The Opium of the Intellectuals
ISBN 9110195645 | |
The Opium of the Intellectuals (French: L'Opium des intellectuels) is a book written by Raymond Aron and published in 1955. It was first published in an English translation in 1957.
Content
Aron's focus is upon his criticism of the widespread intellectual adherence in his time to
Aron was critical of Marxism in that he saw it as reneging on some of the basic advances made by human civilisations, such as the freedom of enquiry, freedom of controversy, freedom of criticism, and the vote.[2]
In particular, Aron considered that there was a form of intellectual dishonesty or hypocrisy at work in his time period, where some people were extremely critical of certain forms of government or society (such as capitalist democracy) but forgiving towards crimes and infractions committed in societies claiming to manifest the 'correct' ideology. He was, therefore, deeply critical of what he perceived of as a form of intellectual dogmatism and fanaticism that held to a fixed framework of thought regardless of empirical evidence in opposition to it - a process akin to the creation of a kind of secular religion or faith system.
A major focus of the criticism in the book is the work of a thinker such as
Aron's focus was chiefly upon the nature of contemporaneous French intellectual thought to the general exclusion of consideration of other cultures such as the Anglo-American.[4]
Aron's broad celebration of what he perceived of as the virtues of liberal democracy also went hand-in-hand with an opposition to the kind of endemic anti-Americanism that was a hallmark of post-war French Leftist ideology, a fact which helped Aron to make many significant contacts within the USA.[5]
This work is Aron's most famous, although it has often been out of print since its original publication.
See also
References
- ISBN 978-1412813907.
- ^ Kimball, Roger. "The Opium of the Intellectuals". New Criterion. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
- ISBN 978-1412813907.
- ^ Lichtheim, George. "The Opium of the Intellectuals, by Raymond Aron; German Sociology, by Raymond Aron". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
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