CALLING ALL IMPS, WIMPS AND BANJO PLAYERS
Those awful rationalists keep knocking on me door. They keep asking me to join their party or at least vote for them. One aspiring Prime Minister is Isaiah Berlin of the so called "Positive liberty" party. They write on their posters that "self-mastery" is the outcome from their rational programmes of action.
I am suspicious of this Icy Berlin prefering the parties of Dionysus. I suspect that this new candidate for the party election is yet another "self-tyranny" expert who wants to do everything to stop me really living well.
Calling on all imps and wimps and banjo players. Help. How can i rebel against this new Positive Liberty party without support from those that feel and experience that which is denied by this Icy Berlin and his party?
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Both wine and bread at confirmation were fake and this small site might just attract others that experienced the same. Critical voices? Those that participate? Who knows. For those that find sympathy with a walk on the wild sides of life, mountains, rivers or forests but do not pretend to escape. Other bits and pieces the news and also odds and sods that cry out "leave it off mate". Justly a lark and maybe the lark. But the lark will often land on the cactus.
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33 comments:
Berlin? No way.
His extreme kind of Zionism is exactly what got us into the mess we are currently in.
Toby and Anticant and Butwhatif have been getting a debate together and Toby wants to try to make something of it on a thread ( on his site) soon. I thought it a good idea.
This little post is really just a little something to try and get things started.
Is is about I.Berlin and philosophy OK but that never means that all of us cannot be philosophers.
This way may be already a dodo. I have no idea. But the intention is to at least try and warm up so that when Toby posts something as many as possible can contribute.
My opinion? I think Toby might make a damned good text if we help that to happen. Shit i sound like a school teacher again. Sori.
But I do mean this this time.
5 stringer - I guess we have already a few concepts ( opinions?) to present to the crew and for Toby.
A "Zionist"?
The "mess" that we "are in today".
This is all ok for me.
This is not the CiF site.
Rant and rave as much as you want here.
Toby and others will pick up the pieces - that i trust.
BTW : To label I.Berlin as a Zionist from the very beginning might be a little ..... should we say early or should we say too late.
Dunno---- yet.
Is Icy Berlin the same as Blair and Brown? Is that what you mean?
I had completely forgotten about I.Berlin. I would love to read some more spots about him from your quill, Zola, old man.
Thomas Mann was big on this Dionysus and self-matery thing as well. Did he and I.Berlin have some kind of influence on each other.
Roll it on, self-maestro, I wanna learn.
Me?. How would I know, I am only an impish banjo player?.
Still, every Stalin needs his Ehrenberg, every Thatcher her Milton Friedman.
Berlin is distinctly ant-pluralist and his views are seized upon by many on the right. Such is the debate today.
The ruling class will always have a theoretical justification for their actions.
I would prefer the ranters and ravers to stay on the CiF site. Sweetness and light is what we want here [just to be Awkward].
'Sweetness and light is what we want here'.
I take it that was 'The Royal We'?.
Sweetness and light can be found all over the internet.
Unfortunately, life is not so twee.
Fortunately, this site is never less than hard hitting.
Thank fuck.
Is this better?.
Agadoo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree,
Agadoo-doo-doo, push pineapple, grind coffee,
To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees,
Come and dance every night, sing with the hula melody.
"Is this better?"
Since, foggymountainbreakdown, there is no one right way, since we should approach humanity in all its diverse forms, letting one hundred flowers bloom (as rappeth Ice B) one simply cannot say that something is better or worse.
What measuring stick are you proposing for us when asking us to assess the value of your black-laced life? Utility or something? There is no common denominator, my friend. You should simply rest content that your agadooing is a perfectly worthy enterprise, one distinctly possible way of being human. Stop measuring and assessing yourself. You are a planet - and in our universe there is no imperial or imperious sun.
"Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions".
Question :- this IS a site for Free Speech, yes?
Wow, I am a Philosopher.
Well said BWI.
How was London?. Was that a childish question?.
"Is this better?"
Quite correct BWI. My contention that early Black Lace is superior to the plastic muck they later produced is clearly asking a question that even Isaiah Berlin couldn't have answered.
One position that i take here is that philosophy should live in the world as we find it. That means to avoid the kinds of philosophical games that are merely insider-games for so called specialists.
This also means that there are no silly or childish questions.
I believe that Toby ( in february he says ) will appreciate the wide range of issues that we might be able to bring out even through banter. Things often emerge this well.
if i have any role here on my own site it is only to speak out now and again or even propose a kind of agreement on the emergent themes or questions.
Already we have an opinion ( not yet substantiated ) that "Zionism" is a problem issue with Ice berlin.
We also have the question of the role of this philosophy. Why bother with it in the first place? What is it? Etc.
We have a few wanting to contribute as a leasrning thing for themselves and these offer to put in some work towards that. This means a reason-to-be for this thread and it gives an anchor for many if not all.
We also have the point raised about Berlin being either "Right wing" in himself and his work or at least being used, in the main, by "Rightist" people to justify right-wing positions.
Does Berlin and/or his work lead somehow to an inherently right-wing stance?
I'm sure i have missed many points but if this not already a start then I do not know what is.
Toby has exams now but we might keep in mind his February promise to make a thread which may be more academic in both style and content.
A couple of comments lead us into looking at ice berlin alongside or with and against another related text and/writer etc. Thomas Mann has been suggested as one possibility.
I suspect if this way is taken ( and it might be a great way ) the horny parties of Dionysus will be revealed through Nietzsche ( vis-a-vis Appolian stuff or vis-a-vis Socrates) so even with Thomas Mann we will, I suugest firmly, get into all that somehow. But why not.
Freddie neatshoedancer would call the Berlin "ideal" a self-deception of tyranny ( a con trick of cognitive alienation ).
Jesus wept let me climb down from the high clouds.
Phew. here I am human again.
Those that take too seriously Ice Berlin will always have serious troubles with the infamous "WICKED WILLY".
That feels better already.
BTW : If anyone really wants a few references of books ( the net is as all know full of this stuff and the very significant nietzsche-Socrates thing is easily found on the net)for books then just ask and I can try to help if i can. But god save me from being over academic.
But I hope anybody feels free to give references or to avoid them.
There is enough place here for all ways.
Zo - I will be on-line until 10 AM and then will leave blogging be for a while. The Positive Liberty Party have conscripted me and are keen to swallow me up into their ranks of self-restraint and moral superiority.
To be Fair on Icy why do you think he was a rational wolf in irrational sheeps' clothing?
As to his Zionism, I've just read an article defending him as a moderate Zionist far away from the attitudes of Ben-Gurion's circle, advocating a Jewish community yet with none of the belligerence associated with the movement. He left Israel in 1944 with grave doubts about what was happening there.
http://arts.monash.edu.au/eras/edition_7/dubnovarticle.htm
Given what we know about Berlin's continuous and serious consideration of liberty this is hardly surprising. Does everyone need to take part in Bacchanalian rituals to be a lover of freedom? Could it be this Apollonian pole of Berlin's writing means he has much to give and much to say?
Hard hitting? Sometimes it reminds me of a drunken pub brawl. Ever heard of irony, anonymous? By all means let's have some "serious" philosophical argument for a change, instead of endless putting of words into peoples' mouths, and superficial and irrelevant judgements along the lines of "Right-wing and Zionist = bad, Left [or MY version of it, anyway] = good."
I'm more interested in Berlin's historical insights and philosophical stance than in his race or politics. Why the urge for a kangaroo court on this particular thinker?
Toby asks a fair question, and it is up to Zola to answer it explicitly - not just to make snide cracks at Berlin, about whom, for some undisclosed reason, he has a chip on his shoulder. To be honest, I find all this rather boring. I'd rather spend my time reading some of Berlin's brilliant essays.
To the best of my knowledge, Berlin appreciated the 'bent twig of nationalism' - the need for bent, humiliated backs to be straightened - given his Jewish roots. But: he never was tempted to live in Israel himself. That's not to say that, even as Prof of Pol at Oxford, media don, and cultural icon in the West, he still didn't feel outsider-ish at times.
So yes, he supported the creation of Israel. Yet, it was precisely on this issue where he returned to a utilitarian calculus - a calculus that Berlin, following the romantics - the 'good' romantics - had rejected. (Utilitarianism was for Berlin a form of 'monism' - a dogmatic creed that, in urging pain and pleasure as the be all and end all of life, had within it totalitarian implications, would trmaple on all the other different ways of flowering and blooming).
In an interview with Stephen Lukes, in Salmagundi I think - I'll try and dig out the reference - it's there where he urges the need for interest-based mutual accommodation, the need to marginalse the fanatics on both sides who didn't care about the consequences. He could well understand how his bent twig approach applied as much to the Palestinians as the Israelis.
On the 'uses' of Berlin, the right-wing did seek to use Berlin as something of a cold war weapon - as an advocate of the minimal, negative-liberty enhancing state; contrasting this with the evil positive-liberty seeking totalitarianism of the SU, its attempt to impose one way of life on its subject, 'forcing subjects to be free'. But that's way off too. Berlin said that often. (Here was someone well infavour of the British welfare state, and abolishing the Public/Private School system - not least because of all the issues of class, indignity and bent backs that caused.)
(London was erm, agadoogalore, Foggymountainbreakdown.)
Toby : I agree that much may be worthwhile from Icy Berlin. Indeed I suspect many on these postings will agree with that as it is allowed to emerge. The non-rational ( not here meaning irrational) is however painfully missed ( wicked willy come back all is forgiven?). Berlin is like a cold shower.
Anticant : Just two points. First it must be reasonable to consider both the politics and the "Zionist" aspect of this Berlin. Surely there is little need to defend such a situating of Berlin. You may like a pure or abstract version but I'm afraid most will not accept that today.
Second : no need to be personal with me I am only a hermes. Better if you made a contribution.
Butwhatif : Yes. Today i placed a part two post for this negative freedom.
I did this because I think the critiques are coming from different areas. Perhaps this warming up will demand a few seperate posts. I do not know yet.
All i try is to open up this stuff in the spirit of finding out together.
Interesting stuff, BWI. The welfare state seems to me an obvious goal for a defender of negative liberty. The state providing basic services is not something that would be rejected by many lovers of freedom. Even if the current welfare state we have is in crisis due to the rapid advance of technology, thereby its expense and the obvious failure of politicians to take long-term decisions over pensions, etc.
Is it not interesting that we currently face governments in the West who are simultaneously assaulting our negative liberty, at the same time as the welfare state as it exists is crumbling due to our failure as citizens to exercise the discarded restraint of positive liberty?
Toby : Yeps. My second post ( today on-line)might be better for negative liberty.
I suspect the Dionysus will not get out to party there so much.
But maybe the spectre of Marx will arise from Highgate or at least turn in his grave.
I have been to Auschwitz many times and one of the things that always strikes me is that this 'factory of death' was set up to spare the blushes of the poor Einzatzgruppen Kommandos who were having to kill face-to-face.
'Bach-Zelewski was worried about this method's traumatizing effects on his men. Himmler recorded in his diary the General's concerns: "And he said to me, 'Reichsfuhrer, these men are finished for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we producing here- either neurotics or brutes?'"
'To be honest, I find all this rather boring. I'd rather spend my time reading some of Berlin's brilliant essays.'.
Well, I would tend to agree with you if your only attempt at a contribution consists of telling the others what and how they may post (or, worse still, where they should post).
You also show a serious mis-understanding of the nature of philosophical debate.
The dialogues of Plato were jam-packed with banter and many modern cultures actively encourage a form of stylised piss-take as a way of progressing the dialectic.
I reckon that some of us here could cure the 'ills of the world' in the time that others spend looking for typos in the 'Table of Contents'.
Oh diddums, brave anonymous. You are pissed off with me, aren't you? You do like your own way, Don't you?
Is that philosophical enough?
Like I said Anticant : You are free to rant and rave or even use a few attacking comments on this site. But expect a few back and do not take it personally as they say.
Actually Anonymous made a good point in that this group has so much diverse and deep knowledge and that just takes time to surface and when the time and the feelings are right.
This thread may still concentrate upon that Berlin which is in tension with the likes of Nietzsche and the rationality world view.
As you, Anticant, have obviously read so much of both nietzsche and Berlin your contributions would be useful and perhaps add a little something to that which is already appearing through a group working together each in their own way.
Thanks for telling me what I am 'free' to do, Zola. Very kind of you, I'm sure. I have already decided not to participate further, as the 'diverse and deep knowledge' of this group is so obviously far above my humble head.
I quote from Isaiah Berlin :-
" Failure is nobler than success.. .. Self immorlation ..... symptom of the Romantic attitude. ... wild-eyed,wild-haired, poor, solitary, mocked-at ; but independent, free,spiritually superior to his philistine tormentors. This dark attitude has a darker side too .... Napoleon ... It is this embodiment of the Romantic ideal that took more and more hysterical forms and in its extreme ended in irrationalism and Fascism. " ( berlin 1979 in his introduction to The Mind of the Romantics, by H.G. Schenk, Oxford)
It is, for me, useful to keep on thinking about the ways that a Berlin with Romantic appreciation ( even if he would, as Toby and Butwhatif have already said see more than one Romanticism) finds a tension with the likes of Nietzsche, who is also labelled as both Romantic and even Postmodern.
Was LavenderBlue fairly wise in her comment that much of this philosophy is a bit childish? It may be and it maybe ok for that too.
I guess the day that we stop asking childish questions and seeking out childish things is the day the good music dies.
Forgot : I should have also tried to say that the reason I ask and put forward this kind of question is because ( as implied in original post) the Berlin position is usually associated with rational-reason and one critique ( amongst others) comes from the Freddie Neatshoedancer where to follow this rational-reason way is to join a "tyranny" and be servile.
I think there is a big debate here if we talk of positive liberty.
From Wicked Willy 8th.
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