The Opium of the Intellectuals

Raymond Aron was a French political scientist, economist, and philosopher who was several times a visiting professor in the United States. He commented regularly and influentially on social and political topics and current issues in the conservative French newspaper Le Figaro, in books and on radio, and as a teacher at L'ecole pratique des hautes etudes, in Paris.

Because of his consistent opposition to Marxism and his admiration and respect for the United States, Aron was perhaps not so highly regarded as French intellectuals of the Left. But he was always a voice for reason and moderation at a time when his critics were often strident and ineffectual.

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