If the United States is in the middle of a new American revolution, months and probably years will pass before its effects or causes are fully discerned. Even when structures are unstable and existing institutions lack legitimacy, “old regimes” never fall apart neatly and completely—they have to be taken apart piece by piece.
~ Rebecca L. Spang via The Atlantic
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The protocols and norms that emerged in the aftermath of 18th-century revolutions — the inviolability of private property, the abstract idea of the rights-bearing individual, the fiscal-military nation-state — are today under attack as forms of privilege themselves.
~ Rebecca L. Spang via The Atlantic
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In the summer of 1789, as peasants attacked chateaus and revolutionaries vowed to “abolish privilege,” many members of the elite felt that their world had suddenly fallen apart. In truth, it had been disintegrating for decades. Today, as in the 1790s, an old order is ending in convulsions.
~ Rebecca L. Spang via The Atlantic
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