The Public Philosophy > Chapter VII. The Adversaries of Liberal Democracy > The Paradigm of Revolution
Of the two rival philosophies, the Jacobin is almost everywhere in the ascendant. It is a ready philosophy for men who, previously excluded from the ruling class, and recently enfranchised, have no part in the business of governing the state, and no personal expectation of being called upon to assume the responsibilities of office.
The Jacobin doctrine is an obvious reaction, as de Tocqueville's observation explains, to government by a caste:
Though [The Jacobin doctrine] professes to be a political philosophy, the doctrine is not, in fact, a philosophy of government. It is a gospel and also a strategy for revolution. It announces the promise that the crusade which is to overthrow the ruling caste will by the act of revolution create a good society. ...Again and again it has been proved how effective is this formula for arousing, sustaining and organizing men's energies for revolution: to declare that evil in society has been imposed upon the many by the few - by priests, nobles, capitalists, imperialists, liberals, aliens - and that evil will disappear when the many who are pure have removed these few who are evil.
Since the world will be good when the evil few have been overthrown, there is no need for the doubts and the disputes which would arise among the revolutionists if they had to make serious practical decisions on the problems of the post-revolutionary world.
To Rousseau, as to John Calvin who lived in Geneva before him, men were fallen and depraved, deformed with their lusts and their aggressions. The force of the new doctrine lay in its being a gospel of redemption and regeneration. Men who were evil were to be made good. Jacobinism is, in .fact, a Christian heresy--perhaps the most influential since the Arian.
in the Jacobin gospel, this transformation was to be achieved by the revolutionary act of emancipation from authority. The religious end was to be reached, but with-out undergoing the religious experience. There was to be no dark night of the soul for each person in the labor of his own regeneration. Instead there were to be riots and strikes and votes and seizure of political power. Instead of the inner struggle of the individual soul, there was to be one great public massive, collective redemption.