by Nikolai Ott
In these turbulent times, I’m often reminded of an anecdote popular in liberal circles. In liberated postwar Paris, French intellectuals would gather on the Rive Gauche—the south side of the Seine near the Grands Boulevards—to debate France’s future over apricot cocktails. Many—likely the majority—were on the Left: Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others. Raymond Aron was an exception, and his participation was mostly by chance, stemming from his long-standing friendship with Sartre from their university days. A liberal alongside the era’s showpiece Marxist—this was not bound to go smoothly. They clashed more and more frequently. During one argument—Sartre, presumably after several cocktails, suddenly shouted at Aron: “Mon petit camarade, pourquoi as-tu peur de déconner?”
Roughly translated, that means: “My little comrade, why are you so afraid of talking nonsense?” Liberals loved telling this anecdote because it fulfilled a clear purpose: distancing themselves from a left-wing attitude that, with Jacobin zeal, proclaimed grand world-spanning revolutions. The conflict between Aron and Sartre symbolized a larger friction between revolution and reform, between leftist aestheticism and self-styled liberal reserve, between promises of revolutionary leaders and gradual change through stable institutions. After World War II, the liberal self-image saw itself as the antithesis to the many feverish intellectuals who preached doom at every turn—intellectuals who, in the Weimar Republic, had driven the Germans into the arms of the National Socialists. French thinker Julien Benda described this in his famous essay as the “treason of the intellectuals.” Though the essay became well-known before and after the war, it was largely ignored; its 1946 French reissue drew only ridicule from the Left. Looking back, Jean Améry would ruefully conclude in 1976: “What place was there for Benda’s dry rationalism in the age of Jean-Paul Sartre?”
Once again, Sartre’s hour has come—but this time under right-wing conservative auspices. There is incendiary rhetoric, a dream of a grand revolution, infallible leaders are proclaimed, and a mélange of enemies is in vogue. Even some right-leaning liberals seem ready to join in. That alone can explain the fascination with Donald Trump, with Elon Musk—and partly with Javier Milei. The downfall of American institutions is openly cheered by some, discreetly endorsed by others (after all, there are tax breaks), and left unmentioned by many more. Elon Musk, whose tweets now read like a blend of Martin Heidegger’s rectoral address and Ernst Jünger’s trench accounts, is celebrated as a prophet of disruption. The tone has grown harsher; some say it’s as harsh as the times demand. Only someone like Trump, the argument goes, can save Western civilization from ruin. That his government’s policies are likely to end state funding for any opposition media in Eastern Europe does not trouble the self-styled saviors of the West. “Whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat,” said the German jurist Carl Schmitt, once accusing left-wing humanists. Today, that line might just as well apply to these right-wing guardians of civilization.
Raymond Aron famously spoke of the “opium of the intellectuals” in describing the appeal of socialism. The promise of a better world, rapid upheavals, and towering leaders, combined with deep frustration at the status quo, captivated many thinkers. It radicalized them, turned them violently against still-fragile institutions, and destroyed countless friendships. Sartre cast off not only Aron; he also publicly denounced the democratic socialist Albert Camus. What socialism was then, the culture war is now. Initially, it led some left-wing intellectuals to question or relativize the foundations of the West—only for right-wing conservatives to tear them down today. The liberal scholar Jan-Werner Müller recently lamented the radicalization of Niall Ferguson. Suddenly, these self-styled saviors of the West are dancing to “YMCA” at Mar-a-Lago. Next to Ferguson, one might list his wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Douglas Murray, and not even Bari Weiss is mounting much resistance.
Just as in the 1950s it was fashionable to travel to Cuba for a cigar with Fidel Castro, today’s radicalized conservatives must affirm the genius of Elon Musk. Some culture warriors don’t even mind that he lies about ten times a day. Others are satisfied if Trump tosses them a ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports or an end to DEI practices as a convenient morsel. The White House’s godfather figure, a talented clan chief, has mastered the art of eventually corralling even his bitterest foes through divide-and-conquer tactics. At the same time, he reveals how some self-styled liberals, guided by unprincipled nihilism, voluntarily clear the road to serfdom—hoping that once the system falls, they’ll find a world that’s a little less “woke.”
Liberalism, as a political movement, has formed many strategic alliances—sometimes with socialists, sometimes with conservatives. Yet it largely avoided the “temptations of unfreedom.” In his final book, titled exactly that, Ralf Dahrendorf sketched the archetype of liberal intellectuals who, in an age of dual totalitarianism, never succumbed to the “opium of the intellectuals.” He referred to these figures as “Erasmians,” evoking Erasmus of Rotterdam during the Reformation. In his “Erasmian society,” Dahrendorf gathered not only Raymond Aron but also Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper, noting how they upheld their liberal convictions in the face of both fascism and communism. According to Dahrendorf, an Erasmian is characterized first by the ability to hold one’s course—even when alone. Second, by serving as an “engaged observer” who refuses to be co-opted. And finally, by a “passionate devotion to reason” that allows one to coexist with the world’s contradictions.
Ralf Dahrendorf would presumably be relieved not to witness this new resurgence of the “temptations of unfreedom.” Who, today, still follows the self-styled liberal caution of Raymond Aron, who preferred staying silent over speaking incorrectly? Who, in this era of culture war, still heeds Isaiah Berlin’s insight that pluralistic societies must find ways to get along? Where Berlin once borrowed from Kant in describing humanity as “crooked timber,” a Nietzschean Musk cult of genius now reigns. And who, in these disruptive times, still thinks of Karl Popper’s open society, which progresses not by revolution but by gradual, incremental reforms?
One reliable test of someone’s commitment to liberal principles is how they treat Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Even from a libertarian point of view, philosopher Deirdre McCloskey once noted that a liberal market society depends on the “virtues of the bourgeoisie”—if those virtues vanish, so does the free market. Borrowing from the German constitutional scholar Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, one could say these are the “preconditions of the liberal state” this state itself cannot guarantee. Today, in the United States, we see how a liberal society can begin to fracture. Sartre’s hour has struck yet again on our continent. The crucial question for this decade is: Will self-styled liberals take part in dismantling the free state in Europe?
Nikolai Ott is a student assistant at the Center for International Studies (ZIS) at TU Dresden. You can reach him via mail: ott.nkl@gmail.com.
Isonomia Quarterly 