Fraternity? — an inquiry

pp. 52-60

in: Howard P. Kainz, Democracy East and West, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1984

Abstract

The first recorded use of the triadic democratic formula "liberté, égalité, fraternité" was in a 1793 motion passed by the Friars Club in Paris. But the phrase was no doubt in vogue before that time, dating from some obscure Enlightenment origin. The obscurity of this origin seems to accentuate the looseness of the connection of these three ideas among themselves — a looseness that would not befit some of the more tightly structured political ideologies, but seems to go well with democracy. However, in spite of their lack of necessary or eternal connectedness, the three ideas do seem to go together: they are indeed complementary, without being synonymous or repetitive or tautologous.