The Cult of the Modern by Murray-Miller Gavin;

Author:Murray-Miller, Gavin; [Murray-Miller, Gavin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS013000 History / Europe / France, HIS001030 History / Africa / North, HIS037060 History / Modern / 19th Century
ISBN: 4827165
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska
Published: 2017-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Exorcising the Ghosts of the Past

One didn’t necessarily need to be a positivist in order to appreciate the perceptive insights of thinkers like Comte and Littré. By the early 1860s, similar views were evolving among republican theorists and critics, many of whom expressed doubts regarding the practicality of modeling a political movement on rigid philosophical paradigms.57 Charles Dupont-White, a political writer with ambiguous republican leanings, warned against putting unwavering faith in attractive and fashionable ideas, finding them, on the whole, perfunctory and overly dogmatic. In his opinion, philosophy appeared neither “suitable to modern complexities” nor capable of “furnishing the oracles necessary to soothe the spirit.”58 Demands for more calculated and moderate forms of political engagement did not always translate into a full-fledged acceptance of Positivism’s philosophical program, as the remarks of the seasoned republican Edgar Quinet made apparent. Although convinced of the need for a “new generation” of republican leaders to break with the traditions of Jacobin terrorism, Quinet never imagined this new leadership succumbing to the “spiritual tyranny” he found implicit in Comte and his followers.59 Nonetheless, Quinet was one of the most strident advocates of a nonrevolutionary brand of republicanism and an acerbic critic of the violence and force valorized by Jacobin militants.

A quarante-huitard serving out his exile in Switzerland, Edgar Quinet addressed the subject of republican methods head-on in 1865 with his book La Révolution. In it, he argued that the French were consistently obliged to either accept or reject the Revolution tout court, never once considering that the principles of 1789 could be upheld without embracing Jacobinism or the Terror. “It is said that the Revolution is a Great Whole that it is necessary to accept or reject indiscriminately, without deliberation,” Quinet chided. “What! Without criticizing, without discernment, make a single mass of virtues and crimes, of light and darkness, adhering to it without bargaining over it, eyes closed.” Condemning Jacobin terrorism and the evident despotic elements embedded within republican political culture, Quinet accused those harboring radical aspirations of dooming the republic in France to repeated failures. In his assessment, the Republic had been won in February 1848 only to be undermined by the extremism of the June Days. No progress toward a republican form of government could be made in France until republicanism was cleansed of its ideological zealotry and violence. “We will only establish [the Republic] by forming new generations,” Quinet counseled, “who, breaking absolutely with the idolatry of force, carry with them the spirit of humanity that the world calls for without doubt, but is still very far from possessing.” 60

Writing to a friend in late 1865, Quinet confessed that his book was “written from the first to the last line in the spirit and passion of liberty, to which I have sacrificed everything. The value of this work is to awaken the public spirit and conscience!” Much as intended, the publication of La Révolution ignited a controversy within republican circles and stimulated heated debates over the meaning of France’s revolutionary and republican heritage.

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