"It's the genesis point for a lot of things we're still debating today," Neff said.
"All of this has happened before and all of this can happen again," Posobiec said.
France was at the height of its cultural and political powers at the time of the Revolution. French was the language of international diplomacy, it was the language l taught to to the powerful, to the children of the wealthy. And it was against that backdrop that the lower class citizens of France revolted, launching a bloody and brutal revolution to overthrow the monarchy—even though within fifteen years of the end of that war, the monarchy would be reinstalled. The French were simply not up for the murderous chaos that ensued.
France had lost many wars leading up to the events of that time and America was in its ascendency. While many American lawmakers backed US aid for France, such as Thomas Jefferson who had spent a substantial portion of the American Revolution in France serving as ambassador and requesting funds and aid for the patriots war effort in the New World, many others, such as Alexander Hamilton, did not.
France was hugely influential on the world stage, in much the same way that America is now, and it was helmed by a weak leader in King Louis XVI. That leader acquiesced to the riotous demands of his people, give them leave to commit even more atrocities.
Posobiec said that most people think the Revolution started with the storming of the Bastille, but in fact, it was a political protest process. These, Posobiec said, were essentially the "mostly peaceful protests" of the time. As the people stormed the Bastille, releasing the few prisoners housed there, as they violently remade society, including restructuring the calendar itself, the king stood helplessly by, not enforcing law, not standing up for order.
His nobles and allies began leaving as the baskets under the guillotine were overflowing with heads. They knew it would go badly for king and country, but Louis XVI remained. Eventually he and his wife Marie Antionette would be deposed and murdered.
It's not as though the people of France were on board with the mob rule and desecration of society, but they went along with it anyway. Standing up against the mob would only get a person decapitated anyway. The mob went after politicians, leaders, the wealthy, dissenters, and of course, the clergy. The terror only stopped when those who were left realized that if they didn't do something about it they would simply be next. They deposed Robespierre, the leader of the French terror, and took his head off.
What makes it similar to the "George Floyd moment," Neff said is that "it's like a miasma gets in the air. 'Oh, there's a revolution going on,' and so you get turmoil in the streets of Paris and the government of the regime was off in Versailles... a good day's walk outside Paris. But they're close enough to it that the mob in Paris, which is very rambunctious, begins to assert control on events."
The mob was able to play an outsized role, and weak leadership allowed it to happen.
The series on leftist cultural revolutions will air this week, between Christmas and New Years, and offers a glimpse into those often violent cultural shifts that transform nations, societies and the world.
