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3:5

(In »The four paradigms in the history of metaphysics«)

Ideas of revolt and other seemingly sudden and dramatic changes are merely secondary by-products that followed on from these changing material conditions, rather than some kind of originating event. For example, the French Revolution of 1789 cannot be viewed as a genuine revolution per se, but rather as a symptom of an underlying genuine revolution, namely the printing press, which was invented in Germany just over 300 years earlier. The printing press set in motion a gigantic feedback loop by making books cheap and generally available, thus creating a mass audience for texts, which in turn paved the way for an explosive production and consumption of knowledge and abstract ideas. Thanks to France being the first country in Europe with widespread literacy – and also with an increasingly urbanised economy – the French Revolution became the first event of its kind and, as stated, in many respects is exemplary in political mythology. It constitutes the first sudden, dramatic evidence of the reality of the printing press revolution, and thereby in hindsight a clear dividing line between the feudalist and capitalist paradigms, often referred to as the new era’s emergent moment. But let us for the sake of clarity keep these revolutions separate from their symptoms.