LETTERS FROM PARIS
AMBIGUITIES OF POLITICS
In July 1940 a seventeen-year-old French
lyceen
was asked
by some adult what he thought of events and of the future, and he
answered: "I don't know. I will have to think all this over."
I don't know what happened to that young student. He might
thereafter have become a Gaullist, a Petainist, or a Communist, or he
might even (but it is unlikely) have remained neutral. One thing
is
sure, however: he has never had the time to think things over, he has
not been left alone by events, and by people's insisting that he take a
stand. Which he probably did, more or less conscientiously, at each new
occasion. Even
if
he remained aloof and inactive, it must have been
because he was not persuaded by the alternatives that were offered him,
rather than because he had reached some new conviction.
I remember that boy's answer, because his attempted withdrawal
into reflection and silence seemed to me both genuine and natural at
the time, and yet impossible. The situation was one of emergency, and
what followed was a sequel of emergencies. The choices that were of–
fered had the character of being both elementary and equivocal, pre–
cisely the kind that cannot be avoided, and, if they are avoided, one is
left with a sense of guilt, not of clarity. France had fallen, hence the
French nation was in question. Hitler had won, hence maybe Hitler
was right, or at least maybe his system was. But Nazi domination was
unbearable, hence De Gaulle was right in practice, although his ideas
remained obviously weak. Did patriotism become right because Hitler
was a beast? In a sense yes, since France was no longer an idea, or a
textbook notion, but a society struggling for its survival. Yet France's
survival at all costs was also Petain's justification. But his methods were
contemptible.
If
survival at all costs meant dishonor, however, the
question of an ideal was again raised. The Resistance was full of ideals,
and in fact it showed that any ideal, patriotism, Catholic faith, socialism,
royalism, democracy, Communism, provided it was firmly held, could
breed revolt against the Nazi negation. But, if you chose the Resistance,
you did not choose a particular ideal or ideology so much as a certain
group, a certain form of action, a certain
fact.
The only coherent ideol-
