30
PARTISAN REVIEW
The session of the
Societe j'ranr;;aise de philosophie
described here took
place in June 1939. I have referred to it myself with mixed feelings. Of
course I was right: the uncertainty of the future, the threat of war, the
fragility of democracy. Victor Basch was living his faith, serene despite the
gathering storm. And he was assassinated - because he was a Jew, because
he believed in all the values that the Nazis and their French disciples wanted
to destroy.
The "Cloutard" reports his memories of his philosophy professors:
We took the courses of the two professors jointly charged with
teaching philosophy at the school, both Jews, bUL as dissimilar as
possible. The conscientious Dreyfus-Lefoyer was always there; his
course, which was thorough, even exhaustive, without challenge and
without surprise, left us indifferent. The course of the relaxed Ray–
mond Aron in which, completely outside the official program, he pro–
vided us with his reflections on the philosophers of history, from
Machiavelli to SOI'el and Pareto, with Hobbes along the way, was
provocative and impI·essive. To idealist optimism, he contrasted the
practice of political actors, whether or not concealed by speech - the
Realpolitik
of Bismarck that had inspired Hitler. He had just spent
several years in Germany, when he had been able
to
observe the rise
of Nazism that he obviously abholTed, while it fascinated him. He had
been a socialist and had developed a deep understanding of Marx. He
appreciated in Marx the rigorous economic critic, but he rejected the
Manichaean prophetic stance, the source of unappealable
condemnations. In the name of lucidity and realism, he cut through
illusions. I did not want
to
give up my faith, but I recognized the power
of his views. While we all wanted to continue to live in the nineteenth
century, just as sunlight dissolves fog, his rigor did away with its myths,
and we all found ourselves unarmed and naked on the edge of the
abyss. We might almost have held it against him, as though he were
the one who had led us there. And in fact, denouncing the Nazi danger
that carried with it the threat of war, he was fI'ightening at the same
time, emptying the I'evolutionary credo of all hope, he was demobiliz–
ing. . ..
replacement for the word, but I never saw any bitterness on your ironic (but not always)
mouth even when the Sorbonne chose Gurvitch over you, an evening when I happened to
be visiting; I saw, to be truthful and you will forgive me, occasiollal sadness, but there was
good reason for that." This second student became a frielld in the prewar years; I was not
the same for those who listened from a distance as for a friend who visited us in the little
house where I was finishing my thesis and with whom I discussed
Esprit.
