Political rifts among French intellectuals mirrored the Cold War’s polarizing pressure

Evidence

That year was a difficult one for France — which was probably also why the Koestler quarrel had become so heated. The country was ruled by a centrist coalition government, but this had come under attack both from the Communist left and from the right-wing Rassemblement du peuple français, led by the wartime head of the French forces in exile, General Charles de Gaulle. Sartre felt that the Gaullist party had become almost fascist in style, indulging in mass rallies and whipping up a personality cult around the leader. But Aron, who had been with the Free French in London and knew de Gaulle well, had much more sympathy for his approach and had moved well to the right of Sartre. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 788

Categorization

• XREF: The Sartre-Aron friendship rupture over Gaullism parallels the Camus-Sartre split over Communism in the previous chapter — the pattern of political loyalty hardening esthetic judgment about friendship. — connects to: Cold War pressures drove Horkheimer and Adorno apart from Marcuse’s leftism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 864; Postwar France saw America and the Soviet Union as rival visions of the future — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 546; Cold War bipolarity threatened the autonomy of French intellectual culture — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 489 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Cold War bipolarity threatened the autonomy of French intellectual culture #corroborates (0.90) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 489