the biggest mistake ever

I'm reading this book, The Metaphysical Club, which has a totally pretentious title but is just about American History, and I'm thinking about the French Revolution and how it was totally f*d, esp. after seeing Simon Schama's The Power of Art on PBS about the painting "the death of marat" and I came to a terrible hypothesis.

What if the American Revolution is responsible for the hundreds of bloody, miserable, terrible failed revolutions which have swept Europe and the third world during this century? Have we, by not loudly clarifying what actually happened in our own history, tacitly provided the groundwork for bloodshed and terror?

What did happen here that was right? Why have other cultures failed, even ones outwardly more civilized and culturally accomplished than ourselves, such as France? The crucial distinction is that Americans were defending an existing civilization against arbitrary rule. Ours was a formality, a political revolution. The French sought to reform their society, it was a cultural revolution. The French were destroying an existing civilization to set up a new one. It tore them to shreds and a lesser people wouldn't have survived- in fact, less cohesive civilizations everywhere have not.

A revolution has never created a free and just society. that world must exist, however repressed, and must be strong and resilient enough to withstand the shock of war and the ensuing power-grab that is inevitable in the wake of overthrows and depositions. A revolution can only free the underlying society - often when that is not strong enough, something much more terrible is unleashed.

We are at fault for not sharing this information that we are so close to- and it is never said; maybe we are too close to it to see. But our laziness has inspired not only the French, but countless (well I'm not going to count them, at least) revolutions in the name of 'freedom' and 'the people'. Unfortunately, almost all have been the French model, a revolution to spontaneously generate a fair and just society, I do not know of an instance of a vibrant and strong existing society throwing off its oppressors - maybe Iran? but they seem a little delusional lately...

It all comes down to the fundamental building block of society- trust, between neighbors, friends, colleagues, strangers - our revolution was to defend that trust, cultural revolutions break it in order to remake them in some ideal way. The most eminent intellectuals and philosophers or strongest political leaders and orators will never be able to create that trust, it is made every day by you and me.