Editing Raymond Aron (section)

{{Short description|French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist (1905–1983)}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region           = [[Western philosophy]]
| era              = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| image            = Raymond Aron (1966).jpg
| caption          = Raymond Aron (1966) by [[Erling Mandelmann]]
| name             = Raymond Aron
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1905|3|14|df=y}}
| birth_place      = Paris, [[French Third Republic|France]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1983|10|17|1905|3|14|df=y}}<ref>{{cite news|last1=Hoffmann|first1=Stanley|title=Raymond Aron (1905–1983)|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1983/dec/08/raymond-aron-19051983/|access-date=10 June 2014|publisher=The New York Review of Books|date=8 December 1983}}</ref>
| death_place      = Paris, [[France]]
| resting_place    = [[Montparnasse Cemetery]], [[Paris]]
| education        = [[École Normale Supérieure]]<br>([[Doctorat d'État|Dr ès l]])
| school_tradition = [[Continental philosophy]]<br>[[Liberalism and radicalism in France|French liberalism]]
| main_interests   = [[Political philosophy]]
| influences       = [[Émile Chartier|Alain]],<ref name=A>Brian C. Anderson, ''Raymond Aron: The Recovery of the Political'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, p. 3.</ref> [[Léon Brunschvicg]],<ref name=A/> [[Alexis de Tocqueville]],<ref>Raymond Aron, ''Les Étapes de la pensée sociologique'', Introduction.</ref> [[Carl von Clausewitz]], [[Célestin Bouglé]], [[Élie Halévy]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brandom |first1=Eric |title=Liberalism and Rationalism at the Revue de Métaphysique Et de Morale, 1902–1903 |journal=French Historical Studies |date=2016 |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=749–780|doi=10.1215/00161071-3602256 }}</ref> [[Montesquieu]], [[Max Weber]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]
| notable_ideas    = [[Marxism]] as the [[The Opium of the Intellectuals|opium of intellectuals]]
}}
{{Liberalism in France}}
'''Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron''' ({{IPAc-en|ɑː|ˈ|r|ɒ|n}}; {{IPA|fr|ʁɛmɔ̃ aʁɔ̃|lang}}; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French [[philosopher]], [[Sociology|sociologist]], [[Political science|political scientist]], [[historian]] and [[journalist]], one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.

Aron is best known for his 1955 book ''[[The Opium of the Intellectuals]]'', the title of which inverts [[Karl Marx]]'s claim that religion was the [[opium of the people]]; he argues that [[Marxism]] was the opium of the [[intellectual]]s in post-war France. In the book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he described as their harsh criticism of [[capitalism]] and [[democracy]] and their simultaneous defense of the actions of the communist governments of the [[Eastern Bloc|East]]. Critic [[Roger Kimball]] suggests that ''Opium'' is "a seminal book of the twentieth century".<ref>Kimball, Roger (2001). "[https://newcriterion.com/issues/2001/5/raymond-aron-the-power-of-ideas Aron & the power of ideas]". ''New Criterion'', May 2001.</ref> Aron is also known for his lifelong friendship, sometimes fractious, with philosopher [[Jean-Paul Sartre]].<ref>''Memoirs: Fifty Years of Political Reflection'', Raymond Aron (1990).</ref> The saying "Better be wrong with Sartre than right with Aron" became popular among French intellectuals.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Poirier |first1=Agnès |title=May '68: What Legacy? |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/05/01/may-68-what-legacy/ |access-date=30 December 2020 |work=The Paris Review |date=1 May 2018 |language=en}}</ref>

Considered by many as a voice of moderation in politics,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rosenblatt |first1=Helena |last2=Geenens |first2=Raf |title=French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=271–291}}</ref> Aron had many disciples on both the political left and right; he remarked that he personally was "more of a left-wing Aronian than a right-wing one".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sawyer |first1=Stephen W. |last2=Stewart |first2=Iain |title=In Search of the Liberal Moment: Democracy, Anti-totalitarianism, and Intellectual Politics in France Since 1950 |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |page=25}}</ref> Aron wrote extensively on a wide range of other topics. Citing the breadth and quality of Aron's writings, historian James R. Garland suggests, "Though he may be little known in America, Raymond Aron arguably stood as the preeminent example of French intellectualism for much of the twentieth century."<ref name="Garland">Garland, James R. "Raymond Aron and the Intellectuals: Arguments Supportive of Libertarianism." ''[[Journal of Libertarian Studies]]'', Vol. 21, No. 3 (Fall 2007).</ref>