12 - The King Is Dead, Now What? The 250-Year Struggle for Democracy (Part 1) - Human Nature Odyssey

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You and your spouse are the
king and Queen of France.
The year is 1789.
Oh, you awake to another
glorious dayin the luxurious Palace of Versailles
and are attended to by a roomof nosy nobles vying for your favor.

(00:24):
Courtiers dress you in a lavish
white silk robe and the finest furs.
On your royal head sits the royal crown,
adorned with gems and jewels.
Breakfast is a feast
prepared by 300 servantsfirst oysters with champagne,
a creamy chicken soupand you can smell your favorite.

(00:47):
The savory aroma of roasted pheasant
with truffle oildrizzled on golden souffles.
You peruse your private librarythat holds some of the most rare
and important textsin Western civilization.
Then you strollthe intricate mazes in your gardens,
lined with ornate fountainsand exotic species from the New World.

(01:08):
Afterwards, you ride horsebackthrough your royal forests, ancient groves
of beech and chestnut, majestic landscapesthat stretch for miles.
Just be sure to make it back in timefor council with oil ministers
and dignitaries who keep you abreastof the goings on of your vast kingdom,
from the mainland to your coloniesoverseas.

(01:34):
You, of course, were born to runhand-picked
by God along with the other membersof the nobility.
You're not going to get some commonerto run society after all.
And this system of absoluterule of one over
the many has lastedfor thousands of years.
But this is all about to change.

(01:58):
In a few weeks time,
the countryside will descend into anarchy.
Peasants will revolt.
Your castles will be stormed.
And finally your royal headwill be removed from your royal body.
The monarchy will come to an end soon.
The people will rule.

(02:26):
Welcome to
human nature, Odyssey, a podcastexploring the past that shaped our present
and the ideas that can shape our future.
I'm Alex Smith.

(02:55):
Okay, so I think a lot of us
are looking around at our countryright now.
Whichever one that might be.
Or taking a good look at our globalcivilization and thinking, you know,
I'm not so sure about this directionwe're headed in.
I think that's most of us, right?

(03:15):
I mean, how many people are happywith the way society is headed?
We all may have different opinionson what's wrong
and what directions could be better,but there seems to be
a general consensus.
Maybe the one thing we all agree on.
That things are not right.
So then the questionis, well, what do we do about it?

(03:38):
How do we change our society?
How do we change our social structures?
The way our society is organized?
That's politics, right?
That's what politics is trying to shape,how society is run.
Now, back when there was a king, backin the days of Louis the 16th.
Politics was not for everyday people.

(03:59):
Oh, well,what are you peasants talking about?
Shut up, shut up!
The king's going to do the king's thing.
Don't worry about it.
That's how it's always been.
And that's how it's always going to be.
But then there was a littlesomething called the French Revolution.
And the French monarchywas replaced by a French republic.
And over 200 years later,

(04:21):
the idea that the people have the rightto determine
their governmenthas spread across the globe.
In 2020, four, more countriesthan ever before in world history held
national elections India, Pakistan,
South Korea, South Africa,Ghana, Mozambique, Belgium, Portugal,
Uruguay, Mexico,the United Kingdom, the United States

(04:45):
and 52 others held national elections.
Different issues
dominated each country's headlines,like minority Muslim rights in India.
Power outages in South Africaor government corruption in Mexico.
But the political partiespromising ways to protect, stop
or fix them are moreor less mapped on to what we call.

(05:08):
But the, the political spectrum,
you know, the political
spectrum got a left wing and right wing.
In Mexico's election, the left wing won.
In South Africa.
The center was reelected in India.
The right wingis getting another shot at it.
And you probably have your own opinionsabout the left wing and right wing.

(05:30):
Who doesn't?
The notion of a political spectrumis so ingrained that it impacts
not just how we talk about politics,but how we identify as people.
I am a liberal.
Oh, I am a conservative.
But these are just metaphors.
This is a map we use to navigate ideas.

(05:51):
It's not a timeless biological reality.
Yet this map, the political spectrum,holds immense power over us.
It limits and guideswhat we believe is possible.
It constrains and informshow we imagine our future.
Today, we live at a crossroads.
Our global civilizationis more powerful than ever before.

(06:15):
And as its power has grown,so have the dangers
it faces the prospect of worldwar, climate catastrophe,
and the unraveling of the living worldwe depend on.
All greater existential threats
than perhaps any time in human history.
And here we are, living rightsmack dab in.

(06:37):
But there still is so much possibility.
There's still a worldwhere peace is possible.
Basic needs are met.
Where we live in balancewith the rest of the natural world.
The collective path we all take
and the map we go by
will be determinedby our political systems,
which operatewithin the political spectrum.

(07:00):
But surely the route we need to
travel is more complexthan just the left or the right.
Where do
we get this idea of a left wingor a right wing anyway?
How is it in a world of such diversityof languages and traditions and religions?
There's just two fricking wings.
What are we, a bird?
Well, it all startedduring the French Revolution.

(07:24):
And if we want to expand our map and charta better direction,
that's where our story needs to begin.
When there's breaking news,
reporting usually does a lousy jobat providing context.
It's often the most surfacelevel information they can share before

(07:46):
cutting to commercial.
Without the decades,even centuries of social, political,
and economic dynamics that ledto the breaking news in the first place,
we forget that the past was filledwith regular people
and that current events are not an epilog,but part of history.
There is no real separationbetween history and the present.

(08:07):
It's one continuous story.
And as we'll see, the phenomenonwe called the French Revolution
and its aftermath is not confinedto the past, but still unfolding today.
As we learnedin episode 11 of Human Nature Odyssey,

(08:28):
which if you listen too great,
but you don't need to have in orderto listen to this sociologist
and historian Emmanuel Wallersteinset out to create a conceptual
framework to help us see the storywe're all part of.
So he wrote World SystemsAnalysis on the political
and economic structuresthat shape our global civilization.

(08:49):
In that episode,we focused on the economic side of things
how capitalismmolded our modern world system.
But Wallerstein believedit wasn't just capitalism
that formed our modern world system.
It was the political strugglefor democracy that began
with the French Revolution.
In this three part series.

(09:10):
We're exploring the originsof that political struggle,
and by the end, we'll have followedthis unfolding story right up
to the present moment.

(09:32):
Since the fall of the Roman Empire,
most of Europe had been a land of kings.
The few countrieswithout a king like the Dutch,
Venetians and Swiss or exceptions.
And they still had a small group of eliteswielding power
over the rest of the lower classes.Don't you worry.
They weren't crazymonarchies were the norm.

(09:53):
Medieval Europeans knew thatthe ancient Roman Republic, elected
members of a Senate and parts of ancientGreece had something called a democracy.
But in the mind of most Europeans,that was just ancient history.
But recently, Europeanswere coming into contact
with some Native American nations,like the Iroquois Confederacy,

(10:16):
whose elected representativesmade decisions collectively
and were free from absolute rulers,which the Europeans thought was very odd.
But Europe was changing.
And over a couple centuries, the Europeanmindset slowly started to shift.
In 1762,
French philosopher Jean-JacquesRousseau came to believe

(10:39):
that freedom was naturaland monarchy was not.
Rousseau famously wrote, quote,
man is born free, but everywherehe's in chains.
A couple of years later, Denis Diderot,another French thinker,
put it a little more bluntly quotemen will never be free

(11:00):
until the last king is strangledwith the entrails
of the last priest.
So by the year 1789,
the people of France were not happy.
Even King Louis the 16th knew that.
But did he knowjust how unhappy France had long been?

(11:21):
A highly stratified society,divided into the clergy,
the nobility, and everyone else?
But now more and more peasantswere complaining that the top
1% of the nobility ownedalmost a third of the land in France,
and somehow the wealthier you were,

(11:41):
the less you had to pay in taxes.
On top of this,the Treasury was facing economic troubles
from costly overseas warsand famine in the countryside.
The people did not have enoughbread to eat.
But as King Louis wife,Marie Antoinette, may
or may not have actually said,let them eat cake.

(12:02):
Besides.
Come on.
Times have been tough before,but the monarchy has always survived.
I mean, this is Louis the 16th.
We're talking about the 16th.
There's been 16 of them.
And that's just the Louis.
But just in case.
This is whyevery king needs a good executioner.

(12:23):
And there was none better than Charlesand Reason.
He was King Louis royal executioner.
And Charles on reason wasn't justyour average run of the mill executioner.
Now with a 40 year career.
CharlesHonoré was the best in the business.
I'm Tony.
If you needed someone,if this was your guy.

(12:44):
But in
July of 1789, a mob stormed the Bastille.
Peasantsburned their official feudal contracts,
and thousands of Parisian womenarmed themselves with muskets
and pitchforksand marched on the Palace of Versailles.
The calls for liberté, égalité, fraternité
were heard from the largest citiesto the smallest towns.

(13:07):
France was now in the throes
of a full on revolution.
And when the revolutionary forces capturedKing Louis
the 16th and sentenced him to death,guess who they called
King Louie's ownexecutioner, Charles Henri Sanson.
That's right.
Charles Henry was giventhe task of executing his very own

(13:29):
employer of 40 years.
But do you think the best executioner
in all of Paris hesitated for one momentbefore killing the king?
I doubt it. The man's a profession.
Study boss.
So, after
centuries of monarchy, the king is dead.
Now what, sir?

(13:51):
Kings have been killed before, butthey were always replaced by another king.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
There's that runaway British colony.
I think they're calling themselvesthe United States.
They broke away from the King of England,but they didn't kill him.
England itselfnever even fully parted with its monarchy.
There's still a frickingking of England today.
But the people of Francenot only ended their monarchy,

(14:15):
they created something entirely different.
A democracyin the form of an elected republic
for the French people.
The revolutionfelt like a totally new world.
And the people decided,you know, let's get crazy with this thing.
Not only are we going to havea new form of government,
we need a whole new calendar.

(14:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's no longergoing to be 1789 in the year of our Lord.
That's so Christian and King.
That's old news now.
This is year one.
And we're not calling the monthsJanuary, February and March anymore.
Now, from now on.
The months will be knownas, grape harvest.

(14:58):
Yeah, yeah.
Followed by missed months.
Then frost months and so on.
The days will be ten hours long,
and, weeks will last for ten days.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And each day will be namedafter a plant or flower or fruit.
So we'll call today Apple Day.

(15:20):
Yeah. That's good.
That's good.
Tomorrow will be celery day.
And then. Oh, of course, pear day.
Oh, but what if we named each fifth day
after an animal like,Goose Day or Turkey Day or
or, Oh, donkey day.
I mean, everybody'sgoing to love donkey Day, right?
Okay, who?

(15:41):
Oh. And we'll name every 10th dayafter a farming tool like, plow day
or shovel day,or my personal favorite, barrel day.
Yeah, it's pretty good. Pretty good.
The new FrenchRepublic actually used this calendar
from 1792 to 1806.
Or. Oh. Sorry.
From year one to year 14.

(16:04):
And, honestly,I think we should go back to it.
And the French Revolutiondidn't just have new ideas
on how to structure societyor write new calendars.
It had some pretty innovative ideason how to kill people to.
This was thanks to a brand new invention,the guillotine, which consisted
of a heavy steel blade quicklysevering someone's head from their body.

(16:28):
While that might seem like a horrific wayto go, at the time,
it was actually consideredthe humane alternative.
Unlike traditional forms of execution
like hanging or beheading by an ax,
at least the guillotineguaranteed a swift and sudden death.
But before long,
things got a little out of hand.

(16:52):
Because how can you knowwho really supports the revolution
and who's just faking it?
Well, Maximilien Robespierre emergedas one of the most influential
revolutionaries, earning his reputationas the master of the blame game.
Hey, Jack.
The innkeeper says he misses the king,Robespierre declared.

(17:12):
So Jack was sentenced to death
and. And Marc Andre the baker.
She was baking pastriesin the shape of Marie Antoinette's face.
That's not very revolutionary.
And so, Marc Andre was also put to death.
But one day,
someone accused Robespierreof not being revolutionary enough.

(17:35):
And Robespierre, the expert fingerpointer, took his turn at the guillotine.
No, no, no.
Once the revolution began,
it was like a dam burstingfrom years of pent up suicidal anger.
The worst of it was calledthe Reign of Terror.

(17:55):
At its height, about 300,000
people all over France were arrested.
Half the population of Paris at the time,
17,000 were executed, and 10,000 suffered
slow deaths in the dungeonswithout ever getting a try.
Even the people who initially wanteda revolution

(18:16):
were now pretty horrifiedat how things had spiraled out of control.
How dare you say that?
What do we do when we don't
behold a whore?
What does this have to dowith the political spectrum?
The left wing and the right wing?
Well, when the revolution was first

(18:37):
breaking out to avert further chaos,
a National Assembly was assembled.
Wealthy commoners from across the country,
along with the members of the nobilityand clergy, gathered in a large meeting

(18:58):
room to debate how much power King Louisthe 16th should have.
Some declared nun viva
la revolution, while others were aghast.
What are you talking about?
King who is the best?
As the debatereached, two major factions emerged.
Those for revolution and those against

(19:20):
people started seeding themselveswith those they agreed with.
And in this large meeting room,the seating was divided into two physical
weights.
One member of the nobilitywho was actually there wrote, quote,
I tried to sit in different parts ofthe hall and not to adopt any market spot
so as to remain morethe master of my opinion.

(19:42):
But I was compelledabsolutely to abandon the left,
or else be condemned always to vote alone,
and thus be subjectedto jeers from the galleries.
Those for the revolution
eventually found themselvessitting on the left wing of the room.
And those for monarchysettled down on the right.

(20:03):
And that is where we get the terms
left wing and right wing.
So the French Revolution waswhen the left wing and right
wing were first introducedinto our political vocabulary.
And shortly after,a couple more terms were added
that you'llrecognize liberal and conservative,

(20:27):
of course.
Liberal and conservativetendencies have always existed.
If you mean those
who want to stick with tradition versusthose who want to change it.
But in the wake of the French Revolution,those personal tendencies
evolved into something new, something
the French call an ideology.
The word ideology was actuallyfirst coined in a French prison

(20:52):
by an aristocratic philosopher awaitingtrial during the Reign of Terror.
He defined ideologyas the science of ideas.
But what the heck?
What do you mean ideology was invented?
Having people always had a set of ideasor theories.
Well, Emmanuel Wallerstein in WorldSystems Analysis argues that, quote,

(21:15):
an ideologyis more than a set of ideas or theories.
It is more than a moral commitmentor a worldview.
It is a coherent strategyin the social arena
from which one can draw quite specificpolitical conclusions.
In this sense, one did not need ideologies
in previous world systems,or indeed even in the modern world system

(21:38):
before the conceptof the normality of change, unquote.
He's essentiallysaying that when living under a monarchy,
a system where tradition is normal,but change isn't.
You don't need an ideology.
You just need to know if you'refor the king or against the king.
But when there's no longer a kingand social and political change becomes

(22:02):
normal, you have to have an opinion onwhat kind of change you want.
And these camps formed.
The first ideological campthat emerged was called.
Thank God I took French in high school,so I could pronounce this
conservatism.
Or for you
English speakers out there, conservatism.

(22:24):
You may sometimes hear conservatives
referred to as reactionary.
This isn't because conservativesjust go around reacting to everything.
It's because conservatismoriginally formed in reaction
to the French Revolution.
Just like the people who sat on the rightwing in the National Assembly,
the conservative ideologyessentially went,

(22:46):
do you see what frickin happenswhen there's not a king?
You say you don't like kings,but what about the people?
Remember the reign of terror?
Did you see how crazy people got?
So that was rightwing conservatism perspective.
But then somethinga little ironic happened.
There was this one guy.
His name was Napoleon.

(23:08):
Even though
this was a few yearsafter the reign of Terror, Napoleon staged
a coup d'etat, overthrewthe young French Republic,
and named himself the Emperor.
Now, you might be thinkingconservative would love this.
They wanted the king, after all.
But Napoleon would have been the firstto tell you.

(23:30):
No, no. I'm not a king.
This isn't a monarchy.
I'm for the revolution.
Yeah, I love republics.
Everyone should have a republic. What?
Just because I'm an emperor,I can't love republics.
Oh! Come on.
An emperorand a king are totally different things.
An emperor?
Napoleon was such a firmbeliever of liberté, égalité, fraternité

(23:53):
that he decided the rest of Europe
needed a generous helpingof the French Revolution as well.
So Napoleon and his army,when Galvan ING across Europe,
they invaded Spain,Portugal, Austria, Prussia, Rome,
Germany and Italy didn't exist yet,or they would have invaded them to.

(24:21):
Now, while Napoleon's
France wasn't really a democracy anymore,
even though it barely had been wonsince voting rights were limited, Napoleon
at least spread the idea of democracyto other European countries.
And while many people resentedbeing invaded.
Plenty of folks thoughtthis whole democracy thing was actually

(24:41):
not a bad idea.
But as Napoleon spread revolutionary ideasacross Europe,
he accidentally spread something elseas well a conservative backlash.
The reign of Terror was bad,
but at least the chaoswas confined to France.
Now the plan's making thiseveryone's problem.
And it wasn't just.

(25:01):
The leaders of the invaded countrieswere resentful.
Plenty of commoners
resented the break down of ageold traditions and social order, too.
It was around this timethat philosophers like Edmund Burke
helped crystallize conservatisminto an ideology.
Burke was skepticalthat much good would come from a republic

(25:22):
where leaders campaigned to be elected.
In his bookreflections on the Revolution in France,
he wrote, quote, when the leaders choose
to make themselves biddersat an auction of popularity, their talents
in the construction of the statewill be of no service.
They will become flatterersinstead of legislators.

(25:45):
The instruments,not the guides of the people,
if any of them should happento propose a scheme of liberty.
Soberly limited and definedwith proper qualifications,
he will be immediately outbidby his competitors,
who will produce somethingmore splendidly popular, unquote.

(26:05):
Beyond being
skeptical of electionsas popularity contests, Burke
was wary of sudden change and believedtradition should be upheld.
He also kind of calls commonersa Swedish multitude at one point.
But Burke would say, well,look at what happened in France.
Clearly, the average personcan't be trusted to make wise decisions

(26:27):
in world systems analysis.
Wallersteinemphasizes, quote, faith in hierarchy
as both inevitable and desirableis the hallmark of conservatism, unquote.
And for conservatives of this time,
hierarchy was not just arbitrary.
It's divinely ordained.
So conservatives agreed.

(26:49):
We definitely need a king.
Well, I have good news for conservatives.
Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815at the famous Battle of Waterloo,
forcing him to give up his throne,
his crown,and probably most painfully, his pride.
The guy who
once supported the revolutiononly to make himself emperor

(27:11):
was exiled to Saint Helena, a tiny islandin the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
where he spent the rest of his days.
After the fall of Napoleon,
the most powerful monarchies of Europegathered for the Congress of Vienna.
Come on, let's go. Wasn't it?
Then check out this place.

(27:33):
Nice sturdy cones. Oh,
this place is decked outin luxurious furnishings.
Look by the brilliant chandeliers.
Oh, man. All the big names are here.
Emperor Francis, the first of Austria,
saw Alexander the first Russia.
King Frederick Williamthe third of Prussia.

(27:53):
And Lord Castlereagh of Britain.
And these guys are discussinghow to make sure
that kind of French chaosnever happens again.
Sounds like they're alltotally on the same page.
I sounded kind of cute.
When despots get along.
They all agree.
France needs a normal fricking king again.
But it shouldn'tjust be some random guy like Napoleon.

(28:15):
The King is supposed to be ordainedby God.
That's why the king's sonis usually the next in line.
Shh. Okay. The talking.
Okay, okay.
Next son. Next son.
Who is only the 16th. Next son.
Oh, God. What?
Louis the 17th died in a Frenchprison cell during the revolution.

(28:35):
Jesus.
Okay. Who's next?
Any other Louie's out there?
Oh. That's right. Yeah.
There's Louie, the 16th brother.
Also named Louie. Perfect.
What are the chances?
We'll come.
Louie the 18th.
And finally, all will be back to normal.
And it kind of was.
The French monarchy was restored,but it was never quite the same.

(28:58):
Louis the 18th knew his ascensionto the throne wasn't exactly popular.
So to compromise, he agreed to make ita constitutional monarchy.
That meant there'd besome limits to his power
and to be a parliamentthat even commoners could be elected to.
You had to be a rich, property owningcommoner, of course, and also a man.

(29:19):
But there was one thing.
Louis the 18th was not compromising on.
We're finally getting ridof that stupid calendar.
What day is it?
Donkey day. No, it. It's Wednesday.
We're calling it Wednesday again.
But even though the French Revolutionfailed,
it proved that monarchy wasn't invincible.

(29:40):
Change was possible.
Other countriesconservatives were concerned
about France's influenceon the rest of Europe.
Conservative Prince Clemensvon Mednick of Austria remarked, quote,
When France sneezes, Europe catchesa cold.
Many conservative leaders, like Mednick,
feared that changeinevitably leads to revolution.

(30:03):
So they did everything they couldto resist it.
However, there was another responseto the fear of revolution.
Reform.
If revolution was a kind of sicknessthat could spread to others,
then as Mike Duncan, author and hostof The Revolutions podcast, explains.
Reformers argued that to preventa revolution, governments

(30:27):
needed a sort of inoculationto revolution.
A small dose of change before
it became a deadly contagion.
This was the birth of the second ideology.
Liberalism.
Conservatismwas a reaction to the French Revolution,

(30:48):
and the liberalism was a reactionto conservatism.
Liberals heard the conservative argumentand went, whoa, whoa whoa,
hold on, guys, hold on.
I actually think it's goodthat change happened.
I agree, I agree. The French revolution.
Holy crap. That was nuts.
But you want to know whyit got so out of hand?
It's because we didn't havea democratic mechanism

(31:09):
to allow gradualchange to happen over time.
We need to have some kind of balanced,moderate and civil process
that can address the issuespeople are concerned with.
The liberals were more or less contentwith Louis the eighteenths
constitutional monarchyand whatever they weren't content with.

(31:30):
They at leastnow had a way to make their voices heard,
even if their voices weren'talways listened to.
And like conservatism,liberalism spread across Europe.
The first group to actually use the termliberal as a political label were Spanish
citizens who pushed for their ownconstitution in 1812.

(31:50):
The term liberalism first appeared
in English a few years later, in 1815.
So the 1820s
became the 1830s,and the 1830s became the 1840s.
In a decadesto a new type of building was developed.
It was called a factory, where

(32:11):
things could be manufacturedquickly on a mass scale.
These factoriesbegan popping up all over Europe.
And this new contraption,called a locomotive train, slithered
like a snake on trackscarrying passengers at unthinkable
speeds, even up to 30mph.
Some critics worried whether such speedswould injure the human brain.

(32:33):
Meanwhile, this starchy vegetablefrom the Andes mountains in South America,
the potato became a major food stapleacross Europe.
It was planted everywhere from Irelandto Russia
and became the primary food sourcefor most peasants.
But this kind of monoculture,where a single crop is planted

(32:53):
as far as the eye can see,can be vulnerable to disease like blight.
And that's exactly what happened.
You've heard of the Irish Potato famine,but mass starvation wasn't
limited to Ireland.
The 1840s in Europestarted to be called the Hungry 40s.
Widespread famine was followedby a continent wide recession

(33:14):
and financial crisis,which only made the food shortages worse.
And though the French Revolutionfaded from living memory
to something you heard aboutfrom your grandparents or read in history
books,it stayed alive in many people's minds.
Everyone had their own opinionon the French Revolution
as far east as Poland,north Sweden and south of Sicily.

(33:38):
Nobles, the wealthy,even some commoners, had a stance.
Was it a horrible atrocityor something that didn't go far enough?
Was the reign of terror inevitableor a tragic mistake?
Was the French Revolutionan inspiration or cautionary tale?
If Europe celebrated Thanksgiving,this would be

(33:58):
one of those topicsnot to bring up with your family.
And in every European country.
The undeniable question was,Will a revolution
happen here?
Right wing conservatives
did everything they could to ensurethe answer was no.
Many liberals arguedthat this fear of revolution

(34:20):
was exactlywhy monarchies should embrace reform.
But liberals did not exactly representwhat had been
the actual leftwing of the French National Assembly.
You know, the peoplein favor of revolution.
Since the National Assembly,the revolutionaries have been pushed
to the fringes of political discourse,meeting in cafes

(34:41):
or muttering under their breathsin the fields and factories.
It was in these spaces that the left wing
evolved into a third ideology radicalism.
And radicalism is a confusing word
because in this historical context,it doesn't just mean extremism.

(35:02):
It's actually its own ideology.
There can be extremists in any ideology.
And radicalism
wasn't just about revolutionfor the sake of revolution.
It was an ideologycentered around specific ideals
like social and economic equality,the separation of church and state,
and expanding who's allowedto participate in government.

(35:26):
But when conservative French politician
Francois Geisel heard the complaints thatonly the rich were able to participate
in the new French government,Jizo responded, on which they view
get rich.
But while the left wing radicalsmay have held no real positions of power,
their ideas began to spread.

(35:49):
At the beginning of 1848,a little pamphlet was published
called The Communist Manifesto,
written by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx.
It argued that Europe's power struggle
wasn'tjust between the king and his subjects,
but between the wealthy bourgeoisieand the poor proletariat.

(36:11):
Since the French Revolution,
conservativeshad dominated politics across Europe.
Liberals held some influence,but it was pretty limited.
Radicals could only theorizefrom pamphlets and book clubs,
but that was about to change.
Marx and Engels posited that a revolution
of the proletariat wasn't just necessary.

(36:32):
It was inevitable.
Conservative leaders,for the most part, were not too worried.
It's just radicals being radicals.
But in January 1848,
Alexis de Tocqueville,the Minister of Foreign affairs
in the French government, spokebefore his colleagues of the legislature
and issued a grave warning.

(36:55):
Quote,
I am told that there is no dangerbecause there are no rights.
I am told thatbecause there is no visible disorder
on the surface of society,there is no revolution at hand.
Gentlemen, permit me to say thatI believe you are mistaken.
True.
There is no actual disorder.

(37:17):
But it has entereddeeply into men's minds.
Do you not
see that they are gradually formingopinions and ideas that are destined
not only to upset this or that law,ministry, or even form of government,
but society itself,
until it totters upon the foundationson which it rests today.

(37:37):
Do you not listen to what they sayto themselves each day?
Do you not hear themrepeating unceasingly,
that all that is above them is incapableand unworthy of governing them?
That the distribution of goods prevalent
until now throughout the world is unjust?
That property rests on a foundationthat is not an equitable one.

(38:00):
And do you not realizethat when such opinions take root,
when they spreadin an almost universal manner,
when they sink deeply into the masses,
they are bound to bring with themsooner or later.
I know notwhen or how a most formidable revolution.
This, gentlemen, is my profoundconviction.

(38:23):
I believe that we are at this moment
sleeping on a volcano.
And turned out
that the Tocqueville nailed it.
The volcano was about to erupt.
Let us see it
one day.

(38:44):
A mysterious poster appeared on the narrow
cobblestone streets of Palermo, Sicily,which,
like most of Europe,was under monarchical rule.
The poster read, quote,
in a few days there will be a revolution.
Sicilians rise up.
Your moment of freedomhas arrived, unquote.

(39:05):
It was signed by the RevolutionaryCommittee.
The thing was, there was no such thingas a revolutionary committee.
Historian Christopher Clark explains
that the poster was a sort of prankby a radical.
Clark goes on, quote.
Sure enough, on the daythat the revolution had been announced for

(39:27):
everybody did show upto see what was going to happen.
Nothing happenedbecause nothing had been planned,
except that the troops had been doubledand tripled throughout Palermo, unquote.
So a massive crowd of ordinary people
gathered, waiting to see if a revolutionwas going to happen.
While soldiers were stationedto prevent the

(39:48):
violence broke out between the two groups.
And this, ironically, was what sparked
the revolution.
Word of the unrest
in Sicily traveled slowly,moving from town to town
as the recently inventedtelegraph was still not widely available.
So news traveled up the Italian peninsula

(40:11):
across the Alpsand eventually reached Paris.
The culturaland political heart of Europe.
When the people of Parisheard the small island of Sicily
was having a revolution,they essentially went, oh, nice job, guys.
But where the revolutionary process.
We'll take it from here.

(40:31):
In 1848,the King of France was Louis Phillipe.
The first?
Yeah. That's right.
Yet another Louis and King Louis Phillipe
feared his subjects getting riled up overwhat was happening in Sicily.
So he banned an upcoming banquetfor liberal reform,
which backfired and riled the people upeven more than the banquet ever could.

(40:54):
Thousands of people took to the streets,
building barricades out of whateverthey could find tables, chairs,
dressers, pieces of cobblestoneor broken down carriages.
These barricades blocked the roads,effectively shutting down Paris.
You can actually see for yourselfwhat this looked like.
One of the earliest photographs ever takenwas of a street in Paris

(41:17):
lined with the barricades in 1848,
opposed to pick on a Patreon.
The next day, in an attemptto placate the angry masses,
King Louis Phillipedismissed his minister, Francois Geisel.
You know the guy who said, get rich?
But even this wasn't enoughto stop the revolutionary fervor.

(41:37):
Paris turned into a war zone.
Many soldiers sidedwith the revolutionaries,
realizing the jig was up.
King Louis Phillipeput on a disguise and fled the country.
In just three days, the people of Franceyet again toppled their monarchy.
But for the rest of Europe,things were just getting started.

(42:00):
Over in Austria,
students marched on the Imperial Palace
and soldiers opened fire on the crowd.
Workers joined the students in solidarity.
In response,the Austrian emperor promised reforms
and dismissed the conservative chancellor,Prince Clemens von Mednick,
the same guy who said When France sneezes,Europe catches a cold.

(42:21):
Mednick turned out to be right.
Europe was catching a cold.
But little did he know,he would be personally ejected from power,
like a used tissue in a trash can.
And the contagiononly continued to spread from there.
Revolts broke out in Hungary.
There was a revolution in Prague,then Romanian.
In Berlin.

(42:42):
A young law student wrote of the euphoriaovertaking his city, quote.
My heart was beating so hard I thoughtit was going to blow a hole in my chest.
I had to get out of my room.
He ran out of his roomand joined thousands of others in the soot
covered streets.
Quote I felt I could heareverybody else's hearts beating.

(43:03):
There were
more revolts in Denmark than Poland.
The Pope fled from Rome,and for the first time in almost 2000
years,the people declared a new Roman Republic.
By the end of the spring 1848,
most of Europe had erupted in revolution.
Conservative monarchies

(43:24):
were shocked by how swift and intensethe uprisings were.
But within months they organized counterrevolutions to regain power.
Austria's emperor asked Russia's czar
to send Russian troopsto help crush the Austrian rebellion.
And here's the interesting thing.
So when Russian troops invaded Austria,Russia wasn't at war with Austria.

(43:46):
It was at war with Austria.
The Liberals and radicals.
These weren't wars between countries.
They were wars between ideologies.
Allegianceto ideology proved to be more important
than allegiance to one's own country.
Even though liberals and radicalsjoined together
for the sake of revolution,they were far from united.

(44:08):
The liberals, mostly made up of the middleand upper classes, wanted
moderate reforms like participationand government for those who own property.
The radicalsmostly made up of lower classes
like workers, students and artisans,didn't just want reform.
They wanted an end to the monarchy,a redistribution of wealth

(44:28):
and the rightto vote, regardless of owning property.
And while radicals fought on the streetsand liberals drafted constitutions
from the safety of meeting rooms,resentment from these ideologies grew.
But this temporary alliance of liberalsand radicals
helped win some initial victories.
Prussia, Austria, Tuscany,Switzerland, Denmark and Hungary

(44:50):
all wrote constitutionsfor the very first time, promising
to expand participation in governmentand to limit the powers of the king.
The people of
France, after having successfullytoppled their monarchy in just three days,
replaced it once again with a republic.
But many French radicals feltthis new republic

(45:11):
still only served the wealthy.
So France, being the revolutionaryprose, had a second revolution.
The very same year, this time
the radicals fought against the liberals.
The liberal French governmentcracked down hard on their former
compatriots,deploying 40,000 troops to Paris.

(45:31):
The streets were soonfilled with radical black.
And this didn't just happen in France.
From Berlin to Milan, Budapestand Krakow, radicals
resisted the new liberal reformsin favor of something more.
Surprise, surprise.
Radical.
Meanwhile, conservatives

(45:52):
saw this divide and used itto their advantage, offering to help
suppress the radical protests in returnfor rolling back liberal reforms.
And in many cases,
the new Liberal governments,desperate for order, accepted this offer.
What began as an alliance between liberalsand radicals

(46:13):
ended as an alliancebetween liberals and conservatives.
Sicilian revolutionary Francesco Kripke
reported that, quote,the moderates feared the victory
of the peoplemore than that of the troops, unquote.
The wars raged on for months,
but by the summer of 1849,

(46:33):
the revolutions were completely crushed
and many liberal reforms were undone.
The new constitutions were abolishedand parliaments were dissolved.
France invaded Rome, defeatedthe new republic, and reinstated the Pope.
Kings and emperorswho once promised change, now declared.
Never mind.

(46:55):
Even in Palermo, Sicily,where the revolution began,
the Sicilian kingcrushed the uprising into submission.
When all was said and done,almost none of the attempts
to establish democratic republicswithstood the counter revolutions.
The only exception was France.
But they elected Napoleon's nephew,

(47:15):
who pulled a classic Napoleon moveand declared himself an emperor.
Turning France back into an empire.
Thank you very muchfor democratically electing me.
I will now be your emperor,and there will be no more elections.
De Tocqueville was
right thata volcano was about to erupt in Europe.

(47:38):
But after the dust settledand the lava hardened,
the volcano remained intact.
Historian AJP Taylor
refers to the 1848 revolutionsas the quote turning point
that did not turn.

(47:59):
What began
as a conversation in France'sNational Assembly
between a liberal leftand right wing, now raged across Europe.
And before long, the rest of the world
as kings were dethroned and Europe'sformer colonies gained independence.
People around the world faced the questionthe king is dead now.

(48:22):
What?
Thanks for listening.
This was part one of a three part series.
In the next two episodes, we'll tracehow the ideological struggle
between liberals, conservatives,and radicals continued to evolve,
fueling worldwars, cold wars, and culture wars.

(48:44):
We'll explore the rise of new ideas,forms of government
strategies, and the strugglenot only against monarchy,
but against capitalism itself.
History continues to unfold.
The past is the present,and the future is being written.
And until next time,I hope you'll consider

(49:05):
how the historic struggles are playing outand current events.
What echoes of the past do you hear today?
What can be learned from what came before?
How might the future be different?
Well, I don't knowexactly how they'll shape the future.
But joining the Human Nature OdysseyPatreon certainly wouldn't hurt.

(49:26):
There,you'll have access to bonus episodes,
additional thoughts and writings,and audiobook readings.
Your support makes this podcast possible.
If you enjoy Human Nature Odyssey,please share it with a friend.
Thank you to Brian, Nori, Mark,
Hanin, Maggie,Nina, Jessy, Scheer, Michael,

(49:47):
and Alexis for your inputand feedback on this episode.
This series is made in associationwith the Post Carbon Institute.
You can learn more at resilience StarTalk.
And as always, our theme music isCelestial Soda Pop by Ray Lynch.
You can find the link in our show notes.
Talk with you soon.

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12 - The King Is Dead, Now What? The 250-Year Struggle for Democracy (Part 1)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}12 - The King Is Dead, Now What? The 250-Year Struggle for Democracy (Part 1)