Tea at Trianon: The Socialist Temptation

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

Sunday, July 29, 2018

The Socialist Temptation

From Crisis:

Socialism never goes away. A quarter century after its collapse in Eastern Europe and Russia, and the success of market-oriented reforms elsewhere, many people once again see it as the ideal. This is true even in the Church. Not so very long ago Saint John XXIII reaffirmed the teaching of Pope Pius XI that “no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism.” And Saint John Paul II pointed to “the fundamental error of socialism,” namely, that it “maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice.”

That was then and this is now. Today we find people, some of them serious and well-informed, who call themselves Catholic socialists. This is not about bad or stupid people believing false and destructive things. Rather, there are good and intelligent people who believe these things. Why is that? Many people find socialism irresistible. Life is unfair, as we all know, but unfairness can often be remedied. When this is the case, justice seems to call for the remedy to be applied. And if similar situations keep arising—which they do—it can seem right to make the remedy a matter of routine backed by public authority. After all, shouldn’t a government establish justice?

Apply this line of thought again and again and you end up with a comprehensive bureaucratic control of social life for the sake of fairness. In a prosperous modern society, fairness could include providing everyone with all things necessary for well-being. Anything less would leave some harms unremedied. (Read more.)