The French Revolution may not have been an isolated phenomenon, but it was far more fundamental than any of the other contemporary ones and its consequences were therefore far more profound. In the first place, it occurred in the most powerful and populous state of Europe (leaving Russia apart). In 1789 something like one European out of every five was a Frenchman. In the second place it was, alone of all the revolutions which preceded and followed it, a mass social revolution, and immeasurably more radical than any contemporary upheaval. It is no accident that the American revolutionaries, and the British 'Jacobins' who migrated to France because of their political sympathies, found themselves moderates in France. Tom Paine was an extremist in Britain and America; but in Paris he was among the most moderate of the Girondins. The results of the American revolutions were, broadly speaking, countries carrying on much as before, only minus the political control of the British, Spaniards and Portuguese. The result of the French Revolution was that the age of Balzac replaced the age of Mme. Dubarry.
In the third place, alone of all the contemporary revolutions, the French was ecumenical. Its armies set out to revolutionize the world; its ideas actually did so. The American revolution has remained a crucial event in American history, but (except for the countries directly involved in and by it) it has left few major traces elsewhere. The French Revolution is a landmark in all countries. Its repercussions rather than those of the American revolution, occasioned the risings which led to the liberation of Latin America after 1808. Its direct influence radiated as far as Bengal where Ram Mohan Roy was inspired by it to found the first Hindu reform movement and the ancestor of modern Indian nationalism...It was, as has been well said, 'the first great movement of ideas in Western Christendom that had any real effect on the world of Islam', and that almost immediately...
The French Revolution thus remains the revolution of its time, and not merely one, though the most prominent, of its kind.
- Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution. Vintage: New York, 1962. Pgs. 54-55.
When asked by Henry Kissinger in 1972 what he though of the impact of the French Revolution, Chou En Lai, the Chinese Premier and second to Mao Zedong, answered, "We Chinese feel that it is too soon to tell."
Hillary continued to boost her family values cred this week with more talk on the oft-derided Grand Theft Auto videogame. Apparently in the newest installment of Rockstar's franchise creation, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, an easily located modification can be downloaded which allows the user to enact "pornographic" scenes with various ladyfriends of the main character. Apparently the sexual content under discussion is actually embedded in the game and unlocked by the modification. A couple of thoughts:
1. The reprehensible violence in this game, much more offensive than the sexual content, seems to draw exponentially more comment than, for example, recently mentioned film content of comparable nature.
2. This game is obviously targeted to kids, and the sexual content was created by the developers of the game (likely intended to be discovered in this way). So obviously the rating needs to be changed from "M" (which is carried by most major retailers, and available largely to children from age 7) to "Adult" (which isn't and would be more difficult to obtain). However, it seems to me, anyone who has the internet saavy to download the modification, and replace the orginal program file with the modified one, and has the interest in seeing two animated characters boink a) has already seen much more explicit content on the internet, and b) will be able to obtain the game whether they are forbidden from purchasing it or not.
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