Necessary Fictions: The "Swinish Multitude" and the Rights of Man (Reflections on the Revolution in France) (Critical Essay‪)‬

I. Introduction WHEN EDMUND BURKE WROTE OF A "SWINISH MULTITUDE" IN THE Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he probably did not expect to receive many responses from offended swine. (1) Yet in such publications as James Parkinson's "An Address to the Hon. Edmund Burke from the Swinish Multitude" (1793), Daniel Isaac Eaton's "Hog's Wash" (1794-1795) and Thomas Spence's "Pig's Meat; or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude" (1793-1796), Burke's infamous phrase became emblematic of a political philosophy that advocates a rigidly hierarchical social structure. (2) It is not simply Burke's defense of inherited rank that provoked such indignation, but rather it is his assumption--most concisely expressed by his reference to a swinish multitude--that cultural differences are based on biological differences and that the disempowered therefore deserve their subjection. In other words, Burke offends because he implies that the disempowered are like animals and ought to be treated like animals.