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submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Explanation: "We should bring back the guillotine" or similar is a common internet quip in response to billionaires doing billionaire things, when in reality the guillotine was invented to provide equal and humane deaths to people of all classes, and from there it was always a tool of the state rather than the people. Not the best euphemism for "we should depose the bourgeoisie." In fact plenty of Revolutionary justice folks were themselves offed by the guillotine during the Terror.

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[-] [email protected] 33 points 4 weeks ago

It was also pretty symbolically used to chop the head off of dear old Louis XVI and his wife (the royals), and end the Royal order in France. (Not that what came after was that much better, but the symbolism stands more if u look at it that way).

[-] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I'd argue that it was involved in the class war between the ruling feudalist classes and the bourgeoisie; class struggle/war is a tale far older than capitalism or feudalism.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago

That would've made it the most bloodless war in history then. Basically all aristocratic authority ceased to matter the moment the Estates General asserted itself as the National Assembly, and the abolition of feudalism in France happened in a night in the Assembly, with sometimes enthusiastic noble support. This understanding of the French Revolution is based more on myth than reality.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 4 weeks ago

Seems like your logic is technically flawed, though.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago
[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Why give the bourgeois all the ceremony the nobility got if a good ol' firin' squad will do? /j

this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
26 points (78.3% liked)

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