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The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions - Studies on Sovereignty, Religion and Enlightenment (Hardcover)
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The Generative Principle of Political Constitutions - Studies on Sovereignty, Religion and Enlightenment (Hardcover)
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Joseph de Maistre had no doubt that the root causes of the French
Revolution were intellectual and ideological. The degeneration of
its first immense hopes into the Reign of Terror was not the result
of a ruthless competition for power or of prospects of war. He
echoed Voltaire's boast that "books did it all." The philosophers
of the Enlightenment were the architects of the new regimes; and
the shadow between revolutionary idea and social reality could be
traced directly to a fatal flaw in their thought. De Maistre
asserts that society is the product, not of men's conscious
decision, but of their instinctive makeup. Both history and
primitive societies illustrate men's gravitation toward some form
of communal life. Since government is in this sense natural, it can
not legitimately be denied, revoked, or even disobeyed by the
people. Sovereignty is not the product of the deliberation or the
will of the people; it is a divinely bestowed authority fitted not
to man's wishes but to his needs. The French Revolution to de
Maistre's mind was little more than the expansion, conversion,
pride, and consequent moral corruption of the philosophers. It
differs in essence from all previous political revolutions, finding
a parallel only in the biblical revolt against heaven. These
sentiments are the passionate and awe-inspired language of one who
sees the political struggles of his time on a huge and cosmic
scale, judges events sub specie aeternitatis (under the aspect of
eternity), and looks on revolution and counter-revolution as a
battle for the soul of humanity. The force of this classic volume
still resonates in present-day ideological struggles.
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