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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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Test question shows a French peasant and a priest riding on a rich guy. Implication is that he is supporting them. Correct answer is “this image depicts France after the revolution.” I show up and point out that the nobility was destroyed (not esoteric knowledge) and largely the clergy too, and therefore this image cannot depict France after the revolution.

Was it this image I just found on the wikipedia entry for the French Revolution? If so, that would be (according to the caption on the entry) "the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back."

Actually, I suspect there probably is another version that depicts the Second Estate carrying the other two on its back ("a French peasant and a priest riding on a rich guy" as you describe) that is supposed to show the apparent situation after the revolution which you were shown, parodying the image I've linked to above

But either way, even after the French Revolution, France still had many rich people, right? Certainly the monarchy was abolished, and maybe the nobles were stripped of their titles or shunned from society or something, but somebody was still owning all those chateaux and vineyards and 18th century jewels, right?

They had rich people, but not in the service of the poor, the poor did not proclaim “vive le roi,” and the clergy did not become vessels of revolutionary justice, as the image suggests.

They show the kids the one you found and explain it, and then test “higher-order thinking” by showing the one I described, but the lesson is “different roles=reversed roles=opposite=after the revolution.” After the revolution, it was not the case that the peasantry and clergy were being supported by the nobles, but even if you didn’t know any of that, the chain of reasoning is still clearly fallacious.

There is indeed an image of the 3rd estate riding the 1st and 2nd that depicts conditions after the Revolution. You can find the original and the later parody here

http://davidmhart.com/liberty/Art/Class/ImagesAtlas.html

Which does somewhat put a hole in the criticism of the stupid colleagues if this is the image. And even if it isn't really, as neither the clergy or nobles were wiped out after the Revolution.

This is also a good example of epistemic learned helplessness. The teacher wasn't going to change his answer even though the answer was "proven wrong" by a complainant. This turned out to be the correct way to act.

Yeah, it's obviously riffing on the troisordres image, if it exists. I don't understand what sort of perspective it could come from. Is the rich guy a commoner, or nobility? If commoner, it's some sort of anachronistic libertarian perspective, I don't think rich commoners can afford to throw peasants under the bus just yet. If noble, they are usually allied with priests.

It seems like a dream of the ideal post-revolutionary period, but it’s so rosy that it looks like a cynic’s satire of revolutionary aims. It certainly doesn’t depict post-revolutionary France, though.

Sorry for being blunt, but I don't think the image exists as described, you must have misremembered. A satire of revolutionary aims would not have a priest sitting on a noble. The peasant would sit on both.

The priest on the peasant was a mistake. The image has a priest leading a noble, and a peasant riding the noble. It’s in the link someone posted above.

Yeah this is part of Reunion des Trois Ordres from 1789. And the interpretation of it being a depiction of post Revolutionary France is basically accurate. With the proviso that it is from just after the ancien regime was in theory abolished in 1789.

It is a depiction of revolutionary France from the time period itself. That doesn't mean it is necessarily itself factually 100% accurate.

"This print is in fact a combination of three etchings produced separately during the summer of 1789 to celebrate the overthrow of the political and social order in France following the Bastille’s fall and the legislative events of the night of 4th August."

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/obl4he/frenchrevolution/1_reunion_de_trois_ordres.html

The central and right images were paired as pendants and sold to commoners celebrating the revolution, so I don't think the idea it was a cynics idea holds up much.

A more accurate answer might have been: This is a depiction of France after the revolution as viewed by someone celebrating the reversal of fortunes between the 1st/2nd and 3rd estates. But depending on the level of the class, I am not sure you need that level of accuracy.

I can’t believe this has elicited such a response. Thanks for finding the original and clearing up the intent of the image. Looks like the idealism was because the revolution had just begun- not a cynic’s take, but the dream of a true believer. “The summer of 1789,” though, is in no way “France after the revolution,” any more than “The autumn of 1939” is “Germany after the Second World War.” “This is how things stood in France after the revolution was all over” is not a correct explanation of the picture, but that was the agreed-upon answer for 17 years.

It is a depiction of post revolutionary France however. Remember a depiction does not have to be true or accurate.

So the answer to the question what does this image depict? Is France after the revolution. It may not be how it ended up. But the intent of the artist was to depict French society post revolution.

Okay- I see where the miscommunication is. The question was not "what is this image?" The question was "Now that the entire section on the French revolution is over, show that you understand the overall course of the revolution by saying something about this image, which you have never seen and know nothing about." These types of questions are popular here. If a kid said something like "Well, it looks like what the 3rd estate wanted, but the priest is now holding scales of justice and is happy, so the artist seems to like priests, but they killed a lot of priests in the Terror, and for some reason the noble is just accepting that he now supports the peasants, but there was a counter-revolution and a lot of exile" that would be great, and worse answers would be less great. But instead the kids say "Well, this is clearly the reverse of the image I HAVE seen, and the teacher told me that that was France before the revolution. This must therefore be France afterward." To reason like that shows no knowledge of the revolution at all, and even suggests ignorance, since the situation depicted, if it existed at all, only existed for a short time in the early stages. Such an answer is straight-up guessing the teacher's password. When you try to explain that to the teachers (not Lesswrong, but that the answers do not show understanding) they are unable to comprehend even the possibility of the problem, let alone specific instances of it.

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Yeepee, we got the right to hunt in our own forests now! Living high on the hog off the sweat of all those aristocrats! Although I've cooled down considerably on siding with the oppressed in the last two centuries, at the time, I'm sorry, those things weren't nearly enough, and nothing compared to the old regime's oppression.

Well to be fair, they did guillotine quite a lot of nobles as well. But yes there is definitely an argument that even in this idea of celebration and switching roles, they weren't exactly.....revolutionary.

Not at the time they hadn't. Ok, one or two lynched & head put on pike, like the governor of the bastille, but that's just a workplace injury.

yeah that makes sense

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