Mastodawn

i like the image the guillotine has online, but let's not forget that, during the french revolution (specifically during the so called "terror" part), it was used as a tool of control and suppression of both people who didn't fully share the values of corrupt leaders (Robespierre is the most well known one, but there's many more), or were less radical, or those that said corrupt leaders just wanted to see disappear. it was a gruesome period and many died during that time solely for being unwanted by the new leaders

the guillotine isn't a pure symbol of the people taking back power from oppressors

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eclexic

@SRAZKVT All or nothing thinking resulted in much harm during the French Revolution.

Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was guillotined and his work discredited due to the king's sponsorship. This set back biology/genetics many decades. Carl Linnaeus' tree based system for classifying species was adopted, as it was free of the aristocracy. You likely learned it in school; it's bad/wrong.

Linnaeus' system was a seminal work in race "science"; Buffon had no patience for that shit!