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The Enrage would be super enraged if they learned about this (fedia.io)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/historymemes@lemmy.world
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Explanation: "We should bring back the guillotine" or similar is a common internet quip in response to billionaires doing billionaire things, when in reality the guillotine was invented to provide equal and humane deaths to people of all classes, and from there it was always a tool of the state rather than the people. Not the best euphemism for "we should depose the bourgeoisie." In fact plenty of Revolutionary justice folks were themselves offed by the guillotine during the Terror.

Office meme with smiling manager shaking hands with a confused (???) employee. "The internet left using the guillotine as a euphemism for class war and deposing the bourgeoisie" is written on the manager and " The guillotine, having never been involved in class war in its entire existence" is written on the employee
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[–] 7 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

Wasn't Marie Antoinette guillotined? You know, the spoiled rich royalty that was so out of touch she was famously quoted as saying "Let them eat cake" when told the common people don't even have bread?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The original phrase, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" ("Let them eat brioche"), was recorded by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Confessions in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was only nine years old and not yet in France. Rousseau attributed the phrase to "a great princess," but did not specify who. The quote was later linked to Marie Antoinette as revolutionaries sought to paint her as an out-of-touch foreign queen who did not understand or care about the suffering of ordinary people. A lot of the attitude towards her was influenced by xenophobia (her being from France' eternal enemy Austria) and misogyny (calling her out for a luxurious life that the entire court, most of them men, were living).

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