Feminism? The Plot Against Civilization pp. 224-230

Nesta Webster is a woman. Nesta Webster is a writer. Nesta Webster is writing at a time when women in the UK could vote only if they were over the age of 30, were property owners/renters of a location of a certain value (or married to person that does), and not subject to any kind of legal incapacity, or were graduates of a voting constituency. At the same period of time, men, had to be 21 unless they were veterans of WWI in which case they could vote at 19. Webster is writing at a time when women are the subservient class in the UK.

Where is Webster going to land on the equality question? Well, she’s not going to land in a good place, that’s for sure. Webster is going to take the contradictory position that all women like her—Phyllis Schlafly, Margaret Thatcher, Megyn Kelley—women should stay home and be wives and mothers; but we should ignore the fact that Webster is not any of those things and is telling us how we should think and act.

We’re at another revolution in France and Webster is going to give us the terrible details so that we think it’s another attempt to destroy civilization. We must remember that this revolution is the one that followed Napolean III’s abdication after losing the Franco-Prussian war to Bismark. This revolution, like that of 1789, sought to remove religion’s grip from France. We are told that one of these doctrines was the elimination of marriage, she gives us an unsourced quote, “Marriage, citizenesses, is the greatest error of ancient humanity. To be married is to be a slave…”

Ellipses are hers. She later gives us a citation which also attacks the concept of marriage from a John Leighton’s “Paris Under the Commune.” The quotation is accurate though Webster’s description of the woman lacks Leighton’s odd addition that the woman used to be a somnambulist, that is to say, a sleepwalker. Why her source adds this, and she doesn’t repeat it is weird to me.

In any case, this is a threat. Webster, and people like her (of both sexes—because they aren’t people that think there are more); use this as a threat so that the most mediocre man who likely benefits from revolution will be threatened because the one person, he has legal power over—his wife—could now be liberated. Make no mistake, when conspiracy theorists talk about the “destruction of the family” they mean the loss of authority by the father in charge of the family. Webster is definitely a case of someone who supports the face-eating leopards; arguing against liberty doesn’t just freeze progress where she is, eventually there will be an attempt to dial it back to the point where a woman would not be allowed to publish a book.

Wesbter’s boyfriend makes an appearance, but it’s not worth discussing in any serious manner because the claims here are attributed to him and not from him. She just found a reference to Bakunin and then couldn’t resist putting him in.

We move to more atrocities, notably the destruction of the Vendome Column in Paris. Let’s remember that this new revolution follows Napolean III. The column itself was erected in 1810 made from melted down material of Russian and Austrian cannons; and dedicated to Napolean I and the Grand Armee of France; with a statue of Napolean placed at the top. Webster claims that this column was dedicated to “honor of French victories and now declared to be an insult to the principle of internationalism, had been overthrown by order of the Commune—influenced, it was said by Prussian gold.”

There is no evidence that Prussian gold paid for it. The citation she gives is from section 86 of Leighton, which does explain that the engineer responsible was paid by the Commune to take it down, but there is no link to the Germans. If we assume that there were that doesn’t mean anything. It just means that the victorious state wanted a symbol of their enemy removed. Not a grand conspiracy here, the Iraqis pulled down statues of Sadam Hussein after his regime was toppled, but that doesn’t prove a conspiracy.

“Nearly a hundred years earlier, Weishaupt, the arch-enemy of civilization, had declared, ‘the day of conflagration will come!”

I’m curious where all of these quotes from Weishaupt come from.

We are then treated to three pages of outrage porn. Webster details some of the more salacious details of arson and death. I get why she does this, but it’s very one-sided. Why not explain Napolean III’s oppression of the people of France, why not give some context to the state of the population, or how Napolean III is regarded during her time? She can’t do this because it undercuts her position. Napolean III was referred to as “little-Napolean” by Victor Hugo. He was an authoritarian who greatly oppressed the people of France.

Finally, we get to some more of Webster’s attempts at Marx bashing. Webster is a laughably outclassed when she tries to fight with Marx. Love him or hate him, Marx was a smart guy who knew how to argue. Webster is an amateur academic who cherry picks her sources and stumbled into some popularity. She’s the Eric Von Daniken of history books and she thinks she’s going to take on Marx. She writes, “[Marx] now published a panegyric of the Commune entitle the Civil War in France, in which he referred to the State as ‘that parasite which exploits and hinders the free movements of society.’ How are we to reconcile this with Marx’s advocacy of Sate Socialism?”

This requires no reconciliation. Marx isn’t advocating the elimination of the state entirely, he’s not an anarchist, he advocates the elimination of the French state under Napolean III. I should also point out that Webster is misquoting here and this time it’s not something we can blame on mistranslation, she begins in the middle of an idea. “That parasite” is the Napolean III regime which fed upon the social structure of France. The Paris Commune would consume the parasite and restore the free movement of society.

Webster claims that this Marx’s volte-face but it isn’t. He wrote the story of the Commune because it seemed then, to be the culmination of his ideas where Webster claims that this reasoning was that he secretly hated the movement. She presents a letter from Marx where expresses some frustration in dealing with the fallout from the civil war. We are never presented with fuller context for this letter, only that it was written to someone named Sorge. In other examples she gives us date of the letter so it’s revealing that she refuses to do so now. The Marx archive has five letters from Marx to Sorge and none of them have this sentiment in them. I won’t go so far as to say that she’s fabricated the letter, but I’m willing to bet that she’s misattributing it.

Next week, we’ll get into more of her boyfriend fighting with Marx in a section titled “Anarchy v. Socialism.”