A Revolution Saved by Fake News and Mass Hysteria
It is through the lens of Paris that the 1789 French Revolution is often viewed. Many of the most dramatic events took place there, and the key figures who grabbed the limelight mostly did so in the French capital. However, without support from the peasants – the bulk of France’s population – or at least their consent to do away with the aristocratic order, the revolution would probably have fizzled. Ironically, peasant support did not result from knowledge and approval of what was going on in Paris. They were often clueless about the goings on in the French capital, and little understood their significance. Instead, peasant support of the revolution was caused by a flood of fake news and rumors that drove them into a panic. To wit, that the elites were about to execute the Famine Plot.
The peasants believed that the French nobility had engineered grain shortages to starve them, and thus force them back into submission and obedience. That was not enough, however. The aristocrats wanted to speed up the subjugation of the peasants. So they supposedly also summoned foreigners to burn the peasants’ crops, and hired bandits to loot their meager possessions, abuse and have their way with the women, murder the men, and burn their houses. France’s peasantry might not have understood the Enlightenment ideals and issues being debated in Paris in 1789. They understood, however, the fear of evil elites who plotted to harm them. So they acted, and through their actions, unintentionally supercharged and saved the French Revolution.
