Every revolutionary oath implicitly contains its own enforcement, pre-consenting to the Terror

Evidence

The original oath, which pledged the members of the National-Assembly-to-be “never to separate and to reassemble wherever circumstances should require until such time as the Constitution shall be established and placed on solid foundations,” has the additional interest of pointing beyond this “hot” moment of the group-in-fusion toward a gradual cooling and institutionalization. What is not present in this wording, but is implied in the very nature of an oath, as a necessary corollary, is the Terror: for it must include its own principle of enforcement, and implicitly each member pledges his own death should he in the future break the unity of the group and turn traitor to it. He therefore, in a sense, consents in advance to the Terror. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 509

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that voluntary revolutionary commitment structurally implies advance consent to one’s own liquidation is a paradigm-shifting inversion of the freedom/coercion binary — worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: The oath and the Terror preserved the revolutionary group against collapse into seriality — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 6446; Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368

Broader Connections

• The oath and the Terror preserved the revolutionary group against collapse into seriality #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 6446
• Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism #exemplifies (0.72) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368