After the French revolutionaries beheaded their king, they had another bright idea:
"Let's make the day 10 hours long"
This is NOT a joke. Left-wing "experts" actually changed the length of minutes, hours, and weeks in the name of science...
This is the story of that disaster:
1/ The French revolutionaries adopted a new calendar for three reasons:
- To eliminate religious consciousness from the French society
- To make time more “rational”
- To announce the birth of an egalitarian era
In their zeal they forgot an important factor: human nature
2/ This is a story of political arrogance
The revolutionaries overestimated the power of science. And underestimated the stickiness of religion
One hour = 100 minutes. One min = 100 seconds. New year shifted from 1st Jan to 22nd Sept..
A radical attempt to redefine time itself
3/ In France, from 1793 to 1805, one week had 10 days
The 7th day, traditionally a holiday - “holy day” - became a typical week day. An attempt at secularization
Every 10th day was made the rest day. John Adams called this change "superficially frivolous" and "coarsely vulgar"
4/ Sociologist Zerubavel notes that the 10-day week was meant to disrupt the “traditional, sacred seven-day cycle”
Purpose was to disorient people and make them lose track of “Sunday”
That is, the day for going to Church
And having a weekly sitdown with the divine
5/ The French Revolutionary Calendar was designed by the top experts of the day
The chief designer: CG Romme (Physics professor)
Mathematicians & astronomers chipped in
Tradition/old habits didn’t matter
The designers answered “solely to the principles of Reason and Science”
6/ Sociologist Zerubavel: “The Revolutionary Calendar was introduced in an age which advocated the total obliteration of the old order in the name of progress & modernity: the beginning of the new Republican Era marked the total discontinuity between past & present” Ring a bell?
7/ Every calendar has “critical dates” which are suffused with a symbolic importance
The Revolutionaries changed the first day of the year from January 1 to 22nd September - the day of the “foundation of the French Republic”
Society was to spin not around religion but politics
8/ Days which had a unique flavor due to their religious significance like “the saints' days, Sunday and the Church's religious holidays” were abolished. Each day became mathematically and symbolically alike. Differences were to be erased - whether among people or on the calendar
9/ By adopting calendrical rhythms alien to the rest of the world
The French created artificial barriers to communication, understanding, and ultimately trade
How would you fix delivery schedules with a country whose calendar is untranslatable into yours?
10/ Imagine you’re a French man in 1793...
The revolutionaries have not just beheaded the King and slaughtered their own
But have also made the week 10 days long
The day is now 10 hours, not 24
Your old clocks - and your old instincts - need to be thrown out
11/ By denouncing all authority as arbitrary, the revolutionary finally harms himself
On what grounds will HE govern once the king is gone?
In hindsight we can see the “boomerang effect” of the Calendar redesign
If the old dogmas were random
Why are the new ones any better?
12/ The people HATED the new Calendar
It made them work for 9 days straight instead of 6
Plus it was confusing
Special clocks were made to translate the Revolutionary calendar into the Gregorian calendar and back
People’s age-long habits were redesigned without their consent
13/ STALIN imposed a new calendar too
The week was cut to 5 days to eliminate the holiday of Sunday
Days were assigned colors, and workers were given colors
When it was your colored day, you took a day off
Families and friends had different colors and so they never hung out
14/ Here’s the French Revolutionary Calendar. Designed by the biggest scientific minds of the time. A failed dream...a symbolic warning. An attempt to restructure time by politics instead of the sacred. Reasonable, rational, and hence doomed. An emblem to the madness of equality
15/ Here’s the man who ended the tyranny of artificial time and took his country back to the Gregorian calendar
On this day, 218 years ago
Common Napoleon W
Thank you for reading fren!
To support my poasting, buy my book:
Special Napoleon chapter inside:jashdholani.gumroad.com/l/hitreverse
I appreciate your time fren
Pls repost! 👇🏻
And warn people of the dangers of science attacking the sacred...
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