The Impact of Marx on the 19th Century (Isaiah Berlin 1964)

Isaiah Berlin discusses Marx and Marx's influence on the 19th century as part of a 1964 conference at Stanford University. More Isaiah Berlin: • Isaiah Berlin
#philosophy #marx #isaiahberlin

[@gladyse.villarroel]

It's a pleasure listening to Berlin's voice and argumentation. A wonderful example of the power of ideas.

[@sandrosocial1989]

Indeed

[@pectenmaximus231]

Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga (Latvians to my knowledge did not particularly enjoy being in the USSR), moved to Russia as a boy and his family fled the Revolution. He was contemporary to all the major events of Marx's ideas in action (at least in principle). He was a historicist, much alike in mentality to the whole German camp (across roughly 2 centuries) including Marx, and was perhaps the leading intellectual in actually appreciating the continuity of ideas antecedent to Marx. And yet, youtube denizens dont fail to claim that Isaiah Berlin "clearly didnt read Marx". If everything above were still true, yet Isaiah Berlin hadn't reserved praise for Marx, then he would be revered for his accolades and surely these very attributes would be seen as the core of his intimate insight into Marx's genius.

[@jdzentrist8711]

This is awe-inspiring, truly, I mean, both Berlin and of course the great fighter, Marx. I'm so appreciative...

[@jonahgrimbly7565]

Thanks

[@whatnever]

Can anybody refer me to parts of marxs original tekst where he explicitly accepts the thesis about the human nature that berlin is talking about? I understand that that thesis gives a criterion of right and wrong and the purpose of historical movement, but i am not sure if there is such a thesis in , at least, later marx?

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

Someone else could probably give you a much better answer than I could, but I did want to mention just a few things. First, I don't know if Marx ever uses the term 'human nature' anywhere in his writings, but he does talk about it under different names. For example, he talks about what he calls our 'species essence' and similar notions. And perhaps the most famous thing he says about this is that human beings are by nature producers who freely create and make things. If you'd like, I can give you specific places where such things are discussed, but they are honestly pretty well-known and rather easy to find. As for Berlin himself, I suspect that he might be mainly deriving Marx's views about human nature from other things that Marx said elsewhere. This would explain why Berlin talks about and focuses on the fact that other notions in Marx presuppose a view of human nature and wouldn't make sense without such a nature (i.e. notions like alienation, exploitation, oppression, and that of actualization). However, the strange thing about all this is that Berlin has also claimed elsewhere that Marx was one of the first thinkers to maintain that there is no "fixed" human nature, but that our nature is largely a product of our environment (which is something that changes over time by way of the underlying material conditions). Indeed, Berlin explicitly says this much in a 1961 lecture on the philosophy of history, which was only 3 years prior to this lecture. So that's something that I found to be quite curious. The lecture I'm referring to can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJaxZoaXfNapjLc

[@whatnever]

​@@Philosophy_Overdose thanks very much for the reply. yes, that is the main dilemma, not only for the Berlins interpretation, but for the later marxists as well. I guess that this dilemma about the plasticity of human nature originates from Hegel. The question is, if u discard the assumption of an "absolutely good state of affairs for a human being that is known on the basis of the human essence", how do you justify any kind of practical maxim as universally or generally good? The notion of "human nature" or "species essence" is in this sense both descriptive, and the fundamental normative notion, since a progressive political subject needs to value any kind of political act in relation to the consequences that bring us closer to this state of affairs. If u dont want to assume at least minimally fixed human nature, it seems to me that the only way to justify a political act is by going "even more metaphysical" and predicate the good and bad to a complex metaphysical entity such as history. (since the knowledge of the human nature is "more empirical" than the knowledge of the essence or the purpose of the history, that is, the whole of being thats moving in time.) I guess that maybe this could be a distinction between earlier, more humanist Marx, and later, more "structuralist" Marx, but Im not even close to knowing enough on the topic.

[@mcurtisallen]

@@whatnever en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_human_nature

[@adaptercrash]

Start selling it for wages in Mass quantities in bread referred to the opium of the masses after the collapse of the kantian government

[@allhailaynrand]

@@whatnever I think Berlin would agree that we need some idea of human nature to think about and advance certain ethical and political projects. But while Marx views human nature as something constantly in a state of flux, Berlin thinks any conception of human nature is going to be radically incomplete and limited; being an artifact of the finite set of knowledge we have about ourselves, as individuals and as a species. In his words, we can think about the "boundaries of human nature," but not about what is the 'right' conception of human nature.

[@fabiodeoliveiraribeiro1602]

I had already been a Marx reader for more than a decade when I had the curiosity to read Christopher Hill's book "The world turned upside down" about the English revolution that overthrew and beheaded King Charles I. It was at that moment that I was absolutely surprised to discover that Karl Marx used several times metaphors used by English radical Protestants: the world upside down, violence as a midwife of history and others, etc. The most radical among the Protestants mentioned by Christopher Hill, such as George Foster, were crushed by Cromwel because they held that "God will cut off all powers, both kings and parliaments, and cause all goods to be held in common." They also said that "An international revolution" would lead among other things to "the worldwide institution of a classless society". Abiezer Coppe also advocated "parity and equality and the community of goods". Marxism is also characterized by the defense of the thesis that the State and politics would be dissolved by the common administration of the means of production. In a way, we can say that Marx updated the theses of the English Protestant radicals by removing all religious aspects from them. The final part of Isaiah Berlin's lecture is completely irrelevant, because neoliberalism lowered the standard of living of the working class, revoked conquered labor rights, emptied the unions and turned tens of millions of people in rich countries into permanent unemployed workforce. By adopting class struggle as a strategy and the crushing of the labor movement as a goal, neoliberals recreated ideal conditions for Marx's theories to win back the hearts and minds of the dispossessed. This is already happening in several countries.

[@johnstewart7025]

I think you are right. Men were employed 90% back in 60s. Now, only 2/3. Now, 2/3 of women work these days, but it seems it is family life that has suffered. Life is more atomized.

[@michaelknight4041]

​@@johnstewart7025I'm not sexist or anything but I think that society made a mistake by putting woman to work in general. For one thing the workforce grew exponentially because of it and this had the effect of driving wages down. Labor now had a surplus and this drove its cost down. Also woman tend to be paid less than men for myriad reasons. When you consider how feminism, corporate interests, schools etc. Were all telling women they needed careers, and discouraging the idea of a traditional family life its little wonder how we've arranged in this brave new world where both women and men now have to work in order to make ends meet. It used to be that one person from the household, typically the man, could afford a home, a car or sometimes two and to raise a few children all by working one job. That is quite unbelievable today and of course quite impossible.

[@languagegame410]

love listening to I. Berlin!... thanks, P. Overdose...

[@matthewkelly2399]

Fab

[@rodrigonegreteprieto8242]

In science the personality of the scientist does not matter too much, however on regard ideologies the personality of the ideologue does matter. I think Marxism is a strong projection of both the personality as well the way its creator lived his life: resentful, unkind, disloyal to everybody and everything, so no attachments nor prudence, no wisdom at all to find in his writings drawn either for sheer experience or keen observation of life despite his trademark witty criticism. A man of abstractions unable to solve real problems, to deal with concrete situations or concrete persons for that matter. Where other thinkers saw just people, he only saw concepts piled up on even more concepts. In short, a pedantic man unable to handle his life, his duties, his entourage. Nothing more natural to him than to wish as much prophesize the obliteration of a social order based on honoring obligations and responsibilities. About ten people attended his funeral. Remarkably for a man who took everything giving nothing he had a good friend. What follows from then on is history and by no means one of its best chapters.

[@kalicheung2139]

I used to live under communism, I think Berlin's comments in relation to Marx is fair and well reasoned.

[@firstal3799]

Interesting

[@jdzentrist8711]

"The view [the values] of a man who is starving is very different from the view of a man who is satisfied." Wow. Very well said!

[@RandoBurner]

Epictetus was a slave and had the same sort of views as Marcus Aurelius who was an emperor.

[@firstal3799]

The writer put same sort of views

[@thejackbancroft7336]

54:25 Well oh well, look who turned out to be right on that point.

[@thallesvinicius2729]

06:20

[@thallesvinicius2729]

17:41

[@thejackbancroft7336]

1:07:01 I don't think he'd have made that remark in the 21st century

[@JAI_8]

@@numbersix8919 Indeed. And now that the Soviets are gone there is no real edifice of economic socialism to counterbalance the global capitalist juggernaut, using the widespread “conservative culture war” capitalists are beginning to dismantle the last troubling part of “socialism” that stands in the way of capital having unfettered control over the whole world; the political institution of democracy itself! We are now beginning to see that capitalism is in fact anti-freedom, anti-egalitarian, and anti-democratic in its essence. We see this since we’ve witnessed that capitalism creates a hierarchy of economic class and without state intervention capitalism creates monopolies and an intense concentration of wealth and power at the “top”. Democracy is an institution that serves no purpose in the private capitalist corporation, as we know … we don’t vote on management plans at work after all do we? … and once capitalism reaches a point of sufficient concentration of a nation’s wealth and power great pressure will be brought to bear by the rich and powerful to undermine and destroy democracy as a political institution until eventually it will cease to exist unless a great societal catastrophe occurs to redistribute the wealth and power. A large mass-mobilization war … political revolution … catastrophic plague, or social disintegration. For all their critique of China, America’s most powerful capitalists are doing all they can with the Republican Party (and to a lesser extent the Democrats too) to create an authoritarian capitalist state in America just like the one that currently rules China. The “traditional culture” that it purports to defend might be different in the US than that of China (or Singapore, where the model first appeared) but the goal of destroying democracy and creating an authoritarian non-democratic state apparatus to serve a thoroughly capitalist economy will be the same.

[@he1ar1]

Post 1990 he would have said something else. Post 2022 he wold have said something else too. The owl of minerva gives us great insight. John Gray gives s a glimpse of what he would say today.

[@Crouchy232323]

I find it incredible that someone called Marx is most famous for his writing on Marxism

[@firstal3799]

Marx is the single most important influence in all of social science till today

[@user-fk6lf6yy4s]

@@firstal3799So it’s his fault then.

[@firstal3799]

Yes in the way his economics was dead wrong and his philosophy was also absolute. But his system was really a profound intellectual leap. And imo Hegel got nothing on him. Sure Marx had an antecedent and everyone does. But Hegel's influence on him is exaggerated.

[@jesperandersson889]

isn't the 19th century very much underplayed in history, and I am not saying this to grind an axe...

[@jvcyt298]

The past is prologue, as they say. Those who do not learn from history are quite often doomed to repeat it.

[@d.mavridopoulos66]

In what sense is it underplayed? Eminent and distinguished scholars have written books on this period: Eric Hobsbawm, Richard Evans, Alan Bailey, Jurgen Osterhammel as well Isaiah Berlin himself.

[@321bytor]

...of all the people I'd like to have a drink with...the one I'd choose first is Karl Marx

[@marshallsolomon9488]

If you have read Marx, then this talk will make little sense. If you haven't read Marx, then it will ring true.

[@chewie481]

Why is that?

[@nezajaz]

@@acelyag8594 too bad for reality.

[@marshallsolomon9488]

@@chewie481 in general terms, because the talk is based on a decontextualized reading of the communist manifesto. when berlin says things like "marx applied his doctrines to reality" he implies marx has doctrines outside of history (reality) that are subsequently applied to history (reality). this is the exact opposite of marx's method. there are no doctrines (general abstractions) that apply to reality. history is constituted in and through particular social forms. marx's critiqued the social form of capital. he did not offer positive doctrines to be applied. he recognized certain potentialities within the social form of capital, ones that are not yet actualized and are not subject to natural or a metaphysical necessity.

[@michaelwu7678]

@@acelyag8594 It's pretty obvious you haven't read Marx

[@ideologically_uncharged8069]

I misread this comment in the first time. Now it made sense why this video was nonsense.

[@doobaa]

A critical liberal account of Marx and his ideas. Utterly sensible.

[@mcurtisallen]

Utterly misleading as well, if you actually know anything about Marx, since what made and makes Marx important is his critique of political economy, not some cartoon about him being a zealot. It's a shame, I usually enjoy Berlin, but this is pure sophistry and rhetoric with no substance, or very little at any rate.

[@hughmac13]

@@mcurtisallen For a fair consideration of Berlin's character, see what he did to Isaac Deutscher. I get witheringly strong narc vibes from Berlin, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

[@jvcyt298]

@@mcurtisallen; Interpretations are like opinions, and we know what they say about opinions.

[@hkumar7340]

@@hughmac13 I haven't read David Caute's "Isaac and Isaiah." But my understanding is that Berlin could not tolerate Deutscher's special pleading for Soviet Communism. Berlin apparently told someone that not only did he disagree with Deutscher's political philosophy, he did not like Deutscher as a person either. These things happen, not all people get along with others agreeably. Berlin did not recommend Deutscher for a faculty position at the University of Sussex -- could be because of the political difference, could be because of the personal dislike, could be due to both. However, I can sympathize with a liberal political philosopher who found communist totalitarianism unpalatable, and did not want this pernicious dogma to creep into democratic societies through academic fellow travellers. Marx as a philosopher is worth reading and discussing -- but Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a political system is oppressive, soul-killing, cruel and utterly impractical. The many millions who were tortured to death by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the Kim family (North Korea) stand as silent witnesses to this judgment.

[@hughmac13]

@@hkumar7340 I'll leave aside the discussion of Berlin and Deutscher, as we can very confidently dispose of that issue as to one man's pettiness, vanity, and superciliousness. It's a good thing Marxism-Leninism and the Red Army were there to defeat fascism. It's not all of it all bad. There are even elements of Mao's and Pot's reforms that were righteous and necessary, even if they were applied clumsily, overzealously, and with terrible consequences. For example, China-under Mao and the people's liberation-was able for the first time in centuries to stand on its own, free of imperialist meddling. You are aware of and can appreciate the extent and depravity of the crimes against humanity perpetrated in China by the imperial European powers and ultimately by imperial Japan? Do you know what kind of charnel house China was made by the Japanese? What is more "soul-killing, cruel and utterly impractical" than the literal rape of entire cities and public decapitations, including of children, on an industrial scale? It may not have been pretty, but Maoism was very arguably necessary, and China is now a world power, as its size justifies. Would that have been possible-would capitalist imperialism have allowed that to develop-without the people's revolution?

[@joseandresgomez4797]

I look for the sensitive world

[@mouwersor]

If Main Kampf was more philosophical and Hitler died of old age, would nazism then be just as popular as communism is now?

[@jvcyt298]

If pigs had wings?

[@jasonrose6288]

@Fuk U Sometimes the consequences of an idea in the real world - such as world war, attempted genocide and the destruction of one's own country - tend to tarnish things a little.

[@danielmcdermott138]

No. Communism was built on universality, hence the appeal. Hitlerism was an absurd, pornographic brand of right-wing populism entirely dedicated to one race of people and one only.

[@jdzentrist8711]

"If I don't understand reality [the real direction of history] it will get me in the end." This is what Xi said to himself prior to making his teenage decision to become a Great Man, only do it differently, more pragmatically. It remains to be seen how all this is going to turn out. We are in the middle of events of world-significance. One hopes for the best, that is, that this strange geist we are living in, a combination of socialism and global trade, will continue to rule the day, such that a modicum of peace will be the relatively cooperative, harmonious, global order.

[@tristanreynolds5748]

It is sooo important to know that Marx was an insignificant figure for most of the 19th century among the radicals of that time. And, in my opinion, i think Marxism could've easily been taken up by "the right" (conservatives) instead if not for the Russian revolution

[@markporciani8871]

Marx break from Hegel was a rejection of all forms of conservatives!

[@thallesvinicius2729]

07:06