Food for Thought

Week 7: Tuesday, March 1

1) According to the textbook, what factors contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution?

2) According to the textbook, what were the six major reforms associated with the revolution? How do you think each might have helped further the development of the nation or national consciousness?

3) What was the political objective of Sieyes' What is the Third Estate? In other words, what did Sieyes hope to achieve not only by defining the nation, but by defining it in the way he did?

4) How did Sieyes define a nation? On what grounds did Sieyes judge whether one belongs to the nation or does not? What are the limits of the nation?

5) According to Sieyes, how can one reconcile community interest with self- or corporate interest? How does one determine the will of the nation?

Other issues to consider:

1) What were the three estates? Who sat in each group? What did they represent?

2) Skim the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Was this a Lockean document concerned primarily with individual liberty? To what extent did individuals have to make sacrifices for the nation?

3) What type of nation and nationalism did Sieyes appear to advance?