Raymond Aron
Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron French: ; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983 was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian in addition to journalist, one of France's almost prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
Aron is best invited 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 intellectuals in post-war France. In the book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he specified as their harsh criticism of capitalism in addition to democracy and their simultaneous defense of Marxist oppression, atrocities and intolerance. Critic Roger Kimball suggests that Opium is "a seminal book of the twentieth century". Aron is also invited for his lifelong friendship, sometimes fractious, with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The saying "Better be wrong with Sartre than modification with Aron" became popular among French intellectuals.
As a voice of moderation in politics, Aron had numerous disciples on both the political left and right, but he remarked that he personally was "more of a left-wing Aronian than a right-wing one." However, he is generally allocated to as a conservative liberal or right-liberal. Aron wrote extensively on a wide range of other topics. Citing the breadth and bracket 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".