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Faces of Moderation:
Raymond Aron’s Committed Observer
“Let us pray for the arrival of the skeptics so that they may extinguish fanaticism” (Aron)
Raymond Aron (1905-1983) does not belong to the canon of modern political thought.
Most of his works were written and published during the cold war, a period that to
younger generations today seems (more and more) obsolete. Yet, Aron’s books stand out
as examples of lucid political judgment in an age of extremes in which many intellectuals
shunned moderation and were attracted to various forms of radicalism.
As an engaged spectator raised in the tradition of Cartesian rationalism, Raymond
Aron produced an impressive body of writings that include not only sophisticated
reflections on abstract topics such as philosophy of history, the philosophical
underpinnings of modernity, and the virtues and limitations of liberal democracy but also
systematic and well-informed commentaries on concrete issues such as the war in
Algeria, the student’s revolt of May 1968, American foreign policy, and the Soviet
Union. Aron’s most important works, in particular Peace and War, The Opium of the
Intellectuals, Main Currents of Sociological Thought, Essays on Liberties, Clausewitz,
along with his writings on Marx and his followers, shaped the intellectual climate in
France and gained wide recognition in the United States. It is important to remember
(especially nowadays) that Aron was one of the few Frenchmen who really understood
and appreciated America and never succumbed to the temptation of anti-Americanism
that dominated the French intellectual life during the initial phases of the Cold War.
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1
For an excellent intellectual portrait of Aron, see Pierre Manent’s essay “Raymond Aron—Political
Educator,” whose English version was published in Aron 1994, 1-23. Raymond Aron’s memoirs are
another key source of information (Aron 1990).
Convention