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I don't understand your claims in this paragraph at all. Britain, its former colonies, and the other states that those places controlled or influenced, can't possibly be an "outlier" when they represent such an enormous amount of people, land, wealth, and influence. There were only so many major powers at the time or in the immediate aftermath.
And what does Marxism have to do with this? Marx's main works were published around 50 years after the end of what is generally considered the Enlightenment, and represents a very different intellectual tradition. Maybe Marx and some his followers thought they were the following in the Enlightenment tradition, but I don't see it at all, except to the extent that you could group literally all Western philosophy into one big tradition, but which is far too broad to ask a question like "Of the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, which hewed closer in practice to the essential spirit of Enlightenment ideology?" Each generation of thinkers presumably takes influences from their predecessors, while also rejecting some of what came before. While you can have fuzzy boundaries for sure, I feel very comfortable placing the late-1800s socialists, the early- to mid- 20th century socialist states, and their apologists in Western academia, outside the purview of "The Enlightenment."
I'm not really sure I follow, but it is impossible to anticipate all of the possible ways in which someone might misinterpret or misuse your ideas. Aside from the infinite range of human excuse-making and rationalization and stupidity, if someone can ignore what you write about individual liberty, they can also ignore what you write about not ignoring the part about individual liberty.
Ok, but did Enlightenment thinkers actually say that? Or did some people just hamfistedly glue their unrelated complaints to vague ideas about equality and distrust of authority and hierarchy?
It wouldn't be hard to give examples that are much closer in space and time. Just look at the reactions to Martin Luther's theses, for example, which split down the middle of countries or even families. Or the differences across the groups of Albion's Seed.
I think it's less central than the American Revolution, but also, the new system didn't even last that long. Napoleon took over, then the Bourbon monarchy was restored, then you had the revolution of 1830, then another in 1848, then Napoleon 3rd declared himself Emperor until 1870. While this initial event had something to do with the Enlightenment, it seems weird to me to over-index on this one fairly short event. Modern France's government is based on what happened many decades later, while America is still using the same Constitution we had in 1792. As I described above, I might just be biased as an American, but violent revolution against the existing powers is nothing new. For example, do any of the things you identify as negatives in the Enlightenment also seem to describe the Hussite wars of 400 years prior, and if so, why?
People also argue that the American Revolution is a central example of the Enlightenment, and your post is largely about the differences between the 2 revolutions. So do you argue the American Revolution is not a central example? Do you agree that 2 things can be wildly different while still being part of one big intellectual movement? Do you think that all of those people you mentioned are just confused?
You originally asked, "I think a good place to start is with a simpler question: Of the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789, which hewed closer in practice to the essential spirit of Enlightenment ideology?"
In order for this question to be meaningful, there has to be an "essential spirit" which is not simply defined by the behavior of people in those revolutions, as the latter would be circular. It seems like your answer is to define this "essential spirit" as being closer to the French version mostly because that version was more... popular? Globally influential? Which is something you can do, I guess, but is mostly an empirical question and I'm far from sure that you're correct, and in any event seems fairly close to saying that Catholicism is closer to true Christianity simply because there are more Catholics than any other branch.
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