Moi Aussi, Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie

Honore de Balzac, the great nineteenth-century French novelist whose chief work is the series of short stories and novels collectively known as The Human Comedy, wrote that “when the Revolution cut off the head of the King, it cut off the head of every father in France.” Balzac being a Catholic royalist in his politics, his statement is hardly surprising. It is also true.

Something else once said by him was equally true, but would be less readily recognized as such in our day now that there is no Christian politics, royalist or otherwise: “If the press did not exist, it would not be necessary to invent it.”

Balzac’s saying was a witty riff on another, one voiced by Voltaire, that personification of the French Enlightenment: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

Another saying usually attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” Actually, the words were not Voltaire’s. They were put in his mouth by an English biographer writing in 1903 and were meant to convey Voltaire’s dedication to the sacred principle of “freedom of expression.” They did that.

I used to hear Jerry Falwell repeat them, probably without his knowing who was supposed to have said them first. I knew Falwell pretty well. In another lifetime I was the token Catholic on the Advisory Council of National Religious Leaders, a 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign entity designed as a vehicle for Falwell to drum up Evangelical support for the Republican ticket that year. The first time I heard him speak them was at a National Press Club appearance, and I knew instantly, up to my own neck in electoral politics though I then was, that Falwell’s politics, as Republican as they might be, were not Christian. In Christian politics, when they existed, error had no rights. If Falwell didn’t understand that or felt it too politically incorrect to speak otherwise, which other major political figure in America in recent time did or would?

It was a measure of how far the formerly Christian West has devolved that Voltaire’s supposed saying, or a variation thereof, was quoted incessantly after jihadists shot most of the editorial staff of the Paris satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. (One variation: Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hailing the murdered journalists as “martyrs of freedom, of freedom of the press, the pillar of democracy.”)

We can safely surmise that on January 11 not one of the “international leaders” who joined President Francois Hollande to march along Paris’s Boulevard Voltaire from Place de la Bastille to Place de la Nation knew what Balzac said about the press, much less would agree with it.

That is because, in truth, no one is more intolerant than are liberals. Charlie Hebdo itself proved this in 1995 when the newspaper dropped its “satire” and called in dead earnest for the National Front, the “extreme right-wing” political party headed by Marine Le Pen, to be banned.

Liberal intolerance will probably now intensify in the face of jihadist “radicalism”. A measure of that could be heard from the throng on January 11 by an addition to republican France’s famous national slogan. Suddenly it became “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Secularism.” For, after all, the principle of Equality would be violated if government actions to fortify society against religious influence didn’t include further “secularization” of Christianity as well as Islam, France’s “second religion,” as former President Jacques Chirac once described it.

The necessity of such “secularization” was dictated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract, the veritable bible of the Revolution: “Whoever dares to say Outside the Church is no salvation should be driven from the state.” (He would have added “mosque” to “Church” if there had been one in France in his day.) That “necessity” was owed to the importance, above all else, of “freedom”. Thus, “Whosoever refuses to obey the general will [to be “free”] shall be compelled to do so by the whole body, which means nothing else than that he shall be forced to be free.”

By “free” he meant the liberal conception of freedom: the freedom to do anything humanly possible, including much that Christians know to be evil.

As with error, Christian politics, recognizing that evil can consist of much more than gunning down journalists dedicated to “freedom of expression,” didn’t recognize that “right”.

That said, it has to be observed – the historical record is clear on this – that in practice Christian government was always more tolerant than is liberal government today. That is, Christian rulers were never driven to try to round up every single evil-doer or potential ones as is the liberal who believes only in the here and now.

Why not?

Because they knew there is a net to catch them.

A net?

We could call it Justice with a capital “J” (God is Justice precisely because He is also Love) or plain old hell.

Footnote: For a time, 1841-1863, Balzac’s works were listed in the Church’s Index of writings prohibited to Catholics. It is understandable. He was the first naturalistic novelist. That is to say, the first to describe how things look and are in reality and how persons talk in reality. In Balzac’s time that was at first shocking to the sensibility of many readers. They were accustomed to a stylized version of the world, like that of, say, Don Quixote. However, as Dickens and others inspired by Balzac began to write the same way, people became used to it, for better or worse, which is why his works were eventually removed from the Index. It was seen he did not mean to scandalize but only to depict real life.

There were good reasons for the Index, but, after all, it was compiled by fallible human beings who, being fallible, sometimes had to correct themselves.

If you liked this article, you can download some talks from Mr. Potter. Follow the links below.
Building the Next Christendom Starts With Us
Democracy and the Illusion of Freedom