The 18th Century Radical

In the 18th century Europe underwent a cultural and intellectual; sometimes rather violent; revolution that took it to a new form of consciousness and populist fervor. The Enlightenment was a pivotal step in human development, which freed it from the shackles of superstitions and divine titles of power. In Immanuel Kant's essay "Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment," he calls it;

Mankind's final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error.

It is from this ideology, and its logical conclusions, the radical was born. Radicalism in the 18th century was much more than a realization that man's mind is his greatest tool; it involved being skeptical of the entire system and the very existence of entitlement, aristocracy, and power. And moreover, it was was the realization that liberty is seldom a vice.

Oftentimes, radicalism would violently clash with the forces they were working against; The French Revolution was a climactic bloodbath after centuries of feudal and royal rule - a rebellion against the divinely sanctioned institutions that was oppressing the commoner. It was the first truly violent overthrow of old order based on Enlightenment principles (the American Revolution was arguably not quite as great of an social upheaval), and ushered in the principles of inalienable natural rights, equality of peoples, and 'universal' citizenship. It was also perhaps the first time in Europe that the labouring class was successively mass-mobilized against aristocracy and oppression in regiments called the Sans-culottes; which favored revolutionary proto-Marxist ideas such as socio-economic equality, anti-free market ideologies, direct democracy, and availability of affordable necessities. Radical even by today's imagination.

Sadly many of these egalitarian Enlightenment attitudes evaporated in the aftermath of the Reign of Terror that ensued after the French Revolution, led by Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre, albeit some were kept alive in the United States in the years following the American Revolution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man however, the most beautiful creation during the French Revolution, seemingly lived on; standing as the ultimate testament to Enlightenment idealism inspired by the works of Jean-Jacques Roussaeu, Baron de Montesquieu, John Locke, and the American Revolution. It espoused in Article I, eloquently;

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

Although improperly put in practice, it served as an ideal and a reason for struggle for the French in years that followed, especially in the Revolution of 1848.

In the United States, many American radicals were in solidarity with the French struggle for equality, but were somewhat saddened by the widespread violence. Thomas Jefferson, a radical of the Enlightenment and father of the American republic, wrote very favorably of the French in principle, and was captivated by their vigor and passion, but could not ignore the bloodshed and killings of the 'counter-revolutionaries.' He writes in a private letter to American ambassador William Short;

The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is. I have expressed to you my sentiments, because they are really those of 99 in an hundred of our citizens. The universal feasts, and rejoicings which have lately been had on account of the successes of the French shewed the genuine effusions of their hearts. You have been wounded by the sufferings of your friends, and have by this circumstance been hurried into a temper of mind which would be extremely disrelished if known to your countrymen [1793].

Despite the violence, Jefferson remained optimistic of the ultimate end of despotism and tyranny. He writes in great hope and admiration commenting on the ongoing struggle in the French Republic and the Batavian Republic of Holland in a letter to Tench Coxe;

This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe, at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. It is our glory that we first put it into motion [1795].

This Jeffersonian idealism 'lives on', or rather should, in principle and in policy. The intellectual triumphs of the American and French Revolutions should not be forgotten nor ignored; and the principles written in John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government, on which Enlightenment social precepts were founded on and which Jefferson revered, will always stand true;

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.

It is on this basis that a free democratic society is formed and it is likewise why natural rights should never be forgone - no matter how noble the end result.