Modern conservative thought is the child of two fathers: Edmund Burke (d. 1797) and Joseph de Maistre (d. 1821).
Few conservatives acknowledge this double paternity: while Burke is deservedly fêted, de Maistre is undeservedly ignored. Yet the Anglican Irishman and Catholic Savoyard share many of their ideas and practically all of their premises.
Both owed much of their thought to the galvanising revulsion they felt at the sight of the French Revolution, which they saw as a direct result of atheist Enlightenment philosophy, every aspect of which they recognised as false.
Burke and, even to a greater extent, de Maistre insisted that any successful political theory should start by recognising original sin, which is to say the inherent limits to man’s reason, morality and good will.
De Maistre in particular was scathing about the notion that, because man is inherently good and rational, people can sit down and draw a workable constitution: “We are all born despots, from the most absolute monarch in Asia to the infant who smothers a bird with its hand for the pleasure of seeing that there exists in the world a being weaker than itself.”
Because Christianity, supposedly based on a myth, produces a realistic view of man, it can spin off a true political philosophy. By contrast, atheism, supposedly based on reason, can only produce an ideology, a secular faith resting on man’s fanciful notions contradicting reality.
Man is by nature flawed, wrote de Maistre. Hence: “The science of government… [is] a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life.”
And also: “Who would not say the best political constitution is that which has been debated and drafted by statesmen perfectly acquainted with the national character, and who have foreseen every circumstance? Nevertheless nothing is more false. The best constituted people is the one that has the fewest written constitutional laws, and every written constitution is WORTHLESS.”
When the Salic Law was being debated in France, its opponents demanded to know where it was written. Developing his line of thought, de Maistre retorted: “It’s written in the hearts of Frenchmen.” The same goes for any constitutional document: if it’s written in the peoples’ hearts, it’s superfluous. And if it’s not written there, it’s useless.
De Maistre’s thought, like Burke’s, was informed by a reverence for tradition and the collective wisdom amassed by past generations. Filial submission to tradition will lead to the wisdom of knowing what works and what doesn’t. This will produce much better results than any set of abstract and ultimately unattainable ideals based on rights.
Even more than Burke, de Maistre despised the theory of social contract. Man, he wrote, was a gregarious animal, which is why governments occurred naturally over time and not as a result of some groups of people getting together in a contractual transaction: “To hear these defenders of democracy talk, one would think that the people deliberate like a committee of wise men, whereas in truth judicial murders, foolhardy undertakings, wild choices, and above all foolish and disastrous wars are eminently the prerogatives of this form of government.”
Millions of people died in the immediate aftermath, and as a direct result, of the Revolution. Since then, hundreds of millions perished as a result of fallible men trusting their power to make infallible decisions. Thus de Maistre stands vindicated, though I doubt he’d derive much satisfaction from this.
Today’s conservatives who rail against the depredations visited by modernity but without offering a clear vision of the alternative should learn from de Maistre, who wrote: “What we want isn’t counter-revolution, but the opposite of a revolution.” (It’s more poignant in the original: “Nous ne voulons pas la contre-révolution mais le contraire de la révolution.”)
God, argued de Maistre, produces human institutions and brings them to maturity slowly, which makes patience a great social virtue. Since God’s wisdom, as refracted through centuries of tradition, is superior to man’s reason, we should understand, accept and follow the direction laid down by Providence. The guidance of an authority whose legitimacy derives from God will ultimately prove more reliable and realistic than any ideas concocted by men.
In matters secular, religious authority should work hand in hand with the monarchy, the only institution that accurately reflects the will of God and the nature of man. Yet a monarch will lose his legitimacy if he violates just laws. De Maistre in fact acknowledged that Louis XVI had committed such violations. But the proper response, he argued, was to reform the existing order, not to overthrow it.
A just government, wrote de Maistre, should be an expression of the national character. He despised the Enlightenment idea of universal rights of man: “Now, there is no such thing as ‘man’ in this world. In my life I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on. I even know, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare I’ve never encountered him.”
Interestingly, this great master of the French language never lived in France – he was born in Chambéry in the Savoy, which at that time belonged to the King of Sardinia. It was as his ambassador that de Maistre spent 14 years in Russia, where he influenced many thinkers, especially Tolstoy.
De Maistre even appears as a minor character in War and Peace, where Tolstoy quoted, without attribution, whole pages of de Maistre’s articles on history. However, if de Maistre’s determinism was based on divine providence, Tolstoy bizarrely attributed his to some indeterminate historical forces.
De Maistre’s diplomatic mission was a great success, but he was eventually expelled when the tsar found out that under his Ultramontane influence Russian aristocrats had begun to convert to Catholicism en masse (as did, for example, Princess Helen in War and Peace).
It was with Russia in mind that de Maistre uttered his most famous adage: “Every nation gets the government it deserves”. Thousands of people have quoted this aphorism, but most without knowing its provenance. That seems to be de Maistre’s lot: much influence and little recognition. On balance, that’s better than the other way around, as I’m sure he’d agree.
If only students admired (and read!) Burke and de Maistre as much as they do Marx and Guevara.
“Yet a monarch will lose his legitimacy if he violates just laws. De Maistre in fact acknowledged that Louis XVI had committed such violations.”
Never understood what Louis XVI did that was so egregious that he lost his head. The revolutionaries of course hated all monarchy. But Louis was particularly offensive?