The Opium of the Intellectuals

by Raymond Aron

"Raymond Aron's 1955 masterpiece The Opium of the Intellectuals, is one of the great works of twentieth-century political reflection. Aron shows how noble ideas can slide into the tyranny of "secular religion" and emphasizes how political thought has the profound responsibility of telling the truth about social and political reality - in all its mundane imperfections and tragic complexities." "Aron explodes the three "myths" of radical thought: the Left, the Revolution, and the Proletariat. Each of these ideas, Aron shows, are ideological, mystifying rather than illuminating. He also provides a fascinating sociology of intellectual life and a powerful critique of historical determinism in the classically restrained prose for which he is justly famous."--BOOK JACKET.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, France, Cultural

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron (French: [ʁɛmɔ̃ aʁɔ̃]; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist, and political scientist.
He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people – Aron argues that in post-war France, Marxism was the opium of intellectuals. In the book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he described as their harsh criticism of capitalism and democracy and their simultaneous defense of Marxist oppression, atrocities, and intolerance. Critic Roger Kimball[2] suggests that Opium is "a seminal book of the twentieth century." Aron is also known for his lifelong friendship, sometimes fractious, with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.[3]
He is also known for his 1973 book, The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World 1945-1973, which influenced Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, among others.
Aron wrote extensively on a wide range of other topics. Citing the breadth and quality of Aron's writings, historian James R. Garland[4] suggests, "Though he may be little known in America, Raymond Aron arguably stood as the preeminent example of French intellectualism for much of the twentieth century."

Reviews

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although his name has recurrently cropped-up in books I've read over the past several years—in particular those of the late Tony Judt—I had yet to partake of Raymond Aron straight from the source, though I've a handful of his work on the shelves. His mild and genial appearance on the back cover—lean frame, jug-handle ears, depleted combover, ovoid skull with soft hound dog eyes and a pleasant smile—somewhat disarm the reader heading into TOOTI; but make no mistake, this is a challenging read, written in a style commensurate with that of those intellectuals in the lineage of Marx, Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger who dominated the postwar French Left and tirelessly attacked the Western democracies whilst carrying water for Stalinist Russia. Aron, raising a voice of impartial reason to set against the ideological fanaticism he saw prevailing from these intellectuals of import, ponders within a central question: what is it about these Marxist disciples and their utopian ideology that stirs them—by all indications in good faith—to mercilessly condemn the liberal democratic culture they were born into—that of Western Europe and its trans-Atlantic offspring—refusing it any acknowledgement for its threaded efforts to address its undeniable flaws and failures, whilst simultaneously offering firm and unbending support for the Bolshevik strain of totalitarian communism, despite their understanding of the appalling toll in broken bodies and spirits, mass prisons and graves, that had been amassed in the latter's name during the long years of its iron despotism? Aron took their philosophical purview seriously and sought his answer within the structures of the hermeneutical language they used; and he organized his conclusions as a series of essays that explored what he had determined to be the mythologies of the Left, Revolution, and the Proletariat, all ordered within an idolatrous conception of History that served as a modern and pseudo-scientifically immanent changeling for God, its dogmatic End the secular sibling of theological salvation.

The opening section sees Aron unwinding the first trilogy of myths that he has discerned amongst his fellow Gallic thinkers, with a select eye for his contemporaries Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. It is a complicated and detailed explication, with much of relevance to that particular era in postwar French society, when he deemed a dangerous current of anti-Americanism swelling; but as an exegesis of Marxist thought, and what he held to be the erroneous ideas and metaphysics that served as the foundation of that ideology, it has an enduring value. Starting with the Left, Aron traces the development of the Left throughout modern history, with a focus upon the French flavors. He deemed the state of confusion and lack of coherent political objectives amongst the various parties a result of the ideological chaos stemming from the conflicting conceptions of the Right-Left antithesis; as against a belief in a single, unitary Left moving with purposeful History towards the Revolution of the Proletariat, the great eschatological watershed in Marxist philosophy, he posits a French Left that, by its association with the Stalinist regime—and thus with its crimes and perversions of the Leftist Ideal—along with its distaste for parliamentary reform and a growing dissociation between political and social values, had forsaken practical and real gains for the workers it claimed to represent in lieu of a drive for an impossible and unrealistic ideal. Indeed, this drive, and its adherence to the Bolshevist claim to Historical primacy, had channeled the Left into a position where, fervid for the liberty of African colonials but aloof from the same freedom for the East Germans or the Poles, pity was a one-way virtue, a truth the Aron held cancerous for the Left's soul.

He follows this with a deconstruction of the myth of Revolution—one with a particular and obvious connexion with the French—another of the Left's progressive memes, a continuous and evolving movement through time to that great and globally-liberating moment when the Proletariat, aware of itself and its historical destiny, arise in revolution against their capitalist oppressors and bring about the End of (Pre)History. From the opening lines Aron flatly states that the Left has always misunderstood this concept, stemming from an ideologically-tinged reworking of the past. Whereas he states that the minds that had provided much of the direction towards that seminal event of 1789 had quickly realized the appalling catastrophe that the French Revolution had wreaked upon the realm, the Left, in its eternally odd admixture of optimism and pessimism, had managed to forget the Terror, the destruction, the endemic warfare, all of which had lead to the despotism of Napoleon—even to the internecine quarreling that contributed in large part to the unstable nature of French politics in the nineteenth century. The Revolution became instead a symbolic fetish of a break with the past, the making of a new start for a world shrived of the sins of money and wage-labour. With the myth of Revolution and the following look at that of the Proletariat, Aron comes again and again to the question of why a reasonable person, still surrounded by the rubble of the Second World War, would place their belief in the conception that an economic class—a minority in the vast country where the first revolution took its (bloody) hold—would embody a Historically Necessary liberation for the wide and disparate populace of the globe. He compares the economic and political development and reforms of the Western Democracies as against Bolshevik Russia; the intricacies and complexities of a technologically-blossoming world, where productivity was increasing at a consistent rate, and held the latter—with the reforms achieved through governmental fiat and labour unions—had made more in the way of real gains for workers than could be reasonably expected from a Russian-bound Revolution that, thirty-five years after its initial uprising and mired in an economic system that replicated many of the capitalist contradictions, still operated through terror, murder, and relentless coercion on all fronts, and had made the Party supreme over the proletariat that allegedly held the key to mankind's freedom.

How explain such an ideology, espousing tenets so at odds with the observable facts? Aron sees the answer in the Idolatry of History, the cultish turn of a philosophy of history which—claiming a universal truth derived from its logical and irrefutable dogma centered upon a progressive and material historical dialectic—when exposed to the light of clarity stood revealed for what it was: a secular theology. This is a long and difficult section, in which Aron seeks to refute the principal arguments of Merleau-Ponty's Humanism and Terror whilst casting sidelong darts at the Existentialists like Sartre, whose philosophical output he read as buttressing the Left's support for the Stalinist regime's historical necessity. In a brilliant essay on Churchmen and the Faithful Aron digs inside of the Moscow show trials and their doctrinal justification, the infallibility of the Party, combining wit and logic in making Merleau-Ponty's defense out to be fuzzily abstract. At the most basic level, he points out that by assimilating any voice of opposition into that of a traitor, after enough time this state of affairs precludes any opposition—and the Party will rule with an infallibility that eludes refutation and is thus outside of truth. A better guidebook to tyranny could not be written. This is followed by a dense, slow-moving deconstruction of the Leftish conception of a philosophy of History, one that moves forward in a continual motion of progress, ensuring via the dialectic that the societal—that is, economic—structures necessary for the eventual triumph of the Proletariat come into existence at the appointed era. Aron tries this view on for size and declares that it just doesn't fit. Through a long chain of reasoning he endeavors to depict history as a construct of a plurality of values, that can be used through the rigors of understanding and reason to formulate theories of what happened, and these to create predictions about the future's potentiality; but any measure of certainty, or claims to a universal interpretation, tumble into the realm of metaphysics and cannot compete, as it may wish, with the rigor of the sciences.

This middle section on History is replete with the author's sallies into the fields of economics, philosophy, and sociology, comparing and contrasting the claims of Capitalism's inevitable collapse, its crippling contradictions, its being swept along in the powerful current of historical necessity, with the actuality of the Bolshevik achievement, the adaptability of Capitalism under a variety of differing Western democratic governments, and the impossibility of declaring any manner of victory, or assuredness to global dominance, for socialism. Throughout, Aron attempts to elucidate the reason why intellectuals are so attracted to the Revolution; he postulates that change and the unintelligible irritate them; the Communist interpretation never fails. He also returns several times to the peculiar admixture of optimism and pessimism that abound in the intellectuals: the first state is provided by the assuredness of a delivery from vulgar toil and the feudalism of money, of a logical endpoint in which peace will reign over a humanity fully aware of, and reconciled with, itself, laboring out of a willingness to contribute to a global society in which there exists no want or suffering; and then time passes and seemingly mocks their great doctrine; or, in the seizing of power, the mundane needs of everyday life continue to press their relentless claims—and, in lieu of a beautiful peace, a requirement for continual bloodshed and violence in order to compel the sullen collectivities to pursue the rational goal of History; and they become consumed by a pessimism, one that drives them, in an even more committed manner, towards an end that they no longer truly believe in and that seems to fade ever further from view with each day that passes.

Which leads us, then, directly into the third, and most fascinating, of the book's sections: Aron's minute examination, speculation, and rumination on the status of the members of the Intelligentsia—the Scribes, the Experts, and the Men of Letters, who in the twentieth century can be located within the ranks of the bureaucrats, the technicians and professionals, and the writers and artists respectively. This is a far-ranging effort, with a primacy for those thinkers of France, but with sidelong departures into the intellectual ranks of Great Britain, Germany, Japan, India, and, in the most relevant comparison, of the two global giants of allegedly diametrical opposition: the United States and the Soviet Union. This is an exceedingly variegated, rich and, at times, almost muddled intermingling of the themes from the preceding two parts, moving back and forth across time and ideology: the birth of the intellectual within the ranks of the Enlightenment; the budding and building sense of optimism that flourished as this elite class of thinkers—flush with the belief in reason and of man's ability to rationally understand the Nature that had previously always bewildered and terrified him—labored on behalf of liberty against the bonds of feudal state and hierarchical church; the introduction of pessimism into that regnant hope as bourgeoisie capitalism flourished and the miseries and inequalities of man were seen to not only remain, but to have become even more burdensome and vulgar; then despair, as the thinkers found themselves isolated from the levers of power, both in politics and in commerce, to the degree that, in accepting piece-work for money on which to survive, a sense of betrayal to an eternal truth and purpose sowed its bitter seed; and then the great construction of Marx, an economic system, written by a man who spent his life in libraries, disguised within a philosophy that masqueraded as a science, and which postulated a logical purpose and salvational End for all of the chaotic mayhem that had both passed and was occurring within a material world shorn of God.

With the great ruination of the First World War and the subsequent Revolution in Russia, it seemed the die was cast for the widespread acceptance of the Marxist theory, even though the manner in which the Russian revolution unfolded went against the Prophet's own thesis. Aron then takes this spooled thread and sets it to a loom, spinning out the sidelong rise of a nationalism amongst the European states, and at how the status of countries such as France—now fallen to a second rate power—develops a burning resentment for the United States, a neophyte power with a dominating military, political, even cultural presence over the Western European states, and, while admitting of the imperfections of the Communist Empire, takes both its distance and its universal aspect, one in which the intellectual has power, has influence, commands respect, as something that draws him closer; while the scribes and technicians, although forced to bow to the Party orthodoxy, can believe themselves part of a glorious and necessary historical purpose, working towards the promised emancipation of the human race. Little matter the reality that Soviet Russia, underneath its despotic rigidity and police-state coercion, is merely offering a different Economic system to compete with that of the Free Market; its soteriological revelation and universal, unbending dogma offers a true secular religion, an opiate against disorder and the unknown and the baffling happenstance of the natural world. For the intellectuals it eases national humiliations, it offers a hopeful deliverance, it provides an infallible truth for every query, and it puts the mind to the service of man, in lieu of money. That is enough, in the bloody mid-twentieth century, to command the allegiance of many.

This is a long, perhaps too long, review, and I haven't really done Aron justice for all that he has taken on; for although he originally crafted his first essay with the idea of determining the reason behind the curious bifurcation of the French intellectual's indignation and indulgence, by the third-section the work has taken on a broad-based examination of this trend and its permutations. Throughout it all Aron never assumes any supremacy or native superiority for the Western Capitalist-Democratic purview, and admits of both the appeal of the Left-Socialist means and the benefits they have brought to the injustices and harshness of the Market economy, all the while commiserating with the circumstances, the spiritual conflicts in which the modern thinker finds himself; but he rejects ideology, the hardening of a system of means into an orthodox dogma that serves an End which cares not the number of human bodies that litter the road that leads towards its realization. Aron's mind is sharp, his arguments mostly convincing—if a touch vague and tending to abstract generalization at various points throughout—and his wit is an especially enjoyable thing to behold, a razor blade cutting wicked smileys as he makes his survey of the intellectual's world and all of the absurdities that abound in such. Still, it doesn't make for light reading—I found this text to require a slow and methodical progression, and while Terence Kilmartin has delivered admirably in the translation department—some of Aron's phrasing is just sublime—the reader must take care not to stumble at the various bottlenecks where the prose becomes thick and formidable.

On a final note, the conclusion sees Aron speculating about the End of the Ideological Age, in which a United States—where the ideologies, united around the conforming pressure of the American Consensus argued about the means, not the ends, and several aspects of the Socialist doctrine had been implemented in American fashion—and a Soviet Union, hardening into a cocooned stagnation and having mostly abandoned its ideological goals for the pragmatism of day-to-day management, would allow a world in which skepticism reigned and fanatical beliefs slumbered in cooling coals. Several of Aron's prognostications were remarkably prescient, but in this, in a like manner with other critics like Daniel Bell, foresight failed him. The combination of economic misery in the late seventies, and the collapse of the Soviet Empire in the late eighties, reduced the Left to state of confusion and division, whilst there was a rightwards shift of the political centre—and from this awoke a triumphalist spirit in the Right that throughout the nineties and the early twenty-first century has been hardening into an ideological orthodoxy of its own. Whilst the remaining Left intellectuals ofttimes seem lost in how to challenge this through aught but mockery, the intellects of the infallible Market are crafting their own dogma: revisionist interpretations of history to fit the required truth; stoking the fires of perceived national humiliations; channeling the rivers of common resentment and fear; railing against a welfare state they deem enervating and oppressive; and marketing their own justifications for military intervention. Aron was unafraid to raise a challenge against the regnant intellectual memes of his own day—and in The Opium of the Intellectuals he presented a way of understanding the world of the Intelligentsia that, with a few adjustments, makes as much sense today.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know this was one of the cult books of the 20th century, but I'm going to give some straight forward advice: don't read this book if you don't have a particular interest in the history of ideas or intellectual history of the mid-20th century. It's just that this book is largely marked by the period in which it was written, around 1954-55, during the height of the Cold War. Raymond Aron (1905-1983) was still a rising French intellectual, did not yet have a permanent position at a university or a research institution, but had already made himself noticed in the polemic surrounding Marxism and more specifically Stalinism, especially because he undisguisedly opposed what he called the idolatry of extreme left-wing ideas. In this book he systematically explains his views on this. In other words, you must have some knowledge of Marxism itself, and especially of the French intellectual landscape of the 1950s (Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Camus are his most famous culprits). And – with my apologies – still 1 element that makes the reading difficult: the book is not as homogeneous as I expected, sometimes it looks more like a collection of previously published articles. (By the way: I read this in French, so I couldn’t comment on the translation)

Enough warnings, I don't want you to get the wrong idea of this fabulous book. What I especially want to emphasize is how lucid Aron's analyzes were: how fearlessly he attacked all the sacred cows (in this case of the left), in an argument that razor sharply exposed the contradictions of Marxism and especially Stalinism and de facto proved how those views in reality were wrong. But there's more. Aron frames his judgment in a broader vision of the naive progressive optimism of the left, of exaggerated philosophies of history in Western culture, of the idolization of the phenomenon of 'revolution' in France, and of the own moral psychology of the intellectual elite. With regard to the latter, in my opinion he occasionally went a bit out of line, for example by scornfully pointing out that intellectuals are not insensitive to the 'pecuniary aspects' of the public forum.
I could write endless more about this book, but others have done it much better. I conclude by underlining that - although this book is very dated, especially in terms of context - it is nevertheless testimony to a lucid and brilliant mind, whose pertinance has been confirmed by history. Just one caveat: of course, Aron hasn't written the last, definitive word on leftist ideologies; there are some points where also his views are very out of balance, even one-sided; almost 70 years on it's easier to get a more nuanced picture of things.
In my History account on Goodreads I go into a little more detail about Aron and the philosophy of history: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Mahla · Rating 5 out of 5]

من از خوندنش لذت بردم.
نه بخاطر اینکه راست‌گرا هستم؛ بخاطر اینکه کمی ته دلم باور داشتم که اگر مارکسیسم راه نجات نیست، پس راه رهایی بشر چیه؟!
رمون آرون پرسش ها و تعارضات اساسی و مهمی بین آموزه های مارکسیسم و نظام شوروی مطرح کرد. کمک بزرگی کرد تا ایمانِ بی‌چون و چرا، به شکّی تبدیل بشه که قادر به سوزاندن ریشه تعصب باشه.
استدلالات منطقی و تامل برانگیزِ کتاب، اونهم از زبان کسی که در بطن جامعه روشنفکریِ کمونیسم زده‌ فرانسه قرار داشته و سال های رو به افول شوروی و گرماگرمِ جنگ سرد رو به چشم دیده؛ بی‌نهایت جذاب و راهگشا بود.
چیزی که کمی ناراحتم کرد تحسین و ستایش بیش از حد آرون از ایالات متحده بود که تا حدی اونو به ورطه نگاه متعصبانه و یکطرفه انداخته بود.
هر جمله‌ای که به تحقیر و تمسخر شوروی اختصاص داشت؛ معادلی با تشویق و ستایشِ ایالات متحده در جوار داشت.
من با این کتاب نگاه تازه‌ای به مارکسیسم انداختم؛ نگاه تازه‌ای به اعتقاداتم انداختم؛ تصور جدیدی از آرمانشهر پیدا کردم و تونستم نگاهم رو کمی از درون گود عقب بکشم و فضای بیشتری رو پیش چشم داشته باشم.

[Sense of History]

The title is a bit misleading, but a significant part of this book is focussed on history. Aron not only provides a clever analysis of how the concept of revolution (obviously the French Revolution of 1789 and subsequent years) still has a tremendous influence in France, in contrast to the UK and the US, but he also delves deeper into the extensive field of the philosophy of history. His main objective in this book is to show how Marxism and related totalitarian ideologies are completely wrong, since they depart from a failed philosophy of history.

The entire second part of Aron's book, almost 100 pages, is devoted to the “Idolatry of history”, and by that he means the uncritical view on history, as if it is subject to laws and is therefore perfectly predictable. Aron's argument takes place at a fairly theoretical, epistemological level, and is not always easy to follow. But in essence, his basic view follows a middle path between absolutization (a clear sense of history can be discerned, for instance the victory of communist society) and relativism (it is impossible to discern whatever sense of history): “the errors of absolutism and relativism are also refuted by a logic of retrospective knowledge of human facts. The historian, the sociologist, the jurist identify the meanings of acts, institutions, laws. They don't discover THE meaning at all. History is not absurd, but no one alive understands its ultimate meaning. »

As a consequence, it will not be surprising that Aron rejects any deterministic view, and determinism, according to him, permeates the entire Marxist vision. Consequently, there is no such thing as the completion or the end of history: “politics will remain the art of choice without return in unforeseen circumstances, according to incomplete knowledge. The plurality of spiritual universes and the autonomy of activities will doom any desire for global planning to tyranny.» That may sound pessimistic, but for Aron it actually gives room to human freedom: “the historical destiny, behind us, is only the crystallization, forever acquired, of our actions; before us, it is never fixed. Not that our freedom is complete: the heritage of the past, human passions and collective servitudes set limits to it. The limitation of our freedom does not force us to bow in advance to a detestable order. There is no global inevitability. The transcendence of the future is for man, in time, an desired incentive and a guarantee that in any case, hope will not perish.»

Aron is completely himself here: the conservative liberal who has a visceral aversion of anyone who sees his or her actions or views justified by the 'course of history' (so once again: the idolatry of history). The final lesson he draws from this is the following: “True knowledge of the past reminds us of the duty of tolerance, the false philosophy of history spreads fanaticism”. Who cannot adhere to that one?
For the overall review of this book, see my general account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[César · Rating 4 out of 5]

4'5

La figura de Aron representa un liberalismo caracterizado por la tolerancia, el escepticismo y la búsqueda de la verdad y la justicia sin servidumbres ideológicas; es decir, un caballero al que no invitarías si lo que pretendes es elevar el share de La Sexta Noche.

Firme partidario de las reformas en contraposición a la fiebre revolucionara, Aron fue uno de los grandes críticos del conglomerado marxismo-comunismo-totalitarismo cuando en su país, Francia, ser marxista era parte casi indisoluble de la condición de intelectual. Eran los tiempos de Sartre, Camus, Merleau-Ponty; de St. Germain des Prés, el existencialismo, la Francia traumatizada y el general de Gaulle. En ese hábitat, Aron representaba a una minoría de pensadores que marcaron explícita distancia con el coqueteo ideológico de moda, apostando por una filosofía política próxima al ideario de Tocqueville y con una concepción de la Historia abierta y multifacética, opuesta a la rígida y profética concepción del marxismo. Se muestra especialmente crítico con la figura del intelectual francés, caracterizado por su tendencia a enjuiciar, severo e inflexible, las negligencias de la democracia parlamentaria y, en cambio, pasar tibiamente por encima de los crímenes perpetrados en pos del advenimiento de la sociedad sin clases.

El libro desmonta una serie de mitos (el de la izquierda, el del proletariado, el de la Historia) y desvela las contradicciones y peligros del comunismo encarnado en el mundo soviético. Se ocupa también de los diferentes tipos de intelectuales y su estatus en función del país en el que operan: Francia, Gran Bretaña, Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética.
Aunque es un ensayo escrito en plena Guerra Fría (1955), con dos bloques mundiales claramente diferenciados y una atmósfera distinta a la actual, sus reflexiones de fondo y su mensaje continúan teniendo vigencia, sobre todo para aquellos que contemplan la actualidad política con un deje de moderación y duda frente al clima agitador de inquebrantables adhesiones próximas al fanatismo.

[Bakunin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raymond Aron (1905-1982) was one of the most prominent intellectuals of his time, particularly known as an opponent of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). The Swedish think tank Timbro has now translated "The Opium of the Intellectuals" to Swedish for the first time, serving as a reminder of intellectuals' tendency towards dogmatic thinking.

Aron wrote "The Opium of the Intellectuals" (original title: L’Opium des intellectuels) in 1955, a time when the Soviet Union still existed and attracted many intellectuals. In this book, Aron criticizes intellectuals for their tendency to idealize and rationalize communist ideologies and totalitarian regimes. He questions their blind enthusiasm and argues that they often succumb to what he calls "intellectual opium" – an irrational belief in an ideology that functions as a narcotic to avoid confronting reality.

Aron contends that intellectuals should be more skeptical and analytical in their views on politics and society. He himself advocated for liberalism and democracy and was critical of intellectual currents supporting communist systems without acknowledging the real consequences and shortcomings. The book is an important text in political philosophy, providing insight into the intellectual debate of that time. Aron has a clear and concise style, but some may find the work too lengthy to maintain interest (a total of 518 pages). As he deconstructs and criticizes Marxist dogmas, it is more relevant for those interested in understanding the intellectual history of France.

What seems lacking is an analysis of the intellectuals' own motivations. Aron appears to believe that simply pointing out the flaws in intellectuals' theories (whether it's their view of the proletariat, the meaning of history, or human alienation resulting from technology) will lead them to change their stance. This can be compared with other works in the liberal canon, such as Thomas Sowell's "Intellectuals and Society," which argues that intellectuals have an incentive to spread these theories to justify their existence. From a purely Darwinian perspective, it is therefore quite rational for intellectuals to adopt these ideologies as it enhances their status. Aron comes close at times, for example, when he writes that "few intellectuals can live off their profession," suggesting a potential inclination to reject the capitalist system since their work is not in demand in the free market.

Its hard to see this work attaining the same classic status as, for instance, Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" or Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies." Despite this, it is commendable that Timbro has translated the work, if only to gain a clearer understanding of how much has changed for the better since Aron's days.

[Philippe Malzieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

France gave to liberalism some of these larger theorists (Bastiat in economy…) but liberalism is ever imposed in France. Worse,after second world war, the vast majority of the French intellectuals was Marxists.
There had only one person, a hero, a watchtower to fight against totalitarianism and blindness, it was Raymond Aron. Face to Sartre'delire, his school-fellow at Normal-Sup, it is the alone French intellectual to only keep the cool head.
The title is a paraphrase of Marx. Aron takes a malicious pleasure to dismount the modes theses and to highlight the risk of tyranny. History will agree to him.

[Amir Javadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتاب فوق‌العاده گیرا و عالی‌ای بود، ترجمه در بعضی جاها چندان روان نبود و متن رو دشوار می‌کرد، اما بطور کلی ترجمه‌ی خوب و قابل قبولی بود.
آرون به طرز شگفت‌انگیزی «اسطوره‌ی چپ» رو تبیین می‌کنه و توضیح ریزبینانه و با جزئیاتی از «بت تاریخ» در اردوگاه فکر‌ی چپ میده. همچنین مقایسه‌ی استادانه‌ای بین روشنفکران اروپایی -به تفکیک فرانسوی و انگلیسی- با روشنفکران آلمانی و آسیایی -ژاپنی- انجام میده با تمرکز و آسیب‌شناسی روشنفکری فرانسه. که این موضوع از این حیث که روشنفکری ایران هم الگو گرفته از روشنفکری فرانسه‌ست حائز اهمیته.
من خوندن این قبیل کتاب‌ها رو، حتما و خصوصا برای جامعه‌ی ما، که سال‌هاست درگیر آفت چپ‌گرایی‌ست پیشنهاد می‌کنم.

انتخاب یک بخش از کتاب کار حقیقتا دشوار و ناممکنیه، اما قسمت، با توجه به شباهت تاریخی به وضعیت ما برای من بسیار
جالب بود:

-با نگاهی به گذشته، درک این نکته دشوار نیست که نظام پادشاهی می‌توانست اندک‌اندک بخش مهمی از آنچه را به نظر ما دستاورد انقلاب محسوب می‌شود، برآورده سازد. اما افکار و اندیشه‌های الهام گرفته از انقلاب بی‌آن‌که کاملا با نظام پادشاهی تضاد داشته باشد، آن نظام فکری که تاج و تخت را بنیاد گذاشته بود، به لرزه درآورد و سبب بحران مشروعیتی شد که حاصل آن ارعاب و ترور بود. در هر حال، واقعیت این است که رژیم پیشین با یک ضربه، و بدون هیچ مقاومتی، فروپاشید. سپس فرانسه یک قرن صبر کرد تا رژیم دیگری بیاید که اکثریت مردم را همراه خود داشته باشد.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clear eyed attack on the moral shortcomings of French Marxist intellectuals in the 40s and early 50s. While this topic may seem exoteric, the book is an extremely important work of political philosophy about the contortions people will often go through in order to make a particular belief system fit with facts that do not support said belief. While this is an attack on Frenchman by a Frenchman, there are numerous cases where similar abuses were committed elsewhere, for example George Bernard Shah's shameful endorsement of Soviet Agricultural Collectivism even after seeing the full affects of the terror famine first hand, etc. Ideology can be overwhelmingly blinding and Aron would not let his peers forget this.

[Serhiy]

Вимушений капітулювати перед українським перекладом, таке зі мною вперше, але читати боляче, припускаю, Григорій Філіпчук не встиг завершити його перед смертю і це якась чернетка, якої якщо і торкалась якась частина тіла редактора, то точно не рука

[Martin Riexinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful, and of course an important historical document, with some redundancies and (in my opinion) a structural flaw.


Aron attempts to address the question why Soviet communism attracted intellectuals in general and in post-WWII France in particular. Therefore the book opens with a lengthy discussion of the country's  political landscape in the decade before its publication in 1955. In this section he describes how the category of secular intellectuals emerged out of that of the clerks in the 18th century and which role they played in the French Revolution. According to him this lead to a general oppositional attitude of this segment against the established powers, above all the Catholic church. After the First World War this myth of the revolution made communism particularly attractive for the artistic avantgarde which claimed to attack the established norms in the arts as the Communist Party did in the field of politics. French intellectuals thus often consider communism a continuation and perfection of the country's revolutionary tradition. 


In the second section, Aron criticizes historical determinism and the understanding of the proletariat as agent of salvation as central aspects of communism. The lengthy digression on Spengler and Toynbee as other forms of historical determinism contributes, however, very little to the general argument and could have been shortened if not ommitted. In my eyes this section should have been placed in the beginning as general introduction to the problems of the communist worldview.


In the third section Aron develops his idea of communism as a substitute for religion based on its promise of innerworldly salvation. For this purpose he sketches its role as official ideology in the Soviet Union and its dependencies as well as its appeal to French intellectuals, who enjoy high prestige which does not necessarily correlate to a high income. As such communism promises intellectuals claiming insight into the laws of society and history their deserved place as engineers of society. In this respect communism can moreover be regarded as successor of Comtean positivism.*

In this section Aron also draws comparisons with other countries. According to him the irrelevance of intellectuals  in the public sphere, an innate individualism and the importance of religion prevented communism from gaining a forhold in the US. In the case of the UK the multitude of noconformist churches promote pluralism and a reformist approach to the consequences of industrialization instead of the hatsh confrontation between the advocates of the old and the new order in France.**

He also discusses Japan*** and India. In both cases I doubt that he possesses specialist knowledge,**** as opposed to that I ask myself why did not discuss Italy instead, which ressembles France so much when it comes to the influence of communism, while it differs when it comes to the role of the Catholic Church.

What makes communism worse than traditional religions is according to Aron the imposition of an orthodox understanding of everyday events as opposed to the non-empirical dogmas of traditional religions.***** Moreover, the infallibility of the party implies that the what the orthodox interpretations of current events and the recent past is may shift according to the party's current tactical position.

As alternative Aron advocates a sceptical attitude to promises of worldly salvation. The foundation of tolerance is the acceptance that humans cannot be perfected according to our wishes. 


* He singles out Brazil as the only country which for some time was governed according to positivis principles (ordem e progreso). He seems to be unaware of the deep influence of Comtean ideas on the Young Turks and Kemalists.


** He does not seem to have read Orwell's essays or he underestimates the influence of communism among the British intelligentsia for some other reason.


*** He sees many parallels between French and Japanese intellectuals.


**** According to him the communists are particularly strong among the Christians of Kerala. This state is (was)  indeed both a Christian and a communist stronghold. The votes for the communists came from the Hindu population. Moreover the Christians are not recent converts, but their community emerged centuries ago due to contacts with Middle Eastern churches.


***** As an oddity in the French context he highlights, however, that French philosopher may follow the party line obediently while they subscribe to some other philosophy like existentialism.

[João Ritto · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book immediately catches the eye, at least for me it did. The Opium of the Intellectuals is a provocative title that intends to catch the irony that while Marx claimed that "Religion is the opium of the people", during a large part of the 20th century, and particularly in France, Marxism was the opium of the intellectuals. Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, all were for a long time apologists for the Stalinist regime and even when forced to finally admit the horrors it produced, they were happy to go along with Mao's attempt in China. Why was that?

I had expected the book to have a clear thesis for this. Often non-fiction books try to explain complex phenomena with a single mechanism, and produce a lot of evidence of how that particular mechanism is (they believe) the most relevant one. The disadvantages of this, in an extremely complex world, where any one factor is unlikely to have the ability to explain singlehandedly a phenomenon are obvious. But this also has advantages - it will make the point of the book very clear, and its idea will stuck with the reader. The variety of explanations can then be perceived by the reader by just approaching different books with competing explanations. It turns out, this book by Raymond Aron takes a very different approach.

Instead of having a very clear thesis, Aron truly goes through a lot of issues: the idolatry of history, the secularization of the west and how marxism appears as a secular religion, the appeal of being critical of one's own society... He discusses the development of these ideas and how they evolved in different countries such as France vs USA, depending on the intellectual culture. In the end, though, a bit of the reading feels dated and the lack of a clear thesis means that a lot of it reads as if you are listening to a knowledgeable smart guy talking about what he feels like talking about, without a clear direction.

[The Laughing Man · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite A Critique

The writer slammed the Western intellectuals for their hypocrisy towards communism. An essential read for those who want to dissect the religion called commnuism.

[Dmytro Khomiak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Автор чудово показує чому комунізм можна називати релігією, а також недосконалість і нереалістичність його як ідеології , однак у книзі дуже багато «води». А ще цікавою частиною книги є історичний контекст, враховуючи як те що сталося незадовго після написання книги, так і через десятиліття

[Alexandre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Below, five remarkable passages from “The Opium of the Intellectuals” (1955), by the philosopher Raymond Aron (1905-1983).

On what leads revolutionary or crypto-revolutionary parties to degenerate into personality cults:

A party which is always right must constantly define the correct line between sectarianism and opportunism. Where is this line situated? At an equal distance between the twin pitfalls of opportunism and sectarianism. But these pitfalls were themselves originally placed in relation to the correct line. The only way out of the vicious circle is a decree by the central authority which defines truth and error alike. And this decree is inevitably arbitrary, since it is made by a man who decides autocratically between individuals and groups; the disparity between the world as it would be if the original doctrine were true, and the world as it is, subordinates the truth to the equivocal and inscrutable decisions of an interpreter whose only qualification is his power.

On the prospects of the socialist economies, in a remarkable foresight, in the mid-1950s, of their structural shortcomings:

The so-called socialist societies rediscover, under modified forms, the necessities inherent in any modern economic system. There, just as under capitalism, the ‘boss class’ lays down the law. (...) Up to now the planners, by reason of penury and of the decision to develop economic power as rapidly as possible, have not concerned themselves either with the productivity of the various investments or with the consumers’ preferences. It will not be long before they experience the perils of slump and deflation and the exigencies of economic arithmetic.

On how revolutionaries define justice:

Constitutional government, the balance of power, legal guarantees, the whole edifice of political civilisation slowly built up over the course of the ages and always incomplete, is calmly pushed aside. They accept an absolute State, allegedly in the service of the Revolution; they are not interested in the plurality of parties and the autonomy of working-class organisations. They do not protest against lawyers bullying their clients and accused persons confessing to imaginary crimes. After all, is not revolutionary justice directed towards the ‘radical solution of the problem of coexistence’, whilst ‘liberal justice’ applies unjust laws?

On the idolatry of history:

The massacres which accompany the struggle of States and of classes will not have been in vain if they clear the way to the classless society. The idolatry of history is born of this unavowed nostalgia for a future which would justify the unjustifiable. (...)
..................................................................
(...) The idolatry of history (...), convinced that it acts with a view to achieving the only future which is worthwhile, sees, and wants to see, the other merely as an enemy to be eliminated, and a contemptible enemy at that since he is incapable of wanting the good or of recognising it.

On the cynicism of the revolutionaries:

Profoundly moralistic in regard to the present, the revolutionary is cynical in action. He protests against police brutality, the inhuman rhythm of industrial production, the severity of bourgeois courts, the execution of prisoners whose guilt has not been proved beyond doubt. Nothing, short of a total ‘humanisation’, can appease his hunger for justice. But as soon as he decides to give his allegiance to a party which is as implacably hostile as he is himself to the established disorder, we find him forgiving, in the name of the Revolution, everything he has hitherto relentlessly denounced. The revolutionary myth bridges the gap between moral intransigence and terrorism.

[Kelvin Yu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite fascinating to see a clearly brilliant liberal mind critique Marxism within the context of a society that had overrated Marxism relative to democratic, liberal, and capitalist ideas. Makes an interesting point that true Western division is not between capitalism and socialism, but between those who prioritize individual freedom and those who prioritize collective security. The modern division incorporates identity politics - individual identity and personal choices vs. group identity and systemic barriers.

While I agree with many of Aron's conclusions, my main critique of the book is that he attacked strawman definitions of Marxism and underrated/dismissed the social and economic conditions that led to the rise of European communism in the first place

[Moomen Sallam · Rating 4 out of 5]

يقدم الكتاب نقد قوي للشعارات والمفاهيم الأساسية للفكر الشيوعي وعلى راسها مصطلحات اليسار والثورة والبلوريتاريا وطبقة المثقفين

[Paul Gosselin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce livre d'Aron, publié en 1955 rapproche le marxisme et le communisme à une religion. Même le titre est une boutade, une référence pas très voilée à l’expression bien connue de Karl Marx “La religion est l’opium du peuple”... D'abord en douceur Raymond fait le lien communisme=religion en larguant, ici et là, l'expression "hommes d'Église et hommes de foi". Mais dans le contexte, on tire immanquablement la conclusion que les "hommes de foi" dont il est question ce sont les communistes... Ouais, pendant un moment, il y a quelques longueurs tandisqu’Aron discute de situations politiques des années 50, mais même au 21e siècle ça vaut le coût de lire…

Il faut dire qu'à l'époque (guerre froide) c'était TRES audacieux de la part d'un intellectuel français d'exprimer à haute voix une telle chose. Staline était mort que depuis 2 ans et le marxisme avait encore beaucoup de prestige en Occident (des profs ouvertement marxistes étaient chose courante même lorsque j'ai commencé mes études universitaires dans les années 70). La publication d'un tel livre en France a dû faire assez scandale merci... Il semble qu'Aron a perdu plusieurs amis...

Mais bon, vers la fin de son livre Aron mets les points sur les is et explique en quoi le communisme peut être une religion. Par exemple, Aron observe au sujet des procès spectacles du régime soviétique (1955/2010: 132) «Les grands procès sont comparables à ceux de l’Inquisition : ils relèvent de l’orthodoxie en mettant en lumière les hérésies. Les procureurs n’ont-ils pas le sentiment d’imposer la confession de la vérité, même s’ils emploient la violence ?»

Mais l'argument d'Aron est surtout allusif et il ne se pose jamais trop la question fondamentale : Qu’est-ce au juste que la religion ? Si on suppose que la religion est avant tout un système de croyances servant à donner sens au monde, alors le fait qu'un système de croyances fait appel au surnaturel est moins pertinent. On peut donc être confronté à une religion dotée d'une cosmologie matérialiste... C'est une question que j’aborde de manière détaillée dans mon livre Fuite de l’Absolu, volume 1.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this not because I disagree with it - although I do - but because it is so hypocritical and has one of the flimsiest theses I think I've ever encountered. aron's argument is basically that communism is anti-democratic and unnatural because it was invented by ivory-tower intellectuals in one country and imposed upon the proletariat in others - okay, sure, whatever, but nowhere does he explain why this argument doesn't also apply to his beloved liberal capitalism, which he does not see as an ideology or deliberate political system at all but as some kind of undefiled natural state of mankind. one of his preoccupations is with the foreignness of communism to many of the countries in which it exists, but it's difficult to see how french liberalism is any more native to eastern europe than german communism. his implicit answer, of course, is that french liberalism is not 'french' or 'liberal' at all, but somehow universal and non-ideological - which makes one wonder what the jacobins were so worked up about.

this book reads like satire, because aron is completely incapable of acknowledging the limitations of liberalism, unable to realise that it is his OWN opium, that he is guilty of exactly what he criticises the titular leftist intellectuals of!

[Leonardo]

Poco había en Les Maîtres penseurs (Los maestros pensadores) de Glucksmann, publicado con un unánime éxito de crítica en marzo de 1977, que Raymond Aron no hubiera dicho mejor en su Opium des intellectuels (El opio de los intelectuales) veintidós años antes.

Postguerra Pág.727

[Ned · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad that's over.

A ponderous, pedantic, verbose book that I found unenjoyable and dated. Some books are timeless, this one is time bound. I really had to slog through it and I'm glad to be done. My time would have been better spent on something else. The book is not without merit but it is not worth the effort of separating the wheat from the chaff.

[Victor]

One of the best, one of the most important book in the 20th Century.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically a rant on how Marxism/Communism is the religion for intellectuals, which I kind of believe. Even if I think some of the tenets are admirable.

[Fer Lis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently rereading it. One of the most stinging and informed studies of the moral blindness and failures of marxist (and nowadays, left populist) intellectuals. Aron never disappoints.

[Stephen Coates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raymond Aron was born and educated in the 1920s in France, and after studying in Germany and witnessing the rise of fascism, the threat from which was not being taken seriously by the naive liberal intellectuals in France, spent WWII in the UK then returned to France, declined an academic chair to become a journalist and, with memories of the naivety to the threat of fascism, became one of the sharpest critics of the Soviet Union which countryman Satre and other "fellow travellers" saw through very rose-coloured glasses. Written in 1955 and his most famous book, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" was a historic and contemporary analysis of French political development focussing on the contradictions within the Left and its denial of the worst crimes of the Communists. Clive James described the book as the best debunking of Marxist theology amongst leftist intellectuals in France, noting that Aron wasn’t on the right but was a staunch defender of liberalism.

The book begins noting that the Left, traditionally anti-monarchy and anti-tradition, once in government had to change its position and became largely anti-capitalist, yet had to reconcile it’s goal equality with the necessity of maximising production.

"The Left was born and took shape in opposition – the child of an idea. It denounced a social order which, like all things human, was indeed imperfect. But as soon as the Left was victoriously and became in its turn responsible for the existing society, the Right, which was now identified with the opposition or counter-revolution, had little difficulty in demonstrating that the Left represented, not liberty against authority or the people against the privileged few, but one power against another, one privileged class against another."

The book challenged many of the claims made by Marxism both as written by Karl Marx and as pronounced by communists in France at the time. It disputed the Communist Party’s contention that its version of history was inevitable, it summarised and critiqued Satre’s analysis of Marx’s "end of history" anticipation of a "new world" which Marxists believed was about to occur, it challenged the contention that the proletarian workers in 1955 had the same objectives as workers of 100 years prior and disputed the contention that such workers would really benefit from a revolution, asking what oppressions would a revolution overturn. It also argued that if the Soviet Union failed to embody the revolution as written by Marx, then not only has Bolshevism failed, but history has failed.

The book noted that Marx had claimed that a proletarian revolution would humanise society, but this has not been realised by actual revolutions and that Marx’s imagined self-destruction of capitalism has not occurred by nationalisation although it could be argued that it has in effect occurred through increased state intervention. It noted that while rule by the monarchy and church was traditionally opposed by the left, many elements within the Left would, if given the opportunity, impose rule by an anonymous bureaucracy. [This anonymous bureaucracy was parodied by a more recent TV comedy on the other side of the channel with the phrase "computer says no"] It also posed the question, if industrial workers are alienated by working in a privately-owned factory, do they cease to be alienated if the factory is taken over by the government?

"The origin of doctrinarism is the implicit or explicit assumption that economic alienation is the primary cause of all alienations and that individual ownership of the means of production the primary cause of economic alienation."

The book recorded that the emergence of market economics in the late 19th and 20th centuries did not follow the evolution that was predicted by Marx.

"So-called proletarian regimes, that is regimes governed by communist parties, owe practically nothing to authentic working-class culture, to the parties or unions whose leaders themselves belong to the working class."

The book also observed that communist revolutions of the 20th century have been led by intellectuals, not proletarians, and that communism has only been installed by military force and maintained by coercion.

"The expansion of communist power does not prove the truth of its doctrine any more than the conquests of Mohammed proved the truth of Islam."

Intertwined with Aron’s critique of communism was his critique of intellectuals as a group, many of which were communists or fellow travellers. He observed that to the Left, a revolution is a revolution only if it is liberal, humane and egalitarian and if it results in a change of ownership but the nationalisation of industry hasn’t changed the status of workers, something the Left would not acknowledge. He also called out double standards. The book recorded his observation that many commentators applied very different standards to the behaviour of the Soviet Union than to that of governments in the West, condemned colonisation by Westerners of Africa but ignored colonisation and repression in Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union and railed against injustices of the established order in Western countries, yet tolerated comparable and worse injustices committed by revolutionary movements. And on the subject of revolutions, it also posed the question: how long does the revolution go on? The book countered the tenet of Marxist thought that capitalist prosperity was due to exploitation of colonies with several examples of continuing prosperity in countries which had lost colonies and observed that in Eastern Europe, living standards had fallen, unions were controlled by the government and workers knew the difference between the real emancipation in the West and the "ideal" emancipation under which they were living.

The book provided an insightful analysis of the different societal roles of intellectuals in Britain, France and the USA, noting that in the UK, at the time of the book’s writing, there were no Communist or Fascist parties in the House of Commons and that the Liberal party had become insignificant, most of its goals having been achieved. This was contrasted with the situation in France where the Communist party’s success, although it had members of parliament, was limited by peasant proprietors and petite bourgeoisie to never getting more than a third of the vote.

"Marxism, in the Leninist version, offers to the intellectual of all continents the means of reinterpreting their own history and that of their foreign masters without humiliation."

The book’s focus on intellectuals, while at times being critical, was more analytical. After introducing his three intellectual criticisms: technical, "if I was in the leader’s shoes"; moral, "things are not as they ought to be" and ideological or historical, "the society to come will be better", it provided an analysis of the different societal roles of intellectuals in Japan compared to France, India compared the UK as well as in France and in the USA.

"The art of the British intellectuals is the reduce to technical terms conflicts which are often ideological; the art of the American intellectuals is to transpose into moral conflicts controversies which are far more concerned with means than with ends; the art of the French intellectuals is to ignore and very often to aggravate the real problems of the nation out of an arrogant desire to think for the whole of humanity."

Turning to the relationship between intellectuals and the Church, Aron cited Jean-Jacques Rousseau who had discussed the idea of a secular religion in the 18th century and Auguste Comte who had articulated the incompatibility of theology and metaphysics with positive knowledge in the 19th century. He acknowledged the inherent problem of dual authority: master and priest, noting that the Church accepted the role of intellectuals in non-religious matters and that intellectuals, independent of both church and states, were largely hostile to the Church. Aron observed that the struggle between the Church and revolution is still present.

"Communism is thus not so much a religion as a political attempt to find a substitute for religion in an ideology erected into a state orthodoxy – an orthodoxy which goes on cherishing claims and pretensions abandoned by the Catholic Church."

The book then described how communism behaves as a secular religion one result of which is the crystallisation of orthodoxy and another being indifference. This was followed by a wide-ranging discussion and analysis of historical and then current relationships between proletariat, bourgeoisie, aristocrats and church but noted rivalry between bourgeois and proletariat differed from that between aristocrats and the bourgeois which falsified the notion of a "class struggle". Towards the end of the book, Aron observed that both the USA and the USSR had systems which stifle ideological debate and that more ideological debate took place in the second-tier powers.

I found the book’s observations and analysis of the position of Marxism within the political debate of its time insightful and well argued. It wasn’t an easy read – perhaps it would have been an easier read in its original French – and while it’s less relevant than when first published, many of the book’s observations have continued relevance to current political debate.

[Alberony Martínez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una de las obras icongnitas que muchos siempre han tenido, es de que cómo es posible, que un movimiento como este haya reclutado a tantas personas con un perfil intelectual tan encumbrado. El escritor Stanley Pierson en su libro Los intelectuales marxistas y la mentalidad de la clase obrera en Alemania, 1887-1912 exploro el funcionamiento de los intelectuales alemanes dentro del movimiento, explorando a figuras prominentes como Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburgo y Eduar Bernastein. Muchos de los jóvenes escritores, oradores y políticos se propusieron suplantar las viejas forma de pensar con una compresión marxista de la historia y la sociedad.

Esta obra de Raymond Aron del filosofo, sociólogo y politologo francés, publicada en 1955 El opio de los intelectuales haciendo referencia a la iconica frases de Karl Marx “la religión es el opio del pueblo” donde la religión es usada por las clases dominantes como instrumento para controlar el pueblo, aliviando y dándole sentido a sus padecimiento mediante la idea de un mundo de dicha ilusoria y promesa de una vida eterna. Es un muestra de cómo las ideas mas nobles pueden escurrirse subrepticiamente en la tiranía de la religión secular y acentuar de cómo el pensamiento político tiene la profunda responsabilidad de decir la verdad sobre la realidad social y política, en todos sus imperfecciones mundanas y complejidades trágicas.

Es una obra donde acenta una critica al socialismo y a las técnicas que este movimiento utilizaba para llegar al poder. Cabe destacar, que asi como critica al socialismo, tambien critia la satanizacion la derecha politica.

“Ni el orden público, ni la fuerza del Estado constituyen el objetivo único de la política. El hombre es también un ser moral y la colectividad sólo es humana a condición de ofrecer una partición a todos.”

[Nikita Mihaylov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Это неплохая книга о вопросах традиции политической философии в Европе за последние 200 лет. Она чёткая, последовательная и жёстко структурированная, автор избегает догматических выводов о природе капитализма, что приятно. Тем не менее я категорически не рекомендую её к прочтению по нижеизложенным причинам:
1. Тернистость
Материал требует наличия существенного бэкграунда минимум по европейской истории, начиная с периода Весны Народов. Мне сложно представить что человек не знакомый с трудами Тарле, или хотя бы Гюго, разберётся даже с первой главой (ничего не зная о диалектике марксизма или лейборизме начинать и вовсе не стоит).
2. Инфляция
С момента издания прошло более 70 лет, и многие поставленные вопросы естественным образом разрешились. Распад Варшавского блока, режимов Пиночета, Франко и Перона смыл с повестки идею этатистов о государстве-ливиафане, а спорадическая смена социалистов республиканцами не вызвала эрозию и крах пятой республики. Фукуяма со своим "Концом истории" выглядит куда актуальнее сегодня.
3. Момент
История политической мысли нашей несчастной Родины за прошедший век, начиная с Соловьёва и князя Трубецкого и не заканчивая Мамлеевым и Прохановым представляет (имхо!) несравненно больший интерес, чем споры Сартра и Камю о порочной природе атлантизма.

Русский Интербеллум простоял все те же 20 лет. Цайтгайст велит держаться за нравственный императив, а не размышлять на сколько процентов янки-пролетарий был истинно свободнее его отечественного аналога.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

O marxismo é “o ópio dos intelectuais”! Publicado em 1955, Raymond Aron critica a adoção da “religião” marxista por intelectuais ocidentais.

A doutrina marxista se apoia em três grandes mitos: o socialismo é expressão de progresso social; a revolução é o meio para uma nova era; e o proletariado é o salvador da coletividade oprimida. Na prática, como diz Aron, marxismo é “otimismo delirante” que resulta em opressão de uma nova elite.

Ademais, o marxismo é uma “religião secular” que se promove como verdade definitiva das contradições da história. Embuste! A história não pode ser explicada apenas pelo aspecto econômico. Marxismo é filosofia da história que leva a despotismo.

Na religião marxista, o crente precisa prestar culto ao partido, interpretar a realidade pela ideologia e se tornar militante de uma causa determinada por um alto clero intelectual. Trata-se de um dogma que condena intelectuais à defesa de erros do partido e dos dirigentes socialistas.

Como afirma Raymond Aron: “o marxismo é uma filosofia de intelectuais que seduziu setores do proletariado, e o comunismo usa dessa pseudociência para atingir seu próprio objetivo, a tomada do poder” (p. 95).

E o que fazem os intelectuais cooptados por essa religião secular? Atiçam sentimentos ruins, como rancor “antiamericano”, para justificar autoritarismo socialista.

O marxismo é o ópio dos intelectuais que ainda hoje observam de soslaio o abismo do despotismo coletivista e se sentem atraídos.

[Fromlake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classico del pensiero liberale pubblicato verso la metà del Novecento, il libro comincia a mostrare tutti i suoi anni.

In un mondo dominato da USA e URSS ed in piena Guerra Fredda, gran parte del libro è dedicata ad esplorare le motivazioni della fascinazione degli intellettuali occidentali (in particolare francesi) nei confronti del comunismo e dell’Unione Sovietica.

Oltre alla classica contrapposizione comunismo/capitalismo, il libro affronta anche questioni che al tempo erano certamente importanti ma che oggi, in una prospettiva storica, hanno perso gran parte della loro rilevanza, come ad esempio la “querelle” tra Sartre e Camus o la posizione anticomunista del Generale americano Mc Carthy.

A fianco di questi aspetti più “datati” vi sono comunque approfondimenti sempre attuali e validi, come quelli sul ruolo degli intellettuali e sulla necessità di mantenere sempre lo spirito critico evitando la deriva dogmatica di ogni ideologia.

Nato come saggio di natura politico-sociologica, credo che oggi questo libro sia rilevante soprattutto in una prospettiva storica.

[Олег Проданчук · Rating 5 out of 5]

Опублікована 1955 року, у часи розпалу "холодної війни", книга була покликана розбудити тогочасну інтелігенцію Франції та загалом Європи, одурманену нездійсненними ідеями комунізму. На противагу слів  Маркса: "Релігія - опій для народу", Арон проводить власні аргументовані та ретельно проаналізовані паралелі, визначаючи, що ж є опієм для інтелектуалів.

У свій час книга відкрила очі багатьом і виконала свою функцію, та на цьому її місія не завершилась, бо книга не втратила актуальності й досі. 

Так, совок зник та на його місце прийшов "русский мир", який не гірше с��ого кривавого попередника розкидає тенета пропаганди, одночасно вбиваючи, грабуючи та укріплюючи терор, маскуючись під ширмою демократичної держави.