Just pointing out the obvious, but:
“the French have benefited in the long term from removing their aristocracy” =/= “suggesting that wide-scale genocide was justified in revolutionary France”.
6 Likes
The thread was important. The original post I responded to was “For the answer, of course, look to the solution adopted by the French in the 1790s.”. That sounds like advocacy to me.
When asked specifically what he meant by "For the answer, of course, look to the solution adopted by the French in the 1790s”, his answer was “Getting rid of the parasitic aristocrats”. I strongly disagree that that is suggesting that wide-scale genocide was justified in revolutionary France. In fact, the assertion that the French Revolution in general equates to genocide is a stretch indeed. There was one campaign during the Revolution that some consider genocide; opinions seem to be highly partisan about this. Interested readers might want to see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vendée#Genocide_controversy for more details.
One might suggest that the U.S. solution to ending WWII has had long-term benefits. This in no way advocates for nuking large civilian centers.
1 Like
One might argue about the definition of genocide and whether it is the correct term to use for the wide-scale atrocities that were carried out during The Terror (notably whether those that opposed the revolution constituted a people), but it was still atrocious and many people were killed for simply disagreeing with the mob (or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
In any case, that’s why I asked the question “Moreover, are you seriously suggesting that wide-scale genocide was justified in revolutionary France?”. If the answer is no, then perhaps the OP should be a bit more careful about caveating their distinctly provocative comment.
Agreed about atrocities, but the point stands that pre-revolutionary France was far worse for most French people than post-revolutionary. Is it better to be killed for disagreeing with the mob or for simply existing in the first place? Personally I would prefer nobody get killed at all, but I am fortunate to not live in a country where the leader tries to bring in an opposing country’s army to slaughter the leader’s own people, like Louis XVI did.
Well, not yet anyways 
3 Likes
I know that we live in a post-parody world, but I’m curious if you genuinely believed the original post was literally suggesting we start murdering the IOC? Did you report it to the FBI?
2 Likes
I don’t think the OP really thought very carefully at all about what they were saying - it was a quick throwaway comment designed to appeal to peoples antipathy of the elite, without really appreciating what they were saying. I despise such reactionary statements, and if it had come from e.g. Trump people here would rightly be appalled.
1 Like
Except presumably for the 2 million dead French who were killed in the wars fought by the post revolutionary regime?
We have the world we have, for better or for worse, because of the history we have. Some outcomes of the revolution and the Napoleonic Wars were positive, and some were negative.
I for one cannot hope to understand how appalling it is in Syria or North Korea, and I don’t pretend to know the answer to those particular problems. I just hope with all sincerity a solution can be found that doesn’t result in vast swathes of dead. One thing that seems to be a historical constant is that if you approach the problem with violence, you end up with those vast swathes of dead.
I can understand being genuinely put off by people flippantly invoking actual violent revolutions and slaughters in the service of a joke about the IOC.
Without diminishing what I said above, I don’t love this kind of analogy to a hypothetical situation. If we accept that flippant references to violent revolutions are bad, there’s still a huge difference between flippantly referencing a violent revolution to express an anti-IOC sentiment vs. flippantly referencing a violent revolution to express an antisemitic sentiment (for example). It’s fine and understandable to have big problems with the IOC. The kinds of things you’d see outrage about Trump saying would be outrageous because of their awful content, not because we are hypocrites about who can use a joke structure.
I’m considering starting a petition to rename The Olympic Games into
The International Display of Competitive Sports Medicine.
2 Likes
I mostly agree with this. The problem I have is the “flippantly referencing a violent revolution” bit. The sentiment that we need some kind of violent uprising to solve the worlds inequality problem is all too real, so it’s somewhat close to the bone.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
