November 23, 1760

François-Noël Babeuf (November 23, 1760 to May 27, 1797) was a political revolutionist in France. At this era the whole world presented itself to the educated as an arena for exploration and explication. Our excerpt is from a letter Babeuf wrote, and dated September 5, 1787. He replied to one from a friend at the Academy of Arras, one Dubois de Fosseux. Apparently the latter had posed the question: why there are different races of men. Babeuf wrote back:

[You may as well ask why] are there 50 kinds of dogs?  [Or] Why there not in nature two beings perfectly resembling each other. Why why why.  There is an infinite variety  in the same way that a black cat and a white cat produce colorful cats, [that are both] white and black [and thus unlike their parents] ...

We found this in Histoire de Gracchus Babeuf et du babouvisme: d'après de nombreux documents inédits, (1884) edited and annotated by Victor Advielle.  At the bottom of this post I put the paragraph in the original French, and you will see I used it very liberally.

The point of the quote is tangential to a biography of Babeuf. He has been called the first communist.  I think though there is within the banter of the educated, in our quote, that dislike of real questions which persists to this day among intellectuals. Babeuf never says he doesn't know why there is such variety in our natural world. Such questions become something to be ignored, something to be brusquely pushed aside. That is parallel to the hatred for the church which characterized  revolutionists then and now.  And this turning away from real questions of origin, is, paradoxically perhaps, coexistent with this thirst for knowledge represented by the gentlemen scientists. At least in the case of Citoyen Babeuf.

Why why why, this dislike for the church, and questions of origins.. I don't know the whole story, maybe nobody does, but we can see around us in nature, that a drive to dominate is a drive to biologically succeed. With young men especially that drive can be self-legitimating. The words, about revolution and citizens rights, and equality, all that, is sometimes just an excuse. No one notices because the drive for power itself, can be exhilarating. To exercise that power justifies the words, because the exercise of that power means the user will survive.  I am not talking about the winners writing history. I am talking about the biological flushes of victory. 

Babeuf also wrote--

"Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others."

You might think this sentiment proves that my analysis is incorrect. You'd be wrong.  He is spouting ideas he does not believe, which is easier if you refuse to examine your own motivations. 

As it happened Babeuf lost his struggle for power. After he agitated to bring back the good bloody days of Robespierre, he was himself guillotined. 

(Here's the passage I used to get the quote of Babeuf's, above:

Pourquoi y at il des chiens de 5o espèces Pourquoi y a t il point dans la nature deux êtres parfaitement Pourquoi pourquoi pourquoi C est ce semble que le Créateur l a ainsi ordonné c est qu il fait naître aux Indes des homes noirs et qu il a permis ceux d Europe fussent blancs Il ya entre ces derniers de la diférence pour la couleur des yeux des cheveux de la peau c est très vraisemblablement qu il en a d abord fabriqué de ces diférentes espèces et que les familles s étant ensuite mélangées au moyen des diverses unions formées entr èles ont doné naissance à cète variation à l infini dans la figure des êtres de la même manière qu un chat noir et une chate blanche produisent des chats bigarrés de blanc et de noir ...)