The liberal dystopia: Joseph de Maistre’s grim visions on the enlightenment and democracy

This chapter discusses Joseph de Maistre’s grim visions of the Enlightenment and democracy – and their concrete manifestations in revolutionary France. In Maistre’s view, the most severe crime of the philosophes was their demand of forsaking traditional authorities, their “blind” glorification of reason and rationalism, and their rationalistic aspiration to reorganise society based on human reason and its theoretical ideals of liberty and equality. Due to the philosophes’ and revolutionaries’ inability to understand that the world and people in it are far from being rational, they believed that they could organise a new form of society, a real democracy, where justice, equality, liberty and the happiness of all people would prevail. Maistre portrayed this assumption as a fatal misapprehension, one which had led to tyranny instead (of which the Reign of Terror was an evident manifestation) and wished to show that the Enlightenment, its “political rationalism” and its blind utopianism were dangerous. By trying to comprehend the roots of illiberal sentiments, this chapter provides a better understanding of the current political dichotomy between people relying on the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment and those who share the pessimistic world view of Maistre.