One of Bastos’s central arguments is that the French Revolution destroyed forms of authority and social organization that had evolved over centuries, replacing them with an abstract, homogeneous, and centralized political model. According to this interpretation, the old provinces, charters, jurisdictions, and local communities were replaced by artificial administrative divisions conceived by the central power with the aim of leveling the playing field and facilitating control. This is a well-known criticism within the conservative tradition, and, in part, it is difficult to deny. One need only look at the French case to see that the departments were deliberately designed to break with the old provinces and weaken regional identities considered an obstacle to building a uniform citizenry.
However, accepting this historical account does not obligate one to share the conclusion. In fact, I believe that the revolutionary process itself can be interpreted very differently. What was truly novel about the French Revolution was not only the creation of new territorial divisions, but the transformation of the very nature of the political order. Until then, borders, jurisdictions, and institutions appeared as part of an inherited order, legitimized by tradition, religion, or dynasty. The Revolution broke precisely with this logic. From that moment on, territory ceased to be understood as a natural reality and became a political construct. And everything that is a political construct can, at least in principle, be debated, reformed, or replaced.
In other words, the French Revolution did not freeze the European political map. It desacralized it.
This may seem paradoxical. It is true that the Revolution centralized power, but at the same time, it introduced a completely new principle: no territorial organization could claim absolute legitimacy simply because “it had always been that way.” If institutions were a product of political will, then they could also be modified by political will.
The last two centuries offer countless examples of this. Entire empires, such as the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Soviet, have disappeared. Dozens of new states have emerged. There have been reunifications, like Germany’s; peaceful separations, like those of the Czech Republic and Slovakia; negotiated independences, like those of the Baltic states; and processes of political decentralization, such as Spain’s after 1978 or Britain’s with Scotland and Wales. Even within states themselves, administrative structures continue to be constantly modified. Municipalities merge to improve their management. Others secede because they consider themselves a distinct community. Districts disappear. Regions acquire new powers. All of this would be practically inconceivable if territory continued to be understood as a natural and immutable order.
In reality, a significant part of contemporary political debates revolves precisely around this possibility of redefining institutions. And here a particularly interesting issue arises. Many of today’s independence movements are presented as a reaction against the modern state. However, when one examines their speeches, it becomes clear that the vast majority do not seek to restore the Old Regime, recover feudal privileges, or rebuild manorial jurisdictions. Quite the contrary. Their demands are articulated through profoundly modern concepts: popular sovereignty, citizenship, legal equality, democratic representation, constitutionalism, and the right to self-determination.
It is difficult to imagine Scottish independence arguing that Scotland should become independent because a medieval privilege granted by a royal house demands it. What they demand is a democratic referendum. The same can be said of the Catalan independence movement, which has been the majority view in recent decades, and which based its demands on the popular will expressed at the ballot box, not on hereditary rights. Even Quebec developed much of its sovereignty project from social democratic and republican positions.
In other words, they challenge the inherited political map using precisely the political language born of the French Revolution.
And here, in my opinion, a significant contradiction arises in Bastos’s argument.
The political sectors closest to the conservative tradition he seems to champion have been precisely those in Spain who have most firmly defended the territorial unity of the State and the inviolability of its borders. The Spanish monarchy, a large part of Spanish conservatism, and Spanish nationalism have historically rejected any possibility of self-determination for Catalonia or the Basque Country, appealing to precisely to the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation.
Paradoxically, those who today advocate modifying these borders often do so from positions deeply influenced by the political principles of revolutionary modernity.
In other words, if historical communities are truly considered to possess their own legitimacy, then it is difficult to deny them the possibility of democratically redefining their relationship with the State. If, on the contrary, it is maintained that current borders are untouchable, then the administrative divisions created by modern states are being granted a sanctity that Bastos precisely criticizes when discussing the French Revolution.
The paradox is evident: the artificiality of revolutionary borders is criticized while their permanence is defended.
There is a second issue where I believe Bastos’s analysis also deserves nuance. I am referring to his assertion that the modern State generates “mass warfare,” whereas in the Ancien Régime, wars were more limited and barely affected the population.
Again, the observation contains a significant element of truth. The French Revolution and, above all, the Napoleonic Wars introduced the national mobilization of millions of citizens through the levée en masse. Without the modern state, conflicts like the two world wars could hardly have been organized.
But it doesn’t necessarily follow from this that earlier societies were less violent.
What changes is not only the violence itself.
What changes is our capacity to perceive it.
At this point, I find it particularly useful to revisit Theodore M. Porter’s thesis developed in Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Porter argues that numbers do not possess authority because they are absolutely objective, but because they allow us to construct impersonal criteria that generate trust among people and institutions. Bastos is right when he reminds us that statistics are never neutral. All quantification involves selecting categories, deciding what counts and what is left out, defining concepts, and establishing classification criteria.
Pierre Bourdieu developed a very similar idea when analyzing the modern state. According to Bourdieu, the State not only monopolizes legitimate violence, as Max Weber pointed out, but also, to a large extent, the power of classification. It decides what constitutes unemployment, what constitutes a family, what constitutes a student, what constitutes a crime, how an illness is defined, and what counts as poverty. These categories are never neutral. They express power relations.
However, recognizing this constructed nature does not imply denying their usefulness.
Precisely because the State begins to systematically measure reality, phenomena that previously remained dispersed become objects of public knowledge.
It is no coincidence that the very word “statistics” derives historically from the State.
From the 18th century onward, births, deaths, marriages, homicides, illnesses, literacy, trade, agricultural production, migrations, and a growing number of social indicators began to be recorded. This information does not eliminate political conflict. On the contrary, it makes it visible.
Statistics allow us to compare regions, detect inequalities, observe demographic trends, identify epidemics, study the evolution of crime, and evaluate public policies.
In a sense, it creates a new public sphere.
Not because it automatically determines the truth, but because it provides a common language in which to discuss it.
Before this administrative capacity, it was incredibly difficult to answer questions we now consider basic.
Were there more homicides in the 17th century than in the 19th?
How many people actually died in a famine?
What was life expectancy?
How many children died before the age of five?
How frequent were local wars?
The answer is usually simple: we don’t know.
And we don’t know because no one systematically recorded it.
Here, Carmelo Lisón Tolosana’s anthropology of traditional Galicia is particularly illuminating. His research reveals a world deeply marked by local conflicts. The parishes maintained constant rivalries related to honor, festivals, access to certain resources, and even the marriage market. Competition for women could spark clashes between entire communities. We’re not just talking about fistfights. On numerous occasions, knives and even firearms were involved.
All of this occurred practically without state intervention.
Violence was not an anomaly.
It was part of the daily life of those communities.
Does that mean there was more violence than today?
Not necessarily.
But neither
