The 18th Century: Revolution and Rage

The 18th Century: Revolution and Rage

After the shock of the 16th Century and the denial of the 17th century, we finally enter the anger stage of the 18th century.

If the 16th century was being perplexed at modernity, and the 17th century was pretending it isn’t there, the 18th century was a full blown tantrum. This was the century where people collectively said: "Screw the old world. BURN IT DOWN!"  After centuries of monarchy, church control, rigid class structures, and feudalism clinging on like a bad rash, people across the globe just snapped. And can you blame them? In France, they dragged royalty through the mud (and then through the guillotine). In America, they told the British Crown to take their tea taxes and shove it in Boston Harbor. In Haiti, enslaved people rose up and overthrew their colonizers in the only successful slave revolt in history. In Latin America, Poland, Ireland, and countless other regions, people revolted.  It wasn’t just about kings and taxes. This was anger at centuries of control, superstition, economic injustice, and repression. People saw the cracks in the old world and don't want to patch this up. They want to blow it up. And it wasn’t peaceful, either. For every elegant Enlightenment essay written by Voltaire or Rousseau, there was a mob storming a palace, a rebellion in the fields, and a city in flames. 

This was the century where much of the West stopped trying to revive the old world and started punching it in the face. By the 18th century, the world could no longer pretend the modern age hadn’t arrived. Denial gave way to rage. If the 17th century was a retreat into traditionalism and absolutism, the 18th was a lashing out against kings, churches, empires, and anything that smelled like the past. This was the age of revolutions, not just political but emotional. People weren’t just dissatisfied but they... were... furious. Furious at monarchs who ruled by divine right. Furious at priests who claimed authority over souls. Furious at a social order that insisted their place was fixed and ordained. The Enlightenment was born, yes but not in calm lecture halls. It was forged in pamphlets, prisons, salons, and eventually, in blood. In many ways, this was the century where people said: “If the old world is dead, then let’s make sure it stays dead.”

Unlike the escapist world of the 17th century, the 18th century heavily emphasizes how much the Western world is not a very good place to live in, describing it as a hell hole, with bleak urban environments full of crime, poverty, and trash and waste everywhere meant to show societal decay. This was all to showcase the failure of the traditional world. The cities are seen as overcrowded and oppressive and the premodern world is viewed through a much more cynical lens. In fact, the 18th century was when most of the myths about the Middle Ages came from. This was the century where the Middle Ages was seen as a barbaric, dark time of superstition and backwardness. This was done to show out how outdated the Medieval worldview was and how we need to overthrow it and start something new. Even the thinkers of the Enlightenment were furious. They were furious that ignorance still ruled, that power was inherited, that the church could still punish someone for "heresy" in a supposedly enlightened world. Ideas turned to gunpowder...and they lit the match. A lot of 18th century philosophy and politics can be seen as vented frustration towards the early modern world. The anger era was almost a complete 180 of the denial stage in this way. A complete break from the traditional, pre modern life and breaking headfirst into the real world. To them, they feel that quote “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” In a way it makes events and works that come out of the 18th century feel a bit more timeless and always seem relevant and has more of an impact than events and works that come out of the 17th century. Most Americans are probably not going to know what’s said in the Mayflower Compact or watch period pieces about the Pilgrims but almost everyone would know about what happened during the year “1776” since it’s not as cheesy or pretentious as some old, dusty Puritans.

Of course it can go too far in the other direction and be considered “edgy” or “radical” both by people well past the anger stage and by those still stuck in denial. This “edgy” “radical” quality is a pretty good indicator to describe this anger. Anger staged politics and philosophy is pretty divisive. Unlike the traditional, apocryphal beliefs of the denial stage, anger beliefs are often pretty ugly and quite often, more controversial or at the very least could be seen as more offensive in some way to the point where Enlightenment era writers like Voltaire and Rousseau have to flee their countries or towns so they don’t get arrested. Whether that be political books that advocate against monarchy (The Social Contract), works of satire that obviously criticize aristocrats and the nobility, or even the emergence of “political cartoons” meant to mock and caricature politicians and other higher class figures. This wasn’t really a thing before the 18th century. Even the Enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, were often in angry dialogue with each other. But even in disagreement, it was clear that the world could not go back, and those who tried were enemies of history.

Now I’m just going to say something here that is going to be very, very controversial, so let me explain. The controversial statement is as follows: everything is done with an agenda, history is written with an agenda and therefore all history can be interpreted as propaganda. Before anyone gets angry, this is not to suggest that history is devoid of fact or that every historical event isn’t true, but rather that the writing, teaching, and examining of history are going to be inescapably shaped by power, ideology, and purpose. History is not just about what happened; it is about who gets to decide what matters, how events are framed, and why certain narratives are elevated while others are buried. From the moment an event is recorded, it becomes subject to interpretation. Who writes the account? Whose perspective is prioritized? Which sources are included, and which are dismissed as anecdotal or irrelevant? The answers to these questions are rarely neutral. In every era, dominant powers have used history to serve their interests, using it to justify authority, rally national pride, or scapegoat enemies. I know "history is written by the victors" is a cynical cliché but it is a recognition of how historical narratives are forged by those in power but it is also true that history has also been used as an agenda by those in power who support those not in power. 

And also just because something is true it does not mean it is the only lens to view things through. It is also a true statement to say “everything can be thrown away as trash”. However it should be obvious that perpetually viewing everything as “everything can be thrown away as trash” is a messed up lens to view reality through and should not be adopted as anything more than a thought experiment. Likewise viewing all history as propaganda is a dangerous lens to wear at all times; however it is also a very useful lens to look through for this series so entertain this lens but don't let it consume you. 

Perhaps the most glaring example of how history functions as propaganda lies in how we are taught about the Enlightenment and the revolutions of the 18th century. These events are almost universally framed as triumphant turning points in the march toward reason, liberty, and progress. We are taught to view them as the dawn of modern democracy, the moment when the West finally broke the chains of superstition and monarchy. But this is a narrative with clear ideological function. It reinforces a particular worldview: that liberalism, secularism, and capitalist democracy were not only inevitable, but unquestionably just.

Yet, in the very time these revolutions were unfolding, they were met with widespread criticism, skepticism, and even horror not just from monarchs or the Catholic Church or the nobility, but from thinkers, peasants, and dissenting intellectuals who foresaw instability, hypocrisy, or new forms of oppression in what was hailed as emancipation. These voices have largely been silenced or caricatured in historical narratives. At best, they are brushed off as “out of touch conservatives,” and at worst, they are omitted entirely. While many defended tradition and hierarchy, they also expressed deep concerns about the unchecked violence and extremism of revolutionaries, especially in France. Their arguments weren’t merely nostalgic appeals to monarchy but warnings about how rapid societal upheaval can lead to tyranny and bloodshed. They are rarely presented as legitimate critics with valid insights, but rather as relics of a past best discarded. Their function in mainstream historical teaching is not to complicate the Enlightenment narrative, but to reinforce it by serving as the “wrong side” of history.

Why is this framing so persistent? Because the Enlightenment story serves a purpose. It legitimizes modern political systems, particularly liberal capitalism and secular democracy. It tells citizens that their institutions are not only better than what came before, but born from a belief of rational thought and universal human rights. To critique this history, or to amplify voices that did so in their own time, is to destabilize that foundation. And so, history becomes a form of propaganda not only in what it says, but in what it refuses to say.

There was this assumption in the 2010s from “anti SJW” channels about how SJW media was propaganda or that the media has a bias and that's probably true. Many of these people often call themselves "classical liberals" who idolize the Enlightenment and the 18th century. They have false belief that SJW entertainment or media is propaganda and modern progressives are pushing an agenda whereas the Enlightenment era works was somehow not propaganda and the Enlightenment thinkers were somehow not pushing an agenda, when in reality the Enlightenment of the past was no less propagandistic than the “SJW” stuff of 2016, for these anti-SJW types the classical liberals’s works was merely propaganda that they agree with or if it was something they disagreed with at the very least the propaganda was subtle enough that they could have an “agree to disagree” mentality or ignore it. 

People are quick to shout propaganda when something offends them while ignoring the

propaganda in the things that they like. One thing that always seems consistent with these classical liberal, anti SJW types was that they all seem to love the Enlightenment and they usually uphold the Enlightenment and talk about how we should return to those values rather than the values of modern progressives and liberals even though the Enlightenment is the most guilty of the very things these classical liberal anti-SJW types complain about the only difference is that liberals were just far less confident in the 2010s with their messaging than they were in the 18th century. Propaganda has become a lost art. I believe this anti SJW movement was largely an example of anger, anger at the progressive globalized world today and a need to return to the 18th century which itself was a period of anger. The content and philosophy of the 18th century was very similar to the messaging of today, it was just far more appealing and overall more professional in its approach. Today the tone is much more hostile and reckless to most people's sensibilities but make no mistake the messaging was nearly identical and the criticism was nearly identical. Although later on, the “anti SJW” skeptical community has gone away and is mostly dead and nowadays you almost see no right wingers or people online idolizing “classical liberals” or the Enlightenment with many recognizing the idolizing of the 18th century Enlightenment era as the propaganda that it actually was and realizing how nearly identical the messaging of that time really was. 

Things like colonization and slavery in the Americas became more normalized during much of the 18th century. Whereas in the 16th century, people were seeing it as shocking and new, and in the 17th century it was often mostly ignored or used to push the old way of life, the 18th century attempted to show how nasty everything was in an appeal to realism. Not necessarily drawing huge attention to it nor hiding it. Empires and slavery were just sort of…there. It wouldn't be until the late 18th century - The American Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Sons of Africa - that colonization and slavery were also questioned, although it wouldn't be until the 19th and 20th centuries when both are completely dismantled.

While the first half of the 18th century experienced anger in written form, the second half was when that anger began to be put into practice and often through a quite violent response.  The American Revolution wasn’t just about taxation but it was about annihilating the idea of monarchy altogether, replacing it with a republic of reason, rights, and representation. It was an act of intellectual fury where a group of colonists declaring they didn’t need a king or a Parliament from across the ocean to tell them who they were. Then came the French Revolution, and here the anger reached volcanic levels. The guillotine became the symbol not just of punishment but of historical rejection. Nobles and priests and even the monarch weren’t just removed from power but they were executed, en masse, as symbols of everything wrong with the old order. The Church was de sanctified. The calendar was reset. They even tried to rename the months. Elsewhere, empires and monarchies shook. The Haitian Revolution, led by enslaved people, obliterated plantations and led to the slaughtering and massacres of slave owners. There was a revolt in the Congo over Portuguese control. There was the Gordon Riots in England. The Tacky War, an enslaved African rebellion against British colonial slavery and other slave revolts occurred in the Caribbean. There was the Irish Rebellion of 1798.  The Industrial Revolution, too, was a revolution of another kind, as it was a rebellion against scarcity, limits, and dependence on the natural world. It said: “We will control nature, and we will no longer suffer by its hand.”

And let’s be clear: the anger wasn’t always productive. France experienced the Reign of Terror where anybody suspected of being against the republic was beheaded. Much of it was ugly, reactionary, or chaotic. New hierarchies emerged. Power, once shattered, was quickly seized again.  This was the century when the West, still mourning the loss of its medieval innocence, turned on its own grief. The modern world couldn’t be denied any longer... so instead it was shouted at, fought over, deconstructed, and rebuilt in fury. 

The 18th century tore down the sacred, burned the inherited, and demanded that the world answer for its sins. It was a century of fire, not just to warm, but to destroy. 

Now as strange as it may sound, despite how radical I make the century come across as, it is not as liberal or modern as today, and there was a lot more of the values of the premodern world compared to today. While not as traditionalist as the 17th century denial era, it is nevertheless still wants to keep many parts of the old order than say the depression era of the 21st century. It is delusional to think that 18th century activists and revolutionaries were these atheist Redditors and progressive liberals like today. People of the 18th century were still heavily religious, believed in traditional gender roles, and has social views more similar to someone on X (formerly Twitter) than a Democrat politician today. To take up arms and fight requires some semblance of hope that you will actually have a chance at succeeding. That hope is still present in the 18th century. I must retain that the 18th century anger era still had hope for a better future. Each subsequent stage of grief becomes less and less optimistic, another step further away from the premodern world view. It is NOT this black and white picture where the 17th century has this idealistic religiously pure utopia perspective and that everything after just rejects anything old and has this bleak view of the world. The real picture would be much more like shades of gray with each step becoming darker and darker and darker over time. This is an important thing to remember. It is not as simple as "denial or no denial" there is a gradient. Even in later stages, there is still some delusion going on. People will never stop coping. History is based on how much people cope over issues and their response. The difference between the 17th century and 18th century is that the 17th century says "We can escape from it all and live a simple life." Whereas the 18th century says "If we can fight and protest for change, then we can live a simple life." This creates and optimistic assertion that we have more power than we can actually possess, and that if we approach life with enough hot sauce and vinegar then we can just sort of force our way into having good things against all odds. This is an idea that future generations can plainly see will not function for them. Just because this view is not as delusional as the denial era, does not mean that the anger view is inherently realistic. It still possesses some naive assumptions about how the world works. It is still a cope, we all cope. People have coped and people will always cope.

I bring up the French Revolution as a big example of revolution and how it’s the anger stage but the French Revolution also may be the event that represents possibly the final nail in the coffin towards the anger stage. The French Revolution is often celebrated as a triumph of liberty over tyranny and toward democracy and human rights. Yet beneath the lofty slogans of liberté, égalité, fraternité was an undercurrent of fury, an anger so intense and indiscriminate that it often tore down more than it built. At its core, the Revolution was driven by a righteous desire to end oppression. But in its obsession with destruction, of kings, churches, customs, and even moderate voices, it became a whirlwind of fury that frequently devoured its own ideals. The initial anger of the French people was in good intentions. The old regime was a deeply unequal system, where the aristocracy and clergy enjoyed privileges while the majority, peasants and the emerging middle class, carried the weight of taxation and hunger. The upper class were still stuck in the denial stage of the 17th century, still believing that the king had full power and people should know their place. Decades of financial mismanagement, crop failures, and royal excess fed a growing rage. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, was not merely a symbolic act but was an eruption of frustration and hope. For many, this was the birth of a new France. 

But revolution is a fire that easily spreads beyond its intended borders. The people’s anger, once a tool for reform, quickly became an end in itself. The guillotine, designed as an "enlightened" method of execution, became the Revolution’s grim icon used not just to punish tyrants, but to silence dissenters and eliminate political rivals. The Reign of Terror, led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins, institutionalized mass executions in the name of virtue. The Revolution began to consume those who had started it. Georges Danton, once a leading revolutionary, was executed for being too moderate. Robespierre himself, architect of the Terror, met the same fate he had imposed on so many. What started as a movement to end tyranny morphed into a regime of fear, purging enemies real and imagined.

The Revolution's fury did not stop at people as it attacked institutions, traditions, and history itself. Churches were desecrated. Notre Dame was transformed into a “Temple of Reason.” The calendar was abolished and replaced with a revolutionary version meant to erase Christian and royalist influences. The goal wasn’t merely to reform society but was to completely wipe the slate clean. This radicalism undermined stability. France was left politically fractured, economically weakened, and socially traumatized. In place of the old monarchy rose a succession of regimes, culminating in Napoleon Bonaparte’s rule, a return to centralized power that the Revolution had vowed to abolish.

What made the French Revolution uniquely self destructive was its lack of a unifying, pragmatic vision beyond destruction. It had grievances but no consensus on solutions. The result was a cycle of purges, power struggles, and ideological extremism. While some progressive changes did endure such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen the overwhelming legacy of the Revolution is one of turmoil and bloodshed. The anger that fueled the Revolution was a double edged sword. It awakened a nation to its potential but also plunged it into years of horror. The French Revolution serves as a cautionary tale. That righteous fury can start a fire, but without wisdom and restraint, it becomes an inferno. The Revolution gave birth to modern ideas of democracy and citizenship but at a staggering human cost. It remains one of history’s most powerful reminders that unchecked anger, even in pursuit of justice, can destroy the very future it seeks to create.

So where does one go when one’s foundations have been turned to rubble? Where does one go when the old way of life has failed them? Everything you've ever known has been a lie. You try burning it down but that hasn’t fixed anything and instead it just caused more destruction. So instead you decide to face modernity itself and make a deal with it. Tearing down is often easier than building up but now you learn that true progress demands construction, compromise, and vision, not just vengeance. One either has to stay angry forever in a relentless pursuit or bargain with a more powerful being, whether it's God, or the devil, or a new outside force, to achieve your desires. 

This will be a topic for the next post, the bargaining era of the 19th century. This is when people hit a wall and realize that anger wasn’t enough. People realized it was impossible to just destroy everything and have it function, they needed to balance the old and the new but at a terrible, horrible cost. 

Our stages of grief continue…