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throwing the door wide open for a renewal of French anti–
Americanism. Aron also condemned de Gaulle for his
"Vive Ie Quebec
libre/"
speech and for his anti- Israeli position after the Six Day War.
In domestic terms, Aron, France's leading analyst of industrial
society, never espoused the heady optimism of French planners who
predicted in the early 1960s an indefinite period of unremittent
growth, while speculating on
"l'horizon
1985" without the least
thought of Orwell's
1984.
He criticized the French university system
when no one much cared, while supporting it during the explosion of
1968. Aron must certainly have enjoyed going countercurrent, but
such a solitary stance was almost built into a way of reasoning which
refused all passions and gave primacy to critical reflection.
Aron chose to address this critical reading of contemporary af–
fairs to the elite in power hoping to influence it directly. In doing so
he consciously opposed himself to French intellectuals who took im–
passioned stands without much caring whether they were ever heard
in the circles of power. His definition of
Le Monde
is most il–
luminating in this context:
"La bible d'une intelligentsia de gauche qui s'ac–
comodait d'une attitude critique sans impact direct sur les evenements. "
It
is not at all clear to what extent Aron influenced those in
power. The one French leader to whom he was intellectually closest,
Giscard d'Estaing, never consulted him, beyond the level of
courtesy, and took international stands (vis
a
vis the Soviet Union)
which showed that he had not learned a single one of Aron's lessons .
Despite his intentions, Aron remained a critical intellectual well
removed from the very real power Henry Kissinger exerted, whose
strength he envied and would have liked to have had, had he been an
American .
It
was probably symptomatic of Aron's supreme ability to
see everything in its true perspective, that he could be seemingly
content to be a "simple" critic in a country whose international room
for maneuver was so severely limited .
Beyond the public career as
editorialiste
known to all in France,
and his writings known to a far more restricted audience, what
stands out in reading Aron's memoirs is the powerful mold of French
culture. Aron may have been on the intellectual fringes (albeit at the
very heart of French honors and standing), yet in his relationship to
his Jewishness, in his approach to America, and in his vision of
France, he was as quintessentially "French" as his sometime neme–
SIS,
de Gaulle.
Aron never denied his Jewish origins, but he tended to see in
