Tea at Trianon: How to Reject the False “Authoritarian-Anarchy” Alternative

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

Thursday, January 13, 2022

How to Reject the False “Authoritarian-Anarchy” Alternative

From TFP:

However, the Church questions the scientific value of this anarchy-despotism alternative. God so wonderfully arranged the order of the universe of inanimate and irrational beings. It would be monstrous to imagine that He imperfectly organized the affairs of man. Potentially, man must have qualities that would allow for the establishment of human societies with an even more perfect order than that observed among irrational beings, bees or ants. Otherwise, man would not be God’s masterpiece.

Thus, the normal condition of human society cannot be found in these tragic alternatives: either moving toward anarchy or moaning under the weight of despotism. The possibility of organizing a stable, lasting and normal human society outside of these two extremes has to exist and does exist.

Because a solution exists, the Church condemns liberals who prefer the path of anarchy. She refuses both false alternatives as merely two ways to perdition. They are like two abysses that open up on each side. The Church points to the right path, which tends toward neither anarchy nor despotism. This path is found in Christian order. (Read more.)