Raymond Marcin

We tend to think of the French Revolution as a good idea gone awry--idealism consumed by its antithesis in an orgy of Freudian Oedipal violence. It's difficult for us to credit the theorists of the French Revolution with genius. And yet they did possess genius. They recognized the root tension that exists between the ideals of human liberty and human equality. Individual liberty, freely exercized results in social inequality. Enforced social equality of necessity curtails individual liberty. The genius of their solution to this dilemma was, of course, proudly proclaimed in the battle cry of the Revolution: Libèrté! Ègalité! Fraternité! The two inconsistent ideals of liberty and equality are reconcilable and realizable, but only in the resolving agent of fraternity. The trouble was that, as emotively effective as the word 'fraternity' may be as part of a battle cry, it is not effective as the organizing principle for a state. A less emotive, more nuanced understanding of the complex and often conflicting natures of the components that go into the making of a state was needed. It was not there, and the Revolution itself betrayed its own ideals.