The essence of Western
culture, the basis of its success, the secret of its wide influence, is
liberty. Not universal suffrage, a
belated and disputable political institution, not the parliamentary system,
which is one democratic procedure among others, but the freedom of research and
criticism, gradually won, the freedom whose historical conditions have been the
duality of temporal and spiritual power, the limitation of State authority and
the autonomy of the universities.[1]
Raymond Aron, The
Opium of the Intellectuals, 1957 (English edition).
[1]
Raymond Aron, The Opium of the Intellectuals,
Intro. By Harvey C. Mansfield (New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers,
2009), pp. 259. The Opium of the Intellectuals was first published in French in
1955.
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