Liberal Interpretation Of French Revolution example essay topic

The fundamental event of European history in the eighteenth century was the French Revolution. From its outbreak in 1789, the Revolution touched and transformed social values and political systems in France, in Europe, and eventually throughout the world. France's revolutionary regime conquered much of Western Europe with its arms and with its ideology. The three interpretations of the French Revolution were Liberal, Conservative, and Social. French Revolution's ideals defined the essential aspirations of modern liberal society, while its bloody conflicts posed the brutal dilemma of means versus ends. The revolutionaries supported individual liberty, rejecting all forms of random constraint: monopolies on commerce, feudal charges laid upon the land and even (in 1794) black slavery overseas.

They said that political authority required constitutional government, elections, and legislative supremacy. They demanded civil equality for all, denying the claims of privileged groups, localities, or religions to special treatment and requiring the equality of all citizens before the law. A final revolutionary goal was expressed by the concept of fraternity, which meant that all citizens regardless of social class, region, or religion shared a common fate in society, and that the well-being of the nation sometimes superseded the interests of individuals. The resounding slogan of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity expressed social ideals to which most contemporary citizens of the Western world would still subscribe. Those who made the Revolution believed they were rising against tyrannical government, in which the people had no voice, and against inequality in the way obligations such as taxes were imposed and benefits distributed. Yet the government of France at that time was no more tyrannical or unjust than it had been in the past.

We can blame this on the incompetence of King Louis XVI (1774-1792) and his queen, Marie Antoinette. But even the most capable ruler could not have escaped challenge and crisis in the late eighteenth century. In eighteenth-century France, as we have seen, intellectual ferment preceded political uprising. The philosophes had bombarded traditional beliefs, institutions, and prejudices. They undermined the confidence that traditional ways were the best ways. Indeed, the Enlightenment had become respectable by the 1780's, a kind of intellectual establishment.

Louis XVI tried to pacify selected opinion by recalling the Parlements This concession to France's traditional "unwritten constitution" backfired, however, since the Parlements resumed their defense of privilege in opposition to reforms proposed by Jacques Turgot, Louis, new controller general of finances. Turgot, a disciple of the philosophes and an experienced administrator, hoped to encourage economic growth by the policy of nonintervention or laissez-faire. When agitation against him mounted at Versailles and in the Paris Parlement, Louis took the easy way out and dismissed his troublesome minister. Facing bankruptcy and unable to float any new loans in this atmosphere, the king recalled the Parlements, and agreed to convene the Estates General in May 1789. The calling of the Estates General created extraordinary excitement across the land.

When the king invited his subjects to express their opinions about this great event, hundreds did so in the form of pamphlets, and here the liberal or "patriot" ideology of 1789 first began to take shape. While the king accorded the Third Estate twice as many delegates as the two higher orders, he refused to promise that the delegates would vote together ("by head") rather than separately in three chambers ("by order"). A vote by order meant that the two upper chambers would outweigh the Third Estate no matter how many deputies it had. However the third estate won over the power to vote by head and won.

The king had invited citizens across the land to meet in their parishes to elect delegates to district electoral assemblies, and to draft grievance petitions (cahiers) setting forth their views. Highly traditional in tone, the great majority of rural cahiers complained only of particular local ills and expressed confidence that the king would redress them. Only a few cahiers from larger cities, including Paris, alluded to the concepts of natural rights or popular sovereignty that were appearing in patriot pamphlets. Very few demanded that France must have a written constitution, that sovereignty belonged to the nation, or that feudalism and regional privileges should be abolished. These events did not pacify the anxious and hungry people of the countryside, however. The sources of peasant dissatisfaction were many and long standing.

Population growth and the parceling of holdings were reducing the margin of subsistence for many families, while the purchase of land by rich townspeople exerted further pressure. This peasant insurgency eventually blended into a vast movement known as the Great Fear. Peasant revolts and the Great Fear showed that the royal government was confronting a truly nationwide and popular revolution. An assembly drew up a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen to indicate the outline of its intentions.

The Declaration went on to proclaim the sovereignty of the nation as against the king or any other group, and the supreme authority of legitimate law. The Declaration's concept of natural rights meant that the Revolution would be based on reason rather than history or tradition. This was liberal interpretation of French revolution. And the founder of it was the Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

After the fall of French Revolution there was the rise of Napoleon, spread of revolutionary ideas, growth of nationalism, and the conservative reaction. After the end of Neapolitan's power, European royalty and aristocracy wanted to end the ideas of Enlightment as well as Robespierre's, Mirabeus, and Napoleon. Those that wanted for the monarchs, the aristocrats, Christian churches, and government turned to conservatism. Edmund Burke, a powerful and famous conservative thinker, rejected the ideas of Enlightment and was against the reformation of the French Revolution.

He felt that change was not bad, but it has to be slow and too much. Conservatives felt that French revolution was a lesson for them, so that they never again let it become that way. Because of the fall of the French revolution, the financial crisis was increasing. Those countries that were won over by napoleon were taken away. The congress of Vienna, to which Burke was a model to, decided to take it easy on France and not punish it too severely.

The main point of conservative thinkers were; Devine rights and blood lines meaning that only certain families could rule and those families were chosen by god... Also all countries have to be Christian, although there could be different variations of the orthodoxy. The lower classes do not need to be in power as much as the richer class. Need to keep down the commoners. Another concept of conservatism is that anything that is new is bad, and everything that was old is good. Meaning that country needs to return to the old self country as the way it was before the French Revolution.

Jacobins were very wrong people because they were like gangs. They need to convert to conservatism instead of trying to bring down the church and King. Another interpretation of French revolution is Socialism. Socialism is an economic system, a political movement, and a social theory and even more new concept that liberalism. Its founder was Karl Marx and he called his socialism scientific socialism to distinguish it from utopian socialism. He believed that all history is a series of struggles between the ruling and working classes.

Marx taught that capitalism would be replaced by socialism. He predicted that the ruling class would be overthrown. The victorious working class would then set up a society based on common ownership of the means of production, not on economic privilege. Socialists claim that free enterprise systems are inefficient and wasteful. They believe that capitalism leads to such problems as unemployment, poverty, business cycles, and conflicts between workers and the owners of the means of production. To solve these problems, socialists believe that a nation's wealth must be distributed more equally and justly.

They strongly oppose social inequality and discrimination. Socialists aim for a society based on cooperation and brotherhood rather than on competition and self-interest. I feel that the best concept of the tree interpretations of the French revolution that we have discussed is the liberal. There is much more freedom that war developed for the people of the country and more equality. The concept "Liberty, fraternity was very well looking up to. I feel that with the conservatism thinking there is so much of unfairness and misery to the peasant class that I would not be able to stand it.

America's government today is based on equal rights, freedom of speech and religion. And I respect America for that. The liberal interpretation is the closes to America's government and that is why I respect it more that conservatism or socialism. In conclusion, the tree interpretations of the French revolution had many effects on the country and on the whole world itself. After the French revolution, many countries had similar revolutions, and the concept of Enlightenment spread across the world as well.