Raymond Aron

Studies

Lycée Shakes in Versailles, Lycée Condorcet in Paris: baccalaureat in 1922.

1924 to 1928: Study philosophy at the National university in Paris. In 1927 it signs with its school-fellows the petition (appeared on April 15th in the review Europe (re-examined)) against the law on the general organization of the nation for the time of war, which repeals any intellectual independence and any freedom of thought. Its name côtoie those of Alain, Lucien Descaves, Louis Guilloux, Henry Poultry, Jules Romans, Severine…

1928: Aggregation of philosophy (1st).

1930 to 1933: Studies in Germany.

1930 to 1931: Studies at the university of Cologne.

1931 to 1933: Studies in Berlin.

Professional path

1933 to 1934: professor with the college of Le Havre (Sartre exchanged its place in Berlin).

1934 to 1940: lives in Paris.

1934 to 1939: Social secretary of the information center of the National university, and professor at the National university of primary school education in Paris.

1938: Doctor be-Letters, writes a Introduction to the philosophy of the history and a test on the theory of the history into contemporary Germany.

1939: University lecturer in social philosophy with the Faculty of Arts of Toulouse.

1939 to 1940: is useful in the French Army.

June 1940 at 1945: Exile in London, where it meets Charles de Gaulle.

1940 to 1944: Briefly engaged in the Free French Army, which it leaves to become editor association of the review Free France (London), created by André Labarthe.

1945: settle in Paris.

1945 to 1947: Professor with the National school of administration of Paris.

1948 to 1954: Professor with the Institute of political studies of Paris.

1945 to 1983: journalism.

1946 to 1947: with Combat , with Albert Camus.

1947: found with Sartre the review Modern times .

1947 to 1977: leader-writer with the Barber .

In 1965 and 1966: chair Company of the Writers.

1975 to 1976: member of the Directory of the company.

1976 to 1977: political director of the newspaper.

1977 to 1983: chair management committee of the newspaper the Express train .

In parallel, he is chronicler with the radio Europe number 1 of 1968 to 1972; responsible for teaching since 1955 then, as from 1958, professor with the Faculty of Arts and social sciences of the University of Paris; director of studies to the École practices high studies of 1960 to 1983; professor of sociology of the modern culture to the Collège de France in Paris of 1970 to 1983.

Political commitment

After its aggregation of philosophy, Aron which remains in Berlin attends the Autodafé S organized by the Nazi regime in May 1933: this catastrophe of the thought inspires a deep contempt for the totalitarian modes to him. Its convictions of left, pacifist and socialist, evolve/move. In 1938, it takes part in the Colloque Walter Lippmann, which brings together intellectuals and liberal economists come to discuss in Paris of the future of the democracy vis-a-vis totalitarianism.

Mobilized in September 1939 in a weather station of the Ardennes, it joined Bordeaux during the rout and embarks with Saint-Jean-with-Luz for the England, on June 23rd, 1940. With London, it engages in the free French Forces. It however does not reject Pétain, with which it admits the merit to have wanted to avoid the catastrophe while refusing to continue the war against Germany, and does not grant a support without fault to De Gaulle, of which it fears the subjacent cesarism. Before the operation on Dakar, André Labarthe encourages it to give up its unit, the company of the tanks, to create with him the review free France , where it occupies the function of sub-editor and publishes under the name of Rene Avord. In 1943, the article “the shade of Bonaparte”, published in free France , is regarded as an attack against the chief of fighting France.

In its Mémoires , he writes “my medium, I were solved the most in the anticommunism, in liberalism, but it is only after 1945 that I released myself once and for all from the prejudices of the left. ”

The paradox is well the master word of this discussed intellectual who developed a direction always criticizes in awakening vis-a-vis the political world. With the Release, it accepts nevertheless a station with the ministry for Information directed by his friend André Malraux. Thereafter, it engages within RPF since 1947 and animates the intellectual review of the Gathering, the Independence of the mind.

Denouncing in the years the 1950-60 marxisant conformism of French intelligentsia, it is the figure of the intellectual debate of the time vis-a-vis Sartre, which symbolizes the intellectual engaged on the left. They will meet well later, in 1979, to deplore the fate reserved for the Boat people , which flee the Vietnamese Communist regime.

There does not remain about it less one free spirit and independent, not hesitating to defend the idea of an independence of Algeria before 1962 or to be opposed to the anti-Atlantic policy of the de Gaulle general after 1966. It will support thereafter, with the same independence of mind, Georges Pompidou, then Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and will fight François Mitterrand after 1981.

There remain for certain the symbol of the technocratic ideology and the figure of the fight against the Marxisme, while for other its anti-Marxism and its clearness, in particular at the time of the convulsions of 1968, illustrate the possibility of the political Libéralisme in contemporary France. It conceives nevertheless for the philosopher Karl Marx an admiration which has of equal only its contempt for the current Marxist-Leninist.

Writer in the newspapers free France , Combat , Modern times , he was leader-writer of the Figaro of 1947 to 1977, worked with the Express train and for the radio station Europe number 1 and was named with the Collège de France. A Center of Studies of Political Philosophy bears the name of Center Raymond Aron to the École of the High Studies in Social sciences, Raspail boulevard in Paris (EHESS).

In June 1950, the Congrès for the freedom of the culture is created on the initiative of Melvin J. Lasky. Until 1967, year of the revelation of the financing of this organization by the CIA, Aron will be temporary member of its executive committee. In its Memories , he affirms to have been unaware of it, not to disavow it, and that he would probably not have tolerated it if he had known it. On this discussed subject, one will be able in particular to consult Intelligence of the anticommunism: the congress for the freedom of the culture in Paris 1950-1975 of Pierre Grémion (Beech).

Aron, philosophizes of the history

historical Knowledge: neither determinist (Marx) nor relativist (Nietzsche, Spengler)
plural and heterogeneous History.
Finality of the history = achievement of humanity (Kantian).
But question rationalism monist of the progress, which refers to a standard.
Totalitarianism = monopolistic mode of party excluding any formal and real freedom.
Marxist: “formal” freedoms in the name of “real” freedoms reject.
Right to the truth = simplest and deepest of all the objective rights.
the richness is not more definitively acquired than the favor of the destiny (in Plaidoyer for declining Europe , pp.293)

Aron and Marx

Aron studied and taught a long time, in particular with the Sorbonne, Karl Marx. It estimates it, but refutes its prophecies. He does not believe in the self-destruction of capitalism. Marxologue recognized, it was qualified readily, not without irony, of " marxien".

“I arrived at Tocqueville starting from the Marxism, of German philosophy and the observation of the world present… I almost think in spite of me of taking more interest with the mysteries of the Capital than to the limpid and sad prose of the Démocratie in America . My conclusions belong to the English school, my formation comes from the German school”, it wrote. All that because “I have read and read again the books of Marx for 35 years” ( Stages of the sociological thought , Introduction)”

The Marxism is presented by Aron briefly in Ten eight lessons on the industrial society , in a way more developed a little in the stages of the sociological thought and finally in a posthumous work: Marxism of Marx .

Aron and totalitarianism

Joining the theory of Arendt on the Totalitarianism, he proposes the following operational definition of it:

“It seems to me that the five principal elements are the following:

the totalitarian phenomenon intervenes in a mode which grants to a party the monopoly of the political activity.
the monopolistic party is animated or armed with one ideology on which it confers an absolute authority and which, consequently, becomes the official truth of the State.
to spread this official truth, the State reserves in its turn a double monopoly, the monopoly of the means of force and that of the means of persuasion. The whole of the means of communication, radio, television, press, is directed, ordered by the State and those which represent it.
the majority of the economic activities and professional are subjected to the State and become, in a certain way, part of the State itself. As the State is inseparable from its ideology, the majority of the economic activities and professional are coloured by the official truth.
All being from now on activity of State and any activity being subjected to the ideology, a fault made in an economic activity or professional is simultaneously an ideological fault. From where, at the point of arrival, a politization, an ideological transfiguration of all the possible faults of the individuals and, in conclusion, an at the same time police and ideological terror. (…) The phenomenon is perfect when all these elements are joined together and fully accomplished. ”

R. Aron, Democracy and Totalitarisme , Folio Tests, Gallimard, 1965.

Aron and international relations

Aron is a theorist of the international relations. It is strongly influenced by Clausewitz and max Weber.

For Aron, the International relations are specific and distinct from the Politique intern in the States. In the international relations, there are “legitimacy and legality of the recourse to the armed force on behalf of the actors”: “ max Weber defined the State by the monopoly of legitimate violence. Let us say that the international company is characterized by the absence of an authority which holds the monopoly of legitimate violence. ” ( What a theory of the international relations? RFSP 1967)

He considers that there cannot be general theory of the international relations, and refuses the causal design (explanatory) to choose an understanding design through the sociological analysis of the ends which the States can work towards. It is this “Praxéologie” international relations which Aron will try to work out in Paix and war between the nations (1962).

Each State can resort to the Guerre for 3 reasons:

power;
safety;
glory.

Aron defines the international systems as “ whole of units in regular interactions likely to be implied in a general war ”. “ the characteristic of an international system is the configuration of the power struggles”.

The systems should be distinguished multipolar and bipolar.

It is necessary to distinguish the homogeneous systems (those in which the States belong to the same type, obey the same design of the policy), and the heterogeneous systems (those in which the States are organized according to different principles and are claimed contradictory values).

Indeed, the control of a State is not ordered by the only power struggle. The national interests cannot be defined without taking account of the interior mode of a state, of its political ideal. The international system is determined by values which exist within the states, and these values influence the stability of the system. Aron fits here in the tradition of realism " classique" in international relations, that of Carr, Hans Morgenthau or Kissinger. This orientation will be called into question at the time of the advent of the systemic theories like the neo-realism of Kenneth Waltz ( Theory off international politics , 1979).

The contribution of Raymond Aron to the theory of the international relations is original. If a conventional interpretation of Peace and war between the nations Aron place in the category of the realist authors, with Edward Hallett Carr, Hans Morgenthau, or Henry Kissinger, it should be noticed that its design of the international relations is rather different from those of these authors. Indeed Aron falls under a liberal tradition, and not in the Realpolitik : he insists on the importance of the considerations morals in the international relations. Moreover, it does not adhere to the Matérialisme of the realistic school, since it underlines the crucial role of the values and of the standards, of the ideology (for traditional realism, the international relations are characterized by anarchy, the state of nature as described by Thomas Hobbes: a pre-social state or it cannot exist values or standards in the absence of sovereign referee). But Aron is not more one liberal idealistic that realistic traditional: he criticizes Morgenthau indeed as much that the idealism of the interval wars.

It is thus difficult to classify Aron in a particular school, since its thought even is hostile with such a categorization. Remarkable similarities exist however between the thought of Aron and the English School (represented mainly by Hedley Bull): in both cases, the common institutions, the values and the standards are recognized as the mark of the existence of a “international company” which although anarchistic has a certain degree of regulation in the relations between its members.

The influence of Aron

Many figures followed its teaching: Jean Baechler, Alain Besancon, Raymond Boudon, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean-Claude Casanova, Julien Freund, Andre Glucksmann, Pierre Hassner, Stanley Hoffmann, Henry Kissinger, Pierre Manent, Jean-Claude Michaud, Albert Palle, Kostas Papaioannou.

Other figures were marked by the thought of Aron: Raymond Barre, Nicolas Baverez, Yves Cannac, Luc Ferry, Marc Fumaroli, François Pipe cleaner, Claude Imbert, Marcel Gauchet, Annie Kriegel, Henri Mendras, Jean-François Revel, Guy Sorman.

The majority of these figures take part or took part in the review Commentaire , which can be described as review aronienne. Through it, exists thus a school of thought aronienne, of a moderated liberalism, tinted conservatism, but turned towards the Anglo-Saxon world.

Works

contemporary German Sociology , Paris, Alcan, 1935.
Introduction to the philosophy of the history. Test on the limits of historical objectivity , Paris, Gallimard, 1938.
Test on the theory of the history in contemporary Germany. Philosophy criticizes history , Paris, Vrin, 1938.
the Man against the tyrants , New York, Éditions of the French House, 1944.
Of the armistice to the national insurrection , Paris, Gallimard, 1945.
the Age of the empires and the Future of France , Paris, Défense of France, 1945.
the Great Schism , Paris, Gallimard, 1948.
the Wars chains of them , Paris, Gallimard, 1951.
the Peaceful coexistence. Test of analysis , Paris, Editions new World, 1953, sous the pseudonym François Houtisse , with Boris Souvarine
the Opium of the intellectuals , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1955.
Polemical , Paris, Gallimard, 1955.
the Algerian Tragedy , Paris, Plon, 1957.
Hope and fear of the century. Tests nonin favor , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1957.
Algeria and the Republic , Paris, Plon, 1958.
the Industrial society and the War , followed by a Table of the world diplomacy in 1958 , Paris, Plon, 1959.
Immutable and changing. Of IVe in Ve République , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1959.
Dimensions of the historical conscience , Paris, Plon, 1961.
Peace and war enters the nations , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1962.
the Great Debate. Initiation with the atomic strategy , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1963.
Eighteen lessons on the industrial society , Paris, Gallimard, 1963
the Class struggle , Paris, Gallimard, 1964
Test on freedoms , 1965.
Democracy and totalitarianism , 1965.
Three tests on the industrial age , Paris, Plon, 1966.
Stages of the sociological thought , Paris, Gallimard, (1967).
De Gaulle, Israel and the Jews , Paris, Plon, 1968.
the untraceable Revolution. Reflections on the events of May , Paris, Beech, 1968.
Disillusions of progress , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1969.
From one Holy Family to another. Test on the imaginary Marxism , Paris, Gallimard, 1969.
Of the historical condition of the sociologist , Paris, 1971.
political Studies , Paris, 1972.
imperial Republic. The United States in the world (1945-1972) , Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1973.
dialectical History and of violence , Paris, Gallimard, 1973.
To think the war, Clausewitz (1976).
Plea for declining Europe , Paris, Laffont, 1977.
the committed Spectator (talks), Paris, Julliard, 1981.
Memories. 50 years of political reflection , 2 volumes, Paris, Julliard, 1983,1082 p.
last years of the century , Paris, Julliard, 1984.
Marxism of Marx , Paris, Fallois, 2002 (ISBN 2877064239) and in book of pocket, Paris, 2004 (ISBN 2253108006).
Raymond Aron, committed spectator . Discussions with Raymond Aron. Duration: 2:30 - DVD - Montparnasse Editions, (2005).
Of Giscard with Mitterrand: 1977-1983 (leading appeared in the Express train ), foreword of Jean-Claude Casanova. Editions of Fallois, Paris, October 2005. 895 pages. ISBN 2-87706-570-7.

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