Can We Learn from the Counter-Enlightenment? Isaiah Berlin did.
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- This is the second video in a series on the political thought of Sir Isaiah Berlin, whose work attempted to bridge the divide between varieties of universalism, which tend to lead to totalitarianism, and the particularism that emerged from the backlash against universalism from sources in Romanticism, Counter-Enlightenment and reactionary thought. In this video, I introduce key ideas from the "Against the Current" movements and discuss Berlin's strategy for coming to term with and positively engaging those ideas. Here is the URL to his "Two Concepts of Liberty" : cactus.dixie.edu/green/B_Readi... Crooked Timber of Humanity www.amazon.com/Crooked-Timber... Against the Current: www.amazon.com/Against-Curren...
I really like where you are going with this series. One of the most interesting and boldest claims of Berlin is when he says that the notion of sincerity or taking seriously interiority is rather recent. (Even as a psychological state). He loved to use the example of the wars of religion and how nobody on any side respected the sincerity of the beliefs of their opponents. That is, they never said "our opponents are horribly wrong and mistaken but at least they have the courage of their convictions and are true warriors for their beliefs" and so on. it was impossible for such a thought to have occurred to them. What mattered (in the classical world) was the law and if you followed the right law, not what your motives were. It was a worldview where there was only a sense of objectivity and an external objectivity at that, if that makes any sense, and Intent matters very little and Berlin says this only changed as late as the 1780s or so, with Romanticism. It is interesting to compare to our contemporary period where intention and motive counts for a great deal and even the notion of objectivity has come under attack for being artificial or less serious and authentic. Berlin would have been most amused by your use of the word dialectic since he disliked Hegel but you are onto something! You can hear the original of his essay with him reading here ruclips.net/video/0snaamkYDcg/видео.html
I found this video to be cogent, clear, and succinct. Well done.
Thank you for this lecture.
I really enjoyed this. Thanks for posting.
I really appreciate this.
Thanks!
Interesting that Berlin by this account appears to be open to violence, a la "Marxism," if not the Marx himself of the "Manifesto." We know that Marx himself opposes (generally) "coercion." I've got to read Berlin on Marx, one of the few books he published (he did not like to write/publish, I'm told). I'm reminded while listening to this brilliant lecture of two key lifelong interests, make that three: Nietzsche, Heidegger & Leo Strauss. All three are embraced by "liberals" and "conservatives." In my personal library is Vico's "New Science." I know that Leo Strauss did at least one grad seminar on Vico. As I listened to Berlin himself on You Tube, it occurred to me that Heidegger remains significantly "in the orbit" of Romanticism and its "sensibility." I mean, especially with his notion of Dasein, which is not about "universals," but rather about "particulars." Another author who came to mind was an obscure "Straussian," a lady, who wrote an essay of genius on "Othello": "On Begetting and Belonging in 'Othello'."
Very helpful, thanks. Why didn't Berlin engage with Gandhi? I think Gandhi more than any other political theories tried to capture this Berlin ideal.
I don't know why, but you're onto something. I found this article out there by someone who is doing a comparison of the two: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453714564459
Great intro to Berlin. Could you tell us the name and artist of the lovely painting of the woman that you show throughout the video? And does it have any relation to Berlin or is just one you like? Thanks.
That is a picture of Cristina Trivulzio Belgiojoso. I admire her, and before I wanted to "go public" I made videos like these using her image as my avatar, so to speak. Here's the Wikipedia article on her: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_Trivulzio_Belgiojoso
@@maurinacademy Thanks very much. She's a fascinating figure. I'm familiar with Henri Lehmann's work from his Portrait of Clementine (Mrs. Alphonse) Karr, which is one of my favorites, so I'll now add this portrait to my list. Cheers
Contemporary liberalism rejects or ignores all three of Berlin's points.
I really enjoy your videos. Always wondered how you'd feel with a genuine reactionary/fascist watching and enjoying your videos.
I don't think Berlin is really fair to Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment thinkers. He is interpreting everything through the spectacles of the French Reign of Terror under Robespierre and 20th century totalitarian movements (Nazism & Communism). As with Popper, he was trying to find "precursors" to the modern totalitarians. This leads to a great deal of hostile interpretations of philosophers who would undoubtedly have been appalled by the totalitarians.
I think the twentieth century intellectual in general had this sort of myopic tendency or historical trauma if you will, which led to a universal moralism of its own sort.
Calling the Romantics "counter enlightenment" and lumping together people as diverse as Vico and Herder with de Maistre is completely flatfooted.
What are then your recommendations?
I get your concern, but I disagree to an extent. Romanticism was conceived due to the counter-enlightenment and writings of Chateaubriand in the book "The Genius of Christianity". He was the first to illuminate the importance of human passions that later came to define "Romanticism".
This type of metahistory, at least when it comes to genealogy or namedropping of complex thinkers, can only ever be extremely reductive and ‘flattening.’ The proper way to do metahistory is like Spengler or Gebser.
Burke reminds me of today's China, under President Xi (and hence of, I suppose, the "Confucian mindset"): "As we go forward, in reality, we never forget our past." The motto of what has become known as "The China Model," is: "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." These past forty years, China has gotten a lot of things right, for example, poverty alleviation for 800 million people. Not to mention a very pragmatic (again, Confucian) approach to the solving of social problems (employment, education, housing, clean drinking water, decent health and morals, care for the disabled, care for the dependent elderly, improvements in human rights, especially for women, and much, much more). One of the most important of the "Chinese characteristics" is what is known as "China's whole-process, people-centered democracy." Marx is taken seriously, not the Soviet Marx, which did not work, but the real Marx, the man who hoped and dreamed of true freedom and true liberation for most people. What has been accomplished in China, since the great Deng Xiaoping, has been most remarkable. No society is perfect. But my impression is that the vast majority of China's 1.4 billion people will acknowledge, today, that significant progress has been made, not in terms of modern "Enlightenment" (although the Chinese do use what they find truly useful), but in terms of , yes, "modernization" (technology in virtually all domains of conceivable application--space, military, agriculture, government, etc.)...but with traditional "Chinese characteristics." Watch CGTN, and "see the difference."
he was a jew
And that is relevant because... 🤔
Stopped listening after the idiotic summary of Nazism
anti-Jew. pretty easy and accurate