Hardcover, 510 pages
Original Title
Mémoires: [50 ans de réflexion politique]
ISBN
0841911134 (ISBN13: 9780841911130)
Edition Language
Englishmed me in retrospect about my own review of one of Aron's policy analysis books which was completely bathed in my own political conceptions. I still respected him in spite of it (he did take that "if you were in the minister's position what would you do" position that you mention in that book) but still. Shame on me. And three cheers for you for making me realize that I owe it to Aron to give him another read. Probably will go for OotI, since I haven't read his philosophy straight up before.
Anyway, enough about me. I love this review, and in particular your juxtaposition of Aron to Sartre. That's an excellent way of delineating what he was about, particularly given the accusations of "coldness" in those heated years. (less)
updated Nov 23, 2012
===
Showing 1-48
4.17 ·
· 23 ratings · 3 reviews
Nov 13, 2012Szplug rated it really liked it
I'd long been aware of Aron's status as a French writer and thinker, but it wasn't until Tony Judt's Reappraisals that I was motivated to discover for myself all of the sterling qualities that the latter lauded the former as possessing. I was highly impressed with The Opium of the Intellectuals , Main Currents in Sociological Thought , and the few essays I've read in The Dawn of Universal History , all of which reveal the Frenchman's placid but passionate renunciation of totalitarianism and despotism, firm—but relentlessly and soberly critical—support for the liberal democratic values of the West, and, especially, his immensely deep intellectual foundation, one fed by a continuous regimen of works in philosophy, sociology, economics, political science, history, and world literature. They also display a sharply intelligent and astutely analytical mind capable of expressing itself in prose of a pleasing gracefulness that never sacrifices clarity in attempting an ornate profundity (turn away from that mirror, Sastre).
I find Aron to have been a truly remarkable man. At times difficult to relate to being neither a contemporary nor French—occasionally bringing up names and events for which I'm in the dark, though, by their very tone, doubtless of pertinent awareness for those who lived through or near their occurrence—these reminiscences are nonetheless endowed in full measure with the intelligence, honesty, humanity, and placid reasonableness that marked itself within his writing—nowhere more evident than his humble deprecation of placing first in the Agrégation de Philosophie of 1928, framing that brilliant achievement within the context of his hewing to academic consensus whilst praising Jean-Paul Sartre's greater originality in accomplishing the same in the following year. Indeed, though Aron would gain fame in the postwar years as both a popular journalist and renowned professor of sociology at the ENA, Sorbonne, and Collège de France, his early academic exertions were made in the realm of philosophy, for which he possessed a powerful acumen. Sartre claimed, in his latter years, to having disliked discussing philosophy with anyone apart from Aron—who always did me in, as the former saw it. Sartre, the creator, the visionary mind, the actionless revolutionary, forever restless within the world, deemed himself unable to penetrate the refutations and rebuttals from his contemporary and, ere their break in the Sixties, close friend, the critic, the analytical mind which excelled at pointing out the flaws and strengths within the work and viewpoints of others without being capable of bringing anything of originality into the world from its steely depths. Or at least, that's how the author determined the reality to be. And who am I to argue with the man in the face of such expressed and displayed strengths?
It's proved a pleasure to imbibe his generous remembrances of his friendships—sometimes fractious, but enduring—with the likes of Sartre, Paul-Yves Nizan, André Maulraux, Friedrich Hayek, Allan Bloom, and Henry Kissinger, while placing himself and his eminently rational voice and wise perspective within the tumultuous years and events he witnessed, including the breakdown of the Third Republic, the Second World War, the Cold War, European reconstruction, the French Colonial Wars and imperial break-up, the student revolt of the late sixties, and the full emergence of the Industrial Society, of which he had explicated the structure when it was still in transition. He writes movingly about his experience as a non-religious Jew in France, born of passionately patriotic parents who were dealt a severe, faith-questioning blow by the antagonisms and prejudices unveiled by the Dreyfus affair. Accounts of his father's inability to find true happiness in a world wherein he deemed himself to have squandered his talents—he was ruined financially during the Great Depression—marked Raymond deeply, leading him to question his own choices and pursuits and efforts throughout his life. He also paints a touching—though distant, in Aron's manner—portrait of his brother Adrien, a man whose intellect the author stated as being truly formidable, but who opted to pass his life in cynical outlook and the detached pursuit of personal pleasures: tennis, bridge, and stamp-collecting
An arresting element to his story is that of how direct exposure to the reality of the political fragility of the Weimar Republic, its subsumption to the energized anger of the National Socialists, and the enervated response by an imperiled and despondent France riven by party factionalism and paralysis led to his own politico-philosophical maturity—abandoning the abstractions, aloofness, and armchair dogmatizing of the academic philosophes in favor of a realism—but not quite realpolitik—that took into account historical trends and evolutions, the actual betterment of the working masses, and the advancement of left-wing goals through sustained participation within the democratic-liberal-capitalist structures of the West combined with an unyielding opposition to fascism and communism (the fact that he was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jew must have confused the hell out of the Rhenish Nazi-converts in whose midst he lived in early-thirties Cologne). By the time he returned to France from Germany in 1934, he had already made it a point, when critiquing the Third Republic government of the day, to ask If you were in the minister’s position, what would you do? In the furtherance of such pragmatism he proceeded to immerse himself within economics and political science in order that he might have a sounder understanding of how polities actually functioned in the existing world. Via his early books—having received Durkheim with reservations whilst finding Weber revelatory—Aron served as an introductory guide of modern German sociology to the French public, at the same time steering Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others towards Husserl and Heidegger. Having escaped occupied France for a position with the Free French in stalwart Britain, Aron emerged from the end of the Second World War able to converse with fluency in the three dominant languages of a Europe in desperate need of pragmatic personalities capable of assisting with the overwhelming demands of reworking and rebuilding in the face of tense East-West relations and a shattered infrastructure.
Ofttimes finding himself alone amidst a sea of passionately turbulent voices amongst the left and the right, Aron never wavered from his support for Western liberal values, intellectual clarity, and the pursuit of truth, no matter how isolated the taking of such stances might render one. It was an attitude that he internally queried:
At the same time, I questioned myself, particularly about my incination toward solitude. Would I always find more or less subtle reasons to remain marginal, outside any party, any movement? I remembered the German student in 1933 who criticized me for being incapable of mitmachen,of joining up.Without believing in an historical materialism, Aron nonetheless refused to make political or cultural judgements without placing the subject in question in its appropriate historical positioning, nor refused the task—whether in the service of journalism, teaching, or political counseling—of making demanding and blunt assessments while endeavoring to appreciate the opposing point-of-view with a breadth greater than that afforded to his own. As mentioned above, at many points in his career Aron found himself the sole voice of reason, championing difficult and/or unpopular positions—particularly during the wars of French Decolonization in Indochina and Algeria, and the student uprising of 1968—no matter the opprobrium directed his way. Such difficult and lonely perches were ofttimes retroactively made easier by the number of times those who had most vociferously opposed him during acrimonious and controversial periods would admit to him, many years down the road and peering backwards through the lenses of hindsight, the accuracy and truth of his words. It's a tricky bit of business to reveal several such episodes without taking on airs proud or self-satisfied—and so it's to Aron's credit that he manages to handle recurring moments of this nature with a deprecation that quietly acknowledges the rightness of his advocacy without denying the judiciousness of his opponent's attacks back when things were far from being either obvious or settled.
Aron was clearly a highly influential intellectual, both within France and, increasingly over the postwar years, without; and while he never shies away from detailing the conflicts, crises, arguments, and analyses that he was involved with, he always assesses his contributions with a modest air; without dissembling or displaying a false humility, manages to acknowledge those who both praised and critiqued his various expressed positions before critiquing them and himself from the vantage of hindsight. If he comes across as somewhat hard in his self-judging, he displays nothing but generosity in that which he casts outwards, even against those, like Sartre, who wounded him deeply with their hostile words during some of his most vulnerable moments. A common complaint cast against Aron was that he was a cold man: too rational, too businesslike, too eager to prove his intellectual superiority to be able to relate to living human beings in all of their irrational, messy, complicated trials. Aron defends himself against such calumnies with a calm that is yet passionate—it's clear that he took such accusations to heart. He does carry himself with an air of reserve: he is sparse in the details he reveals of his family, particularly his wife and children; but such temperance means that when he does bring them into his story, the depth of his feeling, whether it be joy or sorrow or satisfaction, is that much more powerfully limned.
What can I tell you? I dig the guy—the way he lived, the manner in which he conducted himself, the potency of his thought, the generosity of his spirit, the middle-line-straddling avenue of his participation. In the course of Memoirs Aron reviews the entirety of his bibliographic output, which was prodigious: beyond the dozen or so works translated into English, he penned several more books and hundreds of articles, essays, and columns, together with transcribed lectures, throughout a lengthy career. When he provided a succinct, but detailed, overview of his most renowned work in translation, The Opium of the Intellectuals, I went back and read the review I had penned for the work. I am pleased as punch to be able to state that, set aside the backwards-peering reminiscence of the master himself, I was able to nail that sucker. It gave me a satisfied glow inside like nothing else: perhaps in a vein to how Aron must have felt at various points of redemption, though he handled such things with that truthful humility—bruised and blossomed, at times, as with anything human, but sincerely felt and expressed, which is what separates the doyens from the dilettantes (I said turn away from that mirror!). This was a pure pleasure for myself, one that I proceeded through slowly, drinking it in, taking copious notes (which, as always, never manage to actually make it into the review), and just enjoying being edified and enlightened and, yes, entertained by the summative life's journey of a particularly brilliant and singularly impressive individual. Merci, RA. (less)
flag20 likes · Like · 11 comments · see review
Szplug Well, if my words led a fiction-bound fellow such as yourself to even consider—however briefly—that your reading time might be well spent on an old fifties anti-French-fellow-travelling-a-bit-too-close-to-an-intellectual-shave-if-you-know-what-I-mean-and-I-should-imagine-that-you-do tome, then I am left a satisfied man.
These memoirs were really good stuff. I mean, the man even wrote intelligently, perceptively, and dispassionately about Canada and Québec, the latter's Silent Revolution, the emerging Separatist movement, and De Gaulle's complicity in stirring it up with his infamous cry of Vive le Québec libre! As a self-esteem-starved Canuck, I almost wept at the fact that this brilliant man would have taken the time to educate himself about our outlier nation of donut shops and poutine stands and hockey rinks... (less)
updated Nov 19, 2012 08:31PM · flag
Szplug Thanks, Mars. Hell of a book. I'm kind of rueful, looking at it today, that I became so caught up in reiterating Aron's humility and sagacity and general truthiness, when this is a thick book chock-a-block with things I didn't touch upon—his response to Vietnam and the stagflated seventies, his opinion on the New Right, the various permutations of De Gaullism that arose in postwar France and of which was birthed the only political party that Aron ever joined (in name, if not actually in spirit), his understandings of America (and Canada!), the nuclear threat, a walkthrough of Soviet communism, the fascinating recollections of a life as a top professor in France, his critiques of that country's educational system, his conclusions about the role and obligations of the public intellectual in Western society, his warm personal feelings towards and severe disagreements with Kissinger, his conflicted critiques of Israel (and of which you've been writing such emotionally powerful, personally touching reviews lately). It's an endlessly fascinating life expressed in a such a way that it goes down like a warm scotch on an autumn evening. It's a shame that mine is the only review of the book at this site—these French thinkers I've been discovering over the past several years really put a lot of food for thought on the plate of modernity we're all sitting before... (less)
updated Nov 22, 2012 09:22AM · flag
Whitaker I'd never heard of Aron before. Thanks for bringing him to my attention. He definitely goes on my to-read list. (less)
Nov 22, 2012 06:16PM · flag
Szplug
Mars: You've put that all together quite wonderfully, as you are wont to do. Aron is primarily concerned with relating his life of the mind, the printed word, and the public sphere, with his personal affairs comparatively relegated to the background—but there is a lot to choose from, and I'd enjoy discovering the kind of insights you'd harvest were you to give it a try.
As far as your interest in European history goes, if you wanted to dial back a couple of decades, from the Second World War to the First, in order to discover the roots of the perduring misery that has been the lot of the Middle East, a book I read (quite some time ago, mind) called A Peace to End All Peace , by David Fromkin, was as thorough-going as could be in exposing them to the light of day. Almost too much detail is provided, but many of the problems you've been reading about recently stem from the origins Fromkin explores.
Whitaker: It's my pleasure. Everything I've read of his has been to my profit—particularly The Opium of the Intellectuals, which explores the attractions—and perils—of idealistic endpoints for the learned mind laboring within and for the unlovely market and its attendant politico-cultural masses. Although it was directed towards his compatriot fellow-travelers, and situated within the emerging industrialized societies of the postwar First and Second Worlds, I believe his insights and analyses are still relevant today. (less)
updated Nov 22, 2012 08:29PM · flag
Kelly I really love this review! Careful, considered, and balanced, which is rare for as controversial a figure as Aron. It totally shamed me in retrospect about my own review of one of Aron's policy analysis books which was completely bathed in my own political conceptions. I still respected him in spite of it (he did take that "if you were in the minister's position what would you do" position that you mention in that book) but still. Shame on me. And three cheers for you for making me realize that I owe it to Aron to give him another read. Probably will go for OotI, since I haven't read his philosophy straight up before.
Anyway, enough about me. I love this review, and in particular your juxtaposition of Aron to Sartre. That's an excellent way of delineating what he was about, particularly given the accusations of "coldness" in those heated years. (less)
updated Nov 23, 2012 11:18AM · flag
Szplug Thanks, Kelly. I've been having doubts about this percolating ever since I posted it, so the encouraging words of Mariel, Whitaker, and yourself go very much towards reassuring me that I didn't fail in what I wanted, which was to do justice to a book that I thought was very worthwhile.
I went and read the review that you are talking about, and I thought that you penned a superb analysis, straining to be fair throughout even though the underlying exasperation occasionally pokes through. You really hit the nail on the head when you note that Aron rigorously works at removing the emotional element from the analysis—a trait that he defends in his Memoirs while admitting that is has served to make him appear removed and aloof from the human beings being effected by the policies he is championing, criticizing, or explaining. He mentions in this book that The Imperial Republic was the first work of history that he had attempted to write, and that, at all points throughout, he sought less to judge than to understand. For things such as the McCarthy trials, which he correctly termed witch hunts, he deemed them unworthy of a democracy but—being the anti-communist that he was, and surrounded by such at home—he also tried to show how they paled compared to the Soviet purges.
An example closer to home regarded the incredible hotbed of emotions that flared during the conflict with Algeria. He did not take the path of his peers and view the Algerian conflict from the perch of the drive of natural history, the moral debt of the French as against the justness of the Arab right for independence, reparations for the torture and barbarities administered by the French military and police, nor the damage it was doing to the national spirit—rather, Aron analyzed the situation, compared the number of Berbers and Arabs as against rooted French nationals, tasted the anti-colonial mood at work in the world and casting off imperial shackles without exception, assessed the strengths and—more important—weaknesses of the politicians of the Fourth (and later Fifth) Republic, and said France had to leave. Many years later, when events had worked out as they did, a refugee from Algiers wrote to him and said
How we detested you when you published La Tragédie algérienne; now we wonder how we could have been so blind. In the end, you were the only one who was concerned with us. You told us: "When France abandons Algeria, it will not find for you the money it is now squandering to wage war."He may have been rightfully accused of neglecting the moral element of the historical events in which he took part as a voiceover intellectual—but his practical, realist viewpoint seems to have gotten the sense of how affairs would turn out, more often than not. (less)
updated Nov 23, 2012 09:25PM · flag
Kelly He mentions in this book that The Imperial Republic was the first work of history that he had attempted to write, and that, at all points throughout, he sought less to judge than to understand.
Which is so interesting because this is something that I generally love about fiction writers. I've gotten in repeated disagreements around these parts for defending authors who do this for their characters or themselves (despite whatever ridiculous conclusions they come to). I guess the heated politics of the era make this harder to take in him, but is also probably why I ended up liking it in the end.
These realpolitik guys are difficult ones to deal with sometimes. A lot of the time their perspective is a useful place to start with. But from my instinctive liberal reaction that wants to prove that people are better than that, somehow, I do think that sometimes that leaving out the amount of emotion/history/culture/identity that people have sunk into something can throw off your analysis. (Algeria is a pretty prime example of that sort of episode.) But on the other hand, those things can be so illusory and much more easily dispensed with than it seems. People underestimate how adaptable they are. Did you see the new Lincoln movie? I think Aron would have approved of the Lincoln on display for most of that movie. There's a strong moral driver there (its about getting the amendment against slavery passed), but everything he does to get what he wants... not so much. You should see it. I think you'd like it (just ignore the last fifteen minutes of obligatory deification). (less)
Nov 24, 2012 06:17AM · flag
Szplug I still struggle with my emotions becoming the overriding force when I consider and discuss things like politics. Morality, ideology, et al are important elements of the process and difficult to supersede, but, as I've aged, I've become more and more appreciative of—and try to take on myself—the realist point-of-view, especially when you've ingested enough material from every angle to render you dizzy. Not that the realist positions aren't arrived at without their own particular ideological and moralistic components, of course, but the attempts to rid them of as much idealism and projected beliefs and irrational desires as possible enhances the analysis and conclusions of likely outcomes. Or at least, that's where I've moved to over the past decade or so.
But your point is valid. One of the places where Aron's profession of logic and probability and sober consideration seems most shakily placed is when he attempts to explain the inability of Western commentators—including himself—to grasp the Jewish genocide taking place across the English Channel. Although his points, on paper, are valid as stated, there's a hesitancy to them that, belying the author's own sense of culpability, in perhaps opting not to see what he didn't wish to see at the time, that is palpable. Not that I'm in a position to judge the man, but more to point out that there are attendant evils and omissions to every staked position.
I haven't seen the new Lincoln movie, though I'm eager to—Daniel Day-Lewis just shines in everything he sets his hand to. I've always been drawn to Lincoln's epic story and, even more, his complex character, to the degree that I'd have no problem sitting through the inevitable enthronement to wrap things up—provided that hagiographic portion doesn't involve him in the execution of vampire hordes... (less)
Nov 25, 2012 12:13PM · flag
Kelly Not that the realist positions aren't arrived at without their own particular ideological and moralistic components, of course, but the attempts to rid them of as much idealism and projected beliefs and irrational desires as possible enhances the analysis and conclusions of likely outcomes.
And I definitely admire and appreciate this effort. I'm glad you mentioned that "realism" is "realistic" in the eye of the beholder. The daily arguments about what "protecting US interests" means in this country are proof of that, for sure. I'm really doing my best to do this as well, but I'm not as far down the road with it as you are, I think. I'm still in danger of having emotions instead of opinions on some subjects (something Julia Child once said, always stuck with me. It was her motivation for educating herself in her middle age). I guess just the general stance of realism with its "this is the way it is and c'est la vie," irritates me if, beyond analyzing the outcomes of a certain situation, is then also used to suggest that it must be that way forevermore. I agree with acknowledging "realism" to start with, but it should be a starting point and that is all. I guess it is more that I am suspicious of the typically "conservative" (in the US political meaning of the word) political stance that often accompanies it. I think maybe I am setting out my problems with that than with "realism" itself as an analytical stance.
I hadn't really read anything about Lincoln going in other than the basics we all get from school, but I went with some Civil War buffs and they all loved it so take that recommendation for what you will. I didn't notice any vampires other than a certain stylized resemblance in Day-Lewis himself towards the end of the movie which I am sure was meant to suggest his Jesus-like martyrdom, but perhaps there were some lurking I didn't notice. I'd be interested to see what you think of it. (less)
updated Nov 25, 2012 01:02PM · flag
Szplug Well, it's a bit different being a Canadian, too. That practicality and willingness to size things up as they appear without any rosy tint to the lensing is deeply ingrained in our character—pragmatism and compromise is a way of life up here. It's a testament to that fact that our federal socialist party has never been handed the reins of power, even in a minority setting—rather, it's been a continuous trade-off between the Liberals and the Progressive-Conservatives (and that name tells you just about all that you need to know about their willingness to jump into the middle), though the latter have been replaced by the western Reformers since 1992, and, coming as they do from Alberta, a province that was heavily settled by religious Yanks with a yen to live where it's even colder, they tend to sound more like the Republican party down south. But really, in a country so immensely sized and thinly populated and so utterly cold, realism is the only way to be able to maneuver around Mother Nature. Any outlier ideologies tend to be frozen out (or at least when you factor in the wind chill)
But you are definitely correct about realism being used as an excuse to stand pat, either regarding a continuing injustice or a refusal to intervene where urgently needed. The American version is also of a different bent than Aron's—he was struggling amidst a sea of anti-Americanism and pro-Sovietism, with a significant chunk of the smarty-pant sect leaning heavily towards, or actually members of, the communist party. His efforts to swing the rudder towards the centre were within that context—for one thing, he never lost sight of his youthful left wing proclivities, insisting upon safety-nets and worker's rights and a government willing to get involved where and when able to improve and/or steady things. In the US, it's often seemed, IMO, that the realist POV is only brought out into the open when a course has already been steered, and then used to maintain it (as in, say, Vietnam, or Iraq) when, ideally, they'd have brought their steady-state specs out prior to the clusterfuck and added their voices of reason ere more winged commitments were made. Plus, it's inevitably endowed with that strain of American exceptionalism that permeates everything, and hence the analysis and sober reasoning out of its camp tends to be distorted and weighted down by the remnants of Manifest Destiny and the ghosts of United Fruit.
I'm starving, so I hope that actually came out making sense. And while I've not read any biography of Lincoln yet, I've long been cherishing making time for my mint-condition copy of the 1915 one by Lord Charnwood. It's been praised by many individuals whom I respect, particularly Richard Hofstadter—and the latter's brief-but-potent summation of Lincoln's political career in The American Political Tradition was seriously awesome. Captured indelibly, in a few smoky panels of presidential portraiture, the inner turmoil and weary toil experienced by this very humane man who found himself heading up one side of a savage and sanguinary civil war. The best part of an outstanding book. And no vampires... (less)
updated Nov 26, 2012 09:19PM · flag
Jake Goldsmith I read Aron's Memoirs last year and was practically elated as I slowly plodded through its heft. A lovely man. Thank you for this review. I almost see little point in reviewing it myself with what you've already said and I'd merely be expressing my own person in a puerile way. Aron is one of my most beloved intellectual inspirations after Camus, and to be behind his dissemination is some noble effort (less)
Apr 18, 2018 08:50PM · flag
No comments:
Post a Comment