THE FRENCH INTELLECTUAL
495
"political speculation," or granting intellectuals the "social
mis–
sion of truth," or affirming that the "passion for justice" is
not a political passion!), but he will quite regularly denounce
the traitors of the Right, while tolerating and even admiring
the political passion of Leftist intellectuals on the grounds that
they, following the dictates of their conscience as true "clercs,"
protest in the name of justice and out of a pure sense of moral
duty. This generous inconsistency in Benda's thinking is symp–
tomatic of a whole climate of ideas.
The intellectual's intervention thus follows a predictable
pattern: he considers himself a
voice.
And not merely a voice
crying out in protest (Aron calls it the mentality of "permanent
opposition"), but a voice that proclaims itself a
conscience.
4
"To think sincerely, even if it means to think against every–
body, still means to think with and for everybody," Romain
Rolland was fond of saying. The deep concern here is not with
one's private thoughts or suffering, but with the thought and
suffering of others, with the need to respond, to declare oneself,
to take one's stand whatever the risk-in short, with the impos–
sibility of remaining silent.
In
his
Apologie pour notre passe,
Daniel HaIevy recalls with undisguised emotion that Emile
Duclaux was so haunted by the idea of a possible injustice that
he literally could not sleep until he had publicly expressed his
qualms and so performed what he considered his cleaa duty.
The anecdote is significant: the intellectual's suffering is not a
private affair occasioned by some hidden remorse.
If
he has to
speak up, it is because he feels called upon to become the con–
science (which often means the guilty conscience) of an entire
4. This has become a cliche. Anatole France, in his panegyric of Emile
Zola, called him "a moment of the French conscience." The tenn is
still fashionable. When Camus was awarded th.e Nobel prize, the
Figaro Littlraire
commented: "The Stockholm Academy undoubtedly
wished to honor not merely a writer whom we all admire, but a con–
science." Similarly, Mauriac also stated that Camus was "not only
a writer, but a conscience."
