Benda, Julien - Treason And Tradition
TREASON AND TRADITION
Cry "Treason!"—It is to conjure the most powerful of political impulses. Had Benda reckoned on this, for all his talk of political passion? Small wonder that his catalogue of false clercs and true ones occasioned much violent controversy and much special pleading, little of which was well directed. Too often the reaction was to a vague impression, a capsule conception, or a pet instance, not to the elaborate statement of the Trahison and its ancillary works. So, one of Benda's critics argued that Sorel was essentially a moralist (but this was precisely Benda's point). Another agreed to condemn Sorel—along with Spencer, Barrés, and Maurras—but not Nietzsche; a third defended Nietzsche, but not Péguy; a fourth took the side of Péguy and Barrés together and scolded Benda for his blindness to "divine truth." Such protests need neither be multiplied nor examined seriatim. For the most part they were superficial as well as...
[The entire page is 9451 words long]
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