Politics Bonald's
political philosophy rests on the assumptions of humanity's
fallenness, the need for strong government to repress man's evil tendencies, and the belief that humans are inherently social creatures. He opposed the individualistic and atomistic tendencies of the
Enlightenment and the French Revolution. At the heart of his political thought was the idea that the family was the basis of society and that institutions should work to protect it in its traditional form. For this reason he opposed the
secularization of marriage, divorce, and partitive inheritance. He was also critical of the
Industrial Revolution because of its negative effects on traditional patterns of family life.
Jews Bonald published an anti-Semitic text during the post-French Revolutionary period,
Sur les juifs, in which he described Jews an alien race, describing them with the same racialized language he used to attack the recently emancipated Black slaves in the colonies. In it, the
philosophes are condemned for fashioning the intellectual tools used to justify
Jewish emancipation during the Revolution. Bonald accused
French Jews of not becoming "authentic" French citizens and of being a disruptive force in traditional society. which included Maistre,
Lamennais,
Ballanche and
Ferdinand d'Eckstein. The traditionalist school, in reaction to the
rationalists, believed that human reason was incapable of even arriving at
natural religion, and that tradition, the result of a primitive revelation, was necessary to know both natural religion as well as the truths of supernatural revelation. Bonald believed that the principles of good governance could be deduced from history and sacred scripture. His political thought is closely tied to his theory of the divine origin of
language. Since man learns to speak through imitation, he believed that the first man must have learned to speak from God, who announced all moral principles to this first man. In his own words, "L'homme pense sa parole avant de parler sa pensée" (man thinks his speech before saying his thought); the first language contained the essence of all truth. These moral truths were then codified in
Holy Scripture. From this he deduces the existence of
God, the divine origin and consequent supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the
infallibility of the
Catholic Church.
Metaphysics While this thought lies at the root of all his speculations, there is a formula of constant application. All relations may be stated as the triad of cause, means and effect, which he sees repeated throughout nature and society. Thus, in the
universe, he finds the
First Cause as mover, movement as the means, and bodies as the result; in the state, power as the cause, ministers as the means, and subjects as the effects; in the family, the same relation is exemplified by father, mother and children; and in political society, the monarch as cause, ministers/nobility as means, and the subjects as effect. These three terms bear specific relations to one another; the first is to the second as the second to the third. Thus, in the great triad of the religious world—God, the Mediator, and Man—God is to the
God-Man as the God-Man is to Man. On this basis, he constructed a system of political
absolutism. == Influence ==