Jacobinism vs. Radical Love

Word of the day: Jacobinism

In the Tintin book The Shooting Star, Tintin was locked in a desperate race with the crew of the Peary to arrive first and claim a meteorite which had fallen into the sea. At the last moment, one of the crew members was stopped by the ship’s captain, who prevented him from firing at Tintin.
Tintin won the race. The captain of the Peary won the medal of honor.

Jacobinism is not an ideology. It is a mentality. It became prominent during the French Revolution when the revolutionaries, the Jacobins, first executed King Louis XVI for crimes against the state. Later on, they turned on each other and major players like Danton and Robespierre were accused of counter-revolutionary activity and sent to the guillotine as well.

It is borne out not simply of the belief that “my ideas are right” and “I want to persuade others to be the case”, but also, “I will do whatever it takes to ensure that my ideas win” and “whoever who disagrees with either (a) my ideas or (b) my methods, is evil and need to be eliminated”.

In my opinion, there is a need to understand what is happening in the USA and elsewhere through this lens.

Among the Trumpists, there are Jacobins. Those who stormed the Capitol are some of them. Those who call Mike Pence a traitor because they disagree on a cause of action to combat electoral fraud also have such a mentality.

But among the progressives, there are Jacobins too. Too many have sympathized with the riots of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Too many have done whatever it takes, i.e. lawless behavior, to get what they want.

A Catholic cannot be a Jacobin.
We believe that our ideas are correct. But the method of Jesus is the method of radical love, even of our enemies to the point of death.

Radical love means speaking the truth, persuasion, suffering wrongs patiently, so that in the long run others will be persuaded. It is not weakness, it is strength.

The command of the scriptures is absolute: we can never “do evil so that good may come”. (Romans 3:8 )

It was the revolution of conscience that brought down the evil empire known as the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

It will be the same if Christians can draw on the resources of their faith, to bring down the new empire of cultural Marxism.

Nick Chui

Nick Chui

Nick Chui is happily married and teaches history and Religious Education in a Catholic secondary school in Singapore. He has a Masters in Theological studies from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne.

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3 thoughts on “Jacobinism vs. Radical Love”

  1. Excellent observations. Jacobins are dangerous. And they come in virtually all political and ideological colors and stripes; particularly those which take their inspiration from the French Revolution and/or the more atheistically inclined wing of Enlightenment thought.

  2. I am not sure what purpose is being served by advancing the notion that there was “electoral fraud” when referencing Vice President Pence’s refusal to shred the Constitution and decide for himself who should be president. There was no electoral fraud of any consequence as confirmed by the more than 60 judges (including Republican appointed judges, including Trump appointed judges) who found fraud allegations to be baseless, at best, or fictitious, at worst. Lending any credence to the patently false narrative that there must have been more than 7 million fraudulent votes – and all of them were for Biden – is a disservice to the reality that a president tried to overturn the votes of the American people to maintain his grip on power. Shameful, disgusting, treasonous.

    1. Actually there would only need to have been 68,000 Biden votes disqualified in the relevant states to result in a Trump victory. The total number of votes each candidate got is irrelevant.

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