For [Juan Donoso Cortes], man is a disgusting and laughable creature, completely destroyed by his own sins and prone to error. Indeed, if God had not redeemed man, the latter would have been more despicable than the reptile that one crushes underfoot. For Donoso, world history is a ship that reels forward, piloted by a crew of drunken sailors, who dance and howl until God decides to sink the ship so that silence can rule the sea once again.
– Carl Schmitt, “The Unknown Donoso Cortes,” Telos no. 125, pg. 82 (2002) (originally published 1950)
