1984
Copyright PERSEE 2003-2023. Works reproduced on the PERSEE website are protected by the general rules of the Code of Intellectual Property. For strictly private, scientific or teaching purposes excluding all commercial use, reproduction and communication to the public of this document is permitted on condition that its origin and copyright are clearly mentionned.
Michel Winock, « Les intellectuels dans le siècle », Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, ID : 10.3406/xxs.1984.1665
The worldly intellectuals, Michel Winock « Where are Gide, Malraux, Alain ? » lamented Mr. Max Gallo, the government spokesman, during the summer of 1983. Indeed, after the death of J.-P. Sartre and R. Aron, the French intelligentsia has been struck by lethargy ; it is less involved in politics and is more modestly trying to find a new ethics. Is this a sign of a civilization's exhaustion, or a promise of a new spurt of intelligence ? The author shows how much the history of the intellectuals, born at the time of the Dreyfus affair, was woven in ambiguities : the scholars have often turned coats ; the moralists of the 1930s resigned at Munich ; the committed partisans of the 1950s covered up the worst excesses of totalitarianism. The 1970s have brought doubt and often silence.