The man who no longer expects miraculous changes either from a revolution or from an economic plan is not obliged to resign himself to the unjustifiable. It is because he likes individual human beings, participates in living communities, and respects the truth, that he refuses to surrender his soul to an abstract ideal of humanity, a tyrannical party, and an absurd scholasticism.
— Raymond Aron
Raymond Aron was a French political scientist, sociologist, and journalist who made major contributions to the study of totalitarianism, liberalism, Communism, and international relations.
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The Committed Observer (Le Spectateur Engagé) was the title of one of Raymond Aron’s popular works- a series of interviews with Jean-Louis Missika and Dominque Wolton published in 1981 spanning half a century of current affairs. However, this title also exemplified the life and work of Aron himself, who self-consciously succeeded in bridging theory and practice.
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A few months before his death in 1983, Raymond Aron discussed the riots of May, 1968 in France (French).
