It is usually much easier to go with the flow – especially when it comes to intellectual and ideological debates. Public intellectuals and social commentators in the West are often of the left, and hostile to Western values and beliefs. In France one thinks of some recent figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-François Lyotard.
But some French intellectuals have gone against the flow. The Jewish philosopher and public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy is one case in point. I have long been following this important thinker. Among other things, he was a founder of the Nouveaux Philosophes (New Philosophers) school back in the late 60s, rejecting his former love affair with Marxism.
Here I want to look at just two of his many works. They show his consistency, in that before he was taking on the Islamists, he was taking on the Communists. Tackling both in places like France is not always an easy task. But these two books show that he has been willing to stand against the tide.
Back in 1977 he wrote La barbarie à visage humain, which was released in English in 1979 as Barbarism with a Human Face (Harper & Row). And just last year he authored Israel Alone (Wicked Son). Both books deserve close reading, but a few select quotes from each might tempt you to get copies of them.
Barbarism with a Human Face
“The totalitarian state is not quite a secular State without faith; it is more precisely a State which secularizes religion and creates profane beliefs. Hitlerism again: If the religion of the beyond is what it intends to destroy, it replaces it with something else, the religion of Life, Nature, and Hell. Reread Mein Kampf: an apology for death and the dead, blood and race, the soil and tradition. All this weighty and dense immanence is made divine, or rather satanic, as the basis for a new cult of the totalitarian state. . . . The totalitarian State is not a State without religion; totalitarianism is the religion of the state. It is not atheism but literally idolatry. (p. 137)
I learned more from reading The Gulag Archipelago than from many erudite commentaries on totalitarian languages. I owe more to Solzhenitsyn than to most of the sociologists, historians, and philosophers who have been contemplating the fate of the West for the last thirty years. It is enigmatic that the publication of this work was enough to immediately shake our mental landscape and overturn our ideological guideposts. . . . Solzhenitsyn is the Shakespeare of our time, the only one capable of showing us the monsters and forcing us to see the horror and confront evil. He is our Dante as well, for he has the poet’s fabulous power of creating images and myths for what by nature eludes analysis and conceptual form. We needed a Divine Comedy to represent Hell, the modern hell of the Gulag, whose horrendous topography he has outlined in book after book….
All Solzhenitsyn had to do was to speak and we awoke from a dogmatic sleep. All he had to do was to appear, and an all too long history finally came to an end… (pp. 153-154)
Marx, then, the Machiavelli of the century. The U.S.S.R., or philosophy in power. It has been proved, in any case, that socialists are not only dreamers, gentle and tireless utopians, projecting into the heaven of ideas the sighs and torments of the humble and humiliated; but that Stalinism is a mode of socialism, socialism’s mode of being, socialism as it is embodied in reality. That the classless society is not only an optimistic and messianic fantasy, unrealizable and inaccessible like all political dreams; but that, on the contrary, it exists, it is another name for the Terror, another name for the destruction of the kulaks, the very real outcome of the unparalleled project of tearing a people from its moorings, its lineage, and it geography. That the Gulag is not a blunder or an accident, not a simple wound or aftereffect of Stalinism; but the necessary corollary of a socialism which can only actualize homogeneity by driving the forces of heterogeniety back to its fringes, which can aim for the universal only by confining its rebels, its irreducible individualists, in the outer darkness of a nonsociety. No camps without Marxism, said Glucksmann. We have to add: No socialism without camps, no classless society without its terror truth. (pp. 157-158)
Israel Aloneby Levy, Bernard-Henri (Author)
Israel Alone
I arrived in Israel the morning after October 7. At Ben Gurion Airport, alerts were sounding at a steady pace. Frozen despite the late summer heat, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem seemed like dead cities. Likewise, Sderot, a city on the Gaza border that has been martyred many times, had been emptied of nearly all of its inhabitants. I knew this city. I have made a point of visiting it on each of my trips to Israel over the past twenty years. And in 2009 and 2014, during the last two Gaza wars, when people spent entire days in shelters because of the rockets, my reporting kept me there somewhat longer. But never had I seen it so desolate. (pp. 3-4)
“The responsibility for these children’s deaths lies first and foremost not with Israel but with those who turned them into human shields.
It lies not with the grandchildren of the survivors of Auschwitz, whose searing testimony opened the world’s conscience to the outrage of the killing of children, but with the Islamic terrorists who, after years spent indoctrinating their own children in anti-Jewish hate and impressing them into service, hijacking and militarizing their parents, imposing on them a sharia ever less spiritual and ever more sadistic, working their people like dough or, more accurately, like a metal with which they would fashion a bomb aimed at Israel and designed explicitly to explode into shards.
The responsibility lies with the terrorists who set up their stores of weapons and ammunition, their barracks and command centers, their firing ranges and training grounds next to mosques, in hospitals and schools, and at the entrances to tunnels dug under the most populous zones of the miniature Leviathan that Gaza had become.
It lies with those who turned a deaf ear when Israel gave families In Gaza City a deadline of twenty-four hours (extended to two days, then three, then a week) before Intensifying its strikes on the bases occupied by the pogromists who had just slit the throats of Israeli children or shot them in the face.
It lies with those who forbade compliance with the Israeli ultimatum; stationed pickups at the access to the Salah al-Din road, which Israel was opening for several hours each day to permit evacuations; or simply fired on Gazans who took the risk of disobeying them and, in some documented cases, had to be escorted out under the protection of an IDF unit.
It lies also, by the way, with the Egyptians, who persist in denying entry to Gazans wishing to leave the Strip in advance of the Rafah offensive. Egypt had opened its border to Libyans fleeing Gaddafi’s tanks. Erdogan, barbaric as he is, opened Turkey’s border to allow Syrian refugees to escape bombardment by Bashar al-Assad. In every war, in fact, there is always a neighboring state that, however poor, deprived, or prey to its own convulsions, offers temporary shelter to fellow humans in danger of imminent death. Always, that is, except here, except in the case of Egypt, which is standing by, impassive, while its Palestinian neighbors vainly cry out and pound at its door. (pp. 127-129)
This war is a horrific war that the Israelis did not want. Their enemy is a terrible adversary whose declared aim is to post not only the greatest possible number of Jewish deaths but also the greatest possible number of martyrs on its own side. These hybrid combatants who hide in tunnels that they do not use to provide shelter to their own people, and who resurface outside buildings full of civilian men, women, and children, expose themselves to IDF soldiers as if to say, “Kill me if you can, but kill them with me, because in so doing you’ll be killing children, and by killing children you’ll return to being the outrage of the world.” (pp. 130-131)
Bonus quote
Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week in a piece titled “Three Big Lies About the Israel-Hamas War” Lévy said:
A genocidal army doesn’t take two years to win a war in a territory the size of Las Vegas. A genocidal army doesn’t send SMS warnings before firing or facilitate the passage of those trying to escape the strikes. A genocidal army wouldn’t evacuate, every month, hundreds of Palestinian children suffering from rare diseases or cancer, sending them to hospitals in Abu Dhabi as part of a medical airlift set up right after Oct. 7. To speak of genocide in Gaza is an offense to common sense, a maneuver to demonize Israel, and an insult to the victims of genocides past and present.”
We clearly need more public intellectuals to go against the flow and speak truth in a world smothered in lies and falsehoods. I for one am very thankful for the likes of Bernard-Henri Lévy.
8 Replies to “Intellectuals Going Against the Flow”
As an old converted leftist, I read with interest about people who have abandoned the path that leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat
The publishing house Coeckelberghs published the barbarian book in 1978 in Swedish “Barbari med Mänskligt ansikt”
The question is whether we Christians are prepared to accept lost leftists who are tired of activism, know-it-all attitudes and meaningless discussion.
I’m not entirely sure, but this can be changed…!!
You are a forerunner in this and hope that more “progressive” will find your texts down there in Melbourne.
Be blessed in your (missionary) mission
RÖ
Many thanks Rolf.
Bill, I am most impressed by the French thinker and author, Bernard-Henri Lévy, whom you have profiled above.
Thank you for selecting and curating excerpts from some of his writings.
How sad it is that the French thinkers whose writings are still so widely taught in Western universities are the left-wing wreckers of civilisation that you list above, i.e., Sartre and de Beauvoir (the couple from Hell), Foucault (a disciple of the aristocratic French libertine, Marquis de Sade, father of sadism), Derrida (“the mad axeman of Western philosophy”, according to Johann Hari), and Lyotard. (The comments in brackets are mine…).
Fortunately, I have never fallen under the spell of these five agents of social decomposition.
Instead, I’ve long been devoted to the writings of five immeasurably superior French thinkers, who are renowned as eloquent defenders of Western civilisation:
1. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), the diplomat, political philosopher and historian, was author of classic work, Democracy in America (two vols, 1835/40), and today is regarded as a major conservative thinker, ranking with the great Edmund Burke (1729–1797).
2. Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), the French Catholic philosopher and author, was influential in the development and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in 1948 was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations — one of the few praiseworthy UN decisions. A few years later, Maritain became a leading figure in the anti-communist Congress for Cultural Freedom.
3. André Maurois (1885–1967), an historian and friend of Winston Churchill, chronicled the May–June 1940 fall of France before Hitler’s onslaught. He recorded these events in two books, Tragedy in France: An Eyewitness Account (1940) and Why France Fell (1941).
4. Raymond Aron (1905–1983), a philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, was one of France’s most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. After the defeat of France in 1940 he managed to escape to London where he joined General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces, editing the newspaper, France Libre (Free France). Aron was vehemently opposed to totalitarian ideologies of the right and of the left. Marx famously dismissed religion as “the opium of the people”, to which Aron responded with a fitting verdict on Marxist dogma titled The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955). Despite Aron’s political moderation and unfailing politeness, the left despised him and everything he stood for. They used to say, “Better be wrong with Sartre than right with Aron”.
5. Jean-François Revel (1924–2006), the philosopher and journalist, is one of my all-time favourite authors. A left-wing socialist until the late 1960s, he converted first to social democracy, then to classical liberalism. He was a brilliant and witty polemicist who became known as “the George Orwell of France”. He wrote a number of books condemning communism and defending freedom, including The Totalitarian Temptation (1976), How Democracies Perish (1983), The Flight from Truth (1992) and Anti-Americanism (2003).
Thanks so much John. You are certainly correct here.
With Bernard-Henri Lévy (often known as “BHL” in France) there is material worthy of attention and some less. The “great contribution” of the Nouveaux Philosophes was just dropping communism. Solzhenitsyn had a huge impact in France, but many dogmatically stuck to communism, or softened their dogma by calling it “socialism”. All kinds of excuses were made to deny the facts that Solzhenitsyn shoved in their faces…
I read BHL’s book “American Vertigo” (in the original French), which is basically a road-trip memoir of a 2005 trip through the US. In this book, we see BHL still clearly in sync with the American Left, and cozying up to Barak Obama (at the time at the hight of his popularity). BHL doesn’t hide his contempt with American pop culture. But BHL is not your typical America-Hating French intellectual. About Protestantism in the US, BHL is ambivalent. He checked out a few mega-churches and was not impressed. He canNOT forgive their rejection of LGBTQ propaganda… On the other hand, the Amish got his respect. And he does admit that for the great majority of cases, Christians in the US are NOT enemies of democracy and freedom… Wonder if he’ll speak up about the Charlie Kirk assassination… BHL also offers the typical lefty critiques of US politics. That said, he makes a telling remark about the ideological emptiness of the Democratic Party. Basically interesting in POWER, and nothing else…
Thanks for that Paul. Yes, Lévy being right on Communism and Islamism does not mean he was right on everything else sadly. He is worth keeping in our prayers.
I just posted a French review of the original French text of Lévy’s Solitude d’Israël. It’s available here
As an old converted leftist, I read with interest about people who have abandoned the path that leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat
The publishing house Coeckelberghs published the barbarian book in 1978 in Swedish “Barbari med Mänskligt ansikt”
The question is whether we Christians are prepared to accept lost leftists who are tired of activism, know-it-all attitudes and meaningless discussion.
I’m not entirely sure, but this can be changed…!!
You are a forerunner in this and hope that more “progressive” will find your texts down there in Melbourne.
Be blessed in your (missionary) mission
RÖ
Many thanks Rolf.
Bill, I am most impressed by the French thinker and author, Bernard-Henri Lévy, whom you have profiled above.
Thank you for selecting and curating excerpts from some of his writings.
How sad it is that the French thinkers whose writings are still so widely taught in Western universities are the left-wing wreckers of civilisation that you list above, i.e., Sartre and de Beauvoir (the couple from Hell), Foucault (a disciple of the aristocratic French libertine, Marquis de Sade, father of sadism), Derrida (“the mad axeman of Western philosophy”, according to Johann Hari), and Lyotard. (The comments in brackets are mine…).
Fortunately, I have never fallen under the spell of these five agents of social decomposition.
Instead, I’ve long been devoted to the writings of five immeasurably superior French thinkers, who are renowned as eloquent defenders of Western civilisation:
1. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), the diplomat, political philosopher and historian, was author of classic work, Democracy in America (two vols, 1835/40), and today is regarded as a major conservative thinker, ranking with the great Edmund Burke (1729–1797).
2. Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), the French Catholic philosopher and author, was influential in the development and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in 1948 was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations — one of the few praiseworthy UN decisions. A few years later, Maritain became a leading figure in the anti-communist Congress for Cultural Freedom.
3. André Maurois (1885–1967), an historian and friend of Winston Churchill, chronicled the May–June 1940 fall of France before Hitler’s onslaught. He recorded these events in two books, Tragedy in France: An Eyewitness Account (1940) and Why France Fell (1941).
4. Raymond Aron (1905–1983), a philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, was one of France’s most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. After the defeat of France in 1940 he managed to escape to London where he joined General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces, editing the newspaper, France Libre (Free France). Aron was vehemently opposed to totalitarian ideologies of the right and of the left. Marx famously dismissed religion as “the opium of the people”, to which Aron responded with a fitting verdict on Marxist dogma titled The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955). Despite Aron’s political moderation and unfailing politeness, the left despised him and everything he stood for. They used to say, “Better be wrong with Sartre than right with Aron”.
5. Jean-François Revel (1924–2006), the philosopher and journalist, is one of my all-time favourite authors. A left-wing socialist until the late 1960s, he converted first to social democracy, then to classical liberalism. He was a brilliant and witty polemicist who became known as “the George Orwell of France”. He wrote a number of books condemning communism and defending freedom, including The Totalitarian Temptation (1976), How Democracies Perish (1983), The Flight from Truth (1992) and Anti-Americanism (2003).
You yourself, Bill, have reviewed and promoted Revel’s writings on your website, e.g.:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2004/09/26/a-review-of-anti-americanism-by-jean-francois-revel/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2021/09/04/how-democracies-perish/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/02/03/warnings-unheeded-on-how-democracies-perish/
Revel’s writings also get a favourable mention in your 1990 book, Modern Conservative Thought, in which you list his How Democracies Perish (1983) among your ten top conservative book titles (out of 714 featured in your annotated bibliography). See:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/04/17/modern-conservative-thought-a-personal-odyssey/
Thanks so much John. You are certainly correct here.
With Bernard-Henri Lévy (often known as “BHL” in France) there is material worthy of attention and some less. The “great contribution” of the Nouveaux Philosophes was just dropping communism. Solzhenitsyn had a huge impact in France, but many dogmatically stuck to communism, or softened their dogma by calling it “socialism”. All kinds of excuses were made to deny the facts that Solzhenitsyn shoved in their faces…
I read BHL’s book “American Vertigo” (in the original French), which is basically a road-trip memoir of a 2005 trip through the US. In this book, we see BHL still clearly in sync with the American Left, and cozying up to Barak Obama (at the time at the hight of his popularity). BHL doesn’t hide his contempt with American pop culture. But BHL is not your typical America-Hating French intellectual. About Protestantism in the US, BHL is ambivalent. He checked out a few mega-churches and was not impressed. He canNOT forgive their rejection of LGBTQ propaganda… On the other hand, the Amish got his respect. And he does admit that for the great majority of cases, Christians in the US are NOT enemies of democracy and freedom… Wonder if he’ll speak up about the Charlie Kirk assassination… BHL also offers the typical lefty critiques of US politics. That said, he makes a telling remark about the ideological emptiness of the Democratic Party. Basically interesting in POWER, and nothing else…
Thanks for that Paul. Yes, Lévy being right on Communism and Islamism does not mean he was right on everything else sadly. He is worth keeping in our prayers.
I just posted a French review of the original French text of Lévy’s Solitude d’Israël. It’s available here
Solitude d’Israël par Bernard-Henri Lévy: Un compte rendu.
https://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/sc_soc/sc_po/SolitudedIsrael_PG.htm
One issue I address are the hypocritical demands made on Israel, that no other nation has to face… Am not sure this Ggl translate version will work
https://www-samizdat-qc-ca.translate.goog/cosmos/sc_soc/sc_po/SolitudedIsrael_PG.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp
For some reason, Ggl appears NOT to like my web site…
Many thanks again Paul.