Symposium: Part I: Public Intellectuals Then and Now |
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| Authors: | Daniel J Mahoney |
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| Institution: | (1) Assumption College, 500 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609, USA |
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| Abstract: | The French political thinker Raymond Aron (1905–1983) provides the imitable model of the political philosopher as civic educator.
Writing in an age of extreme ideological polarization, he aimed at a truly balanced approach to historical and political understanding.
In a series of writings from the late 1930’s onward, Aron defended a principled middle way between Machiavellian cynicism
and the “abstract moralism” so evident in the public engagement of modern intellectuals. Aron argued for the renewal of liberalism
on the foundation of a broad-based “democratic conservatism” and displayed remarkable lucidity regarding the totalitarian
temptation. This paper explores this distinctive notion of “democratic conservatism”—equally distant from revolutionary romanticism
and reactionary nostalgia—that guided Aron’s public engagement over a fifty-year period and that was central to his idea of
the political responsibility of intellectuals.
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| Keywords: | Facile progressivism The philosophy of discord Heroic virtues Political responsibility Conservative liberalism Nihilism Communism Antinomic prudence Depoliticization |
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