How boring are those curling stones matches at the winter olympic ?

[Peter]

You're not though. Politically, you're a Romantic.

It was Romanticism that ended slavery and the slave trade. It was Romanticism that started the ideas of communism long before Marx. Robert Wedderburn, the mixed race son of a slave, was giving proto-commie speeches in the early C19th, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wedderburn

And when you say the French Revolution was a mess, you have to see it as a series of revolutions between 1789 and 1871 {or even 1968.} In 1830, there was the revolution that created a UK-style parliamentary democracy and ended the ancien regime for good. The July or Second French Revolution, or les Trois Glorieuses of 1830 led to the 1832 June rebellion that Hugo's Les Mis is about with an attempt to restore a republic.

This happened in France with their 4th Revolution in 1848 when revolutions swept Europe and the Communist Manifesto was written. {Interestingly the UK was the only major European power to avoid this because Peel had split the Tories by repealing the Corn Laws in 1846. Political Romanticism GB-stylee.} This created their 2nd Republic and 3 years later, their next revolution created the Second Empire which saw the most liberal workers rights in Europe.

This ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71 {with the unification of Germany, which like the Risorgimento in Italy in 1861 and the taking of Rome a decade later, being fundamental parts of Romanticism.} The Fr-Pr war led to the Paris Commune and then the creation of the 3rd Republic in 1871. It may have been a mess but got there in the end, while the Yanks still have black people being murdered by the state and ICE on the streets with no free health care and a school-funding system that means the poor, especially the blacks, have far less money spent per pupil than the rich, white kids in state schools. Enlightenment mindset compared to the Romanticism of NW Europe.

So unless you support the continuation of slavery, of autocracy or oligarchy, the denial of workers rights and of national self-determination, then politically you are a Romantic, not Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment ended the Wars of Religion era, which is why the English Civil War {Wars of the 3 Kingdoms} was the the final act of the wars of religion in the UK while also being the first political revolution.

It was Romanticism that started all the political liberties you support, whether freedom from slavery or having democracy or workers' rights or the welfare state or the ending of the political dominance of the landed elite or of the ending of imperialism being replaced by national self-determination. Your Yank Enlightenment revolution kept slavery, entrenched the power of the financial oligarchy and allowed them to slaughter the natives and steal their land - all things that Romanticism fought against and defeated.

But unless I've totally misjudged you, and you think all of the above like slavery, autocracy and imperialism are "good things" as Sellar and Yeatman would put it, then politically you're a Romantic. Not a 1770s Enlightenment Septic traitor determined to keep slavery {threatened by GB's 1772 Somerset Case saying slavery in GB was illegal} and keep the right to steal native Indians' land {threatened by Article 40 of the Capitulation of Montreal in 1760 that guaranteed the land rights of Canadian natives.}

Politically, P, you're a Romantic. Whether you prefer Leonard Cohen to Byron is irrelevant on this point.

I know you love Yank history, and the revolutionaries like Franklin were pure Enlightenment, but the Yanks never got Romanticism in the way the Europeans did. Which is why their country is still so ****ed in the C21st when it comes to race or the rights, security and liberties of the poor.

I'm afraid that politically, you're a Romantic. Which is why you should preserver with the Scharma series.

Well, if you're going to lay claim to every success of the last 230 years then I guess I dont have much choice, do I.