Robespierre and Saint-Just debate becoming Bonaparte
anecdote · historical/biographical ·
retold in 3 talks
Robespierre and Saint-Just debated whether to seize personal dictatorial power to save the revolution and concluded it was better to lose their physical heads than take that path, for Žižek one of history's most sublime ethical gestures.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“They concluded: 'No, sorry, it's better for us to lose our physical head than to take that path.'”
“it's better for us to lose our physical head than to take that path”
“Rather than to compromise their pure sense, they risked their life. I mean they were not idiots.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Alexander Kolchak2Georges Danton3Lenín Moreno2Jayapal Subramaniam1Todd Wolfson1Mensheviks1Joseph Bonaparte1Joan of Arc1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Robespierre and Saint-Just debated whether to seize personal dictatorial power to save the revolution and concluded it was better to lose their physical heads than take that path, for Žižek one of history's most sublime ethical gestures., illustrating Bonapartism,principled pragmatic stance,ethics of revolution,Robespierre's ethical refusal
~29:34 The Legacy of the French Revolution w/ Slavoj Zizek on Bastille Day | Jacobin Show2021-07-14 · 1:47:12
Knowing the drift toward personal dictatorship and debating whether to seize it, Robespierre and Saint-Just concluded it was better to lose their physical heads than take that path, presented as one of history's most beautiful ethical gestures., illustrating Bonapartism,egalitarianism,ethics
When arrested at the fall of Jacobinism, Robespierre had a momentary breakdown, cried and shouted; Saint-Just remained absolutely perfect to the end, both nonetheless chose death over compromising their pure sense., illustrating Hegel more materialist than Marx