Tom Holland

speaker

53,948 appearances 205 recordings 9 series first heard Sep 2024 last heard 2d ago

Tom Holland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 96 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 11.

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The Rest Is History · 708. The Terror: The Reign of Robespierre (Part 2) · 23 Sep 2026 podcast

There are really three key aspects of Rousseau's philosophy that Robespierre comes to treasure. matched

The ultimate one of these, the non-negotiable conviction that Robespierre holds to throughout his entire life, is that the common people are the absolute embodiment of virtue. matched

And if that is the case, then it follows, as Rousseau puts it, and this is the second principle that Robespierre holds to, that the first of all laws is the wellbeing of the people. matched

Nothing that does not contribute to the wellbeing of the people should be allowed in a virtuous state. matched

completely. matched

And what Robespierre also holds to very passionately, and again, he gets this from Rousseau, is that history will throw up certain individuals who are peculiarly qualified to voice the will of the people. matched

So the volonté générale, as Rousseau calls it. matched

which in turn means that the will of the people isn't necessarily to be identified with the opinions of the majority. matched

Yes. matched

And this, I mean, this will be a kind of a trend on the left, I guess, throughout its subsequent history. matched

The people on the far left, you might say, are often very impatient with the people for not entirely corresponding. matched

to their sense of what the people should be. matched

And Robespierre identifies very strongly with this notion. matched

And I think it's probably not pushing the psychologizing too far to say that Robespierre sees himself potentially as being such a person, someone who is qualified to articulate the will of the people. matched

Of matched

I mean, it's a pre-Marxist version of worrying about the false consciousness that the working masses have and that perhaps it takes a brilliant intellectual to penetrate this and to see what really matters. matched

Yeah. matched

And that the mass of the people are unqualified to do that. matched

And I do think that Robespierre kind of... matched

sees himself in those terms. matched

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