As this case study of the French Revolution and its aftermath shows, the theory of emotives makes possible a new kind of historical explanation. The differential effects of emotives can explain the success of some emotional regimes, the failure of others, and therefore help us to understand how real states and real social orders come and go. I have shown that there is a great deal at stake in the emotional regimes that come to govern our lives and our sense of self. Some may provide a measure of emotional liberty that renders them tolerable, even when they treat emotional flexibility as a sign of weakness and expect individuals to conceal deviations that are, in practice, ubiquitous. Others, which aim at universal liberation, may require an inflexible regimentation of emotions that ensures their downfall. The concept of emotional liberty gives political meaning back to history and allows us to discern, in the past, the trail of a succession of experiments with emotional regimes.

EMOTIONS IN WESTERN COMMON SENSE

Embrace of this theory means moving far from the prevailing Western common sense about emotions. But such movement, after a long period of blockage, already appears well under way in many fields of research. Why have emotions come on the agenda only now? What is at stake in the working out of a proper theory of emotions? Emotion is a constitutive feature of the Western conception of the self.