An uncompromising escape to dictatorship: The political theology of Juan Donoso Cortés

Abstract

Criticism of revolution is not unique to French thinkers. Reactionism refers to philosophers who have suffered due to the defeat of the ancien régime. Juan Donoso Cortés is part of this trend, and this article is intended to carefully analyze his character regarding the change in his worldview as well as his critique of doctrines based on revolutionary ideas, and to present his bold concept — a dictatorship in the name of real order. Although it should be stated that the Spanish conservative did not create it completely from scratch, basing on the doctrine of Joseph de Maistre, he still developed it with an additional ideological justification. Showing a pessimistic approach rooted in the Platonic-Augustinian philosophy, he expressed an attitude close to the French version of traditionalism. A continuator of traditionalist customs on the one hand, and the initiator of decisionism on the other, he formulated an intriguing structure that both preserved many traditions of conservative thought and, while maintaining clearly conservative tendencies, opened it to new solutions. All of this in order to achieve the chief aim — defending the real order.