Aron : Intellectuals

• Published


  1955
• This text

  • Studies existentialism and broader overarching questions surrounding motivations behind different movements
  • Critical of what Marxism becomes
• Believes that all regimes (fascism, communism, Nazism) can all be totalitarian
• Freedom

  A characteristic of human existence
• Critiques the tendency of the intellectual to romanticise or idealise religion - potential source of dogma / ideological manipulation
• Critical of religious dogmatism, particularly when used to justify authoritarianism, intolerance and repression
• Religion can stifle intellectual inquiry and inhibit social progress
• The individual is passive in religion
• Critiques intellectuals for their unwavering commitment to a utopian vision of society
• Calls for intellectuals to abandon their ideological certainties and engage in more nuanced and reflective approach to understanding the complexities of the world
• In embracing skepticism intellectuals can guard against the dangers of fanaticism and contribute to a more rational / tolerant society
• Difference between the intellectuals under different systems
• Hard for intellectuals to commit to universality because of regimes etc
• Universality


  Certain principles, values, truths are applicable universally transcending particularistic interests or ideologies
• Believes that regimes can limit intellectual enquiry : difference between the US and USSR
• Relation to Benda


  Critical and states "they aspire to the possession and control of men"
• Discussion of the Dreyfus Affair : the intellectuals had to stand for what was right at the price of their state
• “ideology turns into dogma”
• “he becomes the dogma” - if the intellectual trains to fight in war and also is an intellectual
• “Has the ideology in fact become the equivalent of a religion?”
• "The intellectual must be able to think freely without fear of reprisal from his own side."