22 September 2017

Revolution - II


Manners are flouted and customs broken. Foul language and direct insult become normal, in keeping with the rest of the excitement ... Printed sheets pass from hand to hand and are read with delight or outrage — Listen to this! Angry debates multiply about things long settled.

A curious levelling takes place: the common people learn words and ideas hitherto not familiar and not interesting and discuss them like intellectuals, while others neglect their usual concerns — art, philosophy, scholarship — because there is only one compelling topic, the revolutionary Idea ...

Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence