Thread by @j_arthur_bloom

THE PHYSIOGNOMY THEORY OF REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY: I have a theory that any 5 year old can be given a better understanding of the history of revolutions than your average college student, and all you have to show them is pictures.

You can show a child pictures of the leaders of each side in a revolutionary conflict, and any one who's raised on Disney and Mother Goose will be able to tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. For the rest of his education, teachers will try to mislead him.

Let's start with the English Civil War. Here we have Prince Rupert, Charles I, the death mask of Oliver Cromwell, and John Pym. Show a child these pictures, and ask who they think the good guys are, and the child will say the more handsome royalists! His instincts are not wrong.

It's even more pronounced in the French Revolution. The leaders of the revolutionary side all looked disgusting, from that pockmarked little freak Robespierre, to Marat, to Danton. Uggos!

If you look at pictures of the French Revolution, it's very clear that one of the motivations of the revolutionaries is anger at God for not making them more beautiful. This sort of resentment motivates all left-wing movements.

Then you look at the other side, the right-wing rebels. Here is Henri du Vergier and Francois Charette. Very handsome! Show a child these pictures and he will guess correctly who the good guys are, though all his future teachers will tell him otherwise.

Now we move to the '48 revolutions. Here are the forces of order, Franz Joseph and Metternich

Here are the forces of revolutionary chaos, Kossuth and Mazzini. Shifty-looking people!

The American Civil War was not a revolution, but it was an enormous conflict that changed our Constitution in a way that resembles other 19th-century nationalist revolutions. So let's see if the rule holds. A collection of Union generals:

Here is a collection of Confederate generals. Hmm!

Let's do the Paris Commune. Here are some leaders of the revolutionaries, Varlin, Pyat, Michel (would not hit!)

Now, the Russian revolution. This one is so obvious it needs no exposition. Nicholas II, for all his mistakes, looks paternal, he looks like a good father. Then look at Lenin and Trotsky! Freaks! Tells you all you need to know.

The Chinese revolution is also obvious. Chiang vs. Mao

Or the Iranian revolution, the Shah vs. Khomeini. Also obvious who the good guys are.

My friends, your eyes do not deceive you. This tells you something about the character of the left, the ugly faction. Modern education is an exercise in teaching kids not to see what they can very easily see for themselves without any training. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

Thinking about adding to this thread, here’s Selassie and Mariam

Antonio Salazar and Humberto Delgado

The “break out the calipers” stuff is all projection, as far as I can tell the last head of state to order a skull examined for political reasons was Hugo Chavez reuters.com/article/us-ven…

A quick note to my leftist critics: the sexy Stalin photo is almost certainly a fake. It doesn’t look like any other photographs of young Stalin and omits the marks on his face from smallpox. Stop believing Soviet propaganda!