The Russian Preoccupation with Historicism (Isaiah Berlin 1973)

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[@ac4740]

Your channel - I am so glad it is back - is an incredible resource, thank you so much for putting all the time and effort into maintaining (and now reviving) it. I am sure your schedule is already packed, and you receive many comments requesting/demanding certain videos be re-uploaded, so I understand if this has no particular effect on your upload agenda, but: I look forward to your re-upload of the Brassier lectures! I have a word document whose title is "Brassier - What is not in Plato, Sellars and Kant" which I hope one day to return to. Thanks again ❤

[@evinnra2779]

What a coincidence, just this morning I re-read Anton Chekhov's novel 'Gooseberries' in which I found this brilliant observation; "There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and , on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother's bedroom and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! What a suffocating force it is ! You look at life; the insolence and idleness of the strong , the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying ...." Thankfully Chekhov submits a more cheerful conclusion to these insights a few pages further on ; " 'Pavel Konstantinovitch' he said in an imploring voice, don't be calm and contented, don't let your self be put to sleep! While you are young, strong, confident, be not weary in well-doing! There is no happiness, and there ought not be; but if there is a meaning and an object in life, that meaning an object is not our happiness, but something greater and more rational. Do good!" There is no requirement to find out what historic wave is current nor is there any religious aspiration in just doing what is good. Chekhov is one of the most brilliant authors I have ever come across.

[@Khuno2]

An exceptional comment! Chekhov was one of a kind. But you should be careful. The thought gestapo are trying to cancel everything Russian (ring of the calipers about it now). Maybe if they never hear the names, they'll spare the works from their bonfires! What do you think of Bulgakov? Behemoth was quite the rascal, no?

[@evinnra2779]

@@Khuno2 Did my homework and found a good audio book here on KZbin of The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. It was painfully grotesque for the most part, but the end was somewhat thought provoking. When it comes to the comparison of authors, I'd say comparing Chekhov with Bulgakov is alike a comparison between Plato and Plutarch. One has immeasurable depth, the other is good at creating milieu, for instance by describing how gaslight hits a wet cobble stone pavement. I gather you took a liking to Behemoth ?

[@Khuno2]

​@@evinnra2779 There's more contrast than comparison between Chekhov and Bulgakov, I'd say. Highlights the immense variability in the Russian literary tradition. (Less so than between Chekhov and Pirandello, right? Russian Realism and Italian modernism aren't simpatico, but in this case, that underscores the limitations of the labels applied to the authors). Chekhov features more prominently (and prodigiously) in literary estimation (and for very good reasons), but I find Bulgakov to be more relevant to the contemporary predicament. Oh, yes! A talking cat that drinks like a fish, communicates with filthy jokes, and is constantly playing pranks and indulging its pyromania? What's not to take a liking to? Garfield goes to hell. I was wondering how Behemoth would respond to the imperative that you highlighted in _Gooseberries_ ... More should ask themselves what Behemoth would do if for nothing else than a little levity (and hopefully, only that). Bulgakov's "painful grotesqueries" (grand guignol) were quite intentional and masterfully deployed as withering social criticism in a stifling and dangerous social climate. We could use a lot more of that right meow (sorry), don't you think?

[@evinnra2779]

@@Khuno2 I've been thinking about your question in the past few days ; " how Behemoth would respond to the imperative that you highlighted in 'Gooseberries' . More should ask themselves what Behemoth would do if for nothing else than a little levity." Could we use a lot more of it right now? The instinctive answer of mine was a deafening no, we shouldn't use more withering social criticism at the moment , we already have a culture war happening in society as we speak. However, I gathered that your question was further reaching than what may be apparent on the surface, pointing to the idea that if one ought to do what is good and Behemoth's own good is the torturing of human minds then there is an exception to the rule that one should just do what feels good or right to one's self all the time. Point taken. That said, what Chekhov points to is not quite a personal good but the Good in general, which good is inclusive of what is good for others as well as good for the person thinking about it. "Define what is the Good" comes the next step of philosophical 'frisking', which is a task impossible to complete. The Good is the Good precisely because it has no definable boundaries, it is an idea precisely because it can't have a definition of 'what' but 'how it is'. Cheers

[@firstal3799]

Berlin is a superb historian

[@MrSpazzy2004]

Is there a book by Berlin that covers this subject ?

[@thejackbancroft7336]

Most of his books are derived from his spoken words. You're probably just as good to listen to him while taking notes.

[@matthewkelly2399]

Read the biographies

[@Lesboi]

There is a book named "Russian Thinkers" by Isiah Berlin search it in your library database online

[@fulcrum1126]

And why do Russians live their ideas at an intensity which Westerners don't?

[@TheHunterGracchus]

Do they???

[@fulcrum1126]

@@TheHunterGracchus I would hate to say, but it seems this is the assertion of the speaker?

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

I can imagine that the perception of national (and therefore to some sense also personal) inferiority might be conducive to an attitude where you see yourself as a student who very seriously aspires to become like his teacher and in which one artificially reproduces a behaviour which one has recognized in one's teacher and also thoroughly analysed. But this "repetition" will then no longer be a true repetition, because in this process of imitation it looses all of the original the spontaneity and naturalness. This might be one explanation for Berlin's observation, that ideologies are often changed by people who seriously believe in them.