De Maistre fused rationalist-politics mockery with utilitarian critique of its revolutionary consequences.

Evidence

Joseph de Maistre, who combined a strong feeling for the absurdity of rationalist politics and for the massive role of the heteronomy of ends within political experience with a powerful utilitarian critique of the actual consequences of rationalist politics in revolutionary France and a gleeful providentialist celebration of the extent to which the victims of revolutionary violence on all sides had it coming to them (Maistre 1964). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1133

Categorization

• XREF: De Maistre’s providentialist defense of suffering connects thematically to the sacrifice article’s logic of justifying violence as stabilizing order.