Ethical attitude to revolution

Revolution like many other social phenomena, also has pompous, human and historic figure, and also has a rough, Unpredictable and disastrous figure. Cond Verse has stated this dichotomy in the book “The historical picture of the progress of human thought” in other words that “We see that the efforts of recent ages makes progress in the thought of human but it does not help much in the evolution of human; it has added to greatness and human glory and to some extent also helped to performing the freedom, However, Almost nothing has not done to ensure his happiness.” Conservatives focused most on the second face and they knew that it is almost devastating and spoiler. Effects that examine good and bad aspects of the revolution in a balanced way, are rare. Perhaps the most important of them had been the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville that is about the French Revolution which, as previously mentioned, hating from the tangible realities of the revolution with respect, for values that the revolution was called with them, has been gathered. Tocqueville spoke from revolutionary from a new type which from his opinion, its agents were from the most illiterate and ignorant levels. In his view, the worst feature of Revolution was the success of intellectuals in agitation of "The lowest classes of society”. Tocqueville knew the success of intellectuals in the result of the inability of the former ruling groups in a sense of solidarity among the public. He hated the intellectuals because in his opinion, they claims to make a sense of solidarity with people but actually it is not and in fact, they lose the traditional principles of solidarity. The victory of democracy means that the traditional ruling groups could not base their power on the habit of obedience of their nationals. But in the view of Tocqueville, French Revolution was political revolution in the sense that mentioned and also was social revolution. Socially revolution eliminates the residual of feudal society and what he thought that America was achieved through peaceful development, French Revolution got it in a violent manner. This achievement was the promotion of the idea of equality for all. Other experts about the results of the revolution have not been judged very balanced. The Proponents have been considered it almost as leading and historic thing and the opposition have been considered it as destructive phenomenon, ineffective or tragic. One of the dominant attitude among the proponents and the opponents has been the dramatic attitude. In this attitude the notion is this that absolute good and absolute evil are arrayed against each other. Hero and anti-hero are considered respectively embodies all the virtues and all ugly. The hero of the story of revolution may be "the people", "Oppressed", "the masses", "the proletariat" or abstract idea like freedom and democracy and anti-hero may be categories such as “oppressors", "Exploiters", "aristocracy", "bourgeois" or the king. From the perspective of proponents, the story of revolution ends with the victory of the hero against enemy. For opponents also the story is dramatic. The difference is that their hero defeats there by the infernal enemy. Such an idea about the result of a revolution, with the two polarization of society is harmonious.
Conservative ideas of Edmund Burke about the French Revolution was representative of dramatic approach from the opponents of the revolution. According to his opinion, in the revolution, quantity over quality, equality over freedom, homogeneity over diversity and abstract intellect over the stable tradition were victorious. The community in the thought of Burke was not based on rationality but was based on tradition and long-standing prejudices and revolution that attempts to eliminate these prejudices will involves great harm to the body of the community. Freedoms and the established rights of the society were also based on the same prejudices. Human can only change a little in the society and in the language of Burke, efforts of extremist revolutionaries in the fear level of revolution will be disastrous to coordinate the community with the abstract ideals. According to Burke French revolutionaries wanted to destroy the traditions and established prejudices because they considered that these were irrational and prevent from progress and sought to base the society on a new ethical principles, however, according to Burke: "We know that in the field of ethics, new discoveries has not been taken and will not be taken. In the basic principles of the government and also in the thoughts of freedom we cannot made many new discoveries.” What that revolutionaries know them as "prejudices", are not Irrational and unjustified but are rational beliefs that most people do not want or cannot find a rational justification for them. People behave mostly according to the prejudices without thinking about them; In fact, if they spend their time on this work, they did not have longer life time for other action. In addition, ordinary people does not need to rational justification of the community but should know the only way to live normally. Prejudice was also the intellectual collective of the human in the history. Burke in this regard speaks from “bank and general capital of nations and ages". This general store is not the result of an accident but the result of rationality and the experience of human history and is considered as protectors of the personal life. "It must be feared that work and life of each person become just assign and transfer to his intellectual private source, because in our opinion this storage and source is very small in each man and instead of that, it is better that people enjoy themselves from reserved and intellect capital of all nations and ages. Many of scholars, Instead of discarding the traditions and public prejudice, are using their knowledge to discover the rational element in themselves." From the viewpoint of Burke, we cannot start from scratch in any time and accepted again the problem of rethinking of all solutions that man has achieved in history but the revolutionary man tries in vain that starts from scratch and does not take long that he understands the absurdity of his career. If civilized man of today lives more comfortable, It is not because of this that his gaining of personal intellect is more that the human intellect of the primary time But it is because that he experienced more and also has longer civilization behind it. Sudden changes of traditions and customs and prejudices of the past that is the goal of the revolution, means damaging to the fabric of society. According to Burke tradition is not the enemy of knowledge and wisdom but it is only another form of them. Apparently in this case we must give right to Burke that most extremist revolutionaries forget his points and they do not pay attention to the facts exactly and they always wish too much of their power. But the main problem of the Burke’s opinion is that he assumes the development of the revolution by revolutionaries, while more or less independent revolutions extend development from the will of the revolutionaries and when power of structure collapsed, they will get benefit of it.
Tragic attitude toward the revolution is more profound and scarcer attitude. In the tragedy the forces are engaged with each other that each of them separately, partially or totally are acceptable. The Tragedy is the field of collision of various moral forces that are in conflict with each other but are in right way if they are alone. From the tragic view, history or social phenomena will not be considered from the absolute victory of the good forces on the evil forces. The result never is coordinator with the wishes and the first desire. But these are the result of blind debate but necessary. In the Tragedy debaters are not completely good and also are not absolutely destroyed. Each of the involved forces in the conflict from a perspective is morally superior than the other; none of them are not absolutely on the right and or absolutely not on the wrong. None of revolutionary and none of counter-revolutionary are not considered absolute pious or completely misleading. It may be that among the "dictators" found the person with the best manner, or among the "liberals" found the most terrifying Dictators. According to the speech of Thomas Scheler "When answering this question, that "Who is guilty? » become clear, we do not have tragic character.” From the point of view of tragic, motion of history does not follow a particular value system. The world is not totally incompatible and is not totally compatible with the aspirations of the people and between of our demand and what occurs in practice, there has been considerable distance. Some of the roots of this attitude can be found in the thought of Max Weber about the process of rationalization of the world. According to his opinion, rationalization of the world is not a necessarily desirable process but it is necessary. Extension of rationality means increasing in complexity, organizing the affairs and increasing human dominance on its environment. But despite the growing rationality, the element of irrational behavior will not destroy and the world fundamentally and primarily will remain irrational. According to the Weber’s opinion, Sources Element of irrational behavior; including human emotional life, accident caused by nature or human behavior and especially the conflict of values, this means that the main value of human life never put in one direction and not coordinated. The value of human life basically is significantly diverse. Man always places to choose the various ways that all of them more or less are acceptable.
The most important tragic feature of revolutions are their huge failure in comparison with the stated goals from the primary supporters. Revolution is not in accordance with the intentions and wishes of the revolutionaries, because in the determining of the result, except the intention of actors, many complex factors are involved. Hannah Arent more than any other thinker for this reason knew the result of so many of revolutions as tragic. According to the Arent’s view, revolution literally is an attempt to achieve freedom, but often just in achieving this goal faced to the defeat. Arent in the discussion of the goals of the revolution distinguishes between positive and negative liberty freedom. Negative freedom means emancipation of the individual from the fetters and the absence of barriers in the way of saying freedom and his needs. But positive freedom achieved in the right of informed choice and intellectual independence and a moral of person. The most important manifestation of positive freedom is participation in political life. Freedom with this meaning is realizing only in the special political regimes. According to the Arent’s idea on the other hand the most effects of negative freedom is releasing of the people from poverty. People to achieve to this negative freedom with this meaning, May do the rebellion and protesting. But the revolution with the intended meaning of Arent is done not to achieve a negative freedom but for achieving the positive freedom. Trying to escape poverty and oppression cannot lead necessarily to the emergence of true freedom of man. Of course Revolution sometimes and at the beginning also takes steps toward to the achievement of negative freedom. But the final goal of the revolution is the creation of a new political order which in it continuation of the positive freedom guaranteed. Revolution with this meaning is only and basically Political Phenomenon and is not economic and social; Freedom is achievable only in the field of politics and revolution must lead to the development of political institutions which they are guarantee freedom. But the tragedy of most of revolutions is this that they have failed to achieve their goals that it is reaching to the establishment of freedom institutions. Revolutionaries despite their demands cannot bring the positive freedom. Because along the way, another objective appears and changed the path of the revolution. This other goal is "Social problem" or the problem of mass poverty. Revolutionaries under the pressure of this problem provide the negative freedom for the masses and they forget the main objective. According to the Arent’s idea, trying to solve social problems through political leads to the fear and the fear with the meaning of failure is the "great tragedy" of revolution. On the other hand, for the Revolution, escaping from such a fate is also impossible, because the revolution which its main feature is massive participation cannot stay indifferent about the social problem. In the French Revolution, the masses put the leaders of the revolution under pressure to provide negative Freedom. As a result, the revolution went to the misleading and took place to the emergence of a more devastating arbitrary of what it was before the revolution. According to the Arent’s idea, the real needs of the masses always take revolutionary leaders to the action against the positive freedom. But unlike the French and Russian Revolution, the Revolution of the United States happened in a better economic and social conditions, so consequently social issue could not dominate on the process of the revolution. However, the French Revolution which had a catastrophic eventualities, has been the traditional model of the revolution and has left a lasting impact on the history of the revolution, while the victorious revolution of the United States is known only as a historical event. According to the Arent’s idea, in the traditional and well-established pattern of revolution positive freedom is forgotten and instead of that, revolutionaries know their mission to solve the social problem and as a result they are dominant on the path of the revolution and they found a new authoritarianism. Leader of the Revolution destroyed the grassroots and democratic organizations which occur during the revolution as a direct popular government organizations. Eliminating of these institutions and councils means the elimination of positive freedom and this transformation is the features of tragic revolution.
Arent had Ideal image from the revolution in his mind that in comparison with historical revolutions certainly were flawed or even were considered against of it. Also, Arent did not notice that revolutionaries may put social problems or any other problem for their political mobilization and conflict of power. In this case, what Arent called it as the tragic fate of the revolution was the only consequence of conflict of the authoritarian groups. In conditions which struggle for power performed outside of legal predetermined frameworks, readily authoritarian and power will become personal.