Thinking Politically

Liberalism in the Age of Ideology

Raymond Aron

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000680249
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Biografías de periodismo

Thinking Politically brings together a series of remarkable interviews with Raymond Arn that form a political history of our time. Ranging over an entire lifetime, from his youthful experience with the rise of Nazi totalitarianism in Berlin to the dénouement of the cold war. Aron mediates on the threats to liberty and reason in the bloody twentieth century. Originally published as The Committed Observer, this volume provides one of the fullest accounts available of the dramatic events of the "short century," which began with the pistol shot in Saravejo in 1914 and ended with the collapse of the ideological monsters whose deadly nature Aron had ruthlessly exposed for a half-century. In addition to the interviews published in the original edition. Thinking Politically incorporates three interviews never before published in book form. This supplemental material clarifies Aron's role as a voice of prudential reason in an unreasonable age and allows unparalled access to the principal influences on Aron's thought. The volume concludes with 'Democratic States and Totalitarian States," an address by Aron to the French Philosophical Society as well as the accompanying debate with Jacques Maritain, Victor Basch, and other intellectuals. Thinking Politically serves as an ideal gateway into Aron's reflections, and offers a superb single-volume introduction to the major events and conflicts of the twentieth century. It will be a welcome addition to the libraries of political theorists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, and citizens wishing to understand the political and intellectual currents of the age.

Part I
The Committed Observer

INTRODUCTION

Raymond Aron holds a special place among French intellectuals. His philosophical and political education should normally have led him to a commitment similar to that of the other intellectuals of his generation, particularly Jean-Paul Sartre, his friend from student days, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Why, then, did he gradually identify himself with the broad stream of liberal thought, today in the minority in France (though it has roots here with people like Alexis de Tocqueville and Benjamin Constant) and that has more widely flourished in the contemporary period in the Anglo-Saxon countries?

At the end of the war, why did he counter the dominant trend of the French intelligentsia—whose values and perceptions he shared to an extent—thus accepting a break with his friends and an insulation that must certainly have been difficult?

Why, when most intellectuals rejected the division engendered by the cold war, did he speak out firmly in favor of the Atlantic Alliance and against neutralism, consolidating these positions by becoming Le Figaro’. editorialist and advocating a return to power by de Gaulle?

These were probably the principal questions that led us to meet with Raymond Aron and propose these interviews. Rather than pursue with him a theoretical discussion on interpretations of history, morality, and government, or on the contradictions between different political philosophies, it seemed preferable to try to understand the positions he took in the maze of contemporary history. And what history! France in the 1930s, Nazism, the war, the cold war, decolonization, peaceful coexistence, European unity.... So, we wanted to examine the thought and the analysis of an anti-conformist intellectual, labeled in France as a rightist since the cold war, who had swum against the current of prevailing ideas of the Left, who had perceived the truth, before others, about the nature of the Soviet regime, about Stalinism and about other questions and who had had the courage to stand by his opinions, at the risk of being ostracized by the intelligentsia—all the while creating a body of scientific work whose value is undisputed. It is rare that over such a long period, marked by so many events and crises—and in roles as different as those of journalist, historian, philosopher, sociologist—an intellectual has tried to analyze history-in-the-making, and in which he is a participant, while nonetheless retaining a critical distance.

It is these three roles of analyst, interpreter, and actor that, with their constraints, their contradictions, and their greatness, fascinated and intrigued us.

For our generation, which had its political birth in 1968, Raymond Aron’s thought has represented a kind of “negative pole.” Intellectual education developed mostly around Marxism during the 1960s. One had the feeling that it was indispensable to position oneself with reference to this philosophy, with its several variants, its deviations, its negations, and its rebirths. We were not all Marxists in the sense of political or of philosophical choice and we realized that, before us, a goodly number of intellectuals had changed since the mid-1950s; some had, in fact, performed their “autocritic-ism,” but in the final analysis, almost all of them continued to reflect with reference to this system of thought which, after its “rebirth” in the mid-1960s, permeated the atmosphere of the period. It seemed to furnish the theoretical tools necessary to judge world events. Moreover, the multitude of philosophical controversies, the diversity of interpretations, and of the political regimes inspired by it seemed to prove its richness and justify Sartre’s formula: the unsurpassable horizon of our time. Is this, perhaps, a dominant ideology?

In any case, this generation was saturated with Marxism, it was hardened in May 1968, and it was warmed by the sun of the Left. Why did it accept this deterministic explanation of history? It is difficult to answer. Probably the horrors of the wars and revolutions of the first half of the twentieth century could be endured only with the help of a coherent explanations. Could history be so absurd? Surely, beyond the absurdity there must have been a sense somewhere. In a way, we had little historical consciousness or geopolitical discernment, the tragic events of the century seemed to have so broken something in the continuity of time. And when our own vision of history was nonetheless shaped during the mid-1960s, it found a target in American imperialism, because the war in Vietnam was going on at the time. Since then, a portion of this generation experienced in the mid-1970s the jarring revelation of the limits of Marxism, of the crimes of the Soviet Union, and of redemption through the human rights theme. This all-out approbation of that which had yesterday been detested troubles us because we find in it similar thought mechanisms: self-complacency, intolerance, dogmatism. The manner of expression that some have chosen is not consistent with the ideas they are discovering after a long detour, for there is less often the awareness of the complexity of the facts than the transition from one Manicheanism to another.

For those of us who during the 1970s gradually detached ourselves from Marxist claims of monopoly on the idea of progress and of arrogating to themselves the privilege of deciding who is on the Right and who on the Left, the discovery of Raymond Aron’s thought was a distinct pleasure. Obviously, it was not unknown to us, for we had studied it at the university, but it had been catalogued as “reactionary.” It was less understood as such than so perceived through an ideological filter and the Right-Left cleavage. In short, it was intelligent, but rightist? This attitude permitted one to recognize the quality of his analyses and at the same time to be wary of them.

Nevertheless, Raymond Aron’s rigorous knowledge of Marxism and his ability to challenge it were rather troubling. The more so, since his books analyzing the changes in our societies used some Marxist concepts and patterns, less as dogma or systems of reference than as simple analytical tools among others. But on the whole, his moderate positions, his Figar. editorials, his anti-Sovietism, and his closeness to the relativist philosophers of history and to the nineteenth century liberal thinkers sufficed during the decade 1968-1978 to convince us that, as it was so succinctly noted in a leftist weekly to which he had given an interview: “Raymond Aron is not one of ours.... “

Briefly, we discovered the thought of Raymond Aron in three stages. First, by reading with ideological glasses, particularly his Dixhuit leçons sur la sociètè industriell. and Peace and War Among Nations.¹ Then, the recognition of the man who had been right before the others on Stalinism, with The Opium of the Intellectuals.² Finally, after the discovery of his Introduction to the Philosophy of History.³ access to a process of thought that was not merely critical, but also positive, and that has its place in one of the great movements of philosophic and political thought that was for a long time caricatured in France.

In reading his books, we perceived the basic choice that oriented those positions, that is, a particular philosophy of history.

For Aron, history is neither determined nor oriented in advance by a purpose or sense. It remains open, dependent in the long run on men’s actions, on their freedom or on their arbitrariness. That explains his refusal of messianism, in whose name the twentieth century perpetrated so many crimes, and his distrust of ideology as a global interpretation of the world and as a guide to action.

This relativist conception of history is enhanced on the philosophical level with reference to the idea of reason. In fact, from Kantian philosophy he singles out the idea of reason as the sole means available to men to give order to their view of the world and to guide their desire to transform it.

Finally, he found in liberal philosophy the system of values that could provide the structure for an action model. For him, liberal philosophy, by respecting the pluralism of ideas and by favoring empiricism in analysis and action, is the least bad system to inspire governance.

On that basis, one views twentieth century events in a wholly different way: Nuclear strategy, the East-West confrontation, growth and change in industrial societies, the decline of the American empire—all are viewed differently than through the environment of Marxism that, by laziness or in good conscience, arranged in pat order this helter-skelter of events and the relationship of forces. Marxism can no longer be considered as a tool of knowledge, ignoring the fact that it is also, and perhaps above all, the model of reference and of action of one of the two economic and political systems that have been in a state of confrontation since the beginning of the century. The problem is no longer only that of American imperialism, but also of the West’s ability to preserve a model of civilization, quite apart from whether one favors that model partially or totally. There is in that, of course, a turnabout in the “sense” of history, but above all a new awareness of the hazards and fragilities of our value system. During the course of these interviews, what we found in the thought of Raymond Aron is the materialization of a change that had occurred in our world view. In a way, we already knew what he thought and on a number of points we agreed with him; what was new, essentially, did not stem so much from the analyses as from the consequences that flowed from them in terms of choices and responsibilities for us and our generation. That is: to act in a way that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. We have gradually accepted the absence of a different “model,” because the one we thought of as such is much worse than the one we are judging here. As a consequence, it is necessary to act within the western system, the single precaution being that we must make sure that the acts of western countries match the values to which they claim allegiance.

The consequence we draw is less banal than it might appear when one recalls the lack of courage and determination displayed by twentieth century Europeans who on so many historical occasions forgot their ideals.

When Raymond Aron speaks of events that he has lived through, one understands better the difference between a generation swept along by the turbulence of history and another generation—our own—that in France, presently at least, has had the feeling of being outside of history. For us, “history” was before or elsewhere, but not here. This fact, by the way, explains why certain people have searched for it in Peking, Hanoi, or Cuba. Raymond Aron and his generation experienced the savagery of which political regimes are capable in the name of ideals. They saw the despotism and violence, so well summed up in the phrase he is so fond of: “History as usual.” He knows that our society is mortal, something that our generation has difficulty in sensing, though it understands it in the abstract. Having lived through the collapse of societies, he understands their fragility. He realizes that once fundamental instability sets in, nothing can stop it. This is the source of his constant preoccupation, even obsession, with social cohesion, and his concern with avoiding confrontations that risk dividing and weakening society. One appreciates the difference from our generation that, born and matured in stable societies, almost without histories, has never had the sensation of fragility and risk of collapse. For us, history was first of all the result of internal social contradictions. Conflicts and changes relating to labor conditions, urban development, education, social customs, seemed the principal source of renovation, with little danger that local instability would threaten general cohesion. Even May 1968, despite the disorder that it meant, had no destabilizing effect upon society. It was our impression that conflicts in these areas were at once a means of going beyond the class struggle in the strict sense of the term, and of changing the structure of society.

Moreover, there had been no alternation of power since 1958 and, with the Left excluded, political stability was a given, society seemed immobile despite the many conflicts that buffeted it, and certainly was in no way menaced in its basic equilibrium. What is known as “Aronian scepticism” is probably rooted to some degree in his awareness of the fragility of society. His experience of history and his perception of the thin margin of maneuver enjoyed by those who have governed in France and in the United States is doubtless responsible to some extent for his lack of illusions about the possibilities for political change. And from this stems our difficulty in understanding his conception of order and change. For us, the first symbolizes roughly, the Right, and the second, the Left, while Aron never ceases to repeat that the France governed by the Right has changed considerably. It is true that it has become modernized, that the standard of living has broadly improved, that some social inequalities have been reduced, and that the school system has become partially democratized. But because our generation has directly experienced these transformations without having known the earlier circumstances, we have found them, in a certain way, natural, and, instead of being satisfied with the growth and enrichment of life that has taken place, we have tended, rather, to focus our energies on the fight to eliminate the stubborn social and cultural inequalities that remain. With a different historical experience, Raymond Aron compares—and is not certain that the Left would have followed the same policy of modernization. He believes that the Left-Right opposition is a confrontation between two concepts of change. The Right prefers to mobilize individual initiative, competition; the Left favors redistribution, planning. While we did not always share his distrust of the Left, we nevertheless quickly understood that this distrust is something quite different from conservatism. It is the fruit of experience and of reflection on the contradiction between liberty and equality—a contradiction that is without doubt more difficult to overcome than some people (and not merely members of our generation) imagine. But, conversely, we also know that the new social conflicts, the changes in cultural behavior, and the rapport between the individual and his society that have shaped our way of living and thinking since the 1960s—and to which Raymond Aron and others have not been very sensitive— amount to truly structural, if invisible, changes in our societies. These cultural transformations have been accompanied by a change of ideas toward linguistic or psychoanalytical approaches, for example, that will quite possibly be useful to the understanding of social mechanisms. Without rejecting these new ideas, Raymond Aron tends to consider them in relation to the major themes and philosophies of history. Thus viewed, they suddenly appear unsubstantial or secondary.

Obviously, these cultural transformations are not about to change the world’s equilibrium, but it is possible that they forge intellectual tools, open up new ways of perceiving reality and diversify the range of knowledge. We will see whether these cultural modifications that have so marked our generation will affect our social and political life, or whether they are merely changes of a secondary nature in comparison with more fundamental movements of history, during an exceptional period of strong economic growth and political stability.

The thing that fascinated us most about Raymond Aron is the anti-conformist nature, compared to the habitual scenarios of the Right and Left, of his analyses of significant contemporary events. It was of little interest to us whether he was right or wrong on one question or another; what we wanted to understand was how his philosophical and political positions challenged leftist thought. The two ends of the circle finally meet, in the sense that, while being violently rejected by the intellectual Left, Aron was often its bad conscience, saying out loud what a number of its members did not dare ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Part I: The Committed Observer
• Part II: Encounters with Raymond Aron: 1970-1976
• Part III: An Afterword