Isaiah Berlin and Decency
It's as though I'd been handed a telegram announcing that I'd won a prize. Not a prizey-type prize, such as an Oscar or the Nobel, but a recognition, an honorable mention. The "telegram" is John Gray's review, in The New York Review of Books, of three books by or about Isaiah Berlin.
I've been drawn to Berlin for a long time, but because I'm not a student of philosophy I've had a hard time putting his work in any kind of context. Which is to say, understanding him. I think that John Gray has just handed me a context, however, and I look forward to reexamining The Proper Study of Mankind and Against the Current, the two Berlin titles in my library.
Not too far into his review, Mr Gray appears to complain that Berlin was not more precise, more systematic.
Continue reading about Isaiah Berlin at Portico.
Comments
Sorry to bother you, but I was amazed to find someone hates Frontgate as much as I do.
Posted by: ubermilf![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.portifex.com/DailyBlague/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 29, 2006 11:26 AM
RJ, I haven't read John Gray's review yet, nor have I read Berlin in years, but at one time I read much of his work; one reason why Berlin was not a systematic thinker is that he hated systems -- Marxism, Communism, Fascism, and other systems that insisted on a view of things that was supposedly true at all times and at all places, and for all kinds of people; whereas Berlin believed in the variety of things, and in the natural occurrence of conflict, contradiction, and change. At heart, he opposed systems because he was a general humanist; if you believe in a world order that is true at all times and in all places, you will either force or remove others who disagree -- hence the totalitarianism of the 20th century. Berlin's context was less intellectual, more historical. He lived for the nearly entire 20th century and witnessed its barbarity, which is why he once said that the best we could hope for was what he called a "minimally decent society." He might have been right.
Posted by: M. S. Smith![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.portifex.com/DailyBlague/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 29, 2006 01:39 PM
Thanks, Michael, for spelling out the important conflict between system and intellect on the one hand and history and experience on the other.
Posted by: R J Keefe![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.portifex.com/DailyBlague/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 29, 2006 04:42 PM