Study Questions: Revolutions Outcomes and Critiques

1. People say that the Revolutions were two versions of institutionalizing Rousseau’s General Will. What differences were there? Did they lend credence to Rousseau’s idea that only small states could be democracies?

2. Since the US Constitution reflected conservative English opinion about slavery, failed to create a single state (as, for example Machiavelli had worked for), and enfranchised neither African Americans nor women, what was ‘revolutionary’ about it?

2. Rousseau and Madison both agreed that groups of citizens uniting to promote their group interest (they called them ‘factions’ or ‘partial societies’) are a threat to good democratic government. Current analysis suggests such groups are central to democracy. What differences are there between the two thinkers on this topic?

3. The label “Conservative”, often applied to Burke, has been used by polemicists and analysts as meaning some or all of the following:

1) attaching moral importance to ‘traditions’,

2) supporting the claims of the existing elites to their privileged positions,

3) adhering closely to moral values,

4) resisting social change, and

5) skepticism of abstract thinking.

Which of these apply to Burke?

4. Rousseau argued in the Discourse on Inequality that social inequalities were the product of conventions, not nature. How would Burke respond?

Application: What actions of Trump would judges of Burke categorize Trump as ‘conservative’?

Application: What steps concerning health care would fulfill revolutionary goals of the French or the US ‘Founding Fathers.?