Normative Name-Calling (Coffin 717-724, Proudhon, and other stuff)

The Early Romantic period is a textbook demonstration of Hegel's theory of history. The materialism/idealism debate aside, thanks to the French Revolution you have a new theory of social relations in liberalism countenanced by reactionary conservatism. However, material circumstances appeared to catalyze existing thought, not create it. The seeds of liberalism did not lie in factory conditions, they lay in Rousseau. Regardless, it leads to a basic reassessment of how society ought to be constructed. With regards to the Industrial Revolution, how do you distribute all this new wealth? If people can choose freely where they work and where they buy goods (economic freedom), does that imply a freedom to vote or self-governance (political freedom)? At this point, the synthesis is still elusive and won't emerge until long after the 1849-50 revolutions.

What feels most odd is the strange marriage of nationalism and liberalism. Nationalism is a highly illiberal idea--submerging the individual identity in the collective mass of a national identity. The only way to explain it is in terms of a common opposition to the illegitimate rule of monarchy and conservatism. This implies, though, that liberalism was not an atomistic, individualistic philosophy but again a new assertion of social relations--liberty can only be protected when each individuals has the power to protect their own liberty. The nation, a body of individuals, allows each to contribute to the political process, allegedly thereby securing liberty.