Freedom is a struggle, not a habit. This is one of the most profound intuitions that emerges from the thought of Raymond Aron, delivered in the diagnosis which masterfully closes the first presentation of theEssay on freedoms: The industrial society in which we live “is only liberal by tradition or survival.”
Raymond Aron died fifty years ago, on October 17, 1983, in a world where the Cold War still prevailed, where half of Europe was under the direct influence of the USSR and where the euphoric growth produced by industrial society had just received a first warning shot with the oil crisis. François Mitterand had been in power for two years, an economic, social and cultural revolution was underway, which the turn of austerity in 1983 would interrupt. But already, Raymond Aron pointed out with prescience the paradox which still sums up the state of freedoms in our society: more varied and sectoral rights and fewer fundamental freedoms.
For half a century, new rights and capacities to act have been granted to individuals. It is today possible in France to marry between men or women, to create a business in one click, to divorce without a judge and to smoke cannabis without risking prison. And yet, the fact that such rights are acquired does not prevent the most fundamental freedoms such as the preservation of a private life, the possibility of circulating anonymously in public space, of not having to be held accountable of his opinions nor to be forced to think in conformity with the dominant currents of thought, are increasingly threatened. Likewise, each person’s autonomy and personal responsibility are diminished, which hinders their ability to freely define their role in economic and social life.
The reasons for the erosion of our freedoms are multiple, they range from the evolution of political practices (more centralization and presidentialization, less parliamentarism) to the impact of regulations which want to regulate all aspects of our life, and therefore tend to disempower individuals, social actors and citizens, in relation to the various commitments which make concern for public affairs concrete. But they are also due to the effects produced by large-scale social, cultural and technological developments at work in contemporary societies.
The solitude that was that of Raymond Aron, at least during the decades when a political ideology claiming to be Marxism and communism dominated in France, is a fact of his entire life. A renowned journalist, a recognized academic within the most prestigious academic institutions, he embodied a relatively isolated voice among the intellectuals of his time, he who said of himself “As usual, I did not agree. So I remained solitary” and, he added, “without much chance of being able to express myself and be listened to.”
In the collection published these days by the think tank liberal GenerationLibre, which I have the honor of chairing, we will find a testimony of what the French liberals of today owe to it. We can read contributions from historians, philosophers, political scientists and political figures who, from different perspectives, question the nature and scope of its liberalism for the current era.
Raymond Aron, engaged in the fight against totalitarianism since the end of the 1930s (a fight which continued with the founding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom which met for the first time in Berlin in 1950, with Arthur Koestler, Manès Sperber , Bertrand Russell, then David Rousset and François Bondy), died too early to witness the progressive collapse, one could say the subsidence, of the communist world.
However, one can imagine the incredulous exaltation that would have been his to see the regimes of terror then established in Eastern Europe disappear so easily, so quickly, under the immense wave of entire societies which were advancing silently. against state totalitarianism. Would he have seen, between the spring and winter of 1989, the Hungarians crossing the border with Austria by car after the border guards had cut the barbed wire, the Germans from the Eastern Länder silently demonstrating in Leipzig and Berlin and the inhabitants of the city of Timisoara in Romania gathered in increasing numbers in the central square of the city, he would undoubtedly have been carried away by the same exaltation felt by my generation, that of a committed liberal youth from adolescence in the fight against all regimes which enslave the individual. But his demanding lucidity, his intellectual perspicacity would have quickly dissuaded him from recognizing in these extraordinary events the accomplishment of a providentialist understanding of history which would make freedom triumph and announce the undivided reign of liberal democracy, of global economy and universal peace.
Instructed by the man who was his friend and his master, Elie Halévy, Raymond Aron, from the end of the 1930s, never stopped reminding us that men are never done with tragedy. Because political conflict is not destined to dissolve in adherence to democracy, and the cultural and technological homogenization of the world can also provide fertile ground for the development of identity demands of incredible force, especially when passions rivalry, resentment as well as the fanatical desire for recognition can fuel indefinitely renewed and perpetually justified conflicts in a past of colonization and domination.
In our societies, economic inequalities and social divisions combine to fuel identity fractures and cast doubt on the possibility of a common political project within a national framework. To remedy this, the State wants to present itself as a remedy capable of guaranteeing the cohesion of society, even if it means reducing social autonomy. At the same time, the increased personalization of political power, which tends to replace the face-to-face between the president and the people for the logic of representations and mediations specific to parliamentary democracy, hampers the functioning of a liberal democracy whose vigor and intelligence should be invigorated by the multiple commitments of citizens.
Finally, contemporary culture dependent on digital information and communication tools is part of a sociality of networks, sharing and virtuality which affects the contours of individuality and the notions of private life which are at the heart of thought. liberal. Today we are witnessing attempts at hegemony over public speech with the aim of imposing on everyone what should be said and what should be kept silent, in a strategy of conquering the media and social networks. Freedom of expression therefore seems to be held hostage between, on the one hand, currents which claim to be dogmatic progressive, do not support discussion, even less contradiction, and who alone want to define what freedom is. free speech and, on the other hand, the demand for liberated speech which, under the pretense of freedom of expression, thrives on the verge of racism.
In such a context, can we only hope that there will always be enough liberal habits in our societies to prevent a populist movement from coming to power in the short or medium term? At the end of Democracy in America, Tocqueville spoke of soft despotism, in other words a possible evolution of democracy where citizens would be “like a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd”. Raymond Aron’s injunction: to restore political freedom in all its richness of public commitments, is undoubtedly the best antidote to this dark future.
Raymond Aron never ceased to show how liberalism was a policy of uncertainty, without illusions about man, but also a commitment of intelligence, “without euphoria, he said, neither lukewarm nor easy, not done for tender souls.
GenerationLibre publishes a collection of contributions in homage to the great liberal philosopher who died forty years ago, “Raymond Aron, the relevance of his thoughts 40 years after his death”.
*Monique Canto-Sperber is a philosopher, former director of the ENS (Ulm) and first president of Paris Sciences Lettres, research director at the CNRS. She has been president of GenerationLibre since 2022.
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