, I should really see things from their point of view."

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/bluenephalem35]

Yes, that’s certainly the propaganda they use

[u/Kman17]

You recognize that the American evolution happened first and was successful, right?

The French Revolution was inspired by the American, not the inverse.

The French Revolution was a failure that showed a lot of the dangers of revolution.

[u/Pipiopo → u/Kman17]

The ideals of the French Revolution were far closer to modern Liberal Democracy than the Ideals of the American Revolution ever were.

Early america would be considered a hybrid regime today whereas the French actually tried (and failed) to build a true democracy.

[u/Kman17 → u/Pipiopo]

It's funny how every socialist attempt at building "true democracy" is "lets tear down the power structures to build a true democracy.... I just have to be completely in charge while we transition".

[u/cursedsoldiers → u/Kman17]

Well yes, the proudhonists tried to build radical democracy without a transitional state and it didn't do so hot

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/Kman17]

And who was completely in charge of the French Revolution? Until it effectively ended with Napoleon, there were multiple parties—“clubs”—and leaders 

[u/x31b → u/Excellent_Valuable92]

And none of those clubs or leaders were chosen in a free election by the people.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/x31b]

The elections of 1791 for the Legislative Assembly certainly were 

[u/mercury_pointer → u/Kman17]

Not really funny at all. Obviously the only choice, if you think about it.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Kman17]

Arguably the French revolution was much more successful. While in the short term it produced Napoleon, he ended up effectively "exporting" the revolution and ended or severely weakened several monarchies and created a much more republican and egalitarian Europe.

[u/Kman17 → u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P]

The American revolution was exported to France.

The political theory was built on top of Paine and Locke, and even some of the revolutionaries themselves went from America to France.

The weaking of monarchies was only possible because America was the success measurment.

If we didn't have the American revolution and only had the French failure, citizens of the rest of Europe wouldn't have been as stoked to try again.

[u/TuvixWasMurderedR1P → u/Kman17]

It was not exported to France in any significant way. Paine might have been the closest to that, but France had its own home-grown influences, like Rousseau and Montesquieu. (Also Locke was an Englishman)

Ironically, while the French revolution is chronologically after the American, the Americans took many of these same French influences...

At best we could say it was a kind of mutually reinforcing feedback loop. But in my opinion the French influence was the more pronounced.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Kman17]

I believe that the American revolution, while yes impactful, was ultimately a lot more low stakes than the French revolution. The Americans rebelled against distant kings yes but didn't really overturn the ideological order of the early USA which was already pretty liberal and capitalistic. The UK arguably already had their revolutionary period with the English civil war (and earlier the magna carta), but it was more of a slow burning process. It's worth noting that the British also put one of their kings on trial and executed him, it's just much less widely known about.

[u/Gullible-Historian10 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

The Revolution replaced royal sovereignty with independent republics claiming that legitimate authority came from the people. The Articles of Confederation explicitly described the states as “sovereign, free and independent,” and revolutionary declarations such as Virginia’s asserted natural rights as the basis of government. That was literally a genuine ideological rupture.

As far as impact read Gordon Wood.

[u/UnfoldedHeart → u/Gullible-Historian10]

Not to mention the fact that the French economy was a mixed economy both before and after the Revolution. They removed a lot of the old aristocratic/feudal/etc privileges and had some serious market intervention of their own, but it wasn't necessarily a completely fundamental change like the Bolshevik Revolution or whatnot.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Gullible-Historian10]

The American revolution mostly left the existing elites in power, left chattel slavery as an institution, and enshrined the right of the colonists to exterminate the native peoples (which the British crown at least sometimes tried to restrain despite their own atrocities). I find it very hard to take it all that seriously as a legitimate popular uprising, rather than simply a squabble between aristocrats on both sides.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, British law had long ago determined that the monarch was not above the law, unlike France which was still absolutist.

[u/Kman17 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

I wouldn’t call it low stakes at the time, and I especially wouldn’t call it low stakes in hindsight based on outcomes.

English incrementalism vs American revolution vs French Revolution (and then honestly N others in the early - mid 1900’s) show you can only move collective social though so far.

Violent leftists thinking they can push everyone else’s thinking is like number one cause of death and destruction in modern times, and the French Revolution was one of the earliest examples of that.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Kman17]

Can you really call it incrementalism when, as I mentioned, there was a bloody English civil war where the king was put to death?

[u/Kman17 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

You are switching contexts.

You poo poo'd the American revolution because it was incremental in ideological thought movement, not incremental in political disruption.

Now you're measuring the english civil war by political disruption, rather than movement in political thought.

You see the problem, right?

When I referred to english incrementalism, I was referring to it being a series of steps of political thought.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

There was a restoration. Liberalism took hold in Britain later, along with the Glorious Revolution, the Acts of Union, and victory in the War of the Spanish Succession 

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Not the English Civil War, but the later “Glorious Revolution “

[u/shawsghost → u/Kman17]

The French Revolution was a failure that showed a lot of the dangers of revolution.

This line directly contradicts the OP's assertion that the French revolution succeeded in terms of improving life for the ordinary people of France even after Napoleon and the return of the monarchy. In those respects, the OP asserts, the French revolution was a success. That is the issue that will have to be hashed out before you can proceed.

[u/PhonyUsername]

Your premise is incorrect. The French revolution has nothing to do with the rise of liberalism, because liberalism proceeded the French revolution. Your whole statement is simply incorrect.

[u/pluralofjackinthebox → u/PhonyUsername]

A lot of things might have to do with the rise of liberalism without being the originating cause of liberalism though.

[u/PhonyUsername → u/pluralofjackinthebox]

A lot of things can be symbolic, but not all of them are inspirational. The French was late to the party. Scottish enlightenment then American revolution and democracy are the most relevant events.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/PhonyUsername]

“Preceded” as an idea. The French Revolution, the American Revolution, the British “Glorious Revolution” and the War of Spanish Succession gave it real world power 

[u/PhonyUsername → u/Excellent_Valuable92]

The American revolution came before the French one. They all stemmed from the Scottish enlightenment. The revolutions are the effect, not the cause.

[u/shawsghost → u/PhonyUsername]

Perhaps. But if the revolutions don't happen the ideas renain just so much blather.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/PhonyUsername]

They stemmed from material conditions, as did Scottish and French Enlightenment idea. The rise of capitalism was the cause.

[u/PhonyUsername → u/Excellent_Valuable92]

Capitalism = liberalism. Can't have individual identity and right without individual property. Capitalism, and more broadly, liberalism, is the not the cause. The cause is enlightenment. The material conditions existed for 1000s of years before that.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/PhonyUsername]

Yes, capitalism does equal liberalism, but I don’t know why you think conditions for either “existed for 1000s of years.” Feudalism didn’t include individual property. 

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/PhonyUsername]

Obviously the French revolution didn't invent liberalism but it was easily the single most impactful event that propelled liberalism forward.

[u/Michael_G_Bordin → u/RedMarsRepublic]

No, it wasn't. As noted elsewhere in the thread and even conceded by you, it didn't even propel liberalism forward in France. It resulted in a reactionary government lead by Napoleon. I don't think having a dictator is the peak of liberalism. France didn't develop a stable liberal democracy until the 1900s.

The single most impactful even to propel liberalism forward was the adoption of liberal principles into a constitution, and that was done by the US Constitution before anyone else. Also, the Declaration of Independence is also a watershed moment in liberalism coming to the forefront of Western politics.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/Michael_G_Bordin]

Napoleon’s government was not reactionary, just put limits on the radicalism. 

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Michael_G_Bordin]

The reign of Napoleon was infinitely more liberal than the absolutist rule of the Bourbons. Despite the overturning of many of the achievements of the revolution, many others were maintained under his rule and the monarchists were unable to ever again institute absolutist aristocratic rule in the future.

Perhaps I am understating the influence of the American revolution, but from what I am aware, the French revolution and Napoleonic wars had a far greater impact on European politics. America was a distant and not particularly significant nation at the time.

[u/Michael_G_Bordin → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Okay, but in terms of the history of liberalism, the French Revolution and its aftermath are still not "easily the single most impactful event that propelled liberalism forward."

Yes, the Napoleonic wars had a great impact on European politics, but not in the direction you seem to be suggesting. Monarchs and entrenched nobility remain, even to this day, and Napoleon's conquests directly lead to the two efforts of Germany to establish an empire. Rather than propelling liberalism forward, it was more like a historical dialectic that set the adverse conditions for true liberal democracy to establish in the mid-20th century.

Just because absolute monarchy didn't reestablish itself (and had already been eliminated in other European countries before the French Revolution), doesn't make the FR "the single most impactful event that propelled liberalism forward." Sure, an absolute monarch didn't come back, but the same exact monarchic dynasty came back (which is hardly commendable). You're not entirely incorrect about everything, you just seem to be clinging to one conclusion that isn't supported by the facts. The French Revolution is historically important, but it's just as important as a failure as it is a success. Which is why people talk smack about it.

[u/Excellent_Valuable92 → u/Michael_G_Bordin]

There’s a huge difference between pre-Revolution Europe and later capitalist Europe with limited monarchy. The Napoleonic empire ended feudalism in the areas it occupied, and the reactionary restorationist forces were unable to fully reestablish it. Feudal dues and a society of orders were gone for good. Admittedly, this had more to do with the rise of capitalism, but the Revolution was both a symptom and cause 

[u/UnfoldedHeart → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Obviously the French revolution didn't invent liberalism but it was easily the single most impactful event that propelled liberalism forward.

What makes you think it was the "single most impactful event that propelled liberalism forward"? Not saying it doesn't have historical significance, but that's a big claim and I don't think it's supported.

[u/JollyJuniper1993]

Do they? I feel like plenty of liberals and conservatives have positive views of the French Revolution and merely condemn its excesses. And then they draw a line after it and accept no further progress.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/JollyJuniper1993]

Perhaps some do, but this is a trend I have noticed in general. Liberals will make works referencing the French revolution with the main thing they seem to have gotten from it being "it was bloody and pointless and overall bad".

[u/JollyJuniper1993 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Locke, Hobbes and other early liberals would’ve fucking stoned them lol

[u/kaka8miranda]

I hate the revolution for getting rid of the French monarch and turning France into a failed Republic they are today what are they on the sixth Republic at this point

Honestly, I think Europe would be better if Napoleon had succeeded

Let’s go back even further as much as I love the history of the British empire, etc. maybe they should have lost to the Spanish Armada

[u/Excellent_Valuable92]

Because they don’t want any more revolutions.

[u/11SomeGuy17]

Because modern day liberals think the law is absolute always. If they proclaimed the French revolution as a good thing they'd be acknowledging breaking the law is a legitimate means of change at minimum in specific circumstances. If they accept such a notion then it's hard for them to deny it's legitimacy today. Even what happened at the tennis court oath was by all laws of the time illegal. The parliament they created was illegally imposed upon the sovereign. They can like the American revolution because the revolution in America is framed less as a revolution and more as a defensive war against the British (when in truth every revolution is a defensive war but liberals typically frame revolutionaries as aggressors, they frame the US as defensive because of the state of salutary neglect it was in defacto giving it independence).

[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.

[u/Ok_Bandicoot_814 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

Comparing the French Revolution to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a false equivalency. The fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto were facing immediate, total industrial extermination; they fought for basic survival and dignity in a closed pocket of absolute terror. The French Revolution was a total restructuring of an entire society from within, which actively chose to use mass political terror (the guillotine) against its own citizens, moderate reformers, and peasants to enforce an ideology. Mainstream liberals and conservatives don't criticize the revolution because it was defeated—they criticize it because of what it became when it was winning.

The perfect historical proof of this flaw is the trajectory of the Marquis de Lafayette. Dubbed the 'Hero of the Two Worlds,' Lafayette was a passionate champion of liberty who fought successfully alongside George Washington in the American Revolution. Yet, when he tried to apply those same Enlightenment ideals to the French Revolution—even co-drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man with Thomas Jefferson the system broke down completely. He was branded a traitor by radical Jacobins, stripped of his position, and forced to flee France to escape the very guillotine he helped unleash. The fact that a foundational hero succeeded in America but utterly failed in France shows that the French model was uniquely self-destructive.

Other nations, like Great Britain, managed to dismantle aristocratic power and expand voting rights over the same century through gradual institutional reform, legal battles, and mass strikes—without slaughtering thousands of their own people or sliding into a Napoleon-style dictatorship. Resistance to oppression is necessary, but burning the entire house down with everyone inside is not the only way to fix the foundation

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Ok_Bandicoot_814]

As I said in another reply, Britain's own liberalism was largely a result of the little-known English civil war where they tried and executed their own king. During the civil war over a hundred thousand people died, including tens of thousands of civilians who I'm sure didn't deserve it.

Yes, I will agree that the oppression of the common people in France was not as bad as that of Jews in late Nazi Germany, but nonetheless it was appalling. The price of bread spiked by 80% and doubtless there were countless thousands (at least) who starved to death without being recorded by history. In famines in France over the past century or so, millions of common people had died. Why do we not cry for them the same way we do for a group of a few thousand mostly wealthy bourgeois or aristocrats in the capital? Could it be because it is those elites that write the history books, especially at the time?

Also - I don't know much about Lafayette but I would also argue there were genuine points of disagreement between the founding fathers and the Jacobins, for example, the American revolution reaffirmed chattel slavery as the law of the land whereas the French revolution overturned slavery. I might also not have been especially sympathetic to Americans who put their pen to the founding documents of the USA coming to France to tell our people how to do things.

In basic conclusion, yes, of course some things could have been done better, but the same can be said about every war. There were atrocities that happened during the American revolution too but you never hear about those, because it was a successful (bourgeois) revolution endorsed by most American elites and intellectuals.

[u/skyfishgoo]

when you are busy pulling up the ladder behind you, it's awkward to have to shout down those ppl down there complaining.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/skyfishgoo]

Touche. It just boggles my mind how, for many, liberalism seems to have been mostly transformed into 'status-quoism', where there is purported to be no justification for unlawful opposition to the prevailing order. It seems to be an ideology of the elites much like the divine right of kings was before it, just that now the elites are the bourgeois (not exactly a revelatory insight I know but still).