He was, therefore, deeply critical of what he perceived of as a form of intellectual dogmatism and fanaticism that held to a fixed framework of thought regardless of empirical evidence in opposition to it - a process akin to the creation of a kind of secular religion or faith system.Ī major focus of the criticism in the book is the work of a thinker such as Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the general tendency to fuse Marxist patterns of thought with Nietzschean and existentialist thinking that relegated prudence from politics. In particular, Aron considered that there was a form of intellectual dishonesty or hypocrisy at work in his time period, where some people were extremely critical of certain forms of government or society (such as capitalist democracy) but forgiving towards crimes and infractions committed in societies claiming to manifest the 'correct' ideology. as an opiate for the people." Īron was critical of Marxism in that he saw it as reneging on some of the basic advances made by human civilisations, such as the freedom of enquiry, freedom of controversy, freedom of criticism, and the vote.
The title of the book is an inversion of Karl Marx's famous dictum that religion is the opium of the people, and is a derivation from Simone Weil's quotation that "Marxism is undoubtedly a religion, in the lowest sense of the word. t has been continually used . It was first published in an English translation in 1957.Īron's focus is upon his criticism of the widespread intellectual adherence in his time to Marxism. The Opium of the Intellectuals ( French: L'Opium des intellectuels) is a book written by Raymond Aron and published in 1955.
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