Notes on Ball & Dagger reader
Joseph de Maistre (1796, ??)
Selections from Considerations on France and Study on Sovereignty

Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre (1753-1821)

French philosophical writer, b. at Chambéry, in Savoy [Italy], in 1753, when Savoy did not belong to France; d. at Turin, 26 Feb., 1821. His family, which was of French origin, had settled in Savoy a century earlier, and had attained a high position, his father being president of the Senate. Joseph, the eldest of ten children, was a pupil of the Jesuits, who, like his parents, inspired him with an intense love of religion and detestation of the eighteenth-century philosophical rationalism, which he always resolutely opposed. In 1774 he entered the magistracy; in 1780 he was assistant fiscal advocate general; in 1788 he was appointed senator, being then thirty-five years old. Four years later, he was forced to fly before the invading French, and discharged for four years at Lausanne a confidential mission for his sovereign, the King of Sardinia. That monarch having lost the capital of his kingdom, de Maistre lived in poverty at Venice, but on the restoration of the king, went to Sardinia as keeper of the great seal (1799) and, three years later, to St. Petersburg, as plenipotentiary. This mission lasted fourteen years, till 1817. Though weakly supported by his Government, which was at times displeased with his frankness, poor amidst a lavish aristocracy, he nevertheless successfully defended the interests of his country with the Czar Alexander, who, like most of the leading personages at St. Petersburg, highly appreciated his character and his ability. He afterwards returned to Turin, to fill the post of minister of State and keeper of the great seal until his death.

[From The Catholic Encyclopedia <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09554a.htm>]

De Maistre's thesis

Nations have a soul, a spirit. (In the mid-20th century, before they started using the language of "political culture", social scientists studied what they called "national character".) The French revolutionaries and other classical liberals are silly to talk of "mankind" or "humanity".

This comes from God and the sovereign represents this soul.: "all sovereignty has its source in God" (155A/5); "Powers ordained by providence" (155A/3).

Thus reason alone cannot define or limit it, and this divine origin demands obedience to it.

Justification of absolute authority through an "argument by consequences": if we allow dissent (whether political or religious), we get anarchy.

We will see this argument again when we study Fascism. In my view, de Maistre is a Fascist. [I am not using this as a term of abuse but just a philosophical classification.]

De Maistre seeks to return to the status quo ante [Latin; literally, "the state which was before"].

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Do nations have a soul or spirit independent of the wishes of the people within it?
What privileges the "nation"? Could we not equally talk about a specific region or ethnic group or family (etc.) having a soul or spirit?
Does allowing dissent necessarily result in anarchy?

OTHER, MISCELLANEOUS LECTURE NOTES

Dialectics. Hegel. The cardboard "thesis-antithesis-synthesis". The dialectic of construction vs. deconstruction and critique.

Note Stage 3 1/2 ---> Stage 4 ---> Stage 4 1/2 ---> Stage 5 sequence. (Larry Kohlberg's numbering.)

Classical liberalism addresses the problems in Stage 4 1/2 by moving to Stage 5. De Maistre, however, recoils from Stage 4 1/2 back to Stage 4, which is why he is termed a reactionary theorist. This is an absolutizing movement; a response to the slippery slope argument by demanding we simply go back up the slope, ignoring what led us onto it in the first place.

STILL OTHER, MISCELLANEOUS LECTURE NOTES

Very similar to Burke in some ways — but grounds his theory on a sacredness, not a reasoned caution.
As opposed to the abstraction, "man", of the French Constitution, de Maistre states the following as "givens" of law-making:
- the population
- its customs & traditions
- the existing religion
- the geographical situation
- political relations
- wealth
- good & bad features of a particular action [Huh? That's a catch-all phrase if I ever saw one.]
Given the above, de Maistre claims, we can find the laws that fit a particular society — in particular, laws that codify what already exists.
Note the problems with phrasing the problem of governance in this way:
- All of these things are preexisting, and the laws are fit to them. There is no sense that the laws might change what is preexisting.
- All of these things are unchanging. There is no allowance that things might or ought to change.
- All of these things are unitary. Absent from de Maistre's consideration is the possibility that these things might vary within the population. Religion is an obvious example; de Maistre seems to ignore the possibility (and legitimacy) of religious dissent.
- All of these things can be known in some unproblematic way. (This assumption is closely tied to the previous one.) But knowledge is always under contention; the perception that we can know things in some absolute way always represents an exercise of political power, not of knowledge.
Charismatic authority: [After all, de Maistre has to account of the beginnings of political society, just as other political theorists of the time did.]
- Doesn't reason (not "mere intellect")
- Inspired (doesn't realize what he is achieving; just does it)
- Commands, doesn't reason
Also mentions organic growth (a la Burke), but without using it as Burke does.
In either case (charismatic origins or organic growth), de Maistre argues, a nation can't be constructed via Reason, still less by an assembly (e.g., the French National Assembly).
In addition, people don't respect what they create, so a contrived constitution has no moral force (or, as he says later, no motive force for self-sacrifice). [Note how we in the United States worship the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, etc. — our "secular religion".]