Julien Benda (26 December 1867 – 7 June 1956) was a French philosopher and novelist, known as an essayist and

cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...

. He is best known for his short book, ''La Trahison des Clercs'' from 1927 (''The Treason of the Intellectuals'' or ''The Betrayal by the Intellectuals'').

Life

Born into a Jewish family in Paris, Benda had a secular upbringing. He was educated at the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

. After a period at the

École Centrale Paris École Centrale Paris (ECP; also known as École Centrale or Centrale) was a French grande école in engineering and science. It was also known by its official name ''École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures''. In 2015, École Centrale Paris mer ...

, he turned to history, and graduated at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in 1894. His father's death in 1889 left Benda independently wealthy. He wrote for '' La Revue Blanche'' from 1891 to 1903. His articles on the

Dreyfus affair The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francop ...

were collected and published as ''Dialogues''. He disagreed strongly with Henri Bergson, the leading light of French philosophy of his day, and launched an attack on him in 1911, when Bergson's reputation was at its height. In July 1937 he attended the Second International Writers' Congress, the purpose of which was to discuss the attitude of intellectuals to the war in Spain, held in

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

and

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

and attended by many writers including

André Malraux Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and Minister of Culture (France), minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Go ...

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by th ...

and Pablo Neruda. Benda survived the German occupation of France and the

Vichy regime Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

1940–1944, in

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Au ...

. The journal of Jean Guéhenno described his life there, and his character: "Unbearable, yet likeable." He died in

Fontenay-aux-Roses Fontenay-aux-Roses () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. In 1880 a girls school École Normale Supérieure was opened in the town. It was one of the most prestigious of Paris and ...

, on 7 June 1956.

Works

Benda is considered to be primarily an essayist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times. His single nomination for the

Goncourt Prize The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward o ...

was in 1912 for ''L'Ordination''. He lost out to André Savignon's novel ''Les filles de la pluie''. Voting was tied, and the casting vote went to Léon Hennique, in a notorious election that caused Hennique to give up the presidency of the Académie Goncourt.

''La Trahison des Clercs''

Benda is now best remembered for his short 1927 book ''La Trahison des Clercs'', a work of considerable influence. It was translated into English in 1928 by Richard Aldington; the U.S. edition was titled ''The Treason of the Intellectuals'', while the British edition was titled ''The Great Betrayal.'' Aldington's translation was republished in 2006 as ''The Treason of the Intellectuals'', with a new introduction by

Roger Kimball Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...

. This polemical essay argued that European intellectuals in the 19th and 20th centuries had often lost the ability to reason dispassionately about political and military matters, instead becoming apologists for crass nationalism, warmongering, and racism. Benda reserved his harshest criticisms for his fellow Frenchmen

Charles Maurras Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras (; ; 20 April 1868 – 16 November 1952) was a French author, politician, poet, and critic. He was an organizer and principal philosopher of ''Action Française'', a political movement that is monarchist, anti-par ...

and Maurice Barrès. Benda defended the measured and dispassionate outlook of

classical civilization Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...

and the internationalism of traditional Christianity. Closing this work, Benda darkly predicts that the augmentation of the "realistic" impulse to domination of the material world, justified by intellectuals into an "integral realism," risked producing an all-encompassing species-wide civilization that would completely cease "to situate the good outside the real world." Human aspirations, specifically after power, would become the sole end of society. In closing, he concludes bitterly, "And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died."Benda, Julien (1956). ''The Treason of the Intellectuals'', W. W. Norton and Co., pp. 202–203. Benda's word "clercs" was borrowed by Anne Appelbaum in her 2020 book '' Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism''.

Other works

Other works by Benda include ''Belphégor'' (1918), ''Uriel's Report'' (1926), and ''Exercises of a Man Buried Alive'' (1947), an attack on the contemporary French celebrities of his time. Most of the titles in the bibliography below were published during the last three decades of Benda's long life; he is emphatically a 20th-century author. In his 1933 publication ''Discours à la nation européenne,'' Benda responded to Johann Gottlieb Fichte's '' Addresses to the German Nation''.

Bibliography

* ''L'ordination'' – 1911 **English translation, ''The yoke of pity'', by Gilbert Cannan – 1913 * ''Les sentiments de Critias'' – 1917 * ''Belphégor : essai sur l'esthétique de la présente société française'' – 1919 * ''Les amorandes'' – 1922 * ''La croix de roses ; précédé d'un dialogue d'Eleuthère avec l'auteur'' – 1923 * ''Lettres à Mélisande'' – 1926 * ''La trahison des clercs'' – 1927 ** English translation,''The Betrayal of the Intellectuals'', by Richard Aldington: *** 1955 (1928). Beacon Press. Introduction by Herbert Read. ** ''The Treason of the Intellectuals'' *** 2006. Transaction Publishers. Introduction by

. * ''Cléanthis ou du Beau et de l'actuel'' – 1928 * ''Properce, ou, Les amants de Tibur'' – 1928 * ''La Fin de l’Éternel –'' 1929 * ''Appositions'' – 1930 * ''Esquisse d'une histoire des Français dans leur volonté d'être une nation'' – 1932 * ''Discours à la nation européenne'' – 1933 * ''La jeunesse d'un clerc'' – 1936 * ''Précision (1930–1937)'' – 1937 * ''Un régulier dans le siècle'' – 1937 * ''Un Régulier dans le siècle'' (Paris, Gallimard) 1938 * ''La grande épreuve des démocraties : essai sur les principes démocratiques : leur nature, leur histoire, leur valeur philosophique.'' – 1942 * ''Exercice d'un enterré vif, juin 1940-août 1944'' – 1945 * ''La France Byzantine, ou, Le triomphe de la littérature pure : Mallarmé, Gide, Proust, Valéry, Alain Giraudoux, Suarès, les Surréalistes : essai d'une psychologie originelle du littérateur'' – 1945 * ''Du poétique. Selon l'humanité, non-selon les poètes'' – 1946 * '' Non possumus. À propos d'une certaine poésie moderne'' – 1946 * ''Le rapport d'Uriel'' – 1946 * ''Tradition de l'existentialisme, ou, Les philosophies de la vie'' – 1947 * ''Du style d'idées : réflexions sur la pensée, sa nature, ses réalisations, sa valeur morale'' – 1948 * ''Trois idoles romantiques : le dynamisme, l'existentialisme, la dialectique matérialiste'' – 1948 * ''Les cahiers d'un clerc, 1936–1949'' – 1949 * ''La crise du rationalisme'' – 1949

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Benda, Julien 1867 births 1956 deaths Writers from Paris 19th-century French Jews 20th-century French philosophers French male non-fiction writers Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni