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568 pages, Paperback
First published September 17, 1991
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About the author
Michael Ignatieff
69?books145?followersMichael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
April 5, 2018
Isaiah Berlin was the Forrest Gump of 20th century geopolitics. A child during the Russian revolution, serving the British Foreign Service in WWII, intimately involved in the formation of the state of Israel, etc, etc. Ignatieff writes a compelling narrative of his life while also doing justice to the ideas. Ignatieff¡¯s pacing is very good (the middle chapters on Berlin¡¯s return to Russia and the importance of Russian literature to his life are the best in the book). My only serious concern is the limitations of his methodology: this is very close to being an ¡°as-told-to¡± biography. The story is very dependent on Berlin¡¯s recounting. But perhaps the critical distance is for the second biography. In the meantime, Ignatieff has crafted a fine testament to the work of a philosopher in public who, no doubt, was a model for the trajectory of his own career.
December 14, 2017
This biography was published in 1998, the year after Berlin's death, many years before Ignatieff took the Canadian Liberal Party to their worst result ever. I confess that although I have been involved with politics for most of my adult life, I've had very little time for political philosophy. After reading this biography, I'm willing to concede that I may have missed out. Berlin's work on liberal political philosophy in an age of political extremes was of crucial importance to steer between different brands of totalitarianism in the years leading up to the Second World War, and to give the West friendly criticism during the Cold War. His life as an academic was not particularly interesting, but his life as a Russian emigrant who became a loyal British subject (yet always conscious of his origins) it fascinating. The relationship he had with Russian literature was crucial to his philosophy, and his most famous phrase, "The Hedgehog and the Fox" comes from an essay on Tolstoy. His November 1945 meeting with Anna Akhmatova in Moscow had profound effects on them both. Ignatieff clearly admired and loved Berlin, but is not uncritical of his political philosophy which he says looked more at the negative case of illiberalism than the positive case for liberalism; I don't feel qualified to judge.
There is one truly hilarious anecdote which I had not heard before. In the later stages of the Second World War, Berlin was posted to the British Embassy in Washington D.C. and wrote detailed and insightful reports back to Whitehall. Winston Churchill, hearing that Mr Berlin was in London for a few days, invited him for lunch with the Chief of the General Staff and others. But the lunch guest, surprisingly to Churchill, had a strong American accent and yet was only able to give vague and disappointing answers to Churchill's questions about the political and economic situation across the Atlantic. It turned out that there had been a mistake; Churchill had invited not Isaiah Berlin, but the composer Irving Berlin, author of "White Christmas". It seems too good to be true, but it's well documented.
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July 18, 2023I know nothing about philosphy and not enough about history but having read this I'm absolutely certain that in fact ¡°all I know is that I know nothing¡±.
How can it be that someone, anyone, can succesfully devote their entire life to thinking?
I enjoyed this book. I told my mum I was reading Isaiah Berlin, "ah!" she said "a man that is incomprehensible in at least 7 different languages!"
Well yes but not quite (as my mum would be happy to accept).
A shame that his message for the 21st Century went unheeded.
How can it be that someone, anyone, can succesfully devote their entire life to thinking?
I enjoyed this book. I told my mum I was reading Isaiah Berlin, "ah!" she said "a man that is incomprehensible in at least 7 different languages!"
Well yes but not quite (as my mum would be happy to accept).
A shame that his message for the 21st Century went unheeded.
February 8, 2019
Fantastic
August 31, 2021
I came away from this biography not knowing much more about Isaiah Berlin that when I'd started and with the impression that his principal talents were being a wonderful conversationalist and being in the right place at the right time, repeatedly.
Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the book, not because of the style of Ignatieff's writing (unexceptional, although easy to read) but rather because Berlin's life was so interesting: born in Latvia, childhood in London, student and teacher at Oxford, then during the war he worked as they eyes and ears of British gov't in Washington. In the succeeding years he seems to have been everywhere and met everyone who was anyone during the course of the 20th century.
He didn't seem to produce a great book or any tremendously original thought, but I came away from it green with envy at the life he lived and the people he'd met. A life less ordinary.
Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed the book, not because of the style of Ignatieff's writing (unexceptional, although easy to read) but rather because Berlin's life was so interesting: born in Latvia, childhood in London, student and teacher at Oxford, then during the war he worked as they eyes and ears of British gov't in Washington. In the succeeding years he seems to have been everywhere and met everyone who was anyone during the course of the 20th century.
He didn't seem to produce a great book or any tremendously original thought, but I came away from it green with envy at the life he lived and the people he'd met. A life less ordinary.
October 15, 2019
Its really the ideas of Berlin's that matter. For me, though I'm not fully in his camp, more left; though the idea that the ideologies of the 20thC were destructive is in line with how my father saw the world: a farm worker, under occupation from Nazis and a frightened teenager in the midst of a civil war, where you cannot be a passive observer. His world view - an uneducated one in terms of book learning, was about the avoidance of extreme views - and when I read Berlin's works and life, I realised that they had reached similar conclusions, using different methods. Extreme politics leads to extreme violence, destruction and instability. I'd still prefer a greater emphasis on the redistribution of resources to benefit all. But that's just me.
August 14, 2016
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January 11, 2023
Michael Ignatieff¡¯s biography of Isaiah Berlin was several years in the making. It became, or so it seemed, a shared project where the author did in fact enter into his subject¡¯s life to become more than a friend and certainly an actor in events. All the more credit is due to Michael Ignatieff, therefore, because the tone of this wonderful book is never fawning, never overtly adulatory and sufficiently detached to offer an assessment of the great man¡¯s work, as well as a description of a life.
Isaiah Berlin became over his long life a true and publicly identifiable pillar of the British establishment. He was a member of the Order of Merit, that select band of national treasures that only ever comprises twenty-four members. He was also an Oxford don, from an early age in All Souls of all places, where he didn¡¯t even have to teach. He knew the Freud family, eventually sitting for Lucian for a portrait, founded Wolfson College, Oxford and for good measure befriended Alfred Brendel. And this was only a small taste of Berlin¡¯s achievements. This quintessential Englishman, however, was Jewish, was born in Latvia, spent his childhood in St. Petersburg and spoke fluent Russian.
Born into wealth derived from his father¡¯s timber business in Latvia, he eventually found himself in an English public school and in an Oxford college. War, revolution and antisemitism chased the family across Europe to Britain, where they found stability.
Many of his friends and acquaintances confirmed that Isaiah Berlin had the gift of the gab. He talked a lot and seemed to be able to philosophise ¡®off the cuff¡¯. He wrote less, considerably less. Somehow, he secured a position at Oxford. Always a left-leaning liberal with conservative libertarian tendencies, he remained hard to pin down politically. The fluent Russian clearly facilitated various Cold War and wartime roles. He may have been na?ve as to the nature of his work, but one doubts it. Teaching roles in the United States brought him into contact also with the establishment and Washington bigwigs.
Undoubtedly, Isaiah Berlin was a thinker. But he himself shied away from the label ¡®philosopher¡¯. This passage seems to some of the rational versus emotional dilemmas that seemed to haunt him throughout his life. ¡°The Enlightenment philosophers ¡ assumed that human values could be derived from facts about human nature. They believed that all men wanted the same things and that these things were not in conflict. The entire Western agenda of ameliorative reform derived from this optimistic rationalism. Berlin¡¯s dilemma was how to rescue what was positive in the Enlightenment project from what was tyrannous. What was positive was clear enough: the attack on religious authority and dogma; the campaign for human rights and personal freedom against state tyranny; the faith in human reason itself. In these respects, Isaiah was himself Voltairian to the core. He could see, however, that Enlightenment rationalism was deeply flawed. Human values could not be securely derived from human nature. This was what the Romantic thinkers had understood. Values were created by me in their struggle to master themselves, their society and their natural world. Values, therefore, were historical, relative to the cultures that engendered them and contradictory, since human nature itself was contradictory.¡±
He was a lover of music, as his passion for concert going illustrated. Music, it seems, allowed him greater emotional stability. ¡°In and through music, he learned emotional pitch, learned to distinguish between true and false feeling. He always had a vivid sense of the difficulty of knowing what one feels and expressing these emotions without sentimentality. This is why his love of music was both aesthetic and ethical. For it was in the concert hall that he grasped the nature of emotional authenticity.¡±
Until middle age, he seemed to live an arms-length from emotional or physical love. And then, with stunning unpredictability, he fell for a married woman with a family and stayed with her until the end of his long life.
Michael Ignatieff¡¯s biography is finally drawn. The reader may feel that even by the end Isaiah Berlin has not really revealed himself, but then the fundamental point he seemed to make was that we are all jumbled of influences and conflicts. In the end, death is not part of life and life is merely what you live. Starting points, however, as well as ends, do differ.
Isaiah Berlin became over his long life a true and publicly identifiable pillar of the British establishment. He was a member of the Order of Merit, that select band of national treasures that only ever comprises twenty-four members. He was also an Oxford don, from an early age in All Souls of all places, where he didn¡¯t even have to teach. He knew the Freud family, eventually sitting for Lucian for a portrait, founded Wolfson College, Oxford and for good measure befriended Alfred Brendel. And this was only a small taste of Berlin¡¯s achievements. This quintessential Englishman, however, was Jewish, was born in Latvia, spent his childhood in St. Petersburg and spoke fluent Russian.
Born into wealth derived from his father¡¯s timber business in Latvia, he eventually found himself in an English public school and in an Oxford college. War, revolution and antisemitism chased the family across Europe to Britain, where they found stability.
Many of his friends and acquaintances confirmed that Isaiah Berlin had the gift of the gab. He talked a lot and seemed to be able to philosophise ¡®off the cuff¡¯. He wrote less, considerably less. Somehow, he secured a position at Oxford. Always a left-leaning liberal with conservative libertarian tendencies, he remained hard to pin down politically. The fluent Russian clearly facilitated various Cold War and wartime roles. He may have been na?ve as to the nature of his work, but one doubts it. Teaching roles in the United States brought him into contact also with the establishment and Washington bigwigs.
Undoubtedly, Isaiah Berlin was a thinker. But he himself shied away from the label ¡®philosopher¡¯. This passage seems to some of the rational versus emotional dilemmas that seemed to haunt him throughout his life. ¡°The Enlightenment philosophers ¡ assumed that human values could be derived from facts about human nature. They believed that all men wanted the same things and that these things were not in conflict. The entire Western agenda of ameliorative reform derived from this optimistic rationalism. Berlin¡¯s dilemma was how to rescue what was positive in the Enlightenment project from what was tyrannous. What was positive was clear enough: the attack on religious authority and dogma; the campaign for human rights and personal freedom against state tyranny; the faith in human reason itself. In these respects, Isaiah was himself Voltairian to the core. He could see, however, that Enlightenment rationalism was deeply flawed. Human values could not be securely derived from human nature. This was what the Romantic thinkers had understood. Values were created by me in their struggle to master themselves, their society and their natural world. Values, therefore, were historical, relative to the cultures that engendered them and contradictory, since human nature itself was contradictory.¡±
He was a lover of music, as his passion for concert going illustrated. Music, it seems, allowed him greater emotional stability. ¡°In and through music, he learned emotional pitch, learned to distinguish between true and false feeling. He always had a vivid sense of the difficulty of knowing what one feels and expressing these emotions without sentimentality. This is why his love of music was both aesthetic and ethical. For it was in the concert hall that he grasped the nature of emotional authenticity.¡±
Until middle age, he seemed to live an arms-length from emotional or physical love. And then, with stunning unpredictability, he fell for a married woman with a family and stayed with her until the end of his long life.
Michael Ignatieff¡¯s biography is finally drawn. The reader may feel that even by the end Isaiah Berlin has not really revealed himself, but then the fundamental point he seemed to make was that we are all jumbled of influences and conflicts. In the end, death is not part of life and life is merely what you live. Starting points, however, as well as ends, do differ.
April 19, 2023
I¡¯d wanted to read Isaiah Berlin: A Life, Michael Ignatieff¡¯s biography of the eminent British thinker, for quite a while. I¡¯d greatly enjoyed Berlin¡¯s essays (Russian Thinkers, an anthology of writings on Russian 19th-century thought, is a personal favorite), and I also knew Berlin had lived a very rewarding life socially. Certainly the story of a man who spent a night with Anna Akhmatova (though not doing what you might think they were doing), exchanged confidences with Boris Pasternak at the writer¡¯s dacha, and hobnobbed with heads of state, should be an interesting one to read. I have now consumed Ignatieff¡¯s biography at last, and though this well-written book has enriched my understanding of Berlin the man, I was left feeling vaguely underwhelmed. As I will explain later, that is not the biographer¡¯s fault.
Berlin was born in 1909 in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then a provincial Baltic city in tsarist Russia. Given his background (unadulteratedly Jewish), things could have turned out quite tragically for him, as they did for millions of people born under a similar constellation. But, in a pattern that would define his entire life, Berlin lucked out. His father, a prosperous timber merchant, was prescient enough to evacuate the family to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) as the Germans approached during the First World War, and to pack up again once the family had had a taste of the nascent Bolshevik state. Had the Berlins decided to stay in the Soviet Union, Isaiah¡¯s life would have played out quite differently. Instead, they bolted to England. The rest, for the young Berlin, was not so much history as a fairy tale. I am exaggerating ¡ª but only slightly.
He was an exceptionally fortunate man. His life would span most of the 20th century, yet Berlin would manage to sidestep just about all of its vicissitudes. Though rather unprepossessing in appearance (¡°A noble rather than a handsome face,¡± Ignatieff diplomatically writes of Berlin¡¯s bookish mien), Berlin was highly cerebral and intelligent; more usefully, he was a gifted raconteur who could charm his way into any setting. If we are to accept the shopworn adage that what matters is not what you know but who, Berlin used what he knew to meet the people it was worth knowing. Enrolling at Oxford, with which he would enjoy a lifelong association, Berlin went on to become a fellow at All Souls, the first Jew to have been so honored. As an All Souls fellow, he led a nearly enchanted existence, writing about Marx while (a bit incongruously, yes ¡ª but Berlin was a past master at managing the incongruous) spending weekends with Anglo-Jewish families so wealthy they were, as Ignatieff puts it, unsnubbable. How many university students can boast of being sent home on a light plane owned by the Rothschilds after complaining that the commute back to the school is too long? Not that Berlin boasted ¡ª although he adored and sought out distinguished company, he seemed to wear his good fortune rather lightly.
The Second World War put an end to this academic idyll, and in 1940 Berlin traveled to the US to help in the war effort. His final destination was in fact the British Embassy in Moscow, but a misunderstanding prevented him from completing his journey, and he found himself in New York ¡°high and dry.¡± Not for long. He quickly adapted himself to his new milieu, and while the war raged on the other side of the ocean, Berlin shuttled between New York and Washington, writing reports for the British government and cultivating a network that included such grandees as Katharine Graham, David Ben-Gurion, and Chaim Weizmann. Not exactly a hardship tour, then. But it could be hard all the same. Though perfectly assimilated and mostly secular, Berlin still identified with his roots, a situation that inevitably led to a conflict of identity and, in his circumstances, a conflict of interest. As a British national, his job was to drum up support for US involvement in the war; as a Jew, he felt obligated to represent Jews persecuted by the Nazis and, trickier still, Zionist ambitions to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, then under British control. It was an impossible situation. As Berlin wrote in one of his best essays, ¡°Benjamin Disraeli, Karl Marx and the Search for Identity¡± (I am convinced the piece was as much an attempt to grapple with Berlin¡¯s own identity issues as with those of Disraeli and Marx), such situations produce suffering, even if the suffering is occasionally accompanied by genius. He tried to resolve the conflict as best as he could. In practical terms, this meant that unless Berlin felt the Jews faced an existential threat, his loyalty to England superseded all other considerations.
The reports Berlin dispatched to London were so well written they eventually landed on Churchill¡¯s desk. The prime minister was sufficiently impressed to inquire after the author¡¯s identity, and Berlin would later be one of the individuals consulted on fragments of Churchill¡¯s memoirs. After the war was over, Berlin was sent to Moscow ¡ª making it to the Soviet Union after all ¡ª to put his native language and writing skills to good use. Berlin¡¯s job was to form an impression of Soviet life, which amounted to little more than preparing weekly digests of the press. He got his own desk at the Chancery but spent little time at it; the best work was done elsewhere. His good fortune had followed him to the USSR; within days of arrival, Berlin was schmoozing with Korney Chukovsky, Sergei Eisenstein, Lina Prokofiev, and other mavericks of the Soviet intelligentsia. These connections opened more doors. His new acquaintances, impressed with a Brit who not only spoke Russian but appeared to think like one, were instrumental in helping him establish contact with writers blacklisted for their putative political unreliability. He had fruitful meetings with Boris Pasternak and ran into Mikhail Zoshchenko in a bookstore. But it was with the poetess Anna Akhmatova, by then living in a state of semi-purdah, that Berlin had his legendary encounter. He¡¯d managed to wangle an invitation to her communal apartment in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and the two stayed up all night talking about literature. There was plenty of mutual attraction, but at different amplitudes. Akhmatova was old enough to be Berlin¡¯s mother, and he could not have regarded her as anything other than the grand dame of Russian poetry. For the poetess, however, the t¨ºte-¨¤-t¨ºte was invested with a much deeper meaning. It is possible Berlin might have caused Akhmatova¡¯s ageing heart to palpitate (she would never forgive Berlin for getting married a decade later), though we can¡¯t know for sure. The fact remains that Akhmatova was so captivated by her British guest that he would make it into her verse; in fact, she would later claim their nocturnal rendezvous had more or less precipitated the Cold War. If this seems a touch megalomaniacal, consider that, unlike the peripatetic Berlin, Akhmatova eventually had to deal with the consequences of his visit. Soviet citizens were not supposed to consort with foreigners, and certainly not if said citizens had already been unpersoned by the government. Akhmatova¡¯s brief intellectual dalliance with a British national was ultimately used against her.
Upon the completion of his Soviet assignment, Berlin abandoned his career as a government official, if that¡¯s what it was, and returned to doing what he was best at ¡ª imparting knowledge and moving in high society. He wrote, taught, gave a series of highly popular radio lectures, and made a name for himself. Although he had no personal life to speak of during the first half of his life ¡ª Ignatieff hints that Berlin¡¯s was a case of a forty-year-old virgin ¡ª once he decided to end his asceticism, the gods smiled upon him yet again. After a false start or two, he ended up successfully wooing Aline Halban, the daughter of a Russian-born French-Jewish baron. No one could believe it. The bride¡¯s mother, upon hearing the news, exclaimed, ¡°Mais il est in¨¦pousable!¡± Thus the baroness on her future son-in-law. Even the bride (who, unlike Berlin, had had a good deal of matrimonial experience) seemed to have doubts; as Halban later said, in a rather uncharitable acknowledgement that their alliance was morganatic, she was Western Europe, while Berlin represented its eastern half. The Rue du Faubourg versus the shtetl, that sort of thing. The marriage took place all the same, and Berlin moved into his wife¡¯s manor, where he was doted on by her servants. Though they had no issue (Halban was already a mother by her two previous marriages), the union was by all accounts a cloudless one, and the couple would spend the rest of their lives together. In 1957, Berlin was knighted for his work ¡ª one of the numerous awards he received throughout his life ¡ª and became Sir Isaiah Berlin, an improbable honor for the Riga-born son of a Jewish timber merchant. The next several decades were marked by more prolific writing, academic work, and continued success. Berlin died in 1997, widely admired and venerated.
Ignatieff¡¯s biography is an authorized one, and the author was given unfettered access to both Berlin and his inner circle. To Berlin¡¯s great credit, he took care to make sure the book did not become a hagiography. It was stipulated that Berlin would not read the manuscript and that the book be published posthumously. As Berlin¡¯s biographer, Ignatieff certainly tries to be as objective as a man who spent years working with his subject ¡ª and seems to have greatly enjoyed the company ¡ª possibly can be. Ignatieff demonstrates much tact; his treatment of Berlin is candid but free of any muckraking (not that Berlin¡¯s life lent itself to any). While the result is certainly not a hagiography, Berlin comes across as mostly lovable ¡ª even in situations when he is not. He is quite unlike the Berlin we meet in Edmund Wilson¡¯s The Sixties ¡ª a gossiping, garrulous prima donna capable of talking anyone to death. But by the 1960s, Wilson was, by his own admission, drinking more than a sailor and flinging ashtrays at people. So: a hard man to please. A more interesting text is Norman Podhoretz¡¯s takedown in Commentary. The dissenting piece is concerned entirely with Berlin and draws heavily on Ignatieff¡¯s biography. After introducing Berlin as an ¡°extraordinarily brilliant man¡± with whom he wishes he¡¯d spent more time, Podhoretz proceeds to dismantle what he feels is, on the whole, an inflated reputation. It is not only the corpus sustaining Berlin¡¯s reputation that Podhoretz questions, but also his personal qualities ¡ª specifically, the charge of cowardice that plagued Berlin throughout his life. Ignatieff, for his part, does not shy away from addressing either one, though in this enterprise he is, first and foremost, Berlin¡¯s attorney.
On the subject of Berlin¡¯s alleged lack of courage, I find Ignatieff¡¯s defense of him persuasive. Berlin was a committed liberal in the classic sense of the word: he believed one ought to share space with those who thought differently. This is a precept many modern liberals have forgotten. Ignatieff recounts a dinner that Berlin attended in the US sometime in the 1940s. During the dinner, Berlin was upbraided for socializing with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, a cousin of the US president, because of her supposed reactionary views (she only happened to be a vehement opponent of the New Deal). Berlin rejected this attempt at what we would now call cancel culture; he saw no reason why he shouldn¡¯t associate with people of opposing views. A genuinely liberal world entailed not a plurality of echo chambers, but one of opinions and moral systems. This was not insipid relativism. Berlin recognized there were universal evaluations common to all societies. But if societies tended to punish the same things, they did not necessarily embrace the same virtues. This was a fact of life, and to be liberal was to acknowledge this reality. Berlin¡¯s openness to understand the Other informed his work; he was fascinated by ideological archenemies and wrote extensively about men like Joseph de Maistre, a reactionary figure with a violently dark Weltanschauung. This latitudinarianism, however laudable, did not endear him to those with a Manichaean or black-and-white view of the world, who thought a man ought to be judged strictly by the company he kept. As they saw it, Berlin hunted with the hare and the hounds.
Though certainly a man of clear political beliefs (on the traditional political compass, Berlin was positioned left-of-center, even if he mostly socialized with conservatives), he was usually not one to take positions or ¡°speak out.¡± He avoided weighing in on hot-button issues and entering frays, and seemed in his Zen-like detachment to be above it all (as Ignatieff himself admits, Berlin¡¯s trademark equanimity is easy to cultivate when you live a life of unmitigated privilege). This led others to believe he lacked courage; Berlin¡¯s affinity for the Russian writer Turgenev, who was rumored to have behaved rather ungentlemanly on a steamboat that had caught fire, was seen as confirmation that he was keenly aware of his own cowardice. Berlin, after all, had even translated a Turgenev story in which the writer fictionalized the steamboat episode ¡ª no doubt to address the lingering rumors ¡ª and read it on BBC Radio. But, as Ignatieff argues on behalf of Berlin, men should not be held up to romantic standards of heroism, which are only a form of moral tyranny. To be valiant is not to risk losing one¡¯s life, but to avoid losing one¡¯s head when everyone else is losing theirs. For Berlin¡¯s critics, this argument is a cop-out; I am not so sure. People of Berlin¡¯s sophistication understand that the world is a complex place where easy solutions are few and far between; aware of their fallibility and endowed with a heightened awareness of their intellectual limitations, they constantly vacillate and second-guess themselves. They remain noncommittal not out of fear, but out of fear that they might err; sadly, that is not how things are seen or interpreted by others.
The question of the scale of Berlin¡¯s achievements is more problematic. When Berlin was knighted, an old flame congratulated him for his ¡°services to conversation.¡± A witty barb, but writing earlier about Berlin¡¯s knighthood, I realized that I wasn¡¯t quite sure what it was that had got Berlin the peerage. Curiously, Ignatieff doesn¡¯t provide details either. Berlin is often described as a philosopher, and Ignatieff attempts to uphold this reputation, claiming that Berlin had original ideas of his own. If so, they were lost on me. To be sure, Berlin thought of himself not as a philosopher but as a historian of ideas ¡ª an apt way to put it since he occupied the noetic hinterland between philosophy and history. Though he has gone down in history as a writer, he curiously did not enjoy writing and dictated his texts instead. But what marvelous texts! He left behind a number of first-rate anthologies that include excellent essays on Machiavelli, de Maistre, Herzen, Vico, and others, along with the classic ¡°The Hedgehog and the Fox.¡± The latter is noteworthy not only for its subject (an examination of Tolstoy¡¯s historiosophy), but for what it reveals about the author¡¯s personal preoccupations. Borrowing a line from the Greek poet Archilochus (the fox knows many things, while the hedgehog knows one big thing), Berlin attempts to demonstrate that Tolstoy was a fox who always wanted to be a hedgehog. Apparently, so was Berlin. Ignatieff writes that Berlin was forever haunted by the idea of writing a defining work that would guarantee his legacy, his crowning masterpiece and magnum opus, his one big thing. Alas, it was the one thing the gods denied him. He was not a creator but an interpreter, an intermediary, a Kulturtr?ger destined to feed off others¡¯ ideas. To use Archilochus¡¯s metaphor, Berlin was a fox forever feted as a hedgehog ¡ª that, I think, is the primary objection of his detractors. It¡¯s not that the emperor was naked, he just didn¡¯t wear what everyone claimed he did. Perhaps. Personally, I find the question of whether Berlin is overrated as a thinker, or historian of ideas, or whatever it is he was, unimportant. His writings have filled my hours with pleasure and were a source of inspiration. For me, that is quite sufficient.
If Ignatieff¡¯s biography feels incomplete or lacking in some way, which it did to me, it is not because Berlin¡¯s actual legacy fails to stack up to his reputation. The problem is that he lived a life too charmed. As someone says in a Thackeray novel, the best thing one can be sent is a little misfortune. Misfortunes are like the change in seasons ¡ª we might prefer clement weather all year round, but an eternal summer can turn us into indolent lotus-eaters. Life is best experienced in its variety. I recognize this is scant consolation for those who have to deal with misfortunes, and I doubt I would be especially receptive to panegyrics on suffering in the face of misfortunes of my own. I don¡¯t have a martyr complex and am very much anti-hardship. It is certainly a very good thing that Berlin¡¯s life was serene and prosperous, and much of the criticism lobbed at Berlin surely contains an admixture of envy. But men of true genius are rarely very happy, and I wonder if it was Berlin¡¯s life, so well-rounded and complete, that stood in the way of his becoming the hedgehog he longed to be. Complete lives don¡¯t always make for complete biographies.
Berlin was born in 1909 in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then a provincial Baltic city in tsarist Russia. Given his background (unadulteratedly Jewish), things could have turned out quite tragically for him, as they did for millions of people born under a similar constellation. But, in a pattern that would define his entire life, Berlin lucked out. His father, a prosperous timber merchant, was prescient enough to evacuate the family to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) as the Germans approached during the First World War, and to pack up again once the family had had a taste of the nascent Bolshevik state. Had the Berlins decided to stay in the Soviet Union, Isaiah¡¯s life would have played out quite differently. Instead, they bolted to England. The rest, for the young Berlin, was not so much history as a fairy tale. I am exaggerating ¡ª but only slightly.
He was an exceptionally fortunate man. His life would span most of the 20th century, yet Berlin would manage to sidestep just about all of its vicissitudes. Though rather unprepossessing in appearance (¡°A noble rather than a handsome face,¡± Ignatieff diplomatically writes of Berlin¡¯s bookish mien), Berlin was highly cerebral and intelligent; more usefully, he was a gifted raconteur who could charm his way into any setting. If we are to accept the shopworn adage that what matters is not what you know but who, Berlin used what he knew to meet the people it was worth knowing. Enrolling at Oxford, with which he would enjoy a lifelong association, Berlin went on to become a fellow at All Souls, the first Jew to have been so honored. As an All Souls fellow, he led a nearly enchanted existence, writing about Marx while (a bit incongruously, yes ¡ª but Berlin was a past master at managing the incongruous) spending weekends with Anglo-Jewish families so wealthy they were, as Ignatieff puts it, unsnubbable. How many university students can boast of being sent home on a light plane owned by the Rothschilds after complaining that the commute back to the school is too long? Not that Berlin boasted ¡ª although he adored and sought out distinguished company, he seemed to wear his good fortune rather lightly.
The Second World War put an end to this academic idyll, and in 1940 Berlin traveled to the US to help in the war effort. His final destination was in fact the British Embassy in Moscow, but a misunderstanding prevented him from completing his journey, and he found himself in New York ¡°high and dry.¡± Not for long. He quickly adapted himself to his new milieu, and while the war raged on the other side of the ocean, Berlin shuttled between New York and Washington, writing reports for the British government and cultivating a network that included such grandees as Katharine Graham, David Ben-Gurion, and Chaim Weizmann. Not exactly a hardship tour, then. But it could be hard all the same. Though perfectly assimilated and mostly secular, Berlin still identified with his roots, a situation that inevitably led to a conflict of identity and, in his circumstances, a conflict of interest. As a British national, his job was to drum up support for US involvement in the war; as a Jew, he felt obligated to represent Jews persecuted by the Nazis and, trickier still, Zionist ambitions to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, then under British control. It was an impossible situation. As Berlin wrote in one of his best essays, ¡°Benjamin Disraeli, Karl Marx and the Search for Identity¡± (I am convinced the piece was as much an attempt to grapple with Berlin¡¯s own identity issues as with those of Disraeli and Marx), such situations produce suffering, even if the suffering is occasionally accompanied by genius. He tried to resolve the conflict as best as he could. In practical terms, this meant that unless Berlin felt the Jews faced an existential threat, his loyalty to England superseded all other considerations.
The reports Berlin dispatched to London were so well written they eventually landed on Churchill¡¯s desk. The prime minister was sufficiently impressed to inquire after the author¡¯s identity, and Berlin would later be one of the individuals consulted on fragments of Churchill¡¯s memoirs. After the war was over, Berlin was sent to Moscow ¡ª making it to the Soviet Union after all ¡ª to put his native language and writing skills to good use. Berlin¡¯s job was to form an impression of Soviet life, which amounted to little more than preparing weekly digests of the press. He got his own desk at the Chancery but spent little time at it; the best work was done elsewhere. His good fortune had followed him to the USSR; within days of arrival, Berlin was schmoozing with Korney Chukovsky, Sergei Eisenstein, Lina Prokofiev, and other mavericks of the Soviet intelligentsia. These connections opened more doors. His new acquaintances, impressed with a Brit who not only spoke Russian but appeared to think like one, were instrumental in helping him establish contact with writers blacklisted for their putative political unreliability. He had fruitful meetings with Boris Pasternak and ran into Mikhail Zoshchenko in a bookstore. But it was with the poetess Anna Akhmatova, by then living in a state of semi-purdah, that Berlin had his legendary encounter. He¡¯d managed to wangle an invitation to her communal apartment in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and the two stayed up all night talking about literature. There was plenty of mutual attraction, but at different amplitudes. Akhmatova was old enough to be Berlin¡¯s mother, and he could not have regarded her as anything other than the grand dame of Russian poetry. For the poetess, however, the t¨ºte-¨¤-t¨ºte was invested with a much deeper meaning. It is possible Berlin might have caused Akhmatova¡¯s ageing heart to palpitate (she would never forgive Berlin for getting married a decade later), though we can¡¯t know for sure. The fact remains that Akhmatova was so captivated by her British guest that he would make it into her verse; in fact, she would later claim their nocturnal rendezvous had more or less precipitated the Cold War. If this seems a touch megalomaniacal, consider that, unlike the peripatetic Berlin, Akhmatova eventually had to deal with the consequences of his visit. Soviet citizens were not supposed to consort with foreigners, and certainly not if said citizens had already been unpersoned by the government. Akhmatova¡¯s brief intellectual dalliance with a British national was ultimately used against her.
Upon the completion of his Soviet assignment, Berlin abandoned his career as a government official, if that¡¯s what it was, and returned to doing what he was best at ¡ª imparting knowledge and moving in high society. He wrote, taught, gave a series of highly popular radio lectures, and made a name for himself. Although he had no personal life to speak of during the first half of his life ¡ª Ignatieff hints that Berlin¡¯s was a case of a forty-year-old virgin ¡ª once he decided to end his asceticism, the gods smiled upon him yet again. After a false start or two, he ended up successfully wooing Aline Halban, the daughter of a Russian-born French-Jewish baron. No one could believe it. The bride¡¯s mother, upon hearing the news, exclaimed, ¡°Mais il est in¨¦pousable!¡± Thus the baroness on her future son-in-law. Even the bride (who, unlike Berlin, had had a good deal of matrimonial experience) seemed to have doubts; as Halban later said, in a rather uncharitable acknowledgement that their alliance was morganatic, she was Western Europe, while Berlin represented its eastern half. The Rue du Faubourg versus the shtetl, that sort of thing. The marriage took place all the same, and Berlin moved into his wife¡¯s manor, where he was doted on by her servants. Though they had no issue (Halban was already a mother by her two previous marriages), the union was by all accounts a cloudless one, and the couple would spend the rest of their lives together. In 1957, Berlin was knighted for his work ¡ª one of the numerous awards he received throughout his life ¡ª and became Sir Isaiah Berlin, an improbable honor for the Riga-born son of a Jewish timber merchant. The next several decades were marked by more prolific writing, academic work, and continued success. Berlin died in 1997, widely admired and venerated.
Ignatieff¡¯s biography is an authorized one, and the author was given unfettered access to both Berlin and his inner circle. To Berlin¡¯s great credit, he took care to make sure the book did not become a hagiography. It was stipulated that Berlin would not read the manuscript and that the book be published posthumously. As Berlin¡¯s biographer, Ignatieff certainly tries to be as objective as a man who spent years working with his subject ¡ª and seems to have greatly enjoyed the company ¡ª possibly can be. Ignatieff demonstrates much tact; his treatment of Berlin is candid but free of any muckraking (not that Berlin¡¯s life lent itself to any). While the result is certainly not a hagiography, Berlin comes across as mostly lovable ¡ª even in situations when he is not. He is quite unlike the Berlin we meet in Edmund Wilson¡¯s The Sixties ¡ª a gossiping, garrulous prima donna capable of talking anyone to death. But by the 1960s, Wilson was, by his own admission, drinking more than a sailor and flinging ashtrays at people. So: a hard man to please. A more interesting text is Norman Podhoretz¡¯s takedown in Commentary. The dissenting piece is concerned entirely with Berlin and draws heavily on Ignatieff¡¯s biography. After introducing Berlin as an ¡°extraordinarily brilliant man¡± with whom he wishes he¡¯d spent more time, Podhoretz proceeds to dismantle what he feels is, on the whole, an inflated reputation. It is not only the corpus sustaining Berlin¡¯s reputation that Podhoretz questions, but also his personal qualities ¡ª specifically, the charge of cowardice that plagued Berlin throughout his life. Ignatieff, for his part, does not shy away from addressing either one, though in this enterprise he is, first and foremost, Berlin¡¯s attorney.
On the subject of Berlin¡¯s alleged lack of courage, I find Ignatieff¡¯s defense of him persuasive. Berlin was a committed liberal in the classic sense of the word: he believed one ought to share space with those who thought differently. This is a precept many modern liberals have forgotten. Ignatieff recounts a dinner that Berlin attended in the US sometime in the 1940s. During the dinner, Berlin was upbraided for socializing with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, a cousin of the US president, because of her supposed reactionary views (she only happened to be a vehement opponent of the New Deal). Berlin rejected this attempt at what we would now call cancel culture; he saw no reason why he shouldn¡¯t associate with people of opposing views. A genuinely liberal world entailed not a plurality of echo chambers, but one of opinions and moral systems. This was not insipid relativism. Berlin recognized there were universal evaluations common to all societies. But if societies tended to punish the same things, they did not necessarily embrace the same virtues. This was a fact of life, and to be liberal was to acknowledge this reality. Berlin¡¯s openness to understand the Other informed his work; he was fascinated by ideological archenemies and wrote extensively about men like Joseph de Maistre, a reactionary figure with a violently dark Weltanschauung. This latitudinarianism, however laudable, did not endear him to those with a Manichaean or black-and-white view of the world, who thought a man ought to be judged strictly by the company he kept. As they saw it, Berlin hunted with the hare and the hounds.
Though certainly a man of clear political beliefs (on the traditional political compass, Berlin was positioned left-of-center, even if he mostly socialized with conservatives), he was usually not one to take positions or ¡°speak out.¡± He avoided weighing in on hot-button issues and entering frays, and seemed in his Zen-like detachment to be above it all (as Ignatieff himself admits, Berlin¡¯s trademark equanimity is easy to cultivate when you live a life of unmitigated privilege). This led others to believe he lacked courage; Berlin¡¯s affinity for the Russian writer Turgenev, who was rumored to have behaved rather ungentlemanly on a steamboat that had caught fire, was seen as confirmation that he was keenly aware of his own cowardice. Berlin, after all, had even translated a Turgenev story in which the writer fictionalized the steamboat episode ¡ª no doubt to address the lingering rumors ¡ª and read it on BBC Radio. But, as Ignatieff argues on behalf of Berlin, men should not be held up to romantic standards of heroism, which are only a form of moral tyranny. To be valiant is not to risk losing one¡¯s life, but to avoid losing one¡¯s head when everyone else is losing theirs. For Berlin¡¯s critics, this argument is a cop-out; I am not so sure. People of Berlin¡¯s sophistication understand that the world is a complex place where easy solutions are few and far between; aware of their fallibility and endowed with a heightened awareness of their intellectual limitations, they constantly vacillate and second-guess themselves. They remain noncommittal not out of fear, but out of fear that they might err; sadly, that is not how things are seen or interpreted by others.
The question of the scale of Berlin¡¯s achievements is more problematic. When Berlin was knighted, an old flame congratulated him for his ¡°services to conversation.¡± A witty barb, but writing earlier about Berlin¡¯s knighthood, I realized that I wasn¡¯t quite sure what it was that had got Berlin the peerage. Curiously, Ignatieff doesn¡¯t provide details either. Berlin is often described as a philosopher, and Ignatieff attempts to uphold this reputation, claiming that Berlin had original ideas of his own. If so, they were lost on me. To be sure, Berlin thought of himself not as a philosopher but as a historian of ideas ¡ª an apt way to put it since he occupied the noetic hinterland between philosophy and history. Though he has gone down in history as a writer, he curiously did not enjoy writing and dictated his texts instead. But what marvelous texts! He left behind a number of first-rate anthologies that include excellent essays on Machiavelli, de Maistre, Herzen, Vico, and others, along with the classic ¡°The Hedgehog and the Fox.¡± The latter is noteworthy not only for its subject (an examination of Tolstoy¡¯s historiosophy), but for what it reveals about the author¡¯s personal preoccupations. Borrowing a line from the Greek poet Archilochus (the fox knows many things, while the hedgehog knows one big thing), Berlin attempts to demonstrate that Tolstoy was a fox who always wanted to be a hedgehog. Apparently, so was Berlin. Ignatieff writes that Berlin was forever haunted by the idea of writing a defining work that would guarantee his legacy, his crowning masterpiece and magnum opus, his one big thing. Alas, it was the one thing the gods denied him. He was not a creator but an interpreter, an intermediary, a Kulturtr?ger destined to feed off others¡¯ ideas. To use Archilochus¡¯s metaphor, Berlin was a fox forever feted as a hedgehog ¡ª that, I think, is the primary objection of his detractors. It¡¯s not that the emperor was naked, he just didn¡¯t wear what everyone claimed he did. Perhaps. Personally, I find the question of whether Berlin is overrated as a thinker, or historian of ideas, or whatever it is he was, unimportant. His writings have filled my hours with pleasure and were a source of inspiration. For me, that is quite sufficient.
If Ignatieff¡¯s biography feels incomplete or lacking in some way, which it did to me, it is not because Berlin¡¯s actual legacy fails to stack up to his reputation. The problem is that he lived a life too charmed. As someone says in a Thackeray novel, the best thing one can be sent is a little misfortune. Misfortunes are like the change in seasons ¡ª we might prefer clement weather all year round, but an eternal summer can turn us into indolent lotus-eaters. Life is best experienced in its variety. I recognize this is scant consolation for those who have to deal with misfortunes, and I doubt I would be especially receptive to panegyrics on suffering in the face of misfortunes of my own. I don¡¯t have a martyr complex and am very much anti-hardship. It is certainly a very good thing that Berlin¡¯s life was serene and prosperous, and much of the criticism lobbed at Berlin surely contains an admixture of envy. But men of true genius are rarely very happy, and I wonder if it was Berlin¡¯s life, so well-rounded and complete, that stood in the way of his becoming the hedgehog he longed to be. Complete lives don¡¯t always make for complete biographies.
Read
October 17, 2011Is it too much to ask that America be more like Canada, where people like Trudeau, Charles Taylor, Michael Ignatieff can create good public policy and also be serious thinkers? Do you see Bachmann writing a biography of Kant?
Bought this on liquidation at Borders. They're selling even the fixtures, counters, and shelves. What an abject ending.
"That summer he paid a visit to the most famous refugee from Nazi Europe, Sigmund Freud. Freud's wife was a relative of a family friend, Oscar Phillip. Through his intermediary, Isaiah arranged a call at Maresfield Gardens one Friday afternoon in October 1938. Freud himself answered the door-bell and ushered Berlin into the famous study with the Egyptian and Greek statuettes and figurines already displayed on every free space of the desks, cabinets, and bookcases. When Freud asked Berlin what he did, and Isaiah replied in German that he attempted to teach philosophy, Freud replied sardonically ,'Then you must think me a charlatan.'. This was close to the mark but Berlin protested, 'Dr. Freud, how can you think such a thing?'. Freud then pointed to a figurine on the mantelpiece. 'Can you guess where it is from?'. When Berlin said he had no idea, Freud replied,'It comes from Megara. I see you are not pretentious.'. Then he explained he had reached London thanks to the intercession of Princess Marie Bonaparte and asked whether Isaiah was familiar with other members of the Greek royal family. When Berlin said he wasn't, Freud replied, 'I see you are not a snob.'.
This part of the interrogation completed, Freud began musing aloud about whether he might set up practice in Oxford. Berlin said there was bound to be a lot of demand for his services in a place like Oxford and in his mind's
eye imagined a burnished brass plaque in an Oxford doorway reading 'Dr. Freud, 2pm-4pm', and a queue of neurotics stretching back a mile."
***
Berlin had a liberal temperament and an expansive, independent cast of mind that's very appealing. ?He could criticize the "technocratic busy bodying" foibles of left progressivism, ?and find an "adamantine firmness of purpose" admirable in Churchill, but still put into circulation ideas from neglected controversial writers like Holbach or Sorel .
What makes Berlin particularly attractive in Ignatieff's description is that he never believed in the consolations of philosophy and was deeply skeptical about reaching for ultimate questions, of grasping the meaning of life in ten easy steps. ? ? "If history had no libretto why should an ordinary life have one?"
Bought this on liquidation at Borders. They're selling even the fixtures, counters, and shelves. What an abject ending.
"That summer he paid a visit to the most famous refugee from Nazi Europe, Sigmund Freud. Freud's wife was a relative of a family friend, Oscar Phillip. Through his intermediary, Isaiah arranged a call at Maresfield Gardens one Friday afternoon in October 1938. Freud himself answered the door-bell and ushered Berlin into the famous study with the Egyptian and Greek statuettes and figurines already displayed on every free space of the desks, cabinets, and bookcases. When Freud asked Berlin what he did, and Isaiah replied in German that he attempted to teach philosophy, Freud replied sardonically ,'Then you must think me a charlatan.'. This was close to the mark but Berlin protested, 'Dr. Freud, how can you think such a thing?'. Freud then pointed to a figurine on the mantelpiece. 'Can you guess where it is from?'. When Berlin said he had no idea, Freud replied,'It comes from Megara. I see you are not pretentious.'. Then he explained he had reached London thanks to the intercession of Princess Marie Bonaparte and asked whether Isaiah was familiar with other members of the Greek royal family. When Berlin said he wasn't, Freud replied, 'I see you are not a snob.'.
This part of the interrogation completed, Freud began musing aloud about whether he might set up practice in Oxford. Berlin said there was bound to be a lot of demand for his services in a place like Oxford and in his mind's
eye imagined a burnished brass plaque in an Oxford doorway reading 'Dr. Freud, 2pm-4pm', and a queue of neurotics stretching back a mile."
***
Berlin had a liberal temperament and an expansive, independent cast of mind that's very appealing. ?He could criticize the "technocratic busy bodying" foibles of left progressivism, ?and find an "adamantine firmness of purpose" admirable in Churchill, but still put into circulation ideas from neglected controversial writers like Holbach or Sorel .
What makes Berlin particularly attractive in Ignatieff's description is that he never believed in the consolations of philosophy and was deeply skeptical about reaching for ultimate questions, of grasping the meaning of life in ten easy steps. ? ? "If history had no libretto why should an ordinary life have one?"
May 17, 2012
"We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail an irreparable loss. The world we encounter in ordinary experience is one in which we are faced with choices between ends equally ultimate and claims equally absolute, the realization of some of which must inevitably involve the sacrifice of others...If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict ¡ª and of tragedy ¡ª can never wholly be eliminated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. This gives its value to freedom as Acton conceived of it ¡ª as an end in itself, and not as a temporary need, arising out of our confused notions and irrational and disordered lives, a predicament which a panacea could one day put right."
-- Isaiah Berlin
-- Isaiah Berlin
December 6, 2008
Okay, I'm only a hundred or so pages into this book, but I love it love it love it.
I like Berlin's and Ignatieff's writing - each of them, so I figured I'd enjoy something that merged both their thinking...and it is wonderful.
Ignatieff has a wonderful forward where he links Berlin's personality to his philosophy and values....absolutely fascinating idea, and once you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
More to come!
I like Berlin's and Ignatieff's writing - each of them, so I figured I'd enjoy something that merged both their thinking...and it is wonderful.
Ignatieff has a wonderful forward where he links Berlin's personality to his philosophy and values....absolutely fascinating idea, and once you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.
More to come!
February 16, 2018
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July 14, 2022
Despite Berlin not publishing a philosophical treatise that would solidify his legacy in the philosopher hall of fame, something that Berlin was apparently insecure about during his life, I think his fragmented writing nevertheless puts him at the top of that hall. I'm too thankful to his editors for obstinately insisting on organising and publishing his work which would otherwise never have seen the light of day. Isaiah's philosophical ideas have been profoundly influential on my own life. My understanding of his theory of value pluralism for one thing has made me more accepting and empathetic to other views, much less dogmatic, more understanding of the contingencies that lead to my own beliefs and that of others. And that people have many different values and ends, some of which disagree with one another, others are entirely incommensurable¡ªand yet each of which can be equally correct, valid, and 'rational'.
Berlin¡¯s political philosophy is also profound for our own times. Throughout reading much of Berlin's work, I was pushed to reevaluate my position on political doctrines that espouse eternal, ahistorical Truths, claiming to be able to explain everything and be applied to everyone everywhere at all times. Berlin rejected all forms of historicism and their millenarianist preachings, whether religious or secular (always having Marx in his crosshairs); the belief that we ought to bracket our freedom temporarily in order to reach a future utopia. Rather, to him, life was an ends in itself and not an instrumental means to some future felicity.
He staunchly rejected the idea of a 'libretto of history', a phrase he borrows from the Russian thinker Alexander Herzen whom he also admired. There, Berlin often quotes the Bishop Joseph Butler when he remarked that "Every thing is what it is, and not another thing", in that, we are what we are, and not separate individuals that may wholly transcend our contemporary time. We are what we are and live where we live, and we can't simply transform ourselves and be part of some idyllic past which no longer exists or a utopian future which does not yet exist¡ªthat was Berlin's dictum.
I think what most leads me to adore Berlin is his brilliantly eloquent prose style which read as if he is conversing with the reader in real time (apparently most of his publications are collections of lecture transcripts). He was also endowed with such an exceptional capacity in presenting the thoughts of others in a such a clear and digestible yet brilliantly entertaining and at times ironic, satirical and somewhat exaggerated way, to the extent where I find myself at times pausing to remind myself that Berlin is describing someone else's ideas (occasionally, I admit, a crude and simplified caricature of them) and not what he actually thinks. Indeed he has the talent of presenting ideas better and more convincing than its original progenitor could have ever intended.
Berlin's oratory skills are unmatched. One could easily imagine him in another possible world employed as a defence barrister, fervently arguing in defence of a murderer, utterly unconvinced of his innocence but nonetheless showing immense passion and gusto for his client's case anyway, as though it was his own and more than his client could originally ever have done or cared to do. Or even more so he would have made for an excellent Greek sophist, defending specious philosophies he is totally unconvinced of in the Agora squares. When, for instance, Berlin writes about the otherwise despicable philosophy of Joseph de Maistre¡ªhis ultramontane, extremely conservative and fascistic doctrines¡ªhe has me almost convinced sheerly by his articulateness.
On top of this, his ability to biographically portray the convictions and presuppositions of historical figures¡ªTolstoy, Herzen, Bakunin, Belinsky Turgenev, Stankevich, De Maistre, Marx, Holbach, the Romantics; Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, Vico and others¡ªin such a vivid manner as to in some sense psychoanalyse their own lives and personalities and link them to some fundamental axiom that that particular figure held, and then extend that to the zeitgeist and general attitude that is paradigmatic of the age in which they had lived. It would seem to me that Berlin borrowed this methodology from the Russian thinker Belinsky whom he greatly admired, and I'm purely judging this by his own testament while writing about Belinsky himself. Berlin writes about these thinkers as if he was personally acquainted with them even though they lived centuries before his own time. And he always shows solemn care to understand them in relation to their social, economic and environmental context; to put himself in their perspective and live through their experiences, beliefs and convictions. These talents, I think, require a huge deal of ingenuity and imagination as well as an exceptionally open-minded outlook and honesty of mind.
This biography is a just portrayal of this great man life¡ªas a philosopher, historian of ideas and probably most of all, a socialite. I always thought that a person's life experiences and upbringing are shaped by and to a certain extent reflective of their philosophical ideas and thoughts; their convictions and why they held them, their presuppositions and so on.
I guess this is why I was somewhat surprised to come to learn that Isaiah Berlin was a Zionist, a revelation which was at first disappointing; the 'broken pedestal' and 'never meet your heroes' tropes seemed to ring too true. It struck me as particularly interesting that Berlin upheld value pluralism¡ªwhich at least to be seems to entail some sort of empathy to other groups¡ªwhile simultaneously believing that the colonialisation of Palestine by his own group was justified¡ªtwo 'incommensurable' principles of which he preached. Values held by two people may indeed be incommensurable and yet remain equally valid, but two incommensurable values held by the same person is the quintessence of hypocrisy. Berlin might not be a fox but a hedgehog, after all?
But this also perhaps gives us a glimpse into his affinity for romantic sentiments¡ªparticularly those related to national identity embraced by the likes of Fichte and Herder¡ªand its connection to his Zionism and Jewish heritage and religion, of which he kept close to heart throughout his life despite being an atheist. I don't want to make too many inferences but this might also denote that Isaiah identified with some of the conservative attitudes and beliefs of the Romantic movements concerning the preservation of religion, culture and heritage and the importance of a shared identity. But this again might just be a symptom of Berlin's ability to portray the beliefs of others in such an acute way that could comes off as his own.
Nevertheless, these things must be viewed from the context and time in which he lived¡ªa time where Jews were being exterminated in Nazi Germany and disenfranchised elsewhere. Moreover, we may be relieved to read in the final passages that, upon reaching old age, Berlin at least regretted ignoring the Palestinians¡¯ right to self-determination all the while calling for the Jewish right for a nation state at the expense of the former, as well as his later espousal of a two state settlement and etc. As fallible as he was as a human¡ªas much as any human is¡ªhis tremendously positive influences on his own age and posterity vastly eclipse whatever faults that he might have had. To me, he remains the most interesting thinker in the 20th century!
Berlin¡¯s political philosophy is also profound for our own times. Throughout reading much of Berlin's work, I was pushed to reevaluate my position on political doctrines that espouse eternal, ahistorical Truths, claiming to be able to explain everything and be applied to everyone everywhere at all times. Berlin rejected all forms of historicism and their millenarianist preachings, whether religious or secular (always having Marx in his crosshairs); the belief that we ought to bracket our freedom temporarily in order to reach a future utopia. Rather, to him, life was an ends in itself and not an instrumental means to some future felicity.
He staunchly rejected the idea of a 'libretto of history', a phrase he borrows from the Russian thinker Alexander Herzen whom he also admired. There, Berlin often quotes the Bishop Joseph Butler when he remarked that "Every thing is what it is, and not another thing", in that, we are what we are, and not separate individuals that may wholly transcend our contemporary time. We are what we are and live where we live, and we can't simply transform ourselves and be part of some idyllic past which no longer exists or a utopian future which does not yet exist¡ªthat was Berlin's dictum.
I think what most leads me to adore Berlin is his brilliantly eloquent prose style which read as if he is conversing with the reader in real time (apparently most of his publications are collections of lecture transcripts). He was also endowed with such an exceptional capacity in presenting the thoughts of others in a such a clear and digestible yet brilliantly entertaining and at times ironic, satirical and somewhat exaggerated way, to the extent where I find myself at times pausing to remind myself that Berlin is describing someone else's ideas (occasionally, I admit, a crude and simplified caricature of them) and not what he actually thinks. Indeed he has the talent of presenting ideas better and more convincing than its original progenitor could have ever intended.
Berlin's oratory skills are unmatched. One could easily imagine him in another possible world employed as a defence barrister, fervently arguing in defence of a murderer, utterly unconvinced of his innocence but nonetheless showing immense passion and gusto for his client's case anyway, as though it was his own and more than his client could originally ever have done or cared to do. Or even more so he would have made for an excellent Greek sophist, defending specious philosophies he is totally unconvinced of in the Agora squares. When, for instance, Berlin writes about the otherwise despicable philosophy of Joseph de Maistre¡ªhis ultramontane, extremely conservative and fascistic doctrines¡ªhe has me almost convinced sheerly by his articulateness.
On top of this, his ability to biographically portray the convictions and presuppositions of historical figures¡ªTolstoy, Herzen, Bakunin, Belinsky Turgenev, Stankevich, De Maistre, Marx, Holbach, the Romantics; Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, Vico and others¡ªin such a vivid manner as to in some sense psychoanalyse their own lives and personalities and link them to some fundamental axiom that that particular figure held, and then extend that to the zeitgeist and general attitude that is paradigmatic of the age in which they had lived. It would seem to me that Berlin borrowed this methodology from the Russian thinker Belinsky whom he greatly admired, and I'm purely judging this by his own testament while writing about Belinsky himself. Berlin writes about these thinkers as if he was personally acquainted with them even though they lived centuries before his own time. And he always shows solemn care to understand them in relation to their social, economic and environmental context; to put himself in their perspective and live through their experiences, beliefs and convictions. These talents, I think, require a huge deal of ingenuity and imagination as well as an exceptionally open-minded outlook and honesty of mind.
This biography is a just portrayal of this great man life¡ªas a philosopher, historian of ideas and probably most of all, a socialite. I always thought that a person's life experiences and upbringing are shaped by and to a certain extent reflective of their philosophical ideas and thoughts; their convictions and why they held them, their presuppositions and so on.
I guess this is why I was somewhat surprised to come to learn that Isaiah Berlin was a Zionist, a revelation which was at first disappointing; the 'broken pedestal' and 'never meet your heroes' tropes seemed to ring too true. It struck me as particularly interesting that Berlin upheld value pluralism¡ªwhich at least to be seems to entail some sort of empathy to other groups¡ªwhile simultaneously believing that the colonialisation of Palestine by his own group was justified¡ªtwo 'incommensurable' principles of which he preached. Values held by two people may indeed be incommensurable and yet remain equally valid, but two incommensurable values held by the same person is the quintessence of hypocrisy. Berlin might not be a fox but a hedgehog, after all?
But this also perhaps gives us a glimpse into his affinity for romantic sentiments¡ªparticularly those related to national identity embraced by the likes of Fichte and Herder¡ªand its connection to his Zionism and Jewish heritage and religion, of which he kept close to heart throughout his life despite being an atheist. I don't want to make too many inferences but this might also denote that Isaiah identified with some of the conservative attitudes and beliefs of the Romantic movements concerning the preservation of religion, culture and heritage and the importance of a shared identity. But this again might just be a symptom of Berlin's ability to portray the beliefs of others in such an acute way that could comes off as his own.
Nevertheless, these things must be viewed from the context and time in which he lived¡ªa time where Jews were being exterminated in Nazi Germany and disenfranchised elsewhere. Moreover, we may be relieved to read in the final passages that, upon reaching old age, Berlin at least regretted ignoring the Palestinians¡¯ right to self-determination all the while calling for the Jewish right for a nation state at the expense of the former, as well as his later espousal of a two state settlement and etc. As fallible as he was as a human¡ªas much as any human is¡ªhis tremendously positive influences on his own age and posterity vastly eclipse whatever faults that he might have had. To me, he remains the most interesting thinker in the 20th century!
July 18, 2024
excerpts :
In 1997,Blair wrote to Berlin about his doubts about the future of the left. ¡°Where, Berlin asked, are the new ideas?¡± Blair favored positive liberty to the idea of negative liberty, Berlin¡¯s plea for human freedom against even the best-intentioned socialist paternalism.
Distaste for philosophy of ¡®60s (Marcuse, Arendt). Marcuse remark : ¡° the world of the concentration camps was not an exceptionally monstruos society¡±. I.B.:¡±(¡) because they are crippled, recognise nothing pure and firm in this world. I.B. met H.A. in ¡¯42 when she was working with a zionist relief organization and than in early ¡®50s when she was part of the ¡°Partisan Review¡± circle. She had recanted zionism, so that he distrusted her. He also thought that certain of her ideas ¨C eq, the classical greeks did not respect work ¨C were wrong and thus weakened much praised books as ¡°The Human Condition¡±. Dislike reached a peak with ¡°Eichmann in Jerusalem¡±, he also had been struck by the banality of evil, but was genuinely infuriated by her argument that European Jewry might have resisted the Holocaust more effectively. The thought that his own people should be criticised from the safety of new York for having failed to stand up to the SS struck him as a piece of monstruos moral conceit
In 1997,Blair wrote to Berlin about his doubts about the future of the left. ¡°Where, Berlin asked, are the new ideas?¡± Blair favored positive liberty to the idea of negative liberty, Berlin¡¯s plea for human freedom against even the best-intentioned socialist paternalism.
Distaste for philosophy of ¡®60s (Marcuse, Arendt). Marcuse remark : ¡° the world of the concentration camps was not an exceptionally monstruos society¡±. I.B.:¡±(¡) because they are crippled, recognise nothing pure and firm in this world. I.B. met H.A. in ¡¯42 when she was working with a zionist relief organization and than in early ¡®50s when she was part of the ¡°Partisan Review¡± circle. She had recanted zionism, so that he distrusted her. He also thought that certain of her ideas ¨C eq, the classical greeks did not respect work ¨C were wrong and thus weakened much praised books as ¡°The Human Condition¡±. Dislike reached a peak with ¡°Eichmann in Jerusalem¡±, he also had been struck by the banality of evil, but was genuinely infuriated by her argument that European Jewry might have resisted the Holocaust more effectively. The thought that his own people should be criticised from the safety of new York for having failed to stand up to the SS struck him as a piece of monstruos moral conceit
September 15, 2018
A very interesting exposure of Berlin's life and thought, done delicately by Mr. Ignatieff.
I feel like re-reading some of Berlin's essays now that I learned more about his personal life.
This reading only came to reaffirm the congruence of my own views in relation to those of Berlin's, a middle-way, rational liberal, but not an over-rational capitalist, a social socialist, but not an over-socialist, and above all a true humanist.
I also liked his connection with and admiration of the Russian intelligentsia of soviet times, since I also read many writers and poets of this period, finding them fascinating.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover he really liked Turgenev (and even translated to English one of his plays), since I also, after recently reading one of Turgenev's books, have chosen to place him as an author in front of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
All in all, had our personal histories been different, I genuinely believe Berlin and I would have been able to become fast friends and talk about philosophy, history, poetry, literature and ideas in general for hours on end...
I feel like re-reading some of Berlin's essays now that I learned more about his personal life.
This reading only came to reaffirm the congruence of my own views in relation to those of Berlin's, a middle-way, rational liberal, but not an over-rational capitalist, a social socialist, but not an over-socialist, and above all a true humanist.
I also liked his connection with and admiration of the Russian intelligentsia of soviet times, since I also read many writers and poets of this period, finding them fascinating.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover he really liked Turgenev (and even translated to English one of his plays), since I also, after recently reading one of Turgenev's books, have chosen to place him as an author in front of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
All in all, had our personal histories been different, I genuinely believe Berlin and I would have been able to become fast friends and talk about philosophy, history, poetry, literature and ideas in general for hours on end...
July 7, 2019
Pluralism leads to liberalism, and liberalism leads to conflicts. Freedom and empathy are the required aptitudes. Negative Freedom is the prerequisite for positive freedom. The Russian speaking, right-leaning, Oxford Jew who regularly lived and worked in the US understood that we all need to choose and choosing is costly to ourselves and to others. We shouldn't look to politics to help us..."politics is not emancipatory, merely necessary", but he declined to say what was truly emancipatory. Was it choice? Was it choice in the light of values? He flirts with an adoration of the self "Where is the song before it is sung? Where indeed! 'Nowhere' is the answer - one creates the song by singing it, by composing it. So too, life is created by those who live it, step by step" (a quote from one of his heroes Herzen). But it the song nowhere before it is sung? And is it truly made complete by the singing of it? Do we emancipate ourselves? A great book, well crafted.
December 9, 2019
i think a pretty good predictor about how you'd feel about this book (and how you feel about Berlin generally) is how you feel about someone like adam gopnik or michael ignatieff today.
three things:
1. Berlin was a hedgehog about the value of foxes: value pluralism was his one big idea. and his argument for prioritizing negative liberty is really just an empirical claim about how best to manage irreducible value conflicts (and his empirical claim isn't very good).
2. he abandoned academic philosophy after getting embarrassed by wittgenstein and realizing he wasn't cut out for it, then pioneered the study of "history of philosophical ideas" at oxbridge mostly through his force of personality.
3. he thought through conversations, and did very little sit-down-and-think intellectual work. the reader is left to decide whether the lesson there is that thinking through conversations is underrated or whether berlin is overrated.
three things:
1. Berlin was a hedgehog about the value of foxes: value pluralism was his one big idea. and his argument for prioritizing negative liberty is really just an empirical claim about how best to manage irreducible value conflicts (and his empirical claim isn't very good).
2. he abandoned academic philosophy after getting embarrassed by wittgenstein and realizing he wasn't cut out for it, then pioneered the study of "history of philosophical ideas" at oxbridge mostly through his force of personality.
3. he thought through conversations, and did very little sit-down-and-think intellectual work. the reader is left to decide whether the lesson there is that thinking through conversations is underrated or whether berlin is overrated.
March 23, 2024
An extremely well written biography about an influential figure about whom I knew shamefully little.
It was a fascinating life starting in middle class but oppressive Riga and ending in highest echelons of British Society with the Order of Merit and on persona terms with presidents and prime ministers.
Berlin was obviously the most interesting conversationalist you would ever meet and was always near people who mattered so much so that he mattered himself. This included the arts as welt as politics. He was a good friend and a devoted son.
He was hugely hard working. Yet the central paradox for a historian of ideas was how little he wrote. His two ideas of liberty have become central to political thought but it seems a surprisingly short bibliography.
It was a fascinating life starting in middle class but oppressive Riga and ending in highest echelons of British Society with the Order of Merit and on persona terms with presidents and prime ministers.
Berlin was obviously the most interesting conversationalist you would ever meet and was always near people who mattered so much so that he mattered himself. This included the arts as welt as politics. He was a good friend and a devoted son.
He was hugely hard working. Yet the central paradox for a historian of ideas was how little he wrote. His two ideas of liberty have become central to political thought but it seems a surprisingly short bibliography.
October 14, 2018
A book of two halves. The first is fascinating and absorbing from early childhood to just after the Second World War. From Riga to London to Oxford then Washington and Russia to the formation of the state of Israel. The people he meets and the lives they and he lead. The time in Stalin's USSR and the terrible strain of those who had survived the purges is gripping in how those who lived in fear attempted to be true to their artistic convictions.
The second half is taken up with marriage, contentment and the glittering prizes, but is not nearly as interesting. Well worth reading.
The second half is taken up with marriage, contentment and the glittering prizes, but is not nearly as interesting. Well worth reading.
December 19, 2017
Warm, personal literary biography of a fascinating man. Ignatieff brings Berlin to life and expertly addresses the life experiences and influences that helped engender in him his unique perspective on the past and the present.
December 8, 2019
not really illuminating at all about his ideas and thoughts, mostly about his upbringing and his clinging to the aristocracy, as if this was more important fact that his contribution to the world of ideas.
November 25, 2024
Tremenda biograf¨ªa de uno de los liberales m¨¢s importantes del s.XX. Hay que volver a leer a Isaiah Berlin y leer esta biograf¨ªa de Ignatieff nos permite poner en contexto las etapas del pensamiento de Berlin.
November 25, 2017
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What a mind, what a life, what a book!
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What a mind, what a life, what a book!
March 17, 2018
Hyv? el?m?nkerta mielenkiintoisesta el?m?st? ja ajattelijasta. Kettua ja siili?, positiivista ja negatiivista vapautta yksinkertaisempia ja toimivampia tiivistyksi? on vaikea ylitt??.
November 14, 2020
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February 4, 2022
A good, thoughtful biography of a man who saw and did much.
April 2, 2023
Not sure why I read this, but it was fluidly written and a decent introduction to the sort of centrist that seems evermore precious and may be my philosophical spirit animal.
March 25, 2024
Worth reading.
March 27, 2023
"Isaiah Berlin: A Life" is a biography written by Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian author, academic, and politician. The book was first published in 1998 and is a comprehensive account of the life and work of the British philosopher and political theorist Isaiah Berlin.
Berlin was one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century and made significant contributions to a range of fields, including political philosophy, moral philosophy, and the history of ideas. He was particularly known for his defense of liberalism and his critique of totalitarianism, and his work has had a major impact on the development of modern political thought.
In "Isaiah Berlin: A Life," Ignatieff provides a detailed account of Berlin's life, from his childhood in Russia to his years as a student at Oxford, his service in British intelligence during World War II, and his academic career at Oxford and later at the University of London. The book also covers Berlin's intellectual development and his major works, including "Two Concepts of Liberty," "The Hedgehog and the Fox," and "The Crooked Timber of Humanity."
"Isaiah Berlin: A Life" has been widely praised for its insightful analysis of Berlin's thought and its engaging and readable style. The book remains an important resource for scholars and students of philosophy, politics, and intellectual history, as well as for anyone interested in the life and work of one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.
GPT
Berlin was one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century and made significant contributions to a range of fields, including political philosophy, moral philosophy, and the history of ideas. He was particularly known for his defense of liberalism and his critique of totalitarianism, and his work has had a major impact on the development of modern political thought.
In "Isaiah Berlin: A Life," Ignatieff provides a detailed account of Berlin's life, from his childhood in Russia to his years as a student at Oxford, his service in British intelligence during World War II, and his academic career at Oxford and later at the University of London. The book also covers Berlin's intellectual development and his major works, including "Two Concepts of Liberty," "The Hedgehog and the Fox," and "The Crooked Timber of Humanity."
"Isaiah Berlin: A Life" has been widely praised for its insightful analysis of Berlin's thought and its engaging and readable style. The book remains an important resource for scholars and students of philosophy, politics, and intellectual history, as well as for anyone interested in the life and work of one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.
GPT
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