Politics as a vocation: Daniel Bensaïd between past and future.

Abstract

Born in 1946, in Toulouse, France, Daniel Bensaïd began his political and intellectual trajectory in the 1960’s, amid the struggle against the Vietnam war, and, in may-june 1968, under the atmosphere of youth and working-class revolt that shook the european country. Since then, he became one of the main voices of french radical left, while maintaining a singular intellectual presence, that had always transcended the lines of his political association. The article will problematize some of the fundamental moments of the political and intellectual itinerary of Daniel Bensaïd’s youth, namely, from the 1960’s till the second half of the 1980’s. It is a period of his trajectory that is not well known and is decisive to understand the Benjaminian turning point by which he would go through in the late 1980’s. Although under the limits of the militant perspective, it is possible to observe in his writings from this time an outline of some of the traits that would be central in his reflexions, notably from 1989 and on, when he became a recognized intellectual in french society, beyond the public linked to the radical left.