Chapter 6 - FILL IN HERE

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Necessary Inequalities

“Nature goes forward with actions of authority and inequality, contradicting at a right angle the odd liberal and democratic hypothesis.”

Charles Maurras

An Individualism against Nature

Let us carry on with the analysis of the principle of Liberalism. It is contrary to nature, says Cardinal Billot, “in that it pretends that everything should give way to the good of individual liberty, that social necessities have multiplied the obstacles to this liberty, and that the ideal regime for man is that in which the law of pure and perfect individualism would reign.” Now, the author adds, “this individualism is absolutely contrary to human nature.”

You will have recognized the individualistic Liberalism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which we find again at the bottom of all the present-day political thought. According to Rousseau, men are born free, that is to say, subjected to no restraint, by nature asocial, created to live alone in the jungle, where they are happy. The origin of their misfortunes and of inequality resides in the introduction of private property, which engendered rivalries: a “state of war of all against all.”

If men group themselves then in society, it is in no way out of a necessity of their nature, but is by the sole decision of their free will, as an emergency exit from that state where man is a wolf towards other men. Society has nothing natural; it is purely conventional in its historical origin and in its constitution: this convention is the “social contract.“1

This whole theory is refuted in advance, first by St. Thomas Aquinas, who demonstrates the social nature of man, by bringing into evidence the fact that man is the animal most devoid of natural means of subsisting in an autonomous manner when he comes into the world, and this other fact, that men at the adult age cannot satisfy all their needs alone; therefore they have to help one another.2 I would like to have you read an admirable page from the contemporary political thinker, Charles Maurras (1868-1952), who, following St. Thomas, authoritatively sweeps away the Rousseauist individualist and egalitarian mythology; it is entitled “protective inequality.“3 It will be sufficient for me here to deliver to you what Leo XIII teaches on this subject in his Encyclical on the origin of political power:

The important error of these philosophers consists in not seeing what is nevertheless obvious; it is that men do not constitute an uncivilized and solitary race. It is that before any resolution of their will, their natural condition is to live in society.4

A Visionary Equality

The egalitarian principle is visionary, Cardinal Billot says, “in the first place because it does not agree in any way with reality: it supposes, at the origin of all society, an initial pact. Where did one see this? It supposes the free entry of each one into society. That is even stronger. It assumes that all men are tailored on exactly the same model—are exactly equal—which is the abstract man, millions of times reproduced without features of individuality. Where is he?"—“Apply the social contract, if it seems good to you,” says Taine; “but do not explain it except to the men for whom it has been fabricated. They are abstract men who are not of any century or of any country, pure entities hatched under the wand of metaphysics.5

Leo XIII expresses the same judgement in a few concise words which follow the sentence quoted above: “Add to that that the pact in which they take pride is an invention and an idle fancy.“6

I insist on the fancifulness of this equality, according to which men are born equal, or at least equal in rights: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” proclaims the first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1791. Let us look at what the popes have thought of this:

Pope Pius VI, first of all, condemning especially article II of this same declaration,7 goes from that to the principle itself of liberty-equality: he condemns it by calling it “idle fancies” and “words devoid of meaning”:

Where is then this liberty of thought and action that the National Assembly grants to social man as an indefeasible right of nature? Is not this visionary right contrary to the rights of the supreme Creator to whom we owe our existence and all that we possess? Furthermore, can it be ignored that man has not been created for himself alone, but in order to be useful to his fellow creatures? For such is the weakness of human nature that, to preserve themselves, men need the mutual help of one another; and that is why men have received from God reason and the use of words, to put them into a state of claiming the assistance of other people and of helping in their turn those who implore their support. It is therefore nature itself that has brought men together and has gathered them in society. Moreover, since the use that man must make of his reason consists essentially in recognizing his sovereign progenitor, in honoring him, in admiring him, in yielding to him all of his person and all of his being; since from his childhood he has to be subject to those who have superiority of age over him; to let himself be governed and instructed in lessons; to learn from them to regulate his life according to the laws of reason, of society, and of religion; therefore this equality, this liberty that are so vaunted are for him, from the moment of his birth, only vain fancies and words empty of meaning.8

From this liberty-equality, supposedly native in the individual, will be derived, by virtue of the social contract, the principle of the sovereignty of the people. Sovereignty resides originally in the people and not at all in God or in the natural authorities established by God; Pius VI does not fail to note this consequence.

Pope Leo XIII in his turn condemns the liberal principle of the equality of men, taken up again by the socialists, and carefully distinguishes the equality that men have from their common nature, from the inequality that they have from their diverse functions in society, and that is affirmed by the Gospel:

The socialists never cease, as we know, proclaiming that all men are by nature equal among themselves; and on this account they claim that no one owes to authority either honor or respect, or obedience to the laws, except to those which they have sanctioned according to their caprice.

On the contrary, according to the Gospel documents, the equality of man rests in the fact that, all having the same nature, all people are called to the same most high dignity of sons of God; and at the same time, one sole and same end being proposed to all, every person must be judged according to the same law and receive the penalties or the reward depending on his merit. Nevertheless, there is an inequality of right and of power that emanates from the very Author of nature, “of Whom all paternity in heaven and earth takes its name.“9

Leo XIII then recalls the precept of obedience to authorities, given by the Apostle St. Paul: “There is no power that does not come from God; and those that exist have been established by God. This is why he who resists authority resists the order willed by God” (Rom. 13:2). Then the Pontiff teaches that the hierarchy which is found in civil society is not a pure fruit of the will of men, but above all the application of a divine ordination, of the divine plan:

For He who has created and who governs all things has disposed them, in His provident wisdom, in such a manner that the lower ones attain their end by the middle ones and these by the higher ones. Likewise, therefore He has willed that, in the heavenly kingdom itself, the choirs of angels be distinct and subordinated, in the same way again, that He has established in the Church different degrees of orders with the diversity of functions, in such a way that not all be apostles, nor all doctors, nor all pastors (Rom. 13:1-7). So has He established in civil society several orders different in dignity, in rights, and in power, in order that the State, like the Church, form one sole body composed of a great number of members, some more noble than others, but all of them necessary, the ones to the others, and solicitous of the common good.10

It appears to me that these texts clearly show the total unrealism of the fundamental principle of Liberalism, liberty-equality. It is on the contrary an undeniable fact of nature that the individual, at any stage of his life, is precisely not an interchangeable individual, but he is a member that is at the outset a part of a body set up without his having a word to say about it. Within this body, besides, he is subject to necessary and beneficial restraints. In this body, finally, he will discover the place that corresponds to his natural or acquired talents, as well as to his supernatural gifts, being subject there also to hierarchies and to inequalities that are still very beneficial. Thus, has God devised it—a God of order and not of disorder.

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1 Cf. Baltasar P. Argos, S.J., Political Catechism, Orme Rond, 1981, p. 58.

2 Cf. St. Thomas, De Regimine principum, Book I, Ch. 1.

3 Charles Maurras, My Political Ideas, natural politics, p. 17 sq.

4 Encyclical Diuturnum, of June 29, 1881, PIN. 97.

5 Taine, The Revolution, Tome I, Book II, Chapter 2.

6 Loc. cit.

7 “The free communication of thoughts and opinion is one of the most precious rights of man; every citizen then can speak, write, print freely, with the condition that he is responsible for the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by the law.”

8 Letter Quod aliquantulum, of Match 10, 1791, to the bishops of the French National Assembly, PIN. 3.

9 Encyclical Quod Apostolici, PIN. 71-72.

10 Ibid. no. 74