Pluralism, with the measure of “negative” liberty that it entails, seems to me a truer and more humane ideal than the goals of those who seek in the great disciplined, authoritarian structures the ideal of “positive” self-mastery by classes, or peoples, or the whole of mankind.
Berlin wrote when the consensus pushed toward the middle, in a time of post-war horror over what totalitarian Fascism had accomplished, and of Cold War worry about the Soviet Union's lead in space and Communist China's unsettling “Great Leap Forward.” As a Jew who had escaped Stalinist Communism, Berlin had good reason to be wary of those who believed some humans knew better than others how to organize civilization.
This blog’s five-post discussion of Berlin’s philosophy began with a
current defense of his teachings. It’s necessary. Well-considered, intellectually-framed attacks are out of fashion when aimed at those who advocate technical, therapeutic, “social health” approaches to helping fellow humans free themselves from their baser impulses. And as Oxford's Cherniss notes, even Berlin (after all, a fan of the New Deal) wouldn’t defend negative freedom that meant government refusing--just because it interfered with someone’s liberty--to tax the rich to help the poor.
As a supporter of pluralism, Berlin didn’t find it necessary to be tied to the purity of his argument. Let each individual find his or her way, and let government strive to guarantee that freedom to everyone.
There is little evidence of such modesty in today's U.S. The broad elite that dominates Democrats, the media, entertainment and the arts, the government bureaucracies, academia, and the Third Sector is a large echo chamber quite sure it knows what’s best for the other 80%. And our confident elite has spawned a Republican counterforce equally sure of its contrasting worldview.
In this partisan, polarized atmosphere, it's worth noting that Friedman has just proposed creation of a third party, the American Renewal Party (New York Times, 5.4.06).
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