In defense of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, Robespierre declared that “[t]error is nothing but prompt,

severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.”[1] This, at first, may seem an impossible pairing;
virtue and terror appear fundamentally counterposed. Rather than go on the defensive, Robespierre linked virtue
with terror, by claiming that terror is inflexible justice, and thus virtuous. But why? This seems to go against our
instincts that terror is bad, and therefore not virtuous.

The key to understanding why Robespierre made this connection can be found in how he, and other
revolutionaries, past and present, understood the role between revolution and counterrevolution. Robespierre
understood the goal of the French Revolution as overthrowing the Old Regime and instituting a republic based on
equality and overthrowing tyranny. To him, any attempt to counter these efforts was despotism and a return to
tyranny. That is why terror, that inflexible justice, in response to attempts to overthrow the new republic, is so
interconnected with virtue.

To put it rather bluntly, even if one is to concede to the conservative view that the terror was an essential and
necessary part of the revolution, a judgement must still be made whether the relatively small number of
executions was worth the cost when compared with the hundreds of years of structural violence in the Old
Regime.

All this is to point out that historians have hardly come to agreement over how to understand the terror. “Clearly
historians have disagreed over why the terror happened. Conservatives see it as an integral part of the revolution,
revisionists as a flaw in an otherwise positive development, circumstance historians as a response to counter-
revolution, and post-circumstance historians as a development within revolutionary politics closely linked to
conspiracy theory.”[12]

This narrow focus on the subjective violence of the Reign of Terror serves a useful purpose to the ruling class that
wishes to prevent revolution. In this view, the everyday oppression, slavery and suffering in Old Regime France or
the 120,000 deaths from austerity measures in the U.K., does not count as violence. It is only when these victims
rise up to overthrow the perpetrators of the objective violence that it becomes real violence. Certainly revolutions
are violent, but so is the “normal” functioning of society, and counterrevolution. Thus, one must choose, as
Merleau-Ponty argues, not “between purity and violence but between different kinds of violence.”[31]

https://www.peacelandbread.com/post/the-meaning-of-violence-understanding-counterrevolution-and-violence-
in-the-french-terror-1

1. What is the basic nature of the passage?

a. Skeptical
b. Critical
c. Optimistic
d. Indifferent

Answer- C. Optimistic – because the French revolution’s goal was equality among the public

2. What is the antonym of Despotism?

a. Unfairness
b. Tolerance
c. Democracy
d. Equality

Answer – C. Democracy ; Despotism – absolute power or control

3. What is the meaning of Counterpose?

a. Lack of proportion
b. To offer or place in opposition
c. To agree or consent
d. Equilibrium

Answer- B. To offer or place in opposition

4. What was the necessary part of the revolution?

a. Judgement

b. Execution

c. Instigation

d. Terror

Answer- D. Terror

5. Who wishes to prevent revolution?

a. President
b. Ruling class
c. Extremists
d. Feminists

Answer- B. Ruling Class

6. What was the goal of French Revolution?

a. to follow the Old Regime
b. oppressive or unjustly severe government on the part of any ruler
c. establishing a base of people with equality
d. oppression and slavery

Answer – C. establishing a base of people with equality

7. What is the meaning of Austerity?

 a. extravagance
b. elaborateness
c. indulgence
d. exactness

Answer - D. exactness

Nguyen, with his flippancy, his elegance, and charisma, may at first beguile his jejune audience, seems worlds apart
from the fiercely, politically polemic and didactic predilections that come to define his oeuvre. Nguyen does not
hesitate to express his thrill of “mediocre” movies, like “Crazy Rich Asians,” nor does he take any umbrage at
having his Pulitzer prize winning novel, The Sympathizer, sold in Costco (as he gracefully quipped in an interview
with Seth Meyers,) as long as Asian Americans achieve what he calls “narrative plenitude” rather than inhabiting
the economy of “narrative scarcity” where Asian Americans are either underrepresented on screen or must
perform exceptionally to be seen.

Nguyen believes that “the right to be mediocre and rewarded for it” is “one measure of equality.” When it comes
to identity politics, Nguyen touts unsparingly, “Minorities must dissent from the terms that a regime of whiteness
offers. They must call forth anger and rage, demand solidarity and revolution, critique whiteness, domination,
power, and all the faces of the war machine.” But, then, how does a writer grace his work with rage without
undermining his political agenda or remaining in bitter dark after displaying his violent interiority?

So the hope is there, the narrator has hope, but it's only a ray of light in all this darkness. And so yes, the
overwhelming mood is all these terrible things that happened, but he has enough light, enough hope to still
continue. Is it a foolish hope? I think back to all those people, like you were saying, who fled the country as
refugees, half of them didn't make it. They didn't live. So what do we make out of that? The ones who lived, they
had hope, they survived. But the hope has been measured against the degree of danger and darkness that awaits
him and everybody else on that boat.

Well, I think that many revolutions start off with high ideals and hopes and harness the best of people, their
idealisms or passions or convictions. I think back to the history that the communist party celebrates in Vietnam.
For example, all those young revolutionaries who were executed by the French, the famous ones in the 30's and
'40s, they were devoted to a cause, right? There’s a lot of martyrs in Vietnamese communist history. [...]

This is when the dialectic stops because they obviously don't understand it. But the point is not only about holding
power. The point is [also] about justice. That's what they fought the revolution for in the first place. For our
narrator, his dialectic continues. So he's recognized that his revolution has gone from fighting against power and
for justice to embodying injustice and holding on to power.

https://www.peacelandbread.com/post/creating-audaciously-on-anger-aesthetics-and-calibrated-hope

1. What is the meaning of Beguile?

a. repulse
 b. defeat
c. resist
d. exploit

Answer – D. exploit

2. What is the antonym of Umbrage?

a. resentment
b. glee
c. provoking
d. vexation

Answer – B. glee ; Umbrage- displeasure

3. What is the synonym of Didactic?

a. conceal
b. advisory
c. dissuade
d. misguide

Answer- B. advisory ; Didactic - instructive

4. Hope is evaluated against peril.

a. False
b. True
c. Maybe
d. None of the above

Answer- B. True

5. What is the nature of the writer?

a. Skeptical
b. Hopeful
c. Pessimistic
d. Depressed

Answer- B. Hopeful ; Writer hopes for equality and justice among the public after the French Revolution

6. What has been measured against Danger & Darkness?

a. Reward
b. Distrust
c. Hope
d. Truth

Answer- C.Hope ; But the hope has been measured against the degree of danger
7. What is the antonym of Jejune?
a. childish
b. barren
c. immature
d. sane

Answer- D. sane; Jejune - immature