The French Revolution: The Implicit Assumptions Of Human Nature

Would you believe me if I said that a fundamental divergence about implicit assumptions of human nature is the source of disagreements among people? Empirically, most people believe in either one of two differing visions of human nature, the constrained, or the unconstrained. Ironically, most people believe in either of these visions without articulating or even knowing that their belief is the foundation for how they perceive the world and form their values. This is because when interests are at stake, the parties directly affected usually understand what the issue is. However, when there is a conflict of visions, those most powerfully affected by a particular vision may be the least aware of its underlying assumptions.

The fundamental belief
The principles that extend from that foundation, as evident in the Constitution and the American Revolution: are a system of checks and balances, a recognition that there are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs, and principles of freedom, personal responsibility, and equality of opportunity. In contrast, the underlying beliefs of an unconstrained vision of human nature, as evident in the French Revolution, and the modern day American left, is that people are born free but are everywhere in chains. Thus, because human beings are essentially good, and our nature is capable of continuous improvements, the cause of suffering is due to the failure of other people to be as sincere, intelligent, or noble as themselves. The unconstrained vision observes what they believe to be surprising problems in the world such as war and poverty, and they need an explanation for their commonness, as opposed to an explanation of how individuals and
53% of Americans aged 18-29 view the actual socialism favorably, and 63% of Americans say that wealth distribution is unfair. Why? Who told these people that they have the moral authority to decide how wealth is distributed, and that stealing people’s labor is the answer to achieve higher levels of equality of outcome? Will we also redistribute the inequalities of skills, talents, and wisdom that caused people to engage in more consensual transactions to become wealthy in the first place? Adherents to the unconstrained vision who believe in spreading the wealth around through government are of course justified in their view. This is because according to the unconstrained vision, if force is required in order to achieve a fairer world then it is