Tea at Trianon: A Romantic Deformation of Charity

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, February 7, 2015

A Romantic Deformation of Charity

From the writings of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira:

Behind all these approaches is the notion that physical or moral suffering is the only evil in this world. In this view, good is anything that tends to prevent or suppress suffering, and evil is anything that tends to cause or increase it. The good-hearted has a special sensitivity whereby he is easily moved at the sight of any suffering, and defends any and every person who suffers as if he were the victim of an unjust aggression. From this perspective, to love one’s neighbor is to desire that he not suffer; to cause him suffering is always and necessarily the same as to hate him.

Hence, a special psychology is contrived for the benefit of the good-hearted man. All those who show zeal for order, for hierarchy, for the integrity of principles, for the defense of good against the attacks of evil, are heartless people because, in their vigor, they cause suffering to those “poor fellows” who, “in weakness,” slipped and fell.

And if the good-hearted man tolerates all the world’s sinners, it is quite understandable that he will likewise hate the “bad-hearted” man who “makes others suffer.” (Read more.)