What Happens When Reason is Replaced?

What happens when reason is replaced with rage?

At the end of the eighteenth century, both America and France had revolutions to change the status quo.  Both revolutions replaced a monarchy.  In the United States, we severed our union with King George III, of Great Britain. The French chose to redefine the monarchy of King Louis XVI.  Our revolt was spurred, in part, because of dissatisfaction with British taxation, without having a voice in Parliament.  The French were in the middle of failed economic policies by the monarchy, but more importantly, there were famines, droughts, inflation, and taxation of the poor, but not the privileged class.

The paths our countries took after the revolution reflect two radically different approaches.  Our revolutions took place at the last stages of the “Age of Enlightenment” or the “Age of Reason” where science became a central idea among the intellectual community and theorists in Philosophy and Political Science began to write on how governments should serve the people, and how all ideas should be questioned and resolved towards a common good.  Our political leaders, schooled in these ideals applied themselves to creating a government to serve the people, provide for general prosperity, and provide for a common defense.  But they knew a government unchecked would eventually grow to be a self-serving institution. To help prevent, or at least slow this process,  they ensured there were a series of rational checks and balances to the power of a single branch.

France, on the other hand, seemed to reject the very concepts of "Reason" we found so inviting.  As the revolution evolved, it moved from reason to madness.  Initially, the revolution sought to limit the authority of the monarchy (roughly similar to what the British had done with the Magna Carta), increase the power of the third estate (the middle class) limit the power of the clergy and the nobility.  But as time went on and discontent with the progress grew there came an insurgent movement by the Jacobins and the peasants against the landowners.  In the end, the revolution and its counter-revolution resulted in the execution of the King, Queen, a lot of nobility, and anyone the revolutionists in power thought deserved to die.  It was the Age of the Guillotine. From the ruin of the revolution, Napoleonian Bonaparte rose to create his first empire.

Why the difference.  Both started with the progressive philosophies of the day, why did one end with an outcome that led to successful self-governance, while the other replaced a King with an Emperor?

Perhaps it is what we see in our urban areas today.  We have the rich, the powerful, and those who depend on the rich and powerful for their survival.  We can speculate as to the cause of this, but are we developing a class of citizens incapable of reason and who seek only their own interests?  While those in power seek to remain in power by responding to the emotional demands of those who cannot see self-interest is, in the end, destructive?

Those who control the power of the state, and their allies who benefit from the largess of those in power, seek to keep the third estate powerless and in chaos so it cannot rise to challenge the power of the first and second.  What better way than to ensure there is sufficient rage amongst those who refuse to see a different path?  But what happens, when there are shortages as there were in France.  When shelves are bare, energy expensive, and working no longer offers hope of a better life.  Will the elite suggest when there is no bread, we should eat cake?

What Happens Next?

A post this morning (5/24/2020) on social media had me thinking about what happens when the governed lose faith in the government? Our history is built on the very premise the power of government comes not from some absolute right, but from the governed themselves. This was clearly articulated in the second paragraph of our Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.[1]

 Our founding fathers did not take lightly the steps they were about to take in their decision to abolish the ties with Great Britain but recognized what they viewed as oppressive taxation without representation in the government itself was untenable.

It seems to me for all their elite education and learning the progressive/liberal left have lost sight of the wisdom of these words. This pandemic is really bringing this into sharp focus, and although President Trump is doing an incredibly poor job explaining it, it seems to me he intuitively understands this and his actions speak to the common man or woman in how they want to live their lives. Trump has all the experts around him and chooses to follow his own path. Meanwhile all the experts and the political opposition are doing everything they can think of to shame him and the nation into doing what they think we should do.

We start with creating the panic, educating the masses on how to act, and then demanding they act by the prescribed solution sets. When education fails to achieve universal compliance our “experts” in science and the media begin a campaign of shaming those who find the burden becoming unreasonable. As our founders recognized we are for the most part willing to suffer through some burdens to maintain the government but at some point, those liabilities become so onerous rebellion becomes inevitable.

We take pride in our elections as a routine form of revolution.  As I think about this ongoing crisis the question for this coming election is not who is the best candidate, or VP candidate.  As much as the media would like that to be the question, the real issue is how much government are we willing to put up with, and who represents that choice of how we want to live our individual lives?  I wonder -- if through their actions, the Democratic governors of the North and Northwest will actually hand the GOP a revolutionary victory?

---

[1] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript