One of our finest his­to­ri­ans passed away on August 6th. Tony Judt, the author of numer­ous his­tor­i­cal works, with a pri­mary focus on French intel­lec­tu­als, passed away after a long bat­tle with ALS. He was 62.

I recently read his excel­lent Ill Fares the Land, which would have been a strong and timely work regard­less of how it was writ­ten. Given the fact that he dic­tated it while suf­fer­ing from the rav­ages of Lou Gehrig’s dis­ease made it all the more poignant and mov­ing. Here is the open­ing sec­tion, first pub­lished in the New York Review of Books:

Something is pro­foundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pur­suit of mate­r­ial self-​​interest: indeed, this very pur­suit now con­sti­tutes what­ever remains of our sense of col­lec­tive pur­pose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judi­cial rul­ing or a leg­isla­tive act: Is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a bet­ter soci­ety or a bet­ter world? Those used to be the polit­i­cal ques­tions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.

The mate­ri­al­is­tic and self­ish qual­ity of con­tem­po­rary life is not inher­ent in the human con­di­tion. Much of what appears “nat­ural” today dates from the 1980s: the obses­sion with wealth cre­ation, the cult of pri­va­ti­za­tion and the pri­vate sec­tor, the grow­ing dis­par­i­ties of rich and poor. And above all, the rhetoric that accom­pa­nies these: uncrit­i­cal admi­ra­tion for unfet­tered mar­kets, dis­dain for the pub­lic sec­tor, the delu­sion of end­less growth.

We can­not go on liv­ing like this. The lit­tle crash of 2008 was a reminder that unreg­u­lated cap­i­tal­ism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for res­cue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before, we can look for­ward to greater upheavals in years to come.

I have also read his The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century. A very strong work, putting the lives of key intel­lec­tu­als into their his­tor­i­cal con­text seam­lessly. It’s acces­si­ble, well-​​written, cogent. His death has reminded me again of the value of his work, the sharp­ness of his mind, and the inde­pen­dence of his thought. He will be greatly missed. The New York Review of Books has an excel­lent col­lec­tion of his essays, and it’s a great intro­duc­tory space for his con­tri­bu­tions to intel­lec­tual history:

Tony Judt at NYRB


Be Sociable, Share!

Related Posts: