“Disaster” and Construal Level Theory

Was the French Revolution a disaster?  Well, it did send Europe into 26 years of horrific bloodshed and misery.  Standard estimates put the body count of the Napoleonic era alone in the vicinity of 5 million victims.  Yet even well-informed people will often furrow their brows and muse that it was, on the whole, a good thing.  Or at least too complex to confidently condemn.  Ask people about the Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the partition of India, or the decolonizat...