Robespierre and the Terror statistics
example · history ·
retold in 6 talks
Žižek cites statistics showing that more people were guillotined in the weeks following the Thermidor (after the Jacobin Terror) than during the Terror itself, challenging the notion that the Terror was an aberration or uniquely bad phase.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 7
“Look at the statistics. How many people were guillotined before and after the so-called Jacobin terror? And you will see in two-three weeks after the Thermidor, more people were guillotined than under.”
“innocence never fears public scrutiny.”
“if any of you now feels fear that his name, is afraid that his name is in my book, this already is a proof that he is a traitor. i claim there is a deep truth in it.”
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)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
roots of going wrong
×1
fear as proof of guilt
×1
satisfaction of the struggle itself
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Lazar Carnot1Camille Desmoulins1Orlane Sallin1British Stock Exchange1Chinese Cultural Revolution1Bret Easton Ellis1Ocna de Fier1Horace Pippin1
alongside works
Every retelling 8
Žižek cites statistics showing that more people were guillotined in the weeks following the Thermidor (after the Jacobin Terror) than during the Terror itself, challenging the notion that the Terror was an aberration or uniquely bad phase., illustrating roots of going wrong,communism-socialism
Robespierre presents a black book of traitors, then claims that anyone who trembles is guilty because 'innocence never fears public scrutiny,' exploiting the audience's fear to create guilt., illustrating Versprechen,ideology
Žižek recounts Robespierre bringing a black book of traitors to the assembly and declaring that anyone who feels afraid their name is in it has thereby proved themselves a traitor. Žižek claims there is a deep (psychoanalytic) truth in this: anxiety is a symptom of complicity., illustrating fear as proof of guilt,political paranoia,the logic of denunciation
Žižek cites Robespierre's 'No freedom for the enemies of freedom' to argue that the modern woke left and old right use identical brutal censorship, excluding enemies in the name of freedom., illustrating unholy alliances,ideology
Žižek cites Robespierre's private notebook admission that the people will 'never' be truly educated, a moment of radical pessimism kept out of public speech. Žižek reframes this not as despair but as an almost Eastern wisdom that the struggle itself is the only satisfaction., illustrating satisfaction of the struggle itself,authentic revolutionary consciousness,utopian impossibility
Žižek describes being shocked when reading Robespierre's writings by his frank acknowledgment that the immediate reality of their actions was monstrous, killing people, but that only the revolutionary ideal of equality and virtue justified it. Žižek presents this as admirable clarity rather than hypocrisy., illustrating ruthless honesty of the revolutionary,virtue and terror,the gap between immediate reality and political ideal