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Aleksander Smolar - How Raymond Aron influenced me (115/201)

929 views · Published 19 December 2018 · 2:19 · Indexed 13 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2018 · News & Politics

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To listen to more of Aleksander Smolar’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFwlxPLurqAOCrabBgGrqLA7

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation. [Listener: Vitek Tracz]

TRANSCRIPT: You could say that later, the paragon of these talents, was my next master, Raymond Aron, under whose huge influence I came when I was in Paris in his centre. I had terrible pangs of conscience because I was simultaneously involved in Polish affairs and I was aware, very aware, that I wasn't going to benefit fully from the extraordinary possibilities that I had at my disposal. Of the people who left, I believe that although others made careers for themselves, I was part of a group which was probably the most exclusive and intellectually the most sophisticated; it was a group made up of people who had gathered around Raymond Aron who himself was an extraordinary man. So you could say that paradoxically, I learned from his and many other books on sociology, philosophy, international relations, which he wrote or were written by people whom he regarded highly and who were both classic and contemporary authors. But perhaps I was most influenced by the way he saw and analysed the world, and this was the source of various conflicts I had with my friends and which still continue. I mean, I often maintain an objectivity in my analyses in relation to the environments I find myself in, believing that in some sense truth trumps everything – to paraphrase a famous classical author. In any case, this was often the reason for my sense of isolation. I mean that people who were very dear to me – that's how it was at the time both because of my social activity and my emotional identification – weren't very tolerant of the way I described things.

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