Joseph de Maistre: Order, Authority, and the Counter-Revolution

Why did the French Revolution convince some thinkers that reason itself was the enemy? Joseph de Maistre's reactionary philosophy remains one of the sharpest critiques of Enlightenment optimism ever written.

In this episode of Beyond the Text, Sam Woodall and Jack Thomson explore the provocative political thought of Joseph de Maistre, one of the most formidable critics of the Enlightenment and a central voice of the Counter-Revolution. Drawing on Jack Thomson’s research, the conversation examines Maistre’s defence of monarchy, tradition, and religious authority in the aftermath of the French Revolution. ⚜️📜

The episode considers Maistre’s striking claim that reason alone cannot sustain political order, and that authority, sacrifice, and providence play a far deeper role in human societies than Enlightenment thinkers were willing to admit. From his reflections on violence and sovereignty to his vision of a divinely ordered political world, Maistre’s ideas remain unsettling and fascinating in equal measure. 🏛️⚔️

As always on Beyond the Text, the discussion situates a major thinker within their intellectual and historical context, asking what their ideas meant in their own time and what they might still reveal about the enduring tensions between reason and tradition, revolution and order. 🌍📚

Join us as we step beyond the text to unpack one of the most controversial and compelling thinkers of modern political thought. 🎙️

#BeyondTheText, #JosephDeMaistre, #IntellectualHistory, #HistoryOfIdeas, #CounterRevolution, #FrenchRevolution, #PoliticalThought, #Philosophy, #EnlightenmentDebate, #Conservatism, #PoliticalPhilosophy, #IdeasMatter 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to be on the tech with me, Danny Woodle. Excellent local in person again. And it's amazing that we've worn the same outfit since last week, isn't it? Is it incredible? No, I don't know. I don't know how we've managed to do that. And we do actually have more than one pair of clothes each, so um. But no more. We're very frugal, we're very puritan, I've influenced Jack in my ways. Um, but what we are going to do is we're going to run a fantastic session inspired by a colleague of ours, uh, Derek Van Roost. Um I'd name drop him for any anyone who wants to be inspired from Dalhousie in St Andrews, um, Canadian and Scottish academia at its finest with our young friend. Oh, indeed, indeed. Who inspired us into reading De Maestra and certainly has had a big impact on you to both Derek and De Maestra. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yes. It's true, it's true. Um, I only heard of Maestra. I don't really know why. Um, one of those names that's just in the mind, right? Yeah. And I was so impressed. I I count Maestra as the the foremost modern apologist for this very peculiar concept of providence. I don't think anyone ever explained it with such from a philosophical point of view, with such clarity. Yeah. And ever undermined the common criticism with such um precision and I would just I would say finality, but it's always obviously always room for new arguments to come, but I think um Matrix formidable and I think far more persuasive on this subject than Augustine. Yeah. Even though they are arguing for the same thing. I think I think the thinking on this subject hasn't had quite a lot of time to develop and he benefits from the whole 1500 years, really, yeah, yeah. Um, in addition to Augustine.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Um he's quite famous, if anyone has heard of him, he's quite famous for his uh uh coinage that is used often these days as a kind of political coinage that every country has the government it deserves, um, which is interesting and we shall explore further as to whether that's an accurate representation of his beliefs. Um but this is often cited in terms of this kind of realist sort of like, well, you know, you got you put it there, or you accepted it, or you lived by it, um, that we shall explore how far Joseph de Maestra can be uh trapped by that phrase. Um but what's his background as intellectual formation? Well, I mean you know this is a session led by Jack, but I know that he was born in Chambury in Savoy, um, into a Catholic, royalist, administrative elite. Yes, Jack, please.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yes, it's off of me. His father um worked for the court, um, legislative court, um, not necessarily legal court. Um so Maestron actually studied law, so he studied law in Turin uh in Italy, which was part of the um oh I forget the name of the monarchy. So there are several names that come up with the Piedmontege monarchy who employed his father. What's the geography of that? Does that include Piedmont does come down into northern Italy from the state? So this is Piedmontege uh dynasty, um, so it was natural that he would study there. It also includes Savoy. Yeah, and where his father was a senator. Exactly. So um now Savoy is relevant because that's where later Joseph Demetre himself begins his diplomatic career. Um so he joined after his studies he joined the magistrat the magistrature hard work in Champlay. Um during that time until the revolution in um 1792, at least until that year, I think the revolution begins a couple years ago. Oh yeah, right. So until a little bit into the revolution, he's very much involved in Freemasonry and the Masonic circles and very interested in the doctrines of Illuminism. So basically the sort of enlightenment style of Gnosticism. Yeah, yeah. Um, which is Gnosticism being Gnosticism being uh many things, uh sort of general pointers, um, the view that knowledge is salvific. Yeah, yeah. So that the fun so the answer to the fundamental human question lies in not in not in uh an act as such, but a in in in in in a certain the possession of a certain kind of knowledge. Um so so you have all kinds of cults that form around that. Yeah, yeah. Um so that's not the Christian view.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So yeah, that's something I omitted to mention in the Augustinian one that actually his rebuttal is a fight against Gnosticism.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah, that that's that's one of the important points there. Um Christianity isn't um uh a face of that knowledge saves, but that that Jesus Christ saves. Um so that that's the important point. It also therefore involves by nature a dualism of the mind and body, which is quite problematic. Yeah. Uh it has some roots in Platonic, uh Planonic Platonic sort. Yeah. Um is Plato and Gnostic Debatable. Yeah. Moving on. Um does resign this line of thinking. He he he quits Freemasonry, he starts to take his faith more seriously from from the turning point of the revolution onwards. Yeah. His third publications are defences, uh, treaties in defence of hereditary monarchy. Yeah. Yeah. The first of these is a philosophical political argument, the second is a theological argument, and they're written about four years apart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he tries to get employed in Turin to the monarch, but somebody um reveals that he's the author of this pamphlet, and he he gets um he no longer gets that that job. He but he does then get employed in Sardinia to be the ambassador. When he's in exile. Yes, in 1992 or something. Uh later, um later, I think. Um so eventually he does find himself employed by the Russian government. Yes. Ambassador of Sardinia to the Tsar. I guess employed by the Sardinian government. Yeah, I guess. Okay. So and it's in it's in Russia that he writes the St. Petersburg dialogue, and that's his main work. It's in the the wonderful tradition of philosophical dialogue where you have characters who are meeting for conversations and and exploring a variety of themes. Their lit their literary quality is is of the highest, it's very semantically dense, it's it's funny, it's witch, yeah, it's witty, it's philosophically incisive, um, and it covers a whole range of themes, but they're united by this core idea that Matra says he's writing to justify the ways of God to man. So the main scene is providence and justice.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's important that he's also not writing in the context of kind of this was brought up about my figure Rapan, which actually, although he comes to very different conclusions, um he lives at a time of financial precarity, which Demistra also does. Um, and he's also writing very much within aristocratic salons and this kind of network of patrons, and and but even though they're aristocratic, the he what is important is he's not writing in that kind of institutional academic style, I guess. He's writing very much within a million of interested, but kind of like essentially almost for the layman, but obviously a learned layman. Oh, of course, of course, very much.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

He does address himself to the learned layman, good way of putting it. Um he's very conscious of style. Yeah. He spent many years um during the revolution, quite and during his career as a magistrate, um, consciously refining his style, uh practising that.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

He writes about when when he flees to Sardinia, the letters of um Royalist Savoisien. Yes, uh the letters defending hereditary monarchy um on political rational grounds, but later judged as insufficient, as they concede too much, to my to my realm, to enlightenment rational grounds.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Exactly, that's that's the important point I forgot to mention. So the reason he rewrites it with a theological argument in mind is because he realizes that in giving just a political or philosophical argument, he he buys into the basic premise of Enlightenment Illuminism and agnosticism, which he's he's realizing is um is is really mistaken. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

And I think um we can yeah, we can see him as this counter-Enlightenment figure. I mean, these hyphenated terms are very difficult to to um I guess almost justify really using. I mean, I guess he is a good example of counter-enlightenment thought, but then you would also have someone like Jean-Jacques Rousseau uh positioned as a counter-Enlightenment thinker. Um so yeah. Yes, for very different reasons. Exactly. Um does he mention Rousseau? Yes he does. In actually in a semi-praising way, whilst kind of yeah, I do remember this, yes, in a semi-praising way.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Um it's in the second chapter of the um of the St. Petersburg dialogue, the second dialogue deals with Rousseau's state of nature. Yeah. And it's quite interesting because it it it sort of indicates the breadth of the book um and and really the challenge for any interpreter to see what on earth unites these scenes and these investigations. Um yeah, he he does talk about Rousseau um the state of nature, um, and the question he basically raises is why do we see the primitive societies as the origin point of culture and language? He thinks it makes far more sense to view them as the vestiges of prior civilization. Yes, yeah. So in this way, you can read you can understand this chapter as connecting original sin to culture. So what our anthropologists are actually finding are the the the the the human and cultural consequences of original sin. Yeah. The primitive, the barbarian in his language is sort is a man who's fallen to the lowest possible state in this world. He's lost language, he's lost um, he's lost religion. Yeah, yeah. No, that's very interesting. So it's it's a it's like no one had ever argued that. Yeah, yeah. It's so original. I don't I don't think anyone's ever argued that. But it it's a very serious argument. He spends pages giving etymological analysis of Latin, Greek, and French to make this argument, yes, to sort of show this how the structure of language indicates that a primitive language would not be the beginning of something but the the fragmentation. It's really quite peculiar.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yes, and I think it's peculiar. This whole Russian thing is peculiar because obviously Russia does go through a period of enlightened despotism, and there is this kind of idea that it's part of the Enlightenment, but then by the 19th century, Russia lags behind massively in terms of any social reform. So Russia is quite a backward-looking country all the way up until the revolution, when you still have serfdom in the 20th century. So Russia's not moving forward particularly quickly. So I'm intrigued how much this kind of level of sort of um I guess suffering really across the board in Russia may have impacted his um may have impacted his thought in terms of providential intervention. But let's get to these St. Petersburg dialogues anyway. There are 11 fictional dialogues. Um their central aim is to justify God's ways to man. The core problem that he's grappling with is providence. How can suffering, injustice, war and violence coexist with divine justice? Yes. There's a strong continuity with the Augustinian providential history that we've been discussing, especially in the City of God. Um, the rise and fall of empires is moral, intelligible within divine order. These are all things that Democracy is grappling with in this age of kind of counter-Enlightenment. And obviously, for those who maybe don't know so much about the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment is this period spanning, let's say, from the 1680s to the 1780s, uh, in which there's a development of science, of rationalism, arguably a turn away from religion towards that which we can understand in the world. Obviously, these are things that we could do a whole podcast on debating whether or not the enlightenment is any of these things, whether it is anything at all, whether it's just different moments, different people. But across Europe, there's this republic of letters, different intellectuals engaging in these techniques. Um usually then against it you have this concept of the counter-enlightenment posed. Often counter-enlightenment scholars, however, are using the tools of the Enlightenment to their own end. So how far one can differentiate counter-enlightenment scholars from Enlightenment scholars is obviously questionable because they're engaging in these networks, these techniques, these sorts of things. Um that's a little bit of uh situating these texts. Let's turn to Providence as a conceptual framework.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yes, so he takes Augustine, and not explicitly, but just for the sake of continuity of this podcast, yes, he very much has the same view of Providence as Augustine has. It's it's the it's the mystery of how um God works um in the hearts of the people and in the circumstances of the world to maximise the or to make possible rather to make possible salvation in principle for all people. Um this corresponds only very loosely to any utilitarian sense of maximizing the good. It's not quite that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, because it's not computable and it it's relative to the particular needs of individuals and communities and societies. I mean, it's an impossible problem for a man to compute. But nevertheless, this is the experience of people, and also that it's possible to read history in this way. Yeah. Um, arguably, people have tried to make that that case, Albertine being one of the earliest. Yeah. Um, Herodotus in his or mystic way, uh an even earlier example. Um okay, so the first dialogue just deals with straight off the bat a series of objections to Providence, yeah, which I think many of us will recognise today, yeah. Um especially after New Aetheism, and many of these arguments can be discussed again. So, first of all, um why should good men suffer? Why should evil men not suffer? This is the first question. And Maestra begins, I mean it Which we can call moral evil as a broad sort of term. Well, this is this is more in response to natural evil, actually, I would I would suggest.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Um I guess that for a new atheist though, natural evil would be like why is there suffering in a forest when that's what I'm just discovering? Yeah, I know what you mean, yeah, it's sort of in between the two. I mean it it I guess it involves both, but and we're also prolexically mapping on terms, so we don't need to worry too much about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

But the distinction has been in the literature since the climate, I think. Yeah, I guess so. Um so it's not it's not at all. I think the the the question is first and foremost raised by natural evil, yeah, and also by moral evil, but um I think moral evil has more of an explanation uh in the in God's permissive will of the freedom of the other to do good and ill. Yeah, to choose good or ill without and without that choice there is no meaning to good or evil. So moral evil actually is way easier to justify. Natural evil seems less. Why do some people get cancer and others not? Um, for example, and Maistra's first point straight away is to distinguish injustice and misfortune. Yeah, suffering is not injustice, it is misfortune, and it's misfortune because it's not intrinsically related to one's moral state. Yeah, that's the almost a liberating thing. Um, so it suffering in principle prioritizes neither the good nor the evil. So it's not a it's not a question of justice. Yeah. Um, and then Augustine will say, and Maestre will say in his own way, but we remember Augustine talking about temporal suffering as an opportunity for sanctification, and that's something that's available to everyone. A sense of adversity to the virtue. Yes, yeah. So with this dissociation from the question of justice, you have now a question of opportunity and responsibility um to take responsibility for your own salvation, yeah. Using opportunities that come in your life to grow in virtue. I mean, how do you I mean just to give basic examples? How do you grow in patience if you are not tasted tested? How do you grow in um in courage if you're not face scary things and difficult things? So this is this is part of the logic there, and that's available to everybody regardless of what they've done. Which also then means that the people who have committed the most moral evil also have that same possibility. So it's a remarkable, it's a remarkable result to dissociate these things. Yeah, yeah. Um, redemption truly is universal. Okay, that's the first um problem that he deals with. Um he then um has to say, okay, okay, so does suffering accrue to to the people who do evil in general, or does it accrue to the the the people who do good, or does it not accrue to anybody in general? So um in effect, is suffering a punishment? Yeah in any in a general way is suffering a punishment? Do do bad people tend to suffer more? Um conversely, are good people in general more immune to suffering? This is the next question he raises. And he's not so happy with this way of thinking either, because it tends to view happiness as a reward for virtue. Yeah, yeah. And if virtue has a temporal reward, it's no longer virtue. Yeah, because it's in attaining something. Now a means to an end, it's not an end in itself. That's objection number two dealt with. Um he related to a point I made a moment ago, he he argues that God is not morally culpable for the fact of natural and moral evil because he's not the direct author. Yes, yes, so it's not a put it can't be viewed as a punishment. Um it's um it's his permit rather it's his permissive will, reflect as I mentioned, reflecting the his respect for human freedom.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Yes, this is where that whole free will debate enters this discussion in terms of in terms of you have to be able to leave room for free will to operate, and thereby these ills can be.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, I mean, and a very simple way of understanding this is like if if you know a lot of these things I think become clearer when you consider like very human analogies. I mean, you think of like how a father and a and his son will interact, yeah, father and his child. I mean, um if if if the father intervenes in everything that could harm the son, it won't learn to be able to do it. It won't learn anything, and it won't ever become responsible, it won't become a person.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It won't become sensible and aware.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yes. And and therefore, and in that kind of there's not really there's no real relationship. Yes, there's no real virtue, there's neither of their values, they're just nothing, it's flat. It it's there's no vitality, there's not there's nothing in that world.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

There's no therefore suffering itself is a good it's an opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Is it a good though? No, this is we have to be careful, um, because suffering isn't original to the creation in this view of the world. So suffering isn't essential for happiness because happiness ultimately ultimately is found in the beatific vision.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

But there is a bit of a fetishization of suffering.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

There is, um, which is a bit of a danger, which is a danger in many writers, um, because the cross is very central to the Christian faith. But it is it it can easily become a kind of obsession over suffering. But the important point to remember is, and I think Matrix does understand this at some level, even if his literary genius gets a bit carried away at times, especially in the chapter we'll sub we'll study subsequently. The important thing to realize is that suffering in itself does not afford happiness, does not Afford salvation. No, it's an opportunity, but it has to be engaged with for the right reasons. If you're engaging with suffering out of pride, this is a new depth of moral evil that's emerging.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

He's not advocating some life like an esthet of kind of um crawling on one's back to a temple or this kind of thing, or puritanical self-flagellation.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Many people carry these images of Christian asceticism and they're they're woefully unrealistic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean people think like the flagellants of the Middle Ages are sort of the pinnacle of atonement, and they're really not. It turns up how the church views these things, flagellation is not regarded as a particularly remarkable expression of piety and asceticism. Yeah, completely. Um because I mean to say that it is is to completely misunderstand what suffering is in relationship to salvation. Fundamentally, salvation is not something I can I can gain by my own ethics. If it was, I would just do that all day. Yeah. But then it's it completely contradicts the sense in which the body is good.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

And the relationship, as we've said, between virtue and suffering is somewhat removed in doing that as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it just becomes this expression of self-hatred. The Christian revelation is about discovering the true sense of self-love.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

And I think this somewhat, this discussion of violence leads to his discussion of the executioner as the image of divine justice.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yes, um, this is a really strange image, and it's already taken into I think the main chapter we want to discuss, which is chapter seven. Um unless it comes up in chapter one, I can't remember. But chapter seven is is more well known, it's a dialogue about war, and because this is a project about justifying God's ways to man, he has to make an argument for why war is somehow compatible with God's justice and providence. I mean, for these basic reasons we can already see why, but war is just it's a very providential phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, well exactly, he had to deal with them. So um and war is quite interesting for Matrix seems to give it a certain privileged place in in human experience um as a particular instrument of divine providence, uh not just as something that's merely compatible, but as something that's compatible in a very special way, maybe even uh an instrument of divine providence. Um and the chat the purpose of the chapter is to mystify war.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

It can't be understood rationally. Yeah. Which actually is a very um very astute point to make at the time of the Enlightenment, because my old professor Richard Watmore sort of said imperial conquest and war is the thing that kills Enlightenment. So it's quite interesting that him as a counter-Enlightenment Scotland is raising this point that war isn't isn't rational, it's almost uh it's almost an accidental realization of like where the Enlightenment ultimately will die in war. And why why do you think that is all because virtue so virtue becomes a sort of emblem to justify war for for imperialist nations in Europe, and the original conception of the virtues and moral order that Enlightenment scholars were trying to unpack and understand becomes a kind of shield for imperial conquest. Um that's close to Borgus. Yeah, and sort of removes the s the actual soul and content of virtue by using it as a weak sort of shell for conquest.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Okay. So so virtue is seen instrumentally. Yeah, exactly. And that would be so so you would connect that to the Enlightenment because the Enlightenment is about turning ethics, say, into tools of reason. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so and then you get an instrumentalist ethics and okay, that's very interesting. Um yeah, Mainstra's approach to showing these I wouldn't say the irrationality of war, but the suprar rationality of war. Right. That's really the aim. It it is to say that it it it's above reason, not below it. Yeah. That's that's quite important. He begins um with the a comparison between the soldier and the executioner that you adjusted to. The executioner, I think, does occur in an earlier book, I can't remember where, as an emblem of divine justice. Um in this chapter it it serves to show that um on the one hand the soldier is a an arm of the state who who executes um military personnel in a lawful way, yeah. The other executes civilians in a lawful way. One is a very heroic figure, the other is a figure that's quite neatly reviled on the whole. People try not to be fond of executioners, it's quite a there's a level of stigma there, yeah. Reasonably. But it's interesting that in one case, one of the most honourable thing in Mainster's line is to be able to take innocent life innocently. One of the most honourable things in the world is that, yeah, and war into the context in which that's appropriate. But the executioner by contrast is it suddenly isn't. Yeah, yeah. Um, and there's a sense in which justice is quite messy um and and alien to to human intuition. Yeah, yeah. Um so that's the first thing he lays out. I mean, these things aren't ultimately resolved, but it's the the purpose of this chapter is to to rid all of these doubts.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

And there's a long there's a long history, we won't delve into it massively, but I was just thinking about it in terms of the executioner as a figure, you know, um, both in the West and further afield, that they stick the executioner sits awkwardly in society because it's necessary it's necessary for justice. Yes. It um that the executioner often sat at a sort of strange level of authority alongside the ruler, in essence, because you know they were directly paid by whoever the ruler was, they often were you know given the best rent of food and this sort of thing, but in society they were marginalized because they were obviously seen as this kind of final act giver in society. So they were often marginalized and and sitting outside of broader society whilst coming from it. Um and um there was almost um in sort of Eastern culture the idea that they were the purifier because they took on you know all the guilt of society and purified it back to a more sanctified state.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

That's an it's a very interesting image. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um ultimately the the Catholic Church comes out against capital punishment in the 20th century, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is very interesting. But it comes out against it because by this stage there are now alternatives. Yes, yes. There is it's more possible to rehabilitate people because of what we know about psychology, but obviously the basic infrastructure and and so forth. That's also that's also interesting to note. Um, so that there is some substance to people's revulsion, I think, uh this role, but certainly historically speaking, yeah, there's this very dirty job that but does purify the society and somewhat engages with the divine in that way. Well in yeah, in a way, yeah, but it's it's it's already been recognised at least in in these kind of cultures as a divine function to play with life in this way, to hold life in one's hands. Um from the old beginning of the old testament as an injunction against taking the life of another. Yeah, yeah. Um now in the law that it works around. Um but obviously the biblical hermeneutics is always how God condescends into the the difficult circumstances of human affairs. Um okay. The chapter proceeds to discuss war itself and raises um several just peculiarities and oddities about war that should raise our our questions. Why is it that in war so many advances in technology and medicine are made? Um why is it that we see so many virtues on display you know in in like healthcare? Yeah, um or the respect like how how these armies will will wage war with one another, but they will go home for Christmas and Easter. Yes, yeah. Um have a truce on Christmas Day. I mean it's happened in World War I for quite a remarkable um occasion. Um how how it is that when is it that a war is lost?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yes, exactly. Is it a total war? Is it a battle, a geographically constrained battle, these kind of concepts?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah, exactly. And he concluded that uh you know a battle is lost when one lets fear enter the heart. Yeah, well that's the spirit of irrational unreason, let's say. Yeah, something like that. Um let's see.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Something about participants as well, am I right? Um, that who is participating in war, because the soldier on so soldier battle has honour, has glory, these things that have been being discussed, but it's looked at differently when the soldier is going rampaging and pillaging through um citizens.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's important. Uh why is that the lives of the people waging the war are genuinely preserved? Why do the generals pent out last the war? Yeah, that's a mystery that he raises. Um, even though they're not always they're not always like you know we have an idea of like you know modern generals sort of hide in the office, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:41

No, but why do they survive in particular? Why is there a kind of officers uh etiquette almost between both sides of the stuff as well?

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Um these kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Um we've got interrelational society in war, but what about international society? What does he say about war as a failure, perhaps, of international society?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Well, uh yes, so so he says that um a mystery he actually raises prior to engaging with this particular litany of mystery we've just gone through, but yeah, he raises the question of why is it that we've never been able to transcend the state that the state of nature as a nation with respect to other nations.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah, so this is a Hobbesian view, to make it clear, of the state of nature being extrapolated to the international sphere, isn't it? Uh, this is an idea that we this isn't a Rousseauan view of the state of nature. What he maybe is suggesting is why have we never reached a Rousseauan view of the state of nature on the international sphere? Why can we not live alongside harmoniously effectively? But he's saying no.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

In very modern sort of phrasing, he asked me why has there not been like an international sort of um in a relation of nation, but uh like like what we might call why have there not been a UN? Yeah, why have there not been a European Union?

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yeah. Um he's obviously contextually thinking of his home of Savoy invasion and kind of uh the the the sort of revolutionary conflicts that take place and obviously then lead into Napoleonic conflict and conquest later on.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yeah, and now that there is a a European Union uh and and such things, and and that we're quite fond of setting up these these things, like Trump's just made a board of peace, this is now this the stage at which politics operate, this is the level at which politics operate primarily.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

And obviously, even in the day, Kant had this idea of a kind of tribunal of reason that would be applied on an international sphere, but the perpetual peace text. I think that would be an interesting, yeah. Oh, it should maybe study a peace, the board of peace or tribunal of reason. Trump's tribunal of reason.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Um exactly. So um now that we have these things, this for the for the Christian historian, this raises new questions, or at least for the historian who takes Providence seriously, this raises questions of what kind of stage are we in human history, in the human story? What new challenges are there, what new opportunities are there? Yeah, I mean, this is this is the chance to find out whether we can make international diplomacy function. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

But obviously, Maker predates all this, so and it contrasts with someone like Montaigne's view at the time that actually there would be a tyranny of custom that sort of like there would be shared understandings and beliefs. But Michel de Montaigne is sort of suggesting on an international sphere that these things will mean that sort of people work hand in hand, that these customs will rise up, and it will only be when there's really competing value sets that there will be conflict. Um whereas for for Demistra, the failure of international society um is that can we say really God permits failure? Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

And and perhaps he permits it because there is something about war that is um necessary. That's maybe the direction in which the argument is going. Maybe for moral discipline, Jack. Maybe for moral discipline. Um but but but but actually quite specifically for the and this is this is where we you know we we mentioned earlier, you know, the question of the sort of the fetishization of suffering. Yeah, this is really where this this problem comes up for Maistra. Now, and and of course, preface Maestra with the fact that he's a literary mind, literary genius, frankly. Yeah, this chapter is especially literary because we begin with this question of of the divine function of war, and then suddenly the narrative transitions quite inexplicably to a commentary on the Psalms of David, and then finishes on some meditations about the the meaning of the night, yeah, yeah, as the cloak of moral evil, but also the place where one encounters God in prayer, yeah, and then the narrative ends, and it's really weird. Why did you put these things together side by side? He doesn't give you any explicit reason, that's just the way the narrative turns, and so and this is after he's just beginning this incredibly uh dramatic litany. War is divine, war is divine, and for all these reasons. You read it, it feels like a drum beat, and it's a cosmic law. Yes, it's a cosmic law that pervades nature that pervades all of nature, called the animals are killing each other, the men kill the animals, who's there to kill man? That's literally act.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Man must also be killed by man.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Yes, how he sees it, it validates the cosmic unity. And he sees in these cycles of destruction something redemptive for the whole of the human race. So there's always, because of sin, there's always got to be some price paid.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

A violent law? Yes, yeah. And the moral beings then fulfill said law by doing this. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Maybe. Um I don't pretend to fully understand the chapter. Yeah, yeah. Um because I I mean it's it's bold, yeah, it's dramatic, it's provocative. Does he really believe this? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

I don't know, but I guess he definitely believes that war is the law of the world. Whether or not that means that there's a sort of violent law can be left to discussion. Um, but we know that it produces supernatural effects. Uh this idea we've mentioned a couple of times, glory seems to surround it mysteriously. Yeah, that's another thing he points to. Glory.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Glory is quite mysterious.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Um, and outcomes, and obviously beyond this time, certainly, defy human calculation and expectation. Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

So once the war begins, it's just it's out of your hand, it's really a gamble.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

I mean it snowballs and snowballs and snowballs, and this is what we see as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I mean, yeah, people have this idea that we'll wage the war for so many months, maybe give or take 10%, and then it never ends out this way. Yeah, so rarely ends out this way. Because it's it's impossible to calculate all the possible eventualities and how people respond. And so it's I think we lose sight of this because we live in such a digitized age and we feel we have access to all the information. Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, maybe it'd be useful to know to remind ourselves that yeah, even in the 19th century, I mean, you know, things are still just sent by letter. You've never been to you've never been to Turkey. Yeah, yeah. You don't know what Turkey's like. You can read Herodotus, that's a 2000-year book, and that's a bit out of date. And you know, maybe you have some some traders who come in to your city and tell you a bit about it. You have a purely notional idea of all of these places, uh, and governments and cultures, yeah. Um how that affects military planning as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

So on can I jump off of the point of culture as well, because also war from Demistra seems to degrade some nations but perhaps regenerate others. And you could see that maybe with the example of Spain and the Reconquist there, it clearly regenerates Spain, yeah, but the loss during the Armada of Spain and its well, its empire begins to fall apart, sort of um clearly begins to lessen Spain's kind of agility and ability. Yes. Um so we can see that in action in just one example there, I think.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yes, no, indeed, indeed. So so so yeah, war is very mysterious um in this way. Uh it it's not human.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's what it may be suggesting. As you said, it's supra. Super human, super rational, suprahuman. So, what about prayer, fear, and Christian distinctiveness in this? The war depends immediately on God, that Christians pray differently from pagans, yeah, yeah. And then David Psalms, Jack.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's really just like I mentioned, a a very inexplicable turn. I spent a lot of time trying to understand from a literary criticism point of view, why does he write in this way? Yeah. Why does he turn the subject this way? You get some hints, so the the conclusion of the comments on war is that Notting depends more on God than war, and so we should give thanks and um and praise and and and so forth. And so there's an element of resignation. So the conclusion of the study of providence is always going to be resignation, but especially in war. And uh and and he's almost using war to to as as a as a symbolic image of some kind of um cycle of violence which is retributive and restorative. Yeah, yeah, um, divinely speaking. And most basically because um it provides the basic context in which there is the kind of uncertainty. Terror mixed with hope. Terror, hope, um, an opportunity for ordinary people to do good in times that really try. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

And sinful times, essentially. Yeah, it's in acknowledged, but trust or hope maintained in that.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yeah, I mean war is the ultimate evidence of the inevitable collapse of the city of man, um, of the impossibility of living a simple life, a life secluded from trouble, yeah, the pot the impossibility of planning for the future. So, so war in many ways stands for the need for faith. It's the supreme evidence of the need for faith and hope and charity. All the theological virtues are are there in that basic human reality.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

And a need for prayer, Jack. And we can understand providence and maybe lead us into the night.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Right, yeah, so this is where it goes. So, so David is the Psalms of David um are said to be a very distinctive form of prayer because it recognises non-just a God that punishes, but a personal God to whom we for to whom we can petition for forgiveness. Yeah. So we're not just um he he uses specific words which which escape me, but there's something much infinitely more personal um about the Christian god than the pagan gods. Yeah. This whole new a whole which introduces a whole new dimension of of forgiveness and repentance than than than mere sort of mechanical punishment and fate. Um one had a father in heaven, which is very new. Um so this is something David understands very well, and there are some very heart-rending psalms that explore this, but also psalms which delight in the the the beauty of nature, and so there's all these complex human experiences that are summarized in David's prayers. Um why pray? Because um prayer is the encounter with the the suprarational, yeah, not the so the uncertainty not in the negative but in the positive sense, the kind of uncertainty which we characterize with virtues, which we relate to virtuously in faith, in hope, yeah, resulting in charity. So this is what prayer is, first and foremost, to is to establish within yourself a positive moral relationship to the unknown. Yeah. Um, ultimately, war is the highest test of that. Um David is uh is preeminent against. You know, he's a king, a leader in war, a man also who was guilty of many terrible things. Um we had leading the gospel readings in Madison in recent weeks, actually the life of David. Uh you know, you remember Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. He sees a woman bathing on the roof, and it happens to be the wife of one of his generals or something, and and um so and and he's tempted, he sleeps with her, and then it sets off a chain reaction where rather than repent, he decides to make sure that he gets his general killed on the battlefield because he's going to orchestrate in advance and then have everyone else retreat and leave him to be killed. Yeah, and a few other people can die in the process, actually. It's uh it's it's an event that snowballs anyway. And then David has an incredible story of repentance and uh described by God as a man after my own heart, and the psalms of the testament that are they're literarily so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Well, you played a song and it pleased the Lord. Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

And also what's remarkable about the psalm is they're very accessible. It's not like it's not it's not over it. Yeah, it's not elite poetry, it's it's it's it's it's folk music, but it's also much richer than that. Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean they they sang the liar and all this. Yeah, yeah. Um and and it's and it's litur and it's liturgy, and it's worship, and it's prayer, it's all these things. And finally, yeah, Maisha talks about the night because the night is an another symbol of the uncertainty. Yeah. And it's the same, and the night has a double function. It's the cloak that we seek to mask over our vices. We do we commit crime in the dark, we start getting in the dark. But we also make love in the dark, and and ultimately we seek out God in the dark. Exactly. Um, and um, so it's both systemic and moral. Yes. So there's something, there's something very narrow about the mysteries we're dealing with. I mean, Christ talks about the straight and narrow path. The reason for this is that good and evil aren't opposed to one another in any obvious symbolic sense. They are, they that they they are like yes, they are, but but I mean in practice, it only takes a very subtle deviation to to fall into sin. Yeah, yeah. A deviation of intent. Um so and this is sort of what so when you when you're trying to peer into the mysteries of the divine, yeah, it it very easily goes wrong. Um, and this is sort of why the night is quite interesting as a symbol. So when we're trying to understand war, this is a knife's edge, yeah, really. And the answer again is resignation and prayer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, it's being led, it's not forcing your way into these mysteries.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

This is fascinating, and we can really see Meister as this critical anti-Enlightenment figure. And I mean, the stuff about the night, well, the night is yeah, an intriguing concept. I mean, whether it be Adam Smith going off walking through his uh out of his house in Kakodi in the middle of the night in his pajamas and uh slippers and coming up with these amazing ideas and walking for miles in the cold and the snow and um, you know, the way that the night has an impact on thinkers, it's it really very interesting. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that he actually tackles it as a direct concept.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Yeah, and then try to unite all of these things together. I mean, it's hard to express, but I think it has something to do with um trying to wrestle with the core existential mysteries and deriving from them the needs for Christian virtues and practices. Yeah, yeah, no, completely.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Um which are universal. And yeah, I think um obviously war and suffering we've seen uh resist rationalization, both for the recognition of the supernatural. We're seeing this kind of interplay with prayer and the night, um, and I mean I think he stands out as a very unique figure. I I probably am less persuaded as a much more of an enlightenment rationalist, uh that than than perhaps you are Jack. But I don't know whether you'd have any closing points, any ground up points.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

I mean I think it it is worth saying. I mean, I don't necessarily uh Maitre is remarkable, but I I find it difficult to follow him on certain points. I I I mean in I I appreciate the general gist of what he's trying to say, but I think the the literary fervour goes a bit too far in trying to understand what is suffering and this cosmic law of retribution. Yes. It's all a bit I mean, I think one of the important things for I think for an understanding of an authentic Christianity I think is that at some level freedom becomes quite important. Now yeah, how exactly that will be manifest in a life in relationship to God is is is is is complicated. Yeah. But there's there's something about this narrative he pursued that could really start to undermine our sense of agency. But then also maybe he's not so far off because at the end of the day, this is the situation we find ourselves in. The world is phenomenologically speaking, the world is characterized basically by uncertainty and chaos. Yeah. Yeah. And we and we adopt the conceptual theme that simplifies it. To try and rationalize it and to try and get it. And they are broken all the time, in small ways or in fundamental ways. Yeah. And the point is you need to know that that's possible and help you deal with it. And this is where prayer comes from.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Yeah. No, very good. Um it's really interesting because a lot of these ideas come from Demostra, I guess, reflecting on the revolutions in France.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

And next time we'll be turning to Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke and um some of his reboteness, some of his storytelling that Demostra engages in, it's quite romantic. We'll also be covering the romantics there too, so you'd better stay tuned for that episode. Um, but I really hope you've enjoyed that was fantastic. A really good walkthrough of a very complex and probably quite esoteric figure for many. Um but we hope it's elucidated kind of um enlightenment for um and its most radical world about it. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Dan.