Politics
and Language in the Thought of Louis de Bonald
JONATHAN
DEN HARTOG
Introduction
What is this modern world in which we live? I ask this question to point
out that a number of thinkers have endeavored to comprehend the nature
of modernity. Their analyses differ, but many thinkers agree about key
points on the road to modernity: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the
Scientific Revolution, to name a few. I would like to revisit one of those
periods: the French Revolution. To some, the Revolution heralded political
liberalism with cries of "liberté, egalité,
and fraternité." To others, the Revolution signified
the rejection of the West's heritage of the past two millennia. As the
Revolution was occurring, a number of thinkers sensed its challenge to
the old order (not only politically, but more importantly, philosophically).
One of these thinkers, the Viscomt Louis De Bonald, described the political
problems of the Revolution. In doing so, however, he also developed a theory
of language, and his theory of government and his theory of language interrelate.
Though Bonald was probably mistaken on some of what he wrote, he still
wrote much that is worthy of consideration. Though he reflects a distinctively
pre-modern world-view, his ideas seem contemporary in addressing our post-modern
world.
Biography
Bonald was born in 1754 in Millau, a town in the Rouergue region of southern
France, to an aristocratic family. He studied at the Oratorian Collège
de Juilly. As an aristocrat, military service was expected, so in 1773
he joined the Musketeers. The days of Athos, Pathos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan
had long passed for the Musketeers, however, and they were dissolved in
1776 by Louis XVI, thus freeing Bonald of his military duties. Returning
home, Bonald became involved in public affairs, becoming mayor of Millau
in 1785. Bonald supported the early phases of the French Revolution. He
directed his efforts at the local and regional level to maintain order,
which he was largely successful in doing. Even after the National Assembly
abolished the aristocracy, Bonald was reelected as mayor and then elected
to the departmental assembly. The turning point in Bonald's relation to
the Revolution came with the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which subordinated
the Catholic Church to the new national government. Bonald believed it
wrongly stripped the Church of its position in society. By refusing to
force the clergy to take the oath of allegiance, Bonald disqualified himself
from holding public office, though he was still largely supportive of the
Revolution. By October 1791, however, Bonald had joined the counterrevolution
and had emigrated from France. Hopes of overthrowing the Revolution from
without, however, failed, and Bonald returned to France in secret in 1797,
hiding in Paris. His hiding continued until 1802, when he received a pardon
from Napoleon. Later, Bonald entered the Napoleonic government, serving
on the Great Council of the Imperial University. After Napoleon's abdication
in 1814, Bonald quickly joined the restoration monarchy of Louis XVIII.
He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the national
legislative body. Bonald continued to serve under the next monarch, Charles
X. Bonald refused to serve under Louis Philippe, who had come to power
in the Revolution of 1830. He withdrew to his country home, where he died
in November 1840.
Theory of Government
In the midst of this turbulent political environment, Bonald wrote a great
deal about the nature of society and government. These writings established
him as one of the foremost theorists of the Counterrevolution. In discussing
his theory of government, I begin with an extended quote, which opens his
book On Divorce:
It is a fertile source of error, when treating a question relative
to society, to consider it by itself, with no relationship to other
questions, because society itself is only a group of relationships.
In the social body as in every organized body--that is to say, one in which
the parts are arranged in certain relationships to each other relative
to a given end--the cessation of vital functions does not come from the
annihilation of the parts, but from their displacement and the disturbance
of the relationships.
How, indeed, can one treat divorce, which
disunites the father, mother, and child, without speaking of society, which
unites them? How can one treat society's domestic state, or the family,
without considering its public or political state, which intervenes at
the family's formation in order to guarantee its stability and ensure its
effects? But the reason for domestic power, which unites men in the family,
the reason for public power, which unites families in State bodies, lies
at bottom neither in man nor in the family; for man by himself is independent
of every other man, and the family of every other family. It is therefore
necessary to return to the universal supreme power over all beings; that
is, to the knowledge of a being superior to man, existing before human
society, whose will, conservative of created beings, manifests itself in
a given order of relationships, which, expressed by laws, constitute
human power, and therefore society; to the universal power of God over
man, and the duties of man toward God, which together explain the inexplicable
power of man over man, and the duties which flow from it; to divine power,
the knowledge and worship of which are the object of religion or
the society which unites, which binds, from religare, because it
is the bond and reason for the other societies.
To Bonald, man is a social creature. The first man had been placed in a
society, and man had continued in society ever since. In Bonald's theory
of government, the first principle is that of power or authority (pouvoir).
The power originated in God, the originator of human society, but God then
transmitted that authority throughout the society. The authority is expressed
through the various relations in society. As Klinck wrote:
In traditional society significance lay not with individuals but with
the socially constructed arrangements of relations or relationships in
which they were involved....Like the post-modern self the traditional self
was distinguished by having, not a unique identity, but multiple identities
determined by the social relations of which it was a part.
Regarding relationships, Bonald believed that a triad of relationships
is the natural, always-occurring, order of the universe. The triad consists
of a power, the minister of that power, and the subject. Bonald accepted
as natural that French society on the macro-level should be ordered according
to this triad, with the king (as power) ruling via the aristocracy (as
ministers) over the subjects (the third estate). Such a society was the
opposite of the atomistic liberal society which Bonald saw as a necessary
result of the principles of the French Revolution. A rightly-ordered society
would be both healthy and well-functioning.
A healthy society for Bonald meant a society
in which power was not only resident in the king, however, but was also
spread through a variety of social relations. Such institutions in society
would include the family, the Church, and organizations such as guilds.
These institutions would check the acquisition of power by the king. They
thus serve as intermediary institutions, protecting the individual from
a too-powerful centralized government. Democracy could not claim such beneficial
effects. By concentrating only on the individual and the state, it effectively
eliminates any intermediary institution. As a result, the individual stands
alone before a Leviathan state, which has no checks to keep it from accumulating
even more power. This argument, it should be noted, was also described
quite clearly in Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Bonald's critique
of modern liberal democracy, while grounded in a medieval view of the state,
still offers an important contribution to thinking about political society,
one which the conservative movement in America appropriated.
Bonald also worked to apply his theories in
the real world. In the realm of French politics, he opposed the French
Revolution. Once the monarchy was reestablished, he supported it and attempted
to use it to reestablish a rightly-ordered political system in France.
Another practical application of his ideas was his work against divorce.
He both wrote against it (in On Divorce, his most famous political
tract) and worked in the national legislature to end the practice. To Bonald,
the family represents a rightly-ordered miniature society: the father possesses
the power, which was to be administered through the mother, to rule over
the subject children. Divorce means a fragmentation of such a society,
the ripping apart of a harmonious, organic whole. The wife/mother would
be set adrift, separated from her proper position; the husband/father would
lose his means of ruling; and the children would not be properly governed.
The destruction of the smallest society would have consequences throughout
the larger society, as well. Hence government had a political duty to insure
that such destruction would not take place. To conclude this story, Bonald
was successful in abolishing legal divorce in France, and the practice
was not reinstituted until the Third Republic in 1884.
Theory of Language
Having briefly discussed Bonald's politics, we can turn to his theory of
language. Again, I begin with an extended passage where Bonald's ideas
shine forth:
This being, author of man, and therefore superior
to him, as the cause is to the effect, is called God, and it is
even an absurdity to say that man invented God; for to invent a being would
be to create it, and man can no more create beings than he can destroy
them. He develops their relationships, he alters their forms: these are
the limits of his invention and action; and one can defy all the philosophers
together to invent something of which men had no previous idea, as to draw
a figure which does not lie inside already known dimensions.
In God is thus the reason for creation; in
God is the reason for conservation, which is a continued creation.
If God made man, then there is in God, as
in man, intelligence which willed, action which executed.
There is thus similarity, and man is made in his image and likeness.
There are thus relationships, a society; and I see, throughout the universe,
religion as soon as the family, and the society of man and God as soon
as the society of man and man; this primitive religion is called natural
or domestic.
But if man today receives speech as he receives being; if he speaks only
insofar as he hears speech, and speaks only the language he hears spoken;
if it is even physically impossible for man to invent speech by himself,
as it is impossible for him to invent being by himself (which can be shown
by considering the operations of thought and those of the vocal organ),
then it is necessary that man in the beginning received speech and being
together. Now this truth, which would be an even physical demonstration
of the existence of a first being, though combatted, or rather misunderstood,
by the sophists, is little by little establishing itself in society; and
already Jean-Jacques Rousseau had said: "Overwhelmed by the difficulties
which present themselves" (in the discussion of Condillac's novel on the
invention of language), "and convinced of the nearly proven impossibility
that languages could have arisen and established themselves by purely human
means, I leave the discussion of this difficult problem to anyone who cares
to undertake the task . . . and I believe that speech was very necessary
to invent speech."
It is, in effect, these last words which present
the reason for the impossibility of language by men: for to invent is to
think, and to think is to speak inside oneself. Signs are required for
thought, because they are required for speech; and one can say, to summarize,
that man thinks his speech before speaking his thought, and expresses
his thought for himself before expressing it for others.
Human reason is in divine speech, as the child's
reason is in the father's speech. That is why speech and reason
are expressed in Greek by the same word, logos; and man could not
have reasoned by himself; and if I do not understand the incomprehensible
mystery of human speech, why should I seek to penetrate the mystery of
divine speech?
In writing about language, Bonald again begins
with God (Whom he calls the "Verbe Eternel"), the originator of
language. Such a divine origin is the only possible means for language
to start, since language needs thought and thought needs language (thought
being but internal conversation). W. Jay Reedy wrote, "Viewed thus, science
is le fond and letters la forme; thought and expression are
inextricably joined and complementary." Moreover, language is a social
phenomenon. A solitary human being could not create it by himself. Rather,
man began in a society consisting of himself and God and shortly entered
the society of the first family. In such conditions, language use could
be received and transmitted (through families primarily, but also through
society in general), thus beginning the continuing human process of language
transmission. To complement this view, Bonald developed a theory of the
functioning of language. To him, words serve as verbal signs which interact
and act on the brain.
From this general theory, Bonald then discussed
specific languages by examining (perhaps unexpectedly) their grammar. Words,
phrases, and their interaction, for Bonald, reveal natural truths:
Language, an expression of social man, began with man and has perfected
itself along with society. The difference between the sexes is expressed
in substantives; the distinction between persons, in verbs; the type of
domestic or public society, in singular or plural numbers, I, thou,
or we; of which the former are reserved for the speech of the family,
the latter for public power; and the very constitution of society, formed
by a power, a subject, and a minister, each the bond of the other, is found
revealed in the construction of the sentence, formed by a governor, and
governed, and a binding-word, either verb or copula, which unites them
to each other; relationships which are all the more remarkable in that
the order of these three parts of all human discourse, called syntax, is
natural or analagous in societies which are naturally constituted,
and inverted or transpositive in societies which are not.
I shall stop here: this theory of discourse, considered as an expression
of social man, would carry me too far from the subject at hand; I reserve
for other occasions its developments, which concern the most important
social and even literary truths.
Although the original language had been perfect and perfectly descriptive
of the world, sin and the course of time led to its degeneration. Languages
thus exist in various states of health. They can be judged, however, according
to how well they reflect natural order. One important part of the natural
order is (again) the relation of power, minister, and subject. Further,
societies who were naturally ordered used and promulgated languages in
harmony with nature. Those societies which were farther from reflecting
natural truths had less-natural (inverted or transpositive) languages.
As might be expected, Bonald believed that French during the era of Louis
XIV most-accurately reflected the natural order (as Bourbon authority ordered
society), just as pre-revolutionary French society had most-accurately
conformed to the natural order. By contrast, the French Revolution was
also a linguistic event, whereby a disordered view of the world produced
(and was furthered by) a distorted use of language.
Such views have important implications. One
implication which Bonald wrote about is in literature. If thought and language
are intimately connected, then the language a person uses will affect their
thought. Hence a certain nationality of people might be expected to produce
a certain type of literature. Bonald believed that the French should continue
writing their particular variety of literature, which he believed would
be ennobling (reflecting the natural order). Bonald's example is French
literature at its height--the literature of "Racine, La Fontaine, La Bruyère,
and Fénelon, literature which combined beauty, thought, and order.
Such a view, however, runs the risk of depersonalizing the authors, of
reducing them to only the mouthpiece of the nation. A second implication
thus involved questions of consciousness. Could the individual thinker
actually think for himself? Some, like Klinck, have argued that Bonald's
theory of language destroyed such a possibility:
With the aid of sensationalism and physiology Bonald had decentred
the subject, relocating it in the world of language. In Bonald's thinking
the knowing, self-constituting Cartesian subject had ceased to exist. The
individual's consciousness was now determined by language.
Such a radical determinism, however, does not need to be the only interpretation.
Whether Bonald himself would have accepted such a radical position is doubtful.
But, if we grant the position, would not even Bonald then be merely reacting
in ways determined by his language?
Connections
A number of connections can be drawn between Bonald's theory of society
and government and his theory of language. The first is that both derive
from his belief in a created order. The order inheres in the "nature" of
nature. Since this was the case, philosophers could contemplate the world
as it is and abstract the truths of nature. For Bonald, one of the most
important truths of nature is the existence of relationships, specifically
of triads. Hence both his social theory and his theory of language are
arranged around organic arrangements which exist triadically. Secondly,
language became for Bonald an essential part of his theory of society.
To Bonald, language becomes the means of socializing individuals. In other
words, society is built through shared language. The organic community
which Bonald described would have been impossible without the human interaction
of language. Language thus becomes a bridge by which the individual is
connected to the larger community.
Questions
In the light of this study of Bonald, I would point to three areas which
Bonald's thought suggests we examine more carefully:
A. The Importance of Language. Bonald showed
the importance of language in developing his theory of society. Similarly,
language today remains a central issue. If societies are in some way built
around language, then anyone concerned with a society (for instance, American
society) ought to be concerned with the problem of language. Whether one
agrees or disagrees with Foucault and Derrida, thoughtful people realize
the importance of knowing their ideas. Much depends on what people decide
language is and how it ought to be used. To turn a cliche, "Linguistic
ideas have consequences."
B. Conservatives and Language. The study of
language should not be abandoned by traditionalist conservatives. As Bonald
demonstrated, language and tradition are bound together. Similarly, the
view advanced by Bonald ought to bear a certain attraction for conservatives.
Bonald viewed man as situated within both a culture/society/tradition and
within a language. Those two settings are connected. Conservatives of today
believe man should begin by being rooted in his culture before addressing
other cultures. Similarly, the individual should accept his place in the
language he uses. Both the cultural setting and the language setting have
the effect of relativizing the individual, who can no longer claim an objective,
all-comprehending position of relating to the world. Such a position does
not destroy humanity; rather, it liberates it through an acknowledgment
of human finitude.
Ironically, such a view holds certain affinities
with some twentieth-century ideas about language (ideas which our seminar
last semester discussed). For instance, the French thinker Maurice Merleau-Ponty
wrote of human embodiment as an important part of our theory of knowledge.
In other words, humans are part of the world they are trying to understand.
Such a view results in the rejection of the subject/object distinction
in epistemology and undermines the Enlightenment claim to possess "objective
knowledge," as if the thinker stepped outside the world. Interestingly
enough, however, such views actually hearken back to an earlier, pre-modern
understanding of the world. Similarly, Martin Heidegger describes the search
for truth as a difficult project. Because of human finitude, all of truth
cannot be known simultaneously. The very action of concentrating on one
area ("unconcealing it") necessarily means losing the truth in another
area (as it becomes concealed once more). Such notions of uncertainty,
human finitude, and situatedness within a setting actually agree with conservate
thought and recommend a conservative approach to politics (since they recommend
humility).
C. Language as Apologetic. Finally, I believe
a reassessment is in order of Bonald's claim that language ultimately had
a divine source. Remember, though, that language to Bonald meant the entire
system of communication, not only words but syntax and relation of words.
This claim rests upon his argument that if thought and language are co-dependent,
one cannot begin without the other. Then to start the language process,
some outside idea is necessary. If this is the case, language serves as
a type of apologetic for the existence of God as the originator of language.
Such an apologetic would not be airtight, and it might only demand a deistic
first cause. Still, it is a large and important claim. In the twentieth
century, a similar argument was made by Owen Barfield, who argued that
the development of language and consciousness of which we are aware (moving
backward through historical and pre-historical times) suggests that some
type of mind or idea had to precede the arrangement of matter and human
interaction. Apart from Barfield, I am unaware that others have made this
argument in the twentieth century.
And as I suggest that this might be an area
for further study, I am well-aware that there is a dominant hypothesis
quite counter to this. The evolutionist claim is that through chance developments
over time, the appearance of design can develop. To evolutionists,
the evolution of language fits nicely into their account of the evolution
of life and perception. It is beyond the scope of both my paper and my
research to evaluate such claims. Nonetheless, I offer this as a suggestion
for further discussion and research.
Concluding Remarks
In conclusion, allow me to reiterate the value of understanding Bonald.
First, he gives us insight into the intellectual life of France during
the turbulent yet vitally important period of the French Revolution. Historically,
we can trace his thought in its influence on the entire sociological tradition
in France (and from there to sociology in the United States). It also gave
a small impetus to the development of the conservative movement in the
United States in the past half-century. Although Bonald was on the "losing,"
side, his thought sheds light on the modern world, primarily through his
critique of it. His critique, which was decidedly medieval, gives the investigator
a place outside the Enlightened modern world a place to stand, by which
he can critique it. In this way, his thought appears decidedly contemporary,
pointing to important and contemporary issues. In doing this alone, Bonald
continues to do worthy service.
Works Cited
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Barfield, Owen. Speaker's Meaning. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University
Press, 1967.
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De Bonald, Louis. On Divorce, trans. Nicholas Davidson. Original
edition, Paris, 1801. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1992.
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Klinck, David. The French Counterrevolutionary Theorist Louis de Bonald
(1754-1840). New York: Peter Lang, 1996.
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Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell. NY:
Harper & Row, 1977.
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Manent, Pierre. Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy. Lantham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996.
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Menczer, Béla. Tensions of Order and Freedom. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
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Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Primacy of Perception, ed. James Edie.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964.
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Nisbet, Robert. "De Bonald and the Concept of the Social Order." Journal
of the History of Ideas 5 (1944): 315-331.
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__________. The Sociological Tradition. New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
Publishers, 1966.
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Pennock, Robert. Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism.
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Proctor, Robert. Defining the Humanities. Bloomington: University
of Indiana Press, 1998.
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Reedy, W. Jay. "Language, Counter-Revolution and the 'Two Cultures': Bonald's
Traditionalist Scientism." Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (October
1983): 5579-597.
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De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. First edition, Paris,
1835-1840. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.