Maistre
Of course, this is pure nonsense. Maistre hated scientists most of all? He was a philosopher of science and wrote a serious critique of the materialism of Bacon, so to say that he hated scientists is absurd. Meanwhile, no one with an iota of understanding about modern American conservatism could confuse its views with anything Maistre said, and you can be fairly sure that mainstream conservatism today has no relationship with his thought given that most mainstream American conservatives, to their discredit, find Maistre to be horrible. Maistre was, like Burke, a fierce opponent of the Revolution, but unlike Burke he was also a leading Counter-Enlightenment figure. Many, if not most, mainstream conservatives today prefer to define themselves ultimately as classical liberals, and they find most of European conservatism to be more offensive to them than they do American liberalism or, if they are pressed, they will treat them as two sides of the same coin.
My earlier Eunomia posts on Maistre are here and here.
What do you think of the Slavophils?
Did he really attempt to create a lineage of anti-Semitism linking Maistre to Eliot to Coulter?
These are my previous remarks related to the Slavophiles. Khomyakov was very important in shaping my ecclesiological thinking during my college years. I am extremely sympathetic to the Slavophiles, even if I am no longer quite as inclined to their romanticism of pre-Petrine Russia as I once was.
I am glad you mentioned this. De’Maistre truly was a genius figure for those who are open minded enough to study him (which as you note are very few). Pat Buchanan actually mentions him in one of his newest books. I have always been amazed at how the academic left presents Burke as the only response to Rousseau where De’Maistre’s Contra Rousseau is a very intellectually stimulating critique of modernity in its own right.
Burke, let us note, was a Whig and in his “Notes on Scarcity” reveals his pro-free market views. Thus, Burkean conservatism – although not introduced in the American ethos until Russell Kirk (or the Confederacy) – truly is very similar to the views of the Old Right who were also very suspicious of radical changes.
As for the scientist remark, being washed away in the flood of left-wing indoctrination in both universities and the media people somehow believe that anyone who critiques materialism, or as Burke called them “vulgar metaphysics” automatically is anti-science. However, as many have made clear modern scientism is truly the untenable position.
If it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense from Isaiah Berlin, not some random blogger. I don’t see how writing a critique of Bacon’s materialism is incompatible with hating scientists; rather the opposite.
I also find it odd for someone to claim that Maistre’s thinking doesn’t have a home in conservative thought. If conservatism was based on classical liberalism it wouldn’t spend so much of its energy on efforts to legislate against abortion, homosexuality, and immigration. The law and order side of conservatism, and its tendency to paint liberalism as an engine of social chaos is a direct descendent of Maistre’s thought. Even more striking is the recent embrace of torture as a governing tool, and the embrace of an authoritarian executive.
[...] Not content with being shown to be foolish once before, the Maistre-basher responds with a trivial post that cites a pejorative characterization from Encyclopedia Britannica, which I suppose is the old-fashioned version of being a Google pundit. The introduction to the Blackwell translation of Maistre’s Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon contains the following details that are worth considering: In 1784, when Joseph’s younger brother Xavier and some other young gentlemen in Chambery began organizing a project to launch Savoy’s first hot-air balloon…it was Joseph who was sent to Geneva to consult the celebrated physicist Benedict de Saussure on the technical details. He was also drafted to write the “Prospectus” to enlist subscribers to finance the project, which succeeded with a twenty-minute ascent in May 1784. From Maistre’s diaries we know as well that while in exile in Lausanne in 1793 he found time to take lessons in “experimental physics.”…As will be apparent to any reader of his mature works, including the Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon with its citations and references to an impressive number of figures in the history of science, Maistre became one of the most many-sided and best read men of his generation. [...]