“If we are trying to account for mobilization, we have to ask, under what conditions do outraged forms of knowing lead to social mobilizations and movements? So awareness alone does not suffice, and neither does outrage.”
Judith Butler
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
While looking through lists of subversive figures in history one of the names that kept coming up was Cardinal Richelieu. My knowledge of Cardinal Richelieu was limited to the character played by Tim Curry in the Three Musketeers movie. After looking at a couple of articles it seemed there was a difference of opinion about him. Some viewed him as a subversive tyrant and others saw him as the right man in the right place at the right time.
I decided that I would dive in deeper and read a book about him to see how I would feel. I selected this book. Blanchard noted that the queen once said of Richelieu “Hd is utterly depressed when fortune is contrary to him, but when wind is in his sails, he is worse than a dragon.”
Richelieu was not the first born son in his family. That meant he would not inherit his father’s property. It meant he would have to make his own way in the world. He made it to the highest level of power in France. He had a strong ally in the king of France but he also had many enemies ...
