FREE ESSAY ON ISAIAH BERLIN

ISAIAH BERLIN

Isaiah Berlin became one of our century's most important political theorists for liberty
and liberalism in an age of totalitarianism. He was born in Riga, Latvia in 1909 into a
well to do Jewish family. At the age of 12 he moved to Petrograd and experienced first
hand the Bolshevik revolution, which would later influence his intellectual ideas about
totalitarianism (Gray 3). In 1921 his family moved to London and sent Isaiah to school.
His schooling lead him to Oxford where he took a position as philosophy professor in
1931. His English schooling led him to become a disciple of classical liberalism in the
English tradition of Mill, Locke, and others (Berger). During World War II the British
put him to work in their Foreign Service department where he became a favorite advisor of
Churchill (Honderich 92). After the war his major political theory was developed as he
moved into political philosophy and history as his areas of emphasis. His most famous and
important works, a lecture, "Two Concepts on Liberty", and an essay, "The Hedgehog and
the Fox" where produced in the 1950's. Knighted in 1957 and he became the first Jewish
fellow at Oxford's All Souls College and chair of social and political theory at Oxford.
After that he later became president of the newly created Wolfson College and then
President of the British Academy (Honderich 92). After his death in 1997 historian Arthur
Schlesinger stated that he is one of the finest liberal thinkers and political theorists
of the twentieth century (Schlesinger 1).
Isaiah Berlin is unique among intellectuals in the fact the he didn't produce a magnum
opus during his life. He stated, "that he had no desire to sit in front of a desk with a
blank piece of paper," and didn't care about it influencing his academic legacy (Berger).
Most of his works came in the form of essay's and lectures, as his two most famous are,
"The Hedgehog and the Fox" and "Two Concepts of Liberty." He wrote few actual books and
had most of his work collected and published by Henry Hardy, once of his graduate
students (Gray 4). He never tried to advocate a certain political philosophy and was
actually quite against any "right" political philosophy. Through his essays and lectures
he made critiques on the current systems and made observations on liberty, nationalism,
and socialism.
A strict stand against totalitarianism is one of the concepts that can be seen throughout
much of Berlin's work. His strong liberal views clashed with totalitarianism in age where
it dominated. Much of his distaste also came from his own personal experience with
communism and fascism. He lived during the Russian Revolution and saw first hand its
effect on the Russian people. "I was never pro-communist. Never...anyone who had, like
me, seen the Russian revolution at work was not likely to be tempted (Houston Chronicle
News Service)." He detested fascism but not as vocally as communism since most of it had
been eradicated during World War II. Berlin had relatives during World War II left in
Riga who where killed both by Nazi and Soviet Communist forces (Gray 3). This fact no
doubt further heightened his contempt for both systems.
An essay in 1953 entitled the "Hedgehog and the Fox" became one of his most popular works
in the United States. Taking its name from a line by the Greek poet Archilochus, it was
one part literary criticism on War and Peace and an attack on the inevitability of
history (Greenburg). Initially published under the title "Leo Tolstoy's Historical
Sceptiscism" he changed it to the, which according to British Publisher George Weidenfeld
did more for his reputation than any other (Greenburg). Berlin asserted that individual's
act freely in history and has a choice in their destiny. Tolstoy took the Marxian view
that history was inevitable. "The characters despite the constraints of circumstance
according to Berlin act freely and thus are morally accountable for their decisions"
(Greenburg). Berlin thought that the characters still had free wills over their choices
despite the situation they where in and thus history was undecided. This attack on
historical inevitability shows Berlin's distaste for Marx's philosophy, particularly the
Bolshevik brand of communism.
Berlin's contention with the Marxian view of history has to do with historical
anthropology of Marx. Marx asserts in his works that national culture would simply go
away under communism and if it did survive, it wouldn't hold any political importance
(Gray 94). He strongly stands against this view on the grounds humans being so vastly
different in culture that they wouldn't be able to lose their national identities (Gray
96). This goes along with his idea in the value of human diversity and the belief that
one fixed political system wouldn't be able to be assimilated under one system. 
One of Berlins other important beliefs shown in the essay was the idea of value
pluralism. He believed that with such a diversity of human beings are so different that
there can be no one overall set of human values (Houston Chronicle News Service).
"The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing. Berlin asserted that
Tolstoy needs only one principle to live life by such as the philosophy of Plato, Dante,
Pascal, Nietzsche and Proust. "The Fox, pluralist travels many roads, according to the
idea that there can be different, equally valid but mutually incompatible, conceptions of
how to live (Kirijasto)." Berlin supported the fox's ideal of being able to travel down a
choice of roads and ideas other than the singular view of the hedgehog. The roads don't
have much connection, as is seen in the works of Aristoteles, Montaigne, Shakespeare,
Moliere, Goethe and Balzac (Kirijasto). This idea of value pluralism is also in numerous
other works by Berlin and it is one of the concepts he values most.
Value pluralism can be seen towards the end of his "Two Concepts of Liberty" and also in
"The Hedgehog and the Fox." Value pluralism is one of the most logical ideas in all of
political philosophy. Throughout most of history philosophers have been stating that
thier one way of doing things is the right way. Plato, Nietzsche, Marx claimed that they
had found the "right" way to go about things. As history shows neither of them or any
other political philosopher had found a right away to do things. People and governments
simply draw from what they need of each political philosophy to make a government. Marx,
Plato and Nietzsche made their philosophies too narrow to be practiced in the world with
any real success. They also as Berlin suggests failed to take into account the
differences in people and their ideas. Also much of their philosophy comes from a very
euro centric perspective. 
In the realm of political philosophy Berlin's most important contribution came in the
form of a lecture called "Two Concepts of Liberty." Later released in a book called Four
Essays on Liberty, it represented his interpretation on how liberty is divided up. The
two concepts of liberty he discusses in his lecture are positive and negative liberty.
Negative liberty is the freedom to do, not the freedom from doing something (Berlin 16).
Positive liberty is the freedom from "restrictions" seen in government (Berlin 22).
Berlin feels that a balance between the two must be achieved to have to a "maximum"
amount of liberty. Too much freedom leads to others freedom being restricted in one form
or another. Negative liberty has been used as an excuse to restrict liberty and create
tyranny according to Berlin (Berger). Stalin and others committed acts of tyranny in the
name of negative liberty for the proletariat. A liberal in the modern political sense he
believes in government intervention as a positive.
Looking to the history of our country we can see the validity of positive and negative
liberty. The history of the United States using Berlin's perspective can be divided into
two time periods. The era in the United States before reconstruction can be seen as an
era of negative liberty in the constitution and after that it became predominately
positive in it's liberty to balance with the negative. This move towards positive liberty
after reconstruction is what Berlin would consider the proper balance between the two
types of liberty so that in a utilitarian sense the most people have the most liberty.
Since Mill was a major influence for Berlin we can see this utilitarian view of liberty
as logical.
The Constitution in its first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, grants the citizens of
the United States negative liberty. One has the freedom to speak, petition, practice
religion, etc. with out restriction. This concept of absolute freedom is no doubt good
but as Berlin and history would tell it has many drawbacks. One of the obvious ones is
regarding slavery, which isn't restricted. This is an example of how too much negative
liberty actually affects other individual's liberty. This is why positive liberty is good
and not simply a form of tyranny. When the United States enacted the thirteenth amendment
to the constitution it granted others a liberty at the cost of others, but in the case it
was a fair and just trade off. The delicate part of positive liberty is making sure it's
used in the right places to achieve a proper balance for society. Another example of how
positive liberty was used properly in achieving balance in our country was the control of
industry, especially the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1905, by the Progressives in the early
part of our century. This moved the negative liberty held by corporations from freely
doing whatever they wanted to a safer one for the consumer. American History is filled
with many more examples like these some clearly for the better like those two and others
that are debatable if they are too positive in liberty. All most all of the amendments
dealing with Liberty starting with Reconstruction and beyond are positive in nature.
Berlin would argue this is the US trying to achieve the proper balance in the two types
of liberty. 
Balance is key with regards to positive and negative liberty for liberty to be truly had
by all. "If you have maximum liberty, then the strong can destroy the weak, and if you
absolute equality, you can not have absolute liberty, because you have to coerce the
powerful...if they are not to devour the poor and the meek...Total liberty can be
dreadful, total equality can be equally frightful (Berger)." Our country started out with
too much freedom and the strong could destroy the weak. Unregulated business and
financial systems and the Southern aristocracy are examples of how the powerful as Berlin
mentioned subjugated the week to their power. Since the almost absolute freedom had in
the beginning of our country the laws have been changed to try to add more positive
liberty to achieve a balance. All of the aforementioned things have lost their power
through law along with many other institutions of negative liberty. Today the move has
occurred for the most part acheiving balance, the strong are not destroying the week.
Berlin makes no decision on what the balance should be instead leaving it up to the
personal discretion of the society. 
Today much of the conflict over political issues can be seen it terms of positive and
negative liberty. Abortion, gun control, right to life, and many other issues are just
splits over positive and negative liberty. The battle between positive and negative
liberty appears to have shifted to these issues. Slavery and other major issues along the
same magnitude already being decided the battle has turned to them. Abortion would be
seen by Berlin as a classic battle between positive and negative liberty. The pro-choice
would fall on the side of negative liberty since they desire the freedom to choose. The
pro-life side would fall on the positive liberty side since the want the freedom to
choose restricted. To take from Berlin they would argue that terminating a pregnancy
would be a case of the strong dominating the weak. This argument is of course just in
terms of liberty. Many other social issues don't deal with the strong dominating the weak
but yet still deal with positive and negative liberty. 
Berlin might not have developed a specific political philosophy but regardless he had as
much impact on the twentieth century as any other political philosopher. He made numerous
contributions to the idea of liberalism in an era where totalitarianism rained. His
notions of utopias where wiped away in the bloody snow of Petrograd of his youth. He
didn't try and preach that one system was better than another instead he made comments on
what he saw. Berlin was less concerned with his legacy and was hoping that liberalism and
liberty would survive and age of horror and totalitarianism.