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Raymond Aron and the French IntellectualsAuthor(s): Victor BrombertSource: Yale French Studies, No. 16, Foray Through Existentialism (1955), pp. 13-23Published by: Yale University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929143 .
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VICTOR
BROMBERT
RaymondAron and the
French
Intellectuals
An intelligentsia
s born o be unhappy.-Arnold
oynbee
Karl Marx optimistically
rophesied
hat at the decisive
hourof
the class struggle,
he intellectuals
f thebourgeois
worldwould
rally
o thecause
of theproletarianevolution.
f we
are to trust
RaymondAron, thisfateful our has come: the intellectualsf
France
onsider hemselvesestined
o guide
heworkers;hey
re
seduced
y thehistoric ission
f theproletariatn whom
hey ail
a new Messiah who,
throughuffering,
as assumed
he heroic
role of a collective
aviour ntrusted
ith he redemption
f the
Universe; hey
re
in the
process
of being convertedo a new
religion. f course,
Aron's personalview
s that the
intellectual
belongs
n
the
iteraryafesofSaint-Germain-des-Pres
ather han
with
he
disgruntled
orkers f theParisianRed Belt.Most of
his
recent rticles,many f whichhavebeen collectedn Polemiques
(Gallimard, 955),
and more
ecentlyis
book
L'Opium
des Intel-
lectuels
end
o
prove his oint.
oy
nd
generous
lappingf hands
from he
traditional
ighthavegreeted
is persevering
ffortst
debunking,
hough ome have
been
a littledisturbed y Aron's
sceptical
onclusions
nd
would
have
preferred
n
even
more
ntran-
sigent
tand.
n
a
way,
Aron's
position
s not
an
enviable ne.
He
wouldso much
have
liked
to avoid what
he
describes
s the
outwornlternativeetween
he
Right
nd
theLeft:
he
hoped
not
to
bepigeonholed.
et,
t would
eem hat he
hackneyed
lternative
still aces heFrench,ndthoughheRight o longernjoys alling
itself heRight,
heLeft s
still
ery
much
wareof
being he
Left.
Only
few
monthsgo,
an
entiressue
of
Les
Temps
Modernes
as
devoted o the question,
nd
there
s
much
talk n
France
of
a
Nouvelle
Gauche nd
perhaps
ven
ome
nostalgia
or
he
good
old
days
of the FrontPopulaire.
Needless
o
say,
Aron's rontal
ttack
n
theFrench
ntellectuals
foolsno
one,
east
of all Aron
himself.
verybody
nows
e is not
talking
f all intellectuals,ertainly
ot
of
a
Thierry
aulnier r
of
thecollaboratorsf La Table Ronde.Everbody nowsfullwell
whomhe
means
when
he writes
hat he intellectuals
ave
been
seduced
y
the
myth
f theRevolution
ecause hat
myth
eems
o
offer
mystical
ommunity
o
philosophers
bsessed
y
the
solitude
13
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Yale
French Studies
des consciences."n fact, some
of his articles
re outspokenly
aimed gainst
artre nd his group.'
How is one to account or hestrange ttitudef these ntellec-
tuals?How is it
that hese
upposedlylear-thinking,ell-meaning
writers nd
journalistsre so
unsparingn their riticismf the
slightesthortcomingsf the
democracies,nd so
obstinatelyndul-
gent oward
eal crimes o long s
they re
perpetratedor he ake
of
an orthodox
octrine? hese are the specific
uestions hat ie
at
the origin f L'Opium des
Intellectuels.he answer, ccording
to Aron, s the
myth
f
the Left,
he myth f the Revolution,he
myth
f the
Proletariat-three
yths
hat
have
merged nto one
Big Myth
ndowed
with
hypnotic ower.
Butwhyhas the hypnosis een so effective?gain,Aron has
ready nswers. ver
since
the
Revolution f
1789, the prestige f
theLefthas been
o great n France hat ven ts
foeshave adopted
its vocabulary.
deological
onfusion
as beenthe
result. he Com-
munists
ery
hrewdly
earned
arly
n
the
gamethe
art
of posing
as the
rightful
eirs
o
eighteenth-century
ationalist
hought. hey
knew hat
heFrench
n
general
ove the
word
revolution,"or t
gives hem he llusion
f
perpetuating
heir
ast
grandeur. s for
the
ntellectuals,hey isplay particular
ondness or
he term s
wellas for heconcept ecause,ntheir uestfor erebraltimula-
tion
n
politics,
hey
re
chronically
ttractedo
extremes:
eform
seems
o them
oring
nd
prosaic;
evolution
ppears
o
them xcit-
ing
and
poetic.
Just s theesthete
enounces he
philistine,
o the
Marxist
hinkerenounces
he
bourgeois.
rtist
nd
ntellectualhus
feel t one n their
ightgainst
common
nemy.
Moral
non-con-
formism
ecomes
literary
heme,
nd
the notion f
revolt
ne
of the
commonplaces
f art.
The
fecundity
f
upheavals
s an idea
withwhich
many
Romantic
nd
post-Romantic
ind
has
toyed-
and it is not surprisinghatthemyth f theRevolutionhould
serve
s
a
refuge
or
topian hought
nd
play
he
part
f a
mysteri-
ous
ntercessor
etween
hereal and the deal.Add
to this certain
nostalgia
or
outworn
hristian
reams,
nd
it
becomes
lear
why
the
Proletariat
hould
have
replaced
he Messiah nd
given
ise
to
refreshed
illenaristic
opes.
Of
course,
here s
also a scientific
It is
only
fairto
recall, however,
hat
during
he later
1940s
and into
the
1950s
Sartre,
arfrom
being
the
darling
f the Communists,
as a
positive
bugbear
o them.L'Hurnanite
enounced
is
Dirty
Hands
as "a
dirty
lay,"
and
his essay
on "Materialism
nd
Revolution,"
ecently ublished
n
trans-
lation Literarynd Philosophical ssays,Philosophical ibrary, 955), can
still
awaken
the enthusiasm
f
so stout an
anti-Communist
s William
Barrett.-But
we cannot
trace
here Sartre'spolitical
evolution,
o rich
in
nuances,
cruples,
mbiguities
nd frustrations,
r
decide to
what
degree,
and
with what particular
ualifications,
he term
fellow traveler"
may
be
applied
to him
today.
14
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VICTOR
BROMBERT
quest
or
scientificccount
f
history.
ut most
mportant
erhaps
(according o
Aron) are
someprivate
reoccupations:he
ntellec-
tualshavefinancialifficultiesinRussiathere re State ditionsf
writers'
orks);
hey
would
iketo
play political
ole,
utfeel
hat
they re
preachingn a
desert;hey
annot tand
ndifference,
ndcon-
sequently
elcome
heprospect
f
being
ersecuted;
hey
re
proud
and
cannot
ear
o
see France's ulture
ontaminatedithAmerican
ideals.Naive
utopianism,sense f
frustration,little ose
f
masoch-
ism, mbition
or
power, opefor
materialdvantage
nd a
hidden,
thoughctive,
ristocratic
hauvinism-these
re the
ravaging
auses
of
he
maladyhat
Aron
diagnoses.he
symptomsre
serious: istor-
tion f
mind
ndabdication
o
totalitarian
odes f thinking.
Perhaps
Aron's
analysis
ppears
omewhat
ver-simplified.
ore-
over, he
diseasehe
diagnosess
notreally
new
one.
Unquestion-
ably,
many
ntellectuals-and ot only
the
rankand file
of
Les
Temps
Modernes
and
Esprit-have
been attracted
to
the views
of the
Left, nd even
he
xtremeeft.
ver
ince he
middle f
the
nineteenth
entury,
rance
haswitnessed
steady
roletarization
f
its
ntelligentsia.n
1860,
thebrothers
oncourt
lready
otedwith
somebitterness
hat
thenew
generationf
artists
nd
journalists
no longer elonged othewell-to-doourgeoisieas did thegenera-
tionof
1830) but
that,
ompelled o
fight or
tsbread,
hisnew
boheme
ived,
strugglednd
hated ike a
true
proletariat.
ules
Valles,
in
his trilogy
acques
Vingtras, as drawn
the
pathetic
caricature
f
youngmen f
humblerigins
ushed y
their
mbitious
parentsnto
he
eaching rofession
here hey
wouldfind
mediocre
and
unstableositions.
true ntellectual
roletariat
hus
ame nto
being,
nd
finally
ed to
syndicalist
rganizations
uch
as the Con-
federation
Generale
des
Travailleurs
ntellectuels nd the
Com-
pagnons e
l'Intelligencefoundedn
1921). This
ocial nd
political
consciousness as furtherntensifiedy ideological trugglesnd
was
brought
o
a
climax
y
crises
uch as
the
Dreyfus
ase
which,
in
the
words f
Thibaudet,
as a real
ntellectual
empest.
fraid
to
take sides with
njustice nd
with
he
privileged
lasses,
fraid
above
all
to
prove
oo moderate
n
their
hinking,
he
ntellectuals
became
ncreasingly
shamed
f
their
pathy,
f
their
nefficiency
in
the
field of
political
action.
The
Ligue
des
Droits
de
l'Homme
seemed
an
unsatisfactory
nswer.Flattered
y
the
Communists,
impressedy
the
promises,
f
not
by
the
results,
f the
Soviet
experiment,ufferingromwhatNizan has called social original
sin, they
willingly
losed their
yes
to
criminalmethods.
hey
developed
philosophy
f
the lesser
evil.
Romain
Rolland,
n
spite
of his
polemics
with
HenriBarbusse
1921-1922),
in
spite
of
his
cry
n
tyrannos
ecame onverted
o
Bolshevism
nd wrote
15
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French Studies
to the
anarchist
ibertairen
1927 that
Russia was
in
danger,
that he
mperialist
oalitionwas
tryingo crush
t, that
not with-
standing ts errors nd even its crimes,Russia representedhe
greatest, he
most
powerful,he
mostfecund
hope
for modern
Europe.Without
er,no liberty
asthinkable
and in
handwith
thisnewfaith
went
taste
ormartyrdom.he
God that
ailed,
collection f
essays
by
re-convertednd
redeemed
onverts,mply
demonstratesow,
n
various ountries,
en ike
Arthur
oestler,
Ignazio
Silone,
RichardWright,
ndre Gide,
StephenSpender
attempted
o cure
themselves
f
their enseof
social
guilt y deny-
ing the
very
alues hey
helddear, nd
were
emptedo submit
o
a
party iscipline hich
would ive hem
elief
nd satisfyheir
eed
to bear witness y providingn intellectual artyrdom.oestler
describes hiscult of the
"prolo,"
his
obsession
f all
the
Com-
munistntellectuals.
arely
olerated
n
the
Party, hey
ttemptedn
vain
to imitate
he
archetypal,
road-shoulderedorker f
the
Putilov
actories,ave up
wearing
ies,made sure
their
ails were
dirty
nd
did
their
estto
castrate heir
hinking.et
they id
not
succeedn
resembling
he
deal omradevan vanovich.
he
phenom-
enon
was
not
limited
o
any
single
ountry.
n
a
recent
ook,
Czeslaw
Milosz
has described
he Polish
ntellectuals'
ostalgia
or
the masses,2 heirreadiness o swallow the "Murti-Bing"ills
imported
rom
he East and
scientifically
repared
o
soothe he
anguish f
decadentnd
tormentedouls.
The disease
Aron
iagnoses
was
already
iagnosed,
n
1929,by
Emmanuel
erl: the
ntellectual
is attractedo Communism
ecause,
n
bourgeois
ociety,
e
smells
the odor
of
death.3 he
very
ons of
the
bourgeoisie,
ike
Hugo-
Raskolnikov
n
Sartre's
Mains
sales,
suffer
rom
he
stench,
eny
their
amily
ies nd setout to
forge
or hemselves
fresh
irginity.
Many
dmirers
f
Sartre
ave
been
disturbed
y
the
nebulousness
of his
social
metaphysics
nd
appalledbythe ncreasingoredomwhich manates rom he thicklyluttered,ndigestibleagesof
Les
Temps
Modernes.
ven
ome
haracters
n
Simone
e
Beauvoir's
Les
Mandarins rotest
gainst
his
apparent
sthetic
bdication:
Lambert
bserves
itingly
hat
Dubreuilh's
Vigilance
read:
Les
Temps
Modernes)
has
given
up printing
ovels
nd
short
tories
in
order
o
stuff
ts issueswith ocial
documents
nd
reportages.
Perhaps,
n Beauvoir's
ost-war
orld,
he
ntellectual
ecretly
eels
or fears hat
he
has
no
longer
nything
o
contributeo
art or
thought.
In the
country
f
Diderot,
ictor
Hugo
and
Jaures
t is
assumedhat ulturendpolitics ohand n hand.For a long ime
Paris
took
itself
or Athens.
Athensno
longer xists,
hat's
fin-
2
The Captive
Mind,
New York,
Knopf,
1953.
-Mort
de
la
pense'e
ourgeoise,
aris, Grasset,
929.
16
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minorityoes nothave
a chance, hat he ntellectualo longer as
any part to play, noranythingo say, thathe is
powerless,hat
literatureas lost ts rights,hat ne can onlywritemeaninglessr
harmful ooks.But in spiteof thistemporaryefeatism,
e does
not capitulate.till onvinced
hat here s no longer
ny salvation
for he ndividual,ubreuilh nce more hrowsll
his energiesnto
thepolitical attle. ike a true ragic ero,he knows
e is doomed;
his s a lucid ndpainfulwarenessf hehopelessness
fhisposition
and thefutilityf his action. et he organizesnother
eekly aper
and goes to his inevitable
oom,fighting.
Raymond
ron's
ook
and Simone e Beauvoir's ovel ppeared
during he same iteraryeason 1954-1955); but t is not merely
thischronologicaloincidence
hat uggests juxtaposition
f the
twoworks. n differentevels,
nd with ifferenteans,
hey iscuss
very imilar roblems-only
eauvoir's ovel s a useful orrective
to Aron's tudy. he problem s not quite as simple
s he seems
to imply.Aron'sfears
re very egitimate,is generalizationsre
pertinent,
is
point
f
view
s
thatof common ense.
"Politically"
speaking,
ne feels tronglyempted
o
agree.Only, ome of the
premises re more omplex
hanAron makes hem ut to be. To
beginwith,
hat s an "intellectual"?
ron, ery apidly,ffersome
definitions:n thebroad ense ftheword, hecategoryncludes ll
the
non-manual orkers.
n a
narrow
ense,
t
is
limited
o the
liberal
rofessionslawyers,
octors, eachers).
n
a
still
narrower
sense,
t
comprises
he
artists,
he cientistsnd the
popularizers
f
knowledge.
f
one
is
to
apply
social
criterion,
ne arrives t still
another
efinition.
rom
moral
oint
f
view,
he
definitionnvolves
a
problem
f
objectives
obviously professor
f
Law
is
more
of an
intellectualhan
lawyer);
rom
he
conomic
oint
f
view,
it raises he question
f whether
"dilettante"hould
be
included.
Aron eems obelieve hat he ntellectualsre thosewho translate
opinions
nto
heories,
ho
are
not
satisfied ith
iving,
utwant o
think
heir
xistence.
It
would eem,however,
hatnot
one
of
these
definitions,
aken
separately,
s
fully atisfactory.
he notion f a cultural
lite
s
much
oo
broad
concept
when
pplied
o advanced ountries
uch
as
France.
A
psychological
efinition
ould soon
degenerate
nto
caricature. professional
efinitionoes not take nto ccount he
sense
f
vocation,
he
oncern or
values,
he
triving
or
bjectives:
itneglectshe thical spect
f
the
question. ny ttempt
t a social
definitionends obe arbitraryndeven ectarian:tthrowsogether
without
istinction
rofessionals,
ureaucrats,
hite-collar
role-
tarians,
nd reduces
ll these
ategories
o a non-existentommon
denominator.
he
moral
definition
ails to
point
o the
degree
f
social
responsibility
nvolved.
he
philosophico-historical
efinition
18
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VICTOR BROMBERT
(such
as theone
provided yArnoldToynbee)
proves o be
alto-
getheroo absolute
nd too detached rom he
political
ontingencies
of a
given eriod.4 s for hepolitical efinition,t raises delicatequestion: o not he ntellectualsffirmheir oliticaltand yreac-
tionrather han hrough
dhesion o any given
olitical arty?
Is there hen o common enominator?
incent erger, he
hero
of
Malraux' Les
Noyers de l'Altenbourg,
observes, during
the
symposium hich rings
ogetherhilosophers
rom arious oun-
tries, hat hese
aces o
diverselyndprofoundly
haracteristicf
the
different
ations o which
heybelong,nevertheless
esemble
each
other.
Myfather iscovered
o whatextent he
ntellectuals
constituterace."But a "race," f
course,
which s to be recognized
through oral atherhan hysical raits.
One
hesitates
o
undertake
his
moral ortrait.
ensibility
odeled
on
thought;aithn
the fficiency
f deas as anorganizational
orce
in
the tangibleworld; he utilization
f
culture s an instrument
for criticizingradition;he
unselfish,ratuitousursuit f
truth,
but,
imultaneously,hepursuit f a
humanitariandeal; the
trans-
mission r
preaching
f
moral
values; the sensation, ow
proud,
now
humiliated,
f existingutside
he social
framework,ndyet,
on
thewhole, n obvious
ympathyor he
aboringegmentsfthe
country nd a consequent ttractiono leftist olitical arties;
feeling
f "not
belonging"
nd
of
impotence;
ealousy
of men
of
action;
he
cult
of
revolt,
ometimesven
of
anarchy;
he
nearly
obsessive earof
finding
imself n
the
side
of
injustice; ostalgia
for hemasses
oupled
with he
complexes
f
a
"fils
e
bourgeois"
ashamed
f
belonging
o
the
privileged
lasses-these
onstitute
nly
some of
the
more
permanent
raits f that
strange reature,
he
intellectual,
nd
particularly
f
theFrench
ubspecies.
The
son of Vincent
erger
iscovers,
o
the
tuneof the 1940
defeat,
hat n intellectual
s not
ust
a
person
o whombooks
are
necessary,ut nyman o whom n idea,elementaryhoughtmay
be,
can become he
guiding
rinciple
f
ife.
Perhaps
ven
certain
brand
of asceticisms
the
appanage
f the
ntellectual.
he
man-
darin, ccording
o
Simone
de
Beauvoir,
s a kind
of
puritan:
he
very
dea of
luxury ffrights
im. n
spite
of
failures
nd humilia-
tions,
e
obstinately
eturns
o
his
self-assigned
asks.Ascetic n his
cultof
work,
e
proves
o be
equally
scetic n his
relations
ith
fellowmen:
not so much
with oncretemen
as with
humanity,"
toward
whichhe feels
unequivocallyesponsible. othing
ould be
more haracteristichan he cruplesfone Sartreanero Mathieu
inLes Chemins
de
la
Liberte)
who blames
nd even
nsults imself
fornot
uffering
nough
or
he
far-away,nonymous
ictims f the
Valencia
bombing.
One cannot ufferor
what
one
wants
o,"
is
4A Study of
History,
V-VI, OxfordUniversity
ress,
1939.
19
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Yale French
Studies
the bitter
emark f
Mathieu.
But
it is a
bitter
emark recisely
becausehis
"role"
as an
intellectual
eems
o
incite im
o
givean
account f man'stragedy.ubreuilh,n Les Mandarins,skshim-
self:"What
does it
mean,
he fact
that
man never
eases
talking
about himself?
nd why
s it
that some
men
decide
to speak
n
the name
of others:
n other
words,
what s
an
intellectual?"
ut
the very uestion
mplies
he answer:
he intellectual
s precisely
the one who
has decided
o speak,
nd
speak
up, in
the name
of
humanity.
Primarily
witness,
he
ntellectual
lso
considers
imself
nvolved,
perhaps
uilty,
articularly
hen
the suffering
s
distant
nd the
victimnaccessible.uchfunhas beenmade fthis ense f"global"
responsibility.
n
a
symposium
rganized
y
Partisan
Review
on
the ubject
f Religion
ndthe
ntellectuals"
February-May
950),
JamesAgee
mockingly
escribes
hesepoor
peoplewho
have
been
badgered
alf
out
of
theirminds
by
"the daily
obligation
o stay
aware of,
hep
to, worked-up
ver, guilty
owards,
ctive
about,
the
sufferings
f
people
at a great
distance
orwhom
ne can do
nothing
hatever."
e scornfully
eferso
this
cute ense
of
social
responsibility
s a sort
f
playing-at-God
He
being
n
exile)
over
every
ittle
ccident r incident,
ith he sense
of virtue
ncreasing
in ratio o thedistance. houghRaymond roncan hardly e said
to
speak
for he Christian
aith
n the wisdom
nd
mercy
f God
(and
in
the
ultimate
eign
f
ustice),
he
too
considers
t somewhat
pompous
nd llusory
o
worry
t
a
great
istance
bout he
peasants
of
India who
do
not
eat enough,
he
mistreated
egroes
f
South
Africa,
he
worker-priests
ffected
y
the
Papal
decision
or
the
ex-Communists
ursued
y
McCarthy.
ut
one
thing
othAgee
and
Aron
eemto
forget:
o
speak
up
forothers
vidently
lso
implies
to
suffer
or
and
with
others-to
suffer,
nd
sometimes
ven
to
expiate.Primarily witness,he intellectuallso wishes o be a
martyr.
ince
God
is
in
exile,
who
remains
o
give
an account
f
human estiny?
and
in hand with
incere
cruples
nd
authentic
humilityoes
an immense ride,
he modem
ntellectuals'
ybris.
Maybe
t is
this
verypride-the
pride
of
suffering
nd the
pride
of
persecution-that
xplains,
etter han
ny
other
ingle
act,
he
undeniable
ttraction
f themillenaristic
ream-theories
f
Marxism
and the
immanent
acredness
f the
proletariat.
he
intellectual
rediscovers
he
antique
myth
f the
redemption
f the
Universe
throughuffering.
There
s
another
spect
f
the
relationship
etweenhe
ntellectual
and
theextreme
eft
which
Arondoesnotconsider-and
ightfully
so,
for
t does
not
nter
nto
he cheme
fhis
polemics.
he
mystical
marriage
f the
ntellectual
ith he
extreme
eft
really
ests
n
a
20
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VICTOR
BROMBERT
basic and
mutual
misunderstanding.f one examines hat
marriage
moreclosely, ne soon
discovers hatthe proletariannd revolu-
tionarylementsf theLeftnever eased expressingheir ontemptanddistrustf the"egg-head." rthur oestler escribes ith reat
vividnessheatmosphere
f suspicionhat eignedn theparty
ells
and
themental orturesndergone y him and his fellow
ntellec-
tuals: barely olerated,heir osition as somewhatkin to
that f
the "useful ews" uring
heHitler
egime
who werepermittedo
survive nd wore pecial
rmbandsto prevent heir eing
entto
a
gas chamber y mistake. he workers erethe "Aryans"
f
the
Party.
This
attitudes not a
new one. It is verycharacteristic
hat
Proudhon,ne of therare ocialistwriterso have comefrom he
lower lasses thoughMarx calledhim a petit-bourgeois
ocialist),
refusedll his ife o be
consideredn intellectual.o lesssignificant
was the ttitudefthe
French elegates o theFirst
Congress f the
Workersnternationaln
Geneva 1866): pointing o the danger
of
the rganizationeing
nvaded nd undermindedy
unscrupulous,
ambitious
nd privilegedchemers,hey sked for he exclusion
f
all
intellectuals.ar from ccepting hem, he
revolutionaryeft
tends o consider hem s
enemies r as subversives.id not
Lenin,
in 1907, refer o them s cowardlymenials f thecounter-Revolu-
tion, as self-satisfied
arcissi namoured f the dung-heaps hat
surround
hem? he
violence f the one orrespondso theblackest
phaseof thereaction
fter heruthlessrushingf the1905 insur-
rection. evertheless,hebitternessoward he ntellectual
emains
a
constant act.Theyare contrastedo the manualworkers nd
accused
of
plottingo use the gnorantroletariats an instrument
for
selfish ains. Bakuninrepeatedlyffirmshe
impossibility
f
convertingo socialismhe arrogantnd cast-consciousaristocrats
of
the intellect." arl Kautsky dvises he Party o protect
tself
against hese uccess-hunters.ubert agardelle,n a speechdeliv-
eredto a
group f
socialist tudentsn 1900, refers o the
ntelli-
gentsia
s a
"floating"
roup,withbourgeois ympathies
nd
con-
tempt or heworkers,n search f power, sing olitics or
elfish
aims and
devoid f a
practical ducation. ccording
o
him, hey
can onlybe used as
spokesmen,s phonographso propagate
he
wishes nd the
decisions
f
the
proletarian
ovement.
aul
Lafargue
goes
even
further,nd in
Le
Socialisme
et
les
Intellectuels
1900),
bluntly
tates that
the intellectuals
ossess
neither
sense
of
solidarityor civiccourage, hatthey re merely it to be the
clownish
ntertainersf
a paying lientele. n 1912,
after
ome
resoundingrticles n
the Bataille Syndicaliste, eorges
Yvetot
decided
o exclude
he ntellectualsrom heC.G.T. (Confederation
Generale u Travail)
underpretexthat hey elong
o
secondary
21
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Yale French
Studies
professions,isplay o group
nterest,nd havenot ufferednough.
To be sure, hedanger f fascism,nd in particularhe
Spanish
civil war, changed he tuneconsiderably.ut the sharp riticism
leveled
at the intellectuals
y socialists nd Communists
like,
rankled n their onscience. onsidered aithless,rrogant,
eady
forcompromise,hey uffer
rom he contemptn which hey re
held. In the wordsof Sartre's ero Mathieu, heyfeel
"innocent
and guilty,oo severe nd
too ndulgent,owerlessnd responsible,
boundup with veryone
nd rejected y all." Is Brunet
ot there
to
remind im that he is
only a watchdog f the bourgeoisie?
But strangelynough, ven
Brunet, he Communist,eelsuneasy:
"Intellectual.ourgeois,"e mutterso himself.Separatedor ver.
Try s I may,we willnever avethe amememories."
You are not
one ofus," says heCommunistaigneux o his party omrade,
he
young rofessor ourdan in Marcel
Ayme's
Uranus).
Like King
Philip'shaunting ords n
Verdi'sDon Carlo ". . . ella
giammai
m'am6 " hat wareness f the gulf hat eparates hem
rom he
proletariatchoes n their
minds nd contributesery argelyo what
Aroncalls the estrangement
f the ntellectuals.
Estrangementrom ll quarters: he ttitudeftheRight
s hardly
more avorable.imone
e
Beauvoir,n an article
n
contemporary
rightisthoughtLes TempsModernes,ssues112-113.114), shows
that
the
bourgeoisielso
distrustshe intellectual.
here
exist,
f
course, ourgeoisheorizers,
hosewhom he
Marxists
isparagingly
call
the
peddlers
f
illusion.To be sure,
rationalisthought
as
been
for
the
bourgeois
orld
n instrument
f
liberation;
ut
this
very ationalisthoughts
also a double-edged eapon.
The bour-
geoisie
displays
oward he
ntellectual
n ambivalent
ttitude:
he
very
ntellectualshomost rdentlyombatMarxism
re considered
with
uspicion.
he
word
intellectual"asily ssumes,
or he
Right
as well as the Left,a pejorativemeaning. he "solid" citizen
(Sartre's alaud), rememberinghe ow
esteem n which
e is
held
by
rtistnd
philosopher
ince
henineteenth
entury,
onsiders
hem
as
non-conformist,rodigal ons,
forever
n the
verge
f
denying
their
rigins.
As for the
more outspokenly
eactionarylements,
their
ttitude
s even
more
iolent.
douard
Berth,
n ardent
oyalist
and
sympathizer
ith
he
Action
ranqaise,
ave
vent o
this iolence
in a
long-forgotten
ut
significant
ook,
Les
Mefaits
de l'Intellectuel
(1914): comparing
he ntellectuals
o
ignorant
nd
pedantic
chool-
masters,esees n them n anti-heroicaste hat ttemptso mpose
on
the
modernworld
nauseating
umanitarian
deals,
denies
the
age-old eroic, eligious,
ilitary
nd
nationalistic
alues,
nd
strives
to
replace
hese
by
a
morality
f cowardice.
22
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VICTOR
BROMBERT
"An intelligentsias born
o be unhappy," rites rnold
Toynbee.
And it is
perhaps he
causes of thisunhappiness
hat Raymond
Aronhas failed o analyze n his book.The socialmetaphysicsf
Sartremay
be nebulous;
e, and his followers, ay
be too quick o
denounce
elative lls and
too ready o ignore
oncrete roblems
through
"proudwill o
think or ll ofmankind."
nquestionably,
a
kindof
Promethean
ybrisharacterizeshe modem
ntellectual.
But
that
ybriss only ne
aspect fthemodem
rometheus.or
he
is also
sincere ndprofoundlyumble.
evere oward
imself,e
is
aware
hathis
tragedys notexclusively
personal
ne. Caught p
in
a drama f deas,he
nevertheless
eels solated nd lonely.
ike
Vigny'sMoses,he suffers
rom eing
misunderstoodnd from ro-
voking ostility.n a world n which verythings being ategorized
and
defined,
e findst
difficult,etnecessary,o
define nd
situate
himself. e
choosesto
take sides,and through
his choice
only
provokesurtherension
etween
xtremes. is idealism, isquest
for
absolutes,make him
an easy prey
to imaginarycruples nd
arbitrary
olutions. oliticallypeaking,
e may rr-and
Aron
may
be as
justified
n his alarm
s he is in his ronic tatements
bout
he
incorrigible
aivete f
thosewho willalways e the
first o
fill
he
concentrationamps.The
ironymaybe
prophetic.ut
s
thealarm
really ustified?hat s anotheruestion. ronhimself aswritten,
in
an article
or he
Figaro
itteraire
September
7th,1952),
that
revolutionariesuch s
Sartre ave
neveryetdisturbedhe leep
of
any banker.
erhaps, fter ll,
this
s
not a
political
roblem?
23