Virtue and TerrorIn this dazzling new series, philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek interrogates key writings on revolution. Robespierre's defense of the French Revolution remains one of the most powerful and unnerving justifications for political violence ever written, and has extraordinary resonance in a world obsessed with terrorism and appalled by the language of its proponents. Yet today, the French Revolution is celebrated as the event which gave birth to a nation built on the principles of enlightenment ... So how should a contemporary audience approach Robespierre's vindication of revolutionary terror? Zizek takes a helter-skelter route through these contradictions, marshalling all the breadth of analogy for which he is famous. "If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless." |
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Page xlvi
... deputy of the Constituent Assembly and then Montagnard deputy in the Convention . Member of the Committee of Public Safety , one of the organizers of the Terror ; for a long time he was close to Robespierre but turned against him on 9 ...
... deputy of the Constituent Assembly and then Montagnard deputy in the Convention . Member of the Committee of Public Safety , one of the organizers of the Terror ; for a long time he was close to Robespierre but turned against him on 9 ...
Page xlvii
... deputy in the Convention . A de - Christianizer , he was close to the Hébertists and was guillotined alongside them . Danton ( Georges Jacques ) 1759-1794 : a founder of the Cordelier Club in 1790 , he became the Minister of Justice on ...
... deputy in the Convention . A de - Christianizer , he was close to the Hébertists and was guillotined alongside them . Danton ( Georges Jacques ) 1759-1794 : a founder of the Cordelier Club in 1790 , he became the Minister of Justice on ...
Page xlviii
... deputy in the Estates - General , he led the National Guard in July 1789 . La Fayette wanted to reconcile the king and the Revolution , and was responsible for the shooting of demonstrators at the Champ - de - Mars . He then set up the ...
... deputy in the Estates - General , he led the National Guard in July 1789 . La Fayette wanted to reconcile the king and the Revolution , and was responsible for the shooting of demonstrators at the Champ - de - Mars . He then set up the ...
Contents
Introduction | vii |
Suggested Further Reading | xli |
Chronology | xlix |
Copyright | |
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9 Thermidor accomplices accused Alain Badiou allies ambition Applause aristocracy armies Assembly attacks Austria authority called calumnies Camille Desmoulins cause citizens Committee of Public condemned conspirators constitution corrupt court crimes dare declared decrees defenders democracy democratic denounce despotism destiny dictatorship divine Dumouriez duty eternal Europe faction favour fear fighting foreign France French Republic French Revolution friends of liberty Girondins Glossary homeland honour human individual interest intrigues Jacobin Jacobin Club justice kings legislators Louis XVI Maximilien Robespierre ministers Montagnards moral National Convention national representation nature Oeuvres oppressed oppressors ourselves Paris Paris Commune passions patriotism people's representatives perfidious persecuted plotters political pretext principles proscribed Public Safety punish reason Reference Republic's republican revolutionary government Revolutionary Tribunal Robespierre ruin sacred sans-culottes scoundrels September Massacres slander Slavoj Žižek social society terror Thermidor traitors triumph truth tyranny tyrants universe Ventôse decrees victory virtue weakness