RAYMON D ARON
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am asked if the split between the left and the right still has any mean–
ing, the first thought that comes to mind is that the man asking this
question is not of the left ." To this, Ortega replies: "To be of the left
or of the right is to choose one of the innumerable ways man man–
ages to be an imbecile - both of them, in effect, are forms of moral
hemiplegia ." Had I remembered this formulation , I would have
found a better answer to those who asked me whether I was on the
right or the left.
But this book , which is not political- in the sense that it is not
partisan - analyzes the situation in Europe more than half a century
ago in a way that is still relevant today.
It
illustrates the validity of
"historical reason ."
The latter, it seems, resists the radical separation of facts and
values. Historical understanding, in other words, contains a reason
in itself. Ortega is antirevolutionary ; in fact, he deplores revolu–
tionism. I cannot resist quoting him since I have developed similar
ideas , though not as well : "Demagogy is a form of intellectual degen–
eracy , a great phenomenon of European history, that appeared in
France around 1750 . Why at that moment? Why in France?
It
is one
of the nerve centers in the destiny of the West and particularly in
French destiny.
It
is a fact that since then, France, and by irradia–
tion , almost the entire continent, believed that revolution would
resolve all the great problems of humanity. That is why France now
is in such a difficult condition: this country possesses, or thinks it
possesses, a revolutionary tradition.
It
is true that in France there
was a great revolution and several sinister or laughable ones. These
revolutions served primarily to engender life in France for an entire
century - except for a few days or weeks - to more authoritarian and
antirevolutionary political groups than in almost any country." And
Ortega adds that the twenty years of the Second Empire - the great
moral pit of French history - are due to "the superficiality and light–
heartedness of the revolutionaries of 1848." Tocqueville would have
subscribed to this judgment.
To be an antirevolutionary is to be neither of the left nor the
right , and that does not even imply that in every situation one is
hostile to changing a detestable or anachronistic regime: it is to
believe that the idea of revolution, and of transformation , as the
foundation of a society is dangerous, false, and refuted by European
history during the last century. If Sartre is so often mistaken when
he writes on politics , it is because he never cured himself of revolu–
tionism .
