ABSTRACT
Faces of Moderation extends Craiutu’s previous research, which resulted in important publications on French liberalism, most notably on Alexis de Tocqueville, and on the Doctrinaires. This chapter explores the various facets of moderation through five intellectual and moral figures, each associated with a specific aspect of moderation: Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Norberto Bobbio, Michael Oakeshott and Adam Michnik. The crash of 2008, of which the banking system and its ability to influence the political system were the main culprits, further aggravated already rising inequalities, estranged the most vulnerable parts of society from politics, and eventually resulted in the election of Donald Trump in the US and the 2016 Brexit vote in the UK. Thus, both Churchill and Orwell, whose initial political instincts had been, respectively, anti-communism and anti-fascism, came to embody – albeit in very different ways – the spirit of resistance to totalitarianism.
