WEBVTT

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Welcome back to the deep dive. I have to say,

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I am incredibly excited about the stack of research

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we have on the desk today. It's thick, it's complex,

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but it is also... Well, it's surprisingly human.

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It really is. It's a fascinating mix of biography,

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history, and some very high -level political

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theory. Usually when we dive into the world of

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great philosophers, capital G, capital P, the

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mental image is pretty standard. You picture

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someone locked away in a tower, maybe in, what,

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18th century Germany, scribbling furiously by

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candlelight. They are detached, they are stoic,

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and they produce these massive, dense tomes that

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take a lifetime to decipher. The solitary genius.

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model. Right. Kant sitting in Königsberg, never

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leaving his hometown. That is the traditional

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image. Right. But today's subject, he just he

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completely destroys that image. We are tackling

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a figure who is a massive paradox. He was arguably

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the 20th century's greatest philosopher, certainly

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one of the most decorated. Yet here's the kicker.

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He hated writing. He absolutely despised it.

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I mean, he found the physical act of putting

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pen to paper to be, well, a kind of torture.

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There is this quote from a colleague of his,

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Maurice Burra, that I found in the notes, and

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it actually made me laugh out loud. Burra compared

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our subject to our Lord and Socrates. Wow. That

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is a very high bar. It is, right? You'd think

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he's saying he was some kind of messiah. But

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the reasoning was hilarious. Barr said it was

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because, like Jesus and Socrates, he does not

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publish much but thinks and says a great deal

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and has had an enormous influence on our times.

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We are, of course, talking about Sir Isaiah Berlin.

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That is an incredibly fitting description. Berlin

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was a man who didn't just study ideas in a vacuum.

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He lived them. He was a witness to some of the

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most seismic shifts of the 20th century, and

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he processed all of it through conversation.

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He was the century's greatest talker. And that's

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what we're going to do today. We're going to

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unpack the life of this talker. But this isn't

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just a biography. We have a specific mission

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here. We really need to understand how a man

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who saw the Russian Revolution with his own eyes

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as a seven -year -old boy ended up becoming a

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British knight and, you know, maybe the most

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important voice on the concept of freedom. And

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that journey from a terrified child in Petrograd

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to the halls of Oxford, that's the key to unlocking

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his ideas. We're going to explore his famous

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concepts. The Hedgehog and the Fox, which is

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probably the most famous intellectual parlor

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game in history. I love that one. It's like a

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horoscope for smart people. It is. And we will

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get into why he actually thought that was kind

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of funny. But we'll also get into the heavy stuff.

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The two concepts of liberty. And honestly, this

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is the part where the big al -ha moment usually

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hits for people. Yeah. Because Berlin warns us

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about a specific type of freedom, positive liberty.

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That sounds amazing on paper. It sounds like

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exactly what we should want. But he argues it

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can actually be a trap door to tyranny. That

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is the part I'm really itching to get to, the

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idea that freedom can be used as a weapon against

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itself. But before we get to the philosophy,

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we have to understand the man. And despite the

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knighthood, despite the order of merit, despite

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being the ultimate insider of the British establishment,

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he insisted on a very specific, very different

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identity. He was incredibly firm on this. He

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said, and this is a direct quote, I am a Russian

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Jew from Riga and all my years in England cannot

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change this. So if we want to get him, we can't

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start in a library in Oxford. We have to start

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in Riga. Let's go back to the early 20th century.

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Riga is now the capital of Latvia. But back in

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1909, when Isaiah Berlin was born, it was a major

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industrial hub of the Russian Empire. It was

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a bustling, diverse city. Right. And the Berlin

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family wasn't just, you know, scraping by. I'm

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looking at the notes on his father, Mendel Berlin.

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Comfortable seems like a massive understatement.

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It is. Mendel was a timber merchant and not just

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a local seller. He was the head of the Riga Association

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of Timber Merchants. This was a big deal. I have

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this image in my head of what that means. The

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source material describes these massive rafts

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of timber being floated down the Dogeva River

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to the sawmills. It feels very, I don't know,

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physical, very elemental. It was. This was real

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wealth, you know, generated from the land and

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trade. They owned forests in Russia. And because

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they were dealing with Western companies to sell

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this timber, the Berlin household was incredibly

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cosmopolitan. It wasn't an isolated bubble. The

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language situation alone is just dizzying to

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me. I mean, I struggle to order coffee in a second

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language, but listen to this environment. His

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father spoke Yiddish, Russian, German, French,

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and English. Wow. His mother, Marie, was fluent

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in Yiddish, Russian, and Latvian. So little Isaiah

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is basically swimming in this soup of languages

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from the day he's born. And that's crucial. Think

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about what that does to a developing brain. When

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you grow up with five different words for freedom

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or truth, and each of those words carries a slightly

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different cultural flavor, you learn something

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very early on. What's that? You learn that there

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isn't just one way to describe reality. You're

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naturally primed to see multiple perspectives.

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Exactly. It's the incubator for a historian of

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ideas. But that idyllic, wealthy life in Riga,

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the timber, the French lessons, the comfort,

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it didn't last. No. The family moves to Petrograd,

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what we now call St. Petersburg, when he's about

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six years old. And at first, it seems like they

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are just moving up in the world. They move into

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this massive building on Ingleski Prospekt. And

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listen to who their neighbors are. They've got

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the daughter of the famous composer Rimsky -Korsakov.

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They've got a Princess Emeritinsky. This was

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the absolute epicenter of the Russian intelligentsia

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and the aristocracy. They were living among the

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elite of the elite. And then 1917 hits. Russian

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Revolution. And Berlin is a child watching this

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entire world just collapse in real time. It's

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hard for us to imagine the scale of that disruption.

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The source mentions this incredible detail about

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the reversal of fortune. Berlin watched the princess

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and the composer's daughter, people who are essentially

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royalty in that social circle. suddenly being

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forced to go out and sweep the yards and stoke

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the stoves of the building. The social pyramid

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just flipped upside down overnight. It did. And

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for a child, that is a profound lesson in how

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fragile civilization is. You know, one day you

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have servants, the next day you are the servant.

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But that was just the social change. There was

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also the violence. This is the moment I really

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want to focus on. There is one specific memory,

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one traumatic event that the sources say defined

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his entire political philosophy. It involves

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a pharaoh. Yes, a pharaoh, which in the slang

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of the time, this is a term for a czarist policeman.

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Yeah. A government enforcer. So set the scene

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for us. It's the middle of the revolution. The

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streets are chaotic. Berlin is about seven years

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old. He's out walking or possibly looking from

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a balcony or a window. And he spots this pharaoh

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on a rooftop. The man is a sniper, loyal to the

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czar, and he's shooting at the revolutionaries

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down in the street. And the crowd spots him.

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They do. And this is the image that burned itself

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into Berlin's brain. He watched the crowd storm

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the building. He watched them drag this man from

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the rooftop. He called it a lynching bee. A lynching

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bee. That is such a chilling phrase. It is. It

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implies a buzz, a swarm, a collective loss of

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control, a mob mentality. And he didn't just

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see the man die. He saw the struggle. He describes

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seeing the man physically fighting for his life,

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twisting and turning in the grip of a mob of

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about 20 people before they finally dragged him

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away to his death. He said later, and this is

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a direct quote from our notes, That gave me a

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permanent horror of violence which has remained

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with me for the rest of my life. That moment

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is the key. If you want to understand why Isaiah

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Berlin spent his life suspicious of grand revolutions,

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suspicious of utopian promises, suspicious of

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anyone who says the end justifies the means,

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you have to go back to that seven -year -old

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boy. Because he saw the reality of it. It wasn't

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a theory in a book. It wasn't an abstract concept.

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Exactly. When later philosophers would talk about,

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you know, the necessary violence of the proletariat

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or cleansing society, Berlin didn't see an abstract

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concept. He saw that terrified man on the rooftop.

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He realized that the egg you break to make the

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omelet is a human being. That distinction between

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the abstract idea and the human reality seems

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to be the core of everything he did. It absolutely

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is. It instilled in him a lifelong belief that

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physical coercion violence is the ultimate evil.

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You cannot build a perfect society if the foundation

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is that kind of brutality. So understandably,

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the Berlins realize they have to get out. They

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are identified as bourgeoisie, which is a dangerous

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label under the Bolsheviks. A death sentence,

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potentially. They managed to flee back to Riga

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in 1920. But even there, they run into issues

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with the new Latvian government. So 1921, they

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make the big move to England. Berlin is 11 years

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old. And here's another shock to the system.

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He arrives in a London suburb, Surbiton, with

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virtually no English. Can you imagine? Eleven

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years old, you've seen a revolution, you've seen

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a lynching, you've been exiled twice, and now

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you're dropped into a British prep school where

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everyone is talking about cricket and tea. It

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must have been incredibly isolating. And yet,

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and this speaks to that talker ability we mentioned,

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he didn't withdraw. He attacked the language.

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The notes say he reached proficiency within a

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year. Within a year. By age 12, he was fluent.

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He didn't just learn the vocabulary, he absorbed

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the cadence, the culture, the humor. He became,

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in a way, more English than the English. He goes

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to St. Paul School, then on to Oxford, Corpus

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Christi College. And looking at his academic

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record, it's just... It's intimidating. He didn't

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just pass. He dominated. It really is a meteoric

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rise. He gets a first class honors degree. He

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wins the John Locke Prize for Philosophy. And

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just to give you some context on how smart this

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guy was, he outscored A .J. Ayer for that prize.

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And A .J. Ayer is not a lightweight. No, Ayer

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was a titan of 20th century philosophy. He was

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the golden boy of logical positivism. And Berlin

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beat him. And then he achieves what is sort of

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the holy grail of British academia. He gets elected

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to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

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We need to pause on All Souls because it is unique.

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Oxford has many colleges, but All Souls is, well,

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it's the summit. There are no undergraduates.

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You don't teach 19 -year -olds. It is purely

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a research institution for the absolute elite

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of the academic world. The best of the best.

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And the significance here is that he was the

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first Jewish scholar to get in. The first unconverted

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Jew. And that is a massive distinction. At that

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time, if you wanted to advance in the British

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establishment, the pressure to convert to Christianity,

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or at least to downplay your Jewishness, was

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immense. Berlin didn't do that. He kept the identity.

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Russian Jew from Riga. Exactly. He walked into

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the most exclusive club in England. on his own

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terms. And that reinforces that idea of him being

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an outsider on the inside. He was part of the

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establishment. He wore the robes. He drank the

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wine. But he always had that slight detachment.

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He could see the British tradition clearly because

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he wasn't entirely of it. So he's not all souls.

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He's brilliant. He's the talk of the town. But

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let's go back to this talk and philosopher thing,

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because as he climbs this academic ladder, his

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method of working is. Well, it's eccentric, to

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say the least. It is delightful. We established

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he hated writing. So how do you produce books

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and essays and lectures if you refuse to sit

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down and type? You talk. You talk. He used a

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Grundig tape recorder. But not in a quiet, sterile

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room. Right. That's not how he worked. No, that

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would be too boring for him. He would often dictate

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his essays and letters while he was hanging out

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with friends. He needed an audience. He needed

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the energy of a conversation to get his brain

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working. I'm just imagining being his friend.

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You go over for a drink, and he's pacing around

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the room shouting into a microphone about the

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French Revolution and then turning to you to

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ask if you want a biscuit. That is probably exactly

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how it happened. And spare a thought for the

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secretaries. Oh, the poor typists. They must

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have had the hardest job in Oxford. They had

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to transcribe these tapes. And remember, Berlin

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spoke in a rapid -fire staccato. A schoolmate

00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:06.379
described his speech as a breathless marathon.

00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:09.179
He would string ideas together, jump to a new

00:12:09.179 --> 00:12:12.100
topic, crack a joke, quote a Greek poet, and

00:12:12.100 --> 00:12:14.220
then circle back, sometimes without finishing

00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:16.379
the first sentence. The source mentions that

00:12:16.379 --> 00:12:18.240
sometimes the secretaries would accidentally

00:12:18.240 --> 00:12:21.440
include his jokes and his laughter in the final

00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.200
typed text. Which is amazing. You'd be reading

00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:26.220
a dense paragraph about political liberty and

00:12:26.220 --> 00:12:29.379
suddenly there's a huh or a pass the sugar in

00:12:29.379 --> 00:12:32.059
the middle of it. But this method resulted in

00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:34.460
a writing style that is unique in philosophy.

00:12:34.759 --> 00:12:38.080
How so? If you read Berlin, It doesn't feel like

00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:41.440
a dry textbook. It feels animated. It has a pulse.

00:12:41.580 --> 00:12:44.460
It mimics the flow of a brilliant rapid -fire

00:12:44.460 --> 00:12:46.759
conversation. It feels like his brain was just

00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:49.220
moving faster than a pen could ever keep up with.

00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:52.200
That is very likely true. And this conversational

00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:55.519
style made his complex ideas accessible. He wasn't

00:12:55.519 --> 00:12:57.159
trying to bury you in jargon. He was trying to

00:12:57.159 --> 00:13:00.179
talk to you, to persuade you. So World War II

00:13:00.179 --> 00:13:02.399
rolls around. Berlin wants to help. He wants

00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:05.159
to fight. But he can't. Right. He was disqualified

00:13:05.159 --> 00:13:07.480
from military service. Two reasons. He was born

00:13:07.480 --> 00:13:09.940
in Latvia, which complicated his status. And

00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:12.159
he had a birth injury, a damaged left arm. So

00:13:12.159 --> 00:13:14.899
he can't go to the trenches. Instead, he goes

00:13:14.899 --> 00:13:17.279
to the embassies. He works for British Information

00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:20.080
Services in New York, then in Washington, D .C.,

00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:22.659
and eventually he gets sent to Moscow. And this

00:13:22.659 --> 00:13:25.279
is a pivotal moment. He returns to the land of

00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:28.059
his childhood. But it's not the Russia of the

00:13:28.059 --> 00:13:31.460
Tsars anymore. It's Stalin's Russia. And in 1945,

00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:36.039
in Leningrad, formerly Petrograd, his home, he

00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:38.019
has a meeting that sounds like something out

00:13:38.019 --> 00:13:41.720
of a spy novel or a romantic tragedy. He meets

00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:44.460
the poet Anna Akhmatova. This is a legendary

00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:47.360
encounter in literary history. Akhmatova was

00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:49.179
one of the greatest poets of the 20th century,

00:13:49.340 --> 00:13:51.840
but she was living under the heavy shadow of

00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:54.559
the Soviet regime. She was monitored, censored.

00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:56.500
Her family members had been arrested. She was

00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:58.340
essentially a prisoner in her own country. A

00:13:58.340 --> 00:14:01.440
kind of internal exile. Precisely. And in walks

00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:05.639
Isaiah Berlin. The Oxford Don. The man from the

00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:08.179
West. A ghost from a world she could barely remember.

00:14:08.519 --> 00:14:10.879
They spent a night talking. Just talking from

00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:12.620
the evening until the sun came up the next morning.

00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:14.639
Can you imagine that conversation? The things

00:14:14.639 --> 00:14:16.100
they must have talked about? The source says

00:14:16.100 --> 00:14:18.299
this meeting had serious repercussions for her.

00:14:18.460 --> 00:14:22.179
It did. Stalin was pathologically paranoid. The

00:14:22.179 --> 00:14:24.179
fact that she met with a British diplomat made

00:14:24.179 --> 00:14:26.399
her a target again. She was denounced publicly.

00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:28.799
It caused her a lot of trouble. But emotionally

00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:32.559
and intellectually, it was profound. For Akhmetova,

00:14:32.759 --> 00:14:34.899
Berlin represented a connection to the Western

00:14:34.899 --> 00:14:37.559
world, to freedom, to the life of the mind that

00:14:37.559 --> 00:14:39.960
the Soviets were trying to crush. And for Berlin,

00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:42.539
what did he take away from it? It was a reality

00:14:42.539 --> 00:14:45.899
check, a powerful, visceral one. He had the childhood

00:14:45.899 --> 00:14:48.539
memory of the violence of the revolution. Now

00:14:48.539 --> 00:14:50.899
he was seeing the long -term result. He was seeing

00:14:50.899 --> 00:14:53.700
the gray, crushing weight of totalitarianism

00:14:53.700 --> 00:14:56.799
on a brilliant artist. It reinforced everything

00:14:56.799 --> 00:14:59.000
he felt about the dangers of a state that controls

00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:01.360
everything. It's interesting how his life keeps

00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:03.340
circling back to this theme. The childhood trauma,

00:15:03.580 --> 00:15:06.500
the exile, the return to Russia. It all builds

00:15:06.500 --> 00:15:09.000
toward his philosophy. He wasn't sitting in an

00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.179
ivory tower inventing problems. He was trying

00:15:11.179 --> 00:15:12.759
to solve the problems that he saw destroying

00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:15.299
lives. Exactly. His philosophy was a response

00:15:15.299 --> 00:15:18.059
to the world he witnessed. Okay, let's dive into

00:15:18.059 --> 00:15:19.980
those ideas. Let's start with the lighter one,

00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:22.360
the one everyone loves to quote. The Hedgehog

00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:25.220
and the Fox. Ah, yes. The Hedgehog and the Fox.

00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:27.740
It's actually the title of an essay he wrote

00:15:27.740 --> 00:15:30.659
about Tolstoy. But the title itself comes from

00:15:30.659 --> 00:15:33.200
a fragment of an ancient Greek poet, Archilochus.

00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:36.419
And the line is, The fox knows many things, but

00:15:36.419 --> 00:15:39.019
the hedgehog knows one big thing. It's such a

00:15:39.019 --> 00:15:41.899
simple, evocative image, isn't it? But Berlin

00:15:41.899 --> 00:15:45.059
used it to categorize human thinkers, and really,

00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:47.379
all of us. So let's break it down for the listener.

00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:50.320
If I'm a hedgehog, what does my brain look like?

00:15:50.500 --> 00:15:53.460
If you're a hedgehog, you view the world through

00:15:53.460 --> 00:15:56.480
a single... defining lens. You have one central

00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:59.519
vision, one system, one organizing principle.

00:15:59.940 --> 00:16:01.799
Everything you see, everything you experience,

00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:04.779
you relate back to this one big idea. Okay. Like

00:16:04.779 --> 00:16:06.820
a unified theory of everything. Exactly. Berlin

00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:09.500
gives Plato as the prime example. For Plato,

00:16:09.700 --> 00:16:11.399
everything boiled down to the world of forms.

00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:14.320
It's one big coherent system. If you have a question,

00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:16.899
the system has the answer. Or think of a religious

00:16:16.899 --> 00:16:19.399
fundamentalist. Everything's about God's will.

00:16:19.850 --> 00:16:22.230
or a strict Marxist. Everything is about class

00:16:22.230 --> 00:16:24.289
struggle. It's a very tidy way to see the world.

00:16:24.429 --> 00:16:26.809
It's comforting, I imagine. It is. It provides

00:16:26.809 --> 00:16:29.409
certainty. You never have to wonder why something

00:16:29.409 --> 00:16:31.830
happened. You always have the answer key. Okay,

00:16:31.870 --> 00:16:34.269
so that's the hedgehog. What about the fox? The

00:16:34.269 --> 00:16:37.820
fox knows many things. The Fox draws on a wide

00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:40.279
variety of experiences. They see the world as

00:16:40.279 --> 00:16:43.399
complex, contradictory, maybe even a bit messy.

00:16:43.559 --> 00:16:45.659
They don't try to boil everything down to one

00:16:45.659 --> 00:16:48.639
slogan or one theory. They are comfortable with

00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:50.679
the idea that not everything fits together neatly.

00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:54.019
And the example there? Aristotle. Or Shakespeare.

00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:56.559
Think about Shakespeare. Does he have a system?

00:16:57.179 --> 00:17:01.320
A one big idea? No. He writes comedies, tragedies,

00:17:01.340 --> 00:17:04.279
histories. He shows his kings and fools and lovers

00:17:04.279 --> 00:17:06.900
and murderers. He engages with the richness of

00:17:06.900 --> 00:17:09.559
life in all its variety without forcing it into

00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:11.920
a single box. I feel like everyone listening

00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:14.319
right now is instantly trying to categorize himself.

00:17:14.579 --> 00:17:17.539
Am I a hedgehog? Am I a fox? I'm definitely a

00:17:17.539 --> 00:17:19.660
fox. That is the appeal. It's irresistible. We

00:17:19.660 --> 00:17:22.220
can't help it. But here is the funny part. Berlin

00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:24.960
never meant it to be taken so seriously. No,

00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:27.829
he didn't. He said later, and I love this, I

00:17:27.829 --> 00:17:29.630
never meant it very seriously. I meant it as

00:17:29.630 --> 00:17:32.329
a kind of enjoyable intellectual game. He wrote

00:17:32.329 --> 00:17:34.470
it as a bit of fun. But the public loved it.

00:17:34.509 --> 00:17:37.369
It became his most popular essay. It did. But

00:17:37.369 --> 00:17:39.809
despite him calling it a game, it does matter.

00:17:40.069 --> 00:17:43.190
Because deep down, Berlin was definitely a fox.

00:17:43.730 --> 00:17:46.910
And he was deeply suspicious of hedgehogs. What's

00:17:46.910 --> 00:17:49.130
suspicious? What's wrong with having a big idea?

00:17:49.509 --> 00:17:52.670
Because hedgehogs, people who think there is

00:17:52.670 --> 00:17:55.450
one big answer, tend to be the ones who become

00:17:55.450 --> 00:17:58.869
fanatics. Think about it. If you truly believe

00:17:58.869 --> 00:18:01.710
you have the one true solution to all human problems,

00:18:01.950 --> 00:18:05.170
if you have the cure for all suffering, what

00:18:05.170 --> 00:18:07.509
are you willing to do to implement it? Anything.

00:18:07.750 --> 00:18:10.289
Exactly. If you have the secret to utopia and

00:18:10.289 --> 00:18:12.670
someone stands in your way, that person isn't

00:18:12.670 --> 00:18:14.250
just someone with a different opinion. They are

00:18:14.250 --> 00:18:16.650
an obstacle to the salvation of humanity, and

00:18:16.650 --> 00:18:18.670
obstacles get removed. So the hedgehog mentality,

00:18:19.009 --> 00:18:20.789
if you take it too far, leads back to the pharaoh

00:18:20.789 --> 00:18:23.109
on the roof. It leads to the lynching bee. That

00:18:23.109 --> 00:18:25.789
is the connection. That's the danger. A fox who

00:18:25.789 --> 00:18:28.970
sees the world as messy and complicated is less

00:18:28.970 --> 00:18:31.089
likely to force everyone into a single mold.

00:18:31.289 --> 00:18:33.809
A fox knows that there is no magic bullet. This

00:18:33.809 --> 00:18:36.250
transitions perfectly into his most heavy -hitting

00:18:36.250 --> 00:18:38.309
political idea, the two concepts of liberty.

00:18:38.589 --> 00:18:40.910
This is the landmark lecture he gave in 1958,

00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:44.369
his inaugural lecture as a big -shot professor

00:18:44.369 --> 00:18:47.670
at Oxford. And this is where we really have to

00:18:47.670 --> 00:18:50.329
pay attention because the distinction he makes

00:18:50.329 --> 00:18:53.230
is subtle, but the consequences are... Well,

00:18:53.250 --> 00:18:55.089
they're life and death. Okay, let's unpack it.

00:18:55.109 --> 00:18:58.670
Two concepts. Negative liberty and positive liberty.

00:18:58.750 --> 00:19:00.789
Let's start with negative liberty. Negative usually

00:19:00.789 --> 00:19:03.369
sounds bad. Like nobody wants a negative bank

00:19:03.369 --> 00:19:05.609
account. Right, but in this context, negative

00:19:05.609 --> 00:19:08.670
just means absence of. Negative liberty is the

00:19:08.670 --> 00:19:10.950
answer to the question. What is the area within

00:19:10.950 --> 00:19:14.630
which I am left alone? So freedom from. Yes.

00:19:14.750 --> 00:19:17.309
Yes. Freedom from interference. Freedom from

00:19:17.309 --> 00:19:19.809
coercion. If I want to walk down the street and

00:19:19.809 --> 00:19:22.599
no one stops me, I have negative liberty. If

00:19:22.599 --> 00:19:24.380
I want to buy a specific book and the government

00:19:24.380 --> 00:19:26.720
doesn't ban it, I have negative liberty. It's

00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:29.200
basically, leave me alone. Roughly, yes. It's

00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:31.440
the classic English liberal tradition, Hobbes,

00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:35.000
Locke, Mill. It's about carving out a private

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.759
sphere where the state or your neighbors cannot

00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:39.599
enter. It's a no trespassing sign around the

00:19:39.599 --> 00:19:41.259
individual. Okay, that sounds like what most

00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:42.960
of us think of when we say freedom. So what is

00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.359
positive liberty? Positive liberty answers a

00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:49.700
different question. Who is in control? It's not

00:19:49.700 --> 00:19:51.619
just about being left alone. It's about being

00:19:51.619 --> 00:19:54.339
your own master. Freedom to. Freedom to. Freedom

00:19:54.339 --> 00:19:57.039
to participate in government. Freedom to control

00:19:57.039 --> 00:20:00.420
your own destiny. Freedom to be a fully realized,

00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:03.299
rational human being. That sounds good too, right?

00:20:03.420 --> 00:20:05.359
I mean, I want to be the master of my own life.

00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:07.319
I don't want to just be a leaf blowing in the

00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:09.980
wind. It does sound good. It sounds noble. And

00:20:09.980 --> 00:20:12.259
Berlin acknowledges that it is a valid form of

00:20:12.259 --> 00:20:13.839
liberty. He's not saying positive liberty is

00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:17.539
inherently evil. But, and here's the aha moment

00:20:17.539 --> 00:20:19.720
we promised. He argues that positive liberty

00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:23.019
has a trapdoor, a very dangerous slippery slope.

00:20:23.220 --> 00:20:24.759
Okay, take us down the slope. How does being

00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:27.779
your own master turn into something bad? It starts

00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:29.880
with a psychological split. You look at yourself

00:20:29.880 --> 00:20:32.339
and say, well, I have a higher self, the rational

00:20:32.339 --> 00:20:34.980
thinking moral part of me, and I have a lower

00:20:34.980 --> 00:20:37.480
self, the part that is lazy or addicted to bad

00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:40.240
habits or irrational. Okay, I relate to that.

00:20:40.299 --> 00:20:42.299
My lower self wants to eat donuts and sleep.

00:20:42.420 --> 00:20:44.240
My higher self wants to go to the gym and work.

00:20:44.359 --> 00:20:47.400
I know that feeling. Exactly. Now, a proponent

00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:50.519
of positive liberty might say, true freedom is

00:20:50.519 --> 00:20:53.240
when your higher self is in charge. If you stay

00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:56.119
in bed and eat donuts, you are a slave to your

00:20:56.119 --> 00:20:58.740
appetites. You aren't really free. I can follow

00:20:58.740 --> 00:21:01.140
that logic. If I'm an addict, I'm not free. I'm

00:21:01.140 --> 00:21:04.099
a slave to the drug. So getting clean is freedom,

00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:06.789
even if it's hard. Right. And on an individual

00:21:06.789 --> 00:21:09.250
level, that makes a lot of sense. But now expand

00:21:09.250 --> 00:21:11.109
that to politics. This is where it gets scary.

00:21:11.269 --> 00:21:14.109
Yeah. The state steps in. The state or the party

00:21:14.109 --> 00:21:16.930
or the great leader claims to represent your

00:21:16.930 --> 00:21:20.269
higher self. Oh, I see where this is going. They

00:21:20.269 --> 00:21:22.289
say, we know what you really want, even if you

00:21:22.289 --> 00:21:24.450
don't know it yourself. We know that your true,

00:21:24.470 --> 00:21:27.009
rational self wants to be a productive citizen

00:21:27.009 --> 00:21:30.029
or a good communist or a pious believer. Your

00:21:30.029 --> 00:21:32.349
lower self is just confused. So we are going

00:21:32.349 --> 00:21:34.589
to force you to do those things. And by forcing

00:21:34.589 --> 00:21:37.670
me. They claim they're actually making you free.

00:21:37.789 --> 00:21:39.589
That is the twist. That is the authoritarian

00:21:39.589 --> 00:21:42.150
twist. They're forcing you to be free. They are

00:21:42.150 --> 00:21:44.390
liberating your true self from your false self.

00:21:44.490 --> 00:21:46.990
They are saving you from yourself. That is terrifying.

00:21:47.029 --> 00:21:49.670
It's like a linguistic trick that justifies tyranny.

00:21:50.140 --> 00:21:52.720
It's exactly that. This is how you get reeducation

00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:55.180
camps. This is how you get the terror of the

00:21:55.180 --> 00:21:57.559
French Revolution with Rhodes Pier talking about

00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:00.279
the Republic of Virtue. This is how you get Soviet

00:22:00.279 --> 00:22:02.799
communism. They aren't saying we are oppressing

00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:05.240
you. They are saying we are helping you realize

00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:08.339
your true potential. It's gaslighting on a national

00:22:08.339 --> 00:22:11.000
scale. It is. And Berlin saw this historically.

00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:13.960
He saw how positive liberty was used to defend

00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:16.619
nationalism, social engineering, and collective

00:22:16.619 --> 00:22:19.240
control. It connects directly back to his horror

00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:21.940
of the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks believe

00:22:21.940 --> 00:22:24.720
they knew what was best for the masses better

00:22:24.720 --> 00:22:27.359
than the masses did themselves. So negative liberty,

00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:30.220
just leaving people alone, might seem less ambitious.

00:22:30.339 --> 00:22:33.339
It doesn't promise to create a new man or a perfect

00:22:33.339 --> 00:22:37.059
society. No, it doesn't. Negative liberty acknowledges

00:22:37.059 --> 00:22:39.220
that people might make bad choices. You might

00:22:39.220 --> 00:22:41.339
use your freedom to be lazy. You might use your

00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:43.220
freedom to be weird or to say things other people

00:22:43.220 --> 00:22:46.559
don't like. But Berlin argues that having that

00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:49.119
space, that frontier where the state cannot go,

00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:52.220
is the only true safeguard against tyranny. It's

00:22:52.220 --> 00:22:54.440
the idea that it's better to be imperfect and

00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:57.920
free than perfected by a master. Precisely. This

00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:00.920
leads us to another major pillar of his thought.

00:23:01.059 --> 00:23:03.640
Because if we can't have this perfect, positive

00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:06.200
liberty society without it turning into a nightmare,

00:23:07.150 --> 00:23:09.549
What are we left with? We're left with a messy

00:23:09.549 --> 00:23:12.829
world. We are left with value pluralism. Which

00:23:12.829 --> 00:23:14.690
sounds like an academic buzzword, but I think

00:23:14.690 --> 00:23:16.569
is actually the most profound thing he ever wrote

00:23:16.569 --> 00:23:19.670
about. It is the bedrock of his worldview. And

00:23:19.670 --> 00:23:21.589
it challenges something that Western philosophy

00:23:21.589 --> 00:23:23.990
had believed for thousands of years. The idea

00:23:23.990 --> 00:23:28.089
that all good things are compatible. From Plato

00:23:28.089 --> 00:23:30.170
to the Enlightenment, there was this assumption

00:23:30.170 --> 00:23:33.329
that truth, beauty, justice, liberty, equality.

00:23:33.930 --> 00:23:36.029
They all fit together like a perfect puzzle.

00:23:36.559 --> 00:23:39.160
If we are just smart enough, if we are rational

00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:41.799
enough, we can find the one solution where we

00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:44.759
get 100 % of everything. A utopia. A utopia.

00:23:44.819 --> 00:23:47.039
And Berlin says no. Just, or no. He says no.

00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:50.819
No values are human creations. And the problem

00:23:50.819 --> 00:23:53.259
is, they don't all fit together. The core argument

00:23:53.259 --> 00:23:55.819
is that values can be valid, they can be good,

00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:59.059
yet they can be incompatible. Exactly. Can you

00:23:59.059 --> 00:24:01.140
give us an example from the notes? Sure. Let's

00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:03.099
take liberty and equality. Two things we all

00:24:03.099 --> 00:24:05.609
claim to want. Right. Both are good things. But

00:24:05.609 --> 00:24:08.390
think about it. If you want total liberty, absolute

00:24:08.390 --> 00:24:10.970
freedom for the strong, the talented, the wolves,

00:24:11.130 --> 00:24:14.630
you cannot have equality for the sheep. The strong

00:24:14.630 --> 00:24:17.849
will dominate the weak. The rich will get richer.

00:24:18.009 --> 00:24:20.819
So to get more equality, you have to... curtail

00:24:20.819 --> 00:24:23.319
the liberty of the strong. You have to tax them,

00:24:23.380 --> 00:24:25.420
regulate them, stop them from doing whatever

00:24:25.420 --> 00:24:27.640
they want. So you can't have 100 % of both at

00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:29.420
the same time. You cannot. It is mathematically

00:24:29.420 --> 00:24:32.180
impossible. Or take another one, justice and

00:24:32.180 --> 00:24:35.220
mercy. Both are virtues. We want a just legal

00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:38.000
system. We want a merciful society. But if a

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.779
judge is perfectly just, they must apply the

00:24:40.779 --> 00:24:43.619
law exactly as written, no exceptions. If they

00:24:43.619 --> 00:24:45.539
are merciful, they soften the blow, they make

00:24:45.539 --> 00:24:48.599
an exception. You cannot be 100 percent just

00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:50.839
and 100 percent merciful in the same moment.

00:24:50.920 --> 00:24:52.660
And when they clash, how do we measure which

00:24:52.660 --> 00:24:54.980
one is better? How do we choose? Berlin says

00:24:54.980 --> 00:24:58.380
you can't. That's the concept of incommensurability.

00:24:58.619 --> 00:25:00.720
That's a big word. It just means they lack a

00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:02.859
common measurement. You cannot measure these

00:25:02.859 --> 00:25:05.279
values against a common standard. There is no

00:25:05.279 --> 00:25:08.440
moral ruler that says liberty is worth five points

00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:10.799
and justice is worth four points. They are just

00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:12.779
different. They exist in different dimensions.

00:25:13.309 --> 00:25:15.430
This brings us to what the outline calls the

00:25:15.430 --> 00:25:18.509
tragedy of choice. Yes. And he uses the word

00:25:18.509 --> 00:25:21.670
tragedy intentionally. Because this conflict

00:25:21.670 --> 00:25:24.670
is not a mistake. It's not because we aren't

00:25:24.670 --> 00:25:27.569
smart enough to figure out the solution. Conflict

00:25:27.569 --> 00:25:30.329
is an intrinsic, irremovable element of human

00:25:30.329 --> 00:25:32.930
life. That's a bit depressing, isn't it? To know

00:25:32.930 --> 00:25:35.490
that something is always lost? That we can never

00:25:35.490 --> 00:25:37.809
get it perfectly right? It feels depressing at

00:25:37.809 --> 00:25:40.980
first. But Berlin would argue it's actually liberating.

00:25:41.019 --> 00:25:42.880
How so? Because it means we can stop chasing

00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:46.119
utopia. Berlin warns us that the search for a

00:25:46.119 --> 00:25:48.640
perfect society where all good things coexist

00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:52.779
is not just futile, it's dangerous. Because if

00:25:52.779 --> 00:25:54.759
you believe that a perfect society is possible,

00:25:54.980 --> 00:25:57.240
you will feel justified in doing anything to

00:25:57.240 --> 00:25:59.819
achieve it. You will break as many eggs as necessary.

00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:03.980
So what? Here it is. Stop looking for the perfect

00:26:03.980 --> 00:26:06.990
solution because it doesn't exist. Exactly. Except

00:26:06.990 --> 00:26:10.329
that every choice entails a loss. If we choose

00:26:10.329 --> 00:26:13.829
more liberty, we might lose some equality. That

00:26:13.829 --> 00:26:16.490
is a tragedy, but it's an unavoidable one. The

00:26:16.490 --> 00:26:18.730
goal of politics shouldn't be perfection. It

00:26:18.730 --> 00:26:21.289
should be decency. It should be, in his words,

00:26:21.450 --> 00:26:24.069
maintaining a precarious equilibrium. It's about

00:26:24.069 --> 00:26:26.750
avoiding the worst outcomes. Suffering, cruelty,

00:26:27.089 --> 00:26:29.230
violence. It's a very grown -up way of looking

00:26:29.230 --> 00:26:32.069
at the world. No fairy tales, just difficult

00:26:32.069 --> 00:26:35.200
trade -offs. And it allows for empathy. This

00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:38.720
is his concept of objective pluralism. He argues

00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:41.000
that because we are all human, we can understand

00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:43.240
the values of other cultures, even if we disagree

00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:45.259
with them. Can you explain that a bit more? Sure.

00:26:45.539 --> 00:26:48.140
Imagine a culture that prioritizes honor above

00:26:48.140 --> 00:26:50.460
everything else, above safety, above wealth.

00:26:50.579 --> 00:26:52.440
Now, I might not agree with that. I might prefer

00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:54.579
safety, but I can understand what honor is. I

00:26:54.579 --> 00:26:56.500
can recognize it as a real, legitimate human

00:26:56.500 --> 00:26:59.140
value. They aren't wrong in the sense of a math

00:26:59.140 --> 00:27:01.480
error. They are just prioritizing a different

00:27:01.480 --> 00:27:04.140
valid human value. So the clash isn't between

00:27:04.140 --> 00:27:07.559
good and evil. No. As he famously said, the clash

00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:09.880
is not between good and evil. It is between good

00:27:09.880 --> 00:27:12.920
and good. And that is the hardest thing for humans

00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:15.380
to navigate. This connects to his interest in

00:27:15.380 --> 00:27:17.140
the counter enlightenment, doesn't it? Because

00:27:17.140 --> 00:27:19.119
the enlightenment was all about finding those

00:27:19.119 --> 00:27:22.359
universal answers. It does. Berlin was fascinated

00:27:22.359 --> 00:27:24.980
by the critics of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment

00:27:24.980 --> 00:27:28.039
thinkers like Descartes or Voltaire often sought

00:27:28.039 --> 00:27:32.059
universal, timeless truths valid for all people

00:27:32.059 --> 00:27:35.519
at all times. Berlin was drawn to the guys who

00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:37.420
said, wait a minute, maybe it's not that simple.

00:27:37.500 --> 00:27:41.019
Thinkers like Vico, Herder, and Haman. Haman

00:27:41.019 --> 00:27:43.160
is an interesting figure for Berlin. He was.

00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:46.259
Haman argued that human cognition is language.

00:27:46.539 --> 00:27:49.140
You can't have clear and distinct ideas without

00:27:49.140 --> 00:27:51.920
symbols or language. This opposes the Cartesian

00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:54.619
view that we think in pure abstract logic and

00:27:54.619 --> 00:27:56.759
then just, you know, put it into words. Which

00:27:56.759 --> 00:27:59.160
goes back to Berlin's own life, living in that

00:27:59.160 --> 00:28:02.380
soup of Russian, Yiddish, German, English. He

00:28:02.380 --> 00:28:04.480
understood that language shapes how we think,

00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:07.059
how we see the world. And he applied this skepticism

00:28:07.059 --> 00:28:10.490
to history, too. In his lecture, Historical Inevitability,

00:28:10.690 --> 00:28:13.410
he rejected the idea of determinism. That's the

00:28:13.410 --> 00:28:15.529
idea that history is on a set track, right? Like

00:28:15.529 --> 00:28:17.990
communism is inevitable or progress is inevitable.

00:28:18.410 --> 00:28:20.789
The headhog view of history. He rejected the

00:28:20.789 --> 00:28:23.130
idea that we are just puppets of impersonal forces

00:28:23.130 --> 00:28:26.309
like economics or technology. But he also rejected

00:28:26.309 --> 00:28:28.849
the great man theory, that history is just the

00:28:28.849 --> 00:28:31.309
biography of heroes and villains. He found that

00:28:31.309 --> 00:28:34.569
binary choice nonsensical. History is a messy

00:28:34.569 --> 00:28:37.480
mix of forces, luck. and individual choices.

00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.210
So he's a fox again. It's not one big force and

00:28:41.210 --> 00:28:44.170
it's not one great man. It's a complicated, messy

00:28:44.170 --> 00:28:46.569
mix of everything. Always the Fox. Let's talk

00:28:46.569 --> 00:28:49.009
about his legacy. Because for a guy who hated

00:28:49.009 --> 00:28:52.329
writing, he left a massive mark. And he wasn't

00:28:52.329 --> 00:28:54.329
just a thinker. He was a doer in the academic

00:28:54.329 --> 00:28:56.970
world. He was. He founded Wolfson College at

00:28:56.970 --> 00:29:00.529
Oxford in 1966. And Wolfson reflects his values.

00:29:00.769 --> 00:29:03.269
It was founded with a strong egalitarian and

00:29:03.269 --> 00:29:06.170
democratic ethos. It was designed to be different

00:29:06.170 --> 00:29:08.329
from the stuffy hierarchical colleges of the

00:29:08.329 --> 00:29:10.849
past. It was for graduate students, more open,

00:29:10.930 --> 00:29:13.230
more modern. He racked up the awards, too. The

00:29:13.230 --> 00:29:15.410
Order of Merit, which is a huge deal in Britain.

00:29:15.509 --> 00:29:17.609
The Jerusalem Prize for his defense of civil

00:29:17.609 --> 00:29:20.509
liberties. And he remained active until the end.

00:29:21.069 --> 00:29:25.269
He died in 1997 at the age of 88. He's buried

00:29:25.269 --> 00:29:27.230
in Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford, by the way.

00:29:27.329 --> 00:29:29.470
The tributes that came in were just incredible.

00:29:29.650 --> 00:29:32.250
The world's greatest talker, the century's most

00:29:32.250 --> 00:29:34.609
inspired reader. And I think the most fitting

00:29:34.609 --> 00:29:36.509
tribute is simply looking at the world through

00:29:36.509 --> 00:29:39.549
his eyes. When we see political rhetoric today,

00:29:39.829 --> 00:29:42.930
Berlin gives us the tools to decode it. He gives

00:29:42.930 --> 00:29:45.170
us this kind of intellectual toolkit. So let's

00:29:45.170 --> 00:29:47.869
recap. What are the big takeaways from the life

00:29:47.869 --> 00:29:50.549
and thought of Isaiah Berlin? First, I think,

00:29:50.569 --> 00:29:54.009
is the man himself. The Russian refugee who became

00:29:54.009 --> 00:29:56.210
a British knight but refused to let go of his

00:29:56.210 --> 00:29:58.589
complex identity. He showed us that being an

00:29:58.589 --> 00:30:01.150
outsider, having that foot in two worlds, can

00:30:01.150 --> 00:30:03.089
be a source of incredible intellectual strength.

00:30:03.390 --> 00:30:07.109
Second, the fox and the hedgehog. A simple game,

00:30:07.150 --> 00:30:10.089
but with a profound warning. The danger of getting

00:30:10.089 --> 00:30:13.470
locked into one big idea versus the wisdom of

00:30:13.470 --> 00:30:15.869
seeing the world's complexity. Third, and perhaps

00:30:15.869 --> 00:30:18.490
most importantly, the warning about positive

00:30:18.490 --> 00:30:21.529
liberty. The understanding that freedom is a

00:30:21.529 --> 00:30:24.809
slippery word. And when people promise to liberate

00:30:24.809 --> 00:30:27.670
your true self by forcing you to do something,

00:30:27.869 --> 00:30:31.230
you should be very, very afraid. And finally,

00:30:31.329 --> 00:30:34.079
value pluralism. The acceptance that we can't

00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:36.160
have it all. Right. We can't have perfect liberty

00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:38.660
and perfect equality. We have to make hard choices.

00:30:39.099 --> 00:30:42.859
And recognizing that necessity, that tragedy,

00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:44.900
is what keeps us from becoming fanatics. It's

00:30:44.900 --> 00:30:47.680
what allows for compromise and decency. It's

00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:49.779
really relevant today, isn't it? We see so much

00:30:49.779 --> 00:30:52.180
polarization, people acting like their side has

00:30:52.180 --> 00:30:54.980
the only true, the one big answer. Absolutely.

00:30:55.450 --> 00:30:57.250
Berlin teaches us that the person on the other

00:30:57.250 --> 00:30:59.829
side of the argument isn't necessarily evil or

00:30:59.829 --> 00:31:02.470
stupid. They might just be prioritizing a different,

00:31:02.549 --> 00:31:05.730
equally valid human value. The clash isn't between

00:31:05.730 --> 00:31:07.829
good and evil. It's often between good and good.

00:31:07.930 --> 00:31:09.910
And that is much harder to navigate. That is

00:31:09.910 --> 00:31:12.069
a powerful thought. The clash is between good

00:31:12.069 --> 00:31:14.210
and good. It changes how you listen to the news,

00:31:14.269 --> 00:31:15.750
doesn't it? It forces you to be a little more

00:31:15.750 --> 00:31:18.509
charitable, a little more foxy. It really does.

00:31:18.849 --> 00:31:21.369
So here is the final thought we want to leave

00:31:21.369 --> 00:31:23.759
you with. It's a question that comes directly

00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:27.059
out of Berlin's tragic, but I think ultimately

00:31:27.059 --> 00:31:30.339
realistic view of the world. If values truly

00:31:30.339 --> 00:31:33.579
clash and there is no single right answer and

00:31:33.579 --> 00:31:37.079
every choice we make entails a loss, how do we

00:31:37.079 --> 00:31:39.660
make decisions without being paralyzed? Is the

00:31:39.660 --> 00:31:42.599
acknowledgement of that loss, that tragedy, actually

00:31:42.599 --> 00:31:46.000
the most adult form of politics we have? Or is

00:31:46.000 --> 00:31:47.619
it just too hard for us to accept that we can't

00:31:47.619 --> 00:31:49.319
build heaven on earth? Something to mull over.

00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:51.220
Thanks for diving deep with us. Thank you. We'll

00:31:51.220 --> 00:31:53.109
see you next time. Welcome to the debate. Today

00:31:53.109 --> 00:31:55.529
we are stepping into the mind of a man who was

00:31:55.529 --> 00:31:58.490
by many accounts the greatest conversationalist

00:31:58.490 --> 00:32:01.730
of the 20th century, Sir Isaiah Berlin. He was

00:32:01.730 --> 00:32:03.769
a philosopher who didn't, well, he didn't really

00:32:03.769 --> 00:32:06.130
write books in the traditional sense. He spoke

00:32:06.130 --> 00:32:08.650
them. He dictated his thoughts in these rapid

00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:11.549
fire streams of consciousness that fundamentally

00:32:11.549 --> 00:32:14.049
shaped how the Western world came to understand

00:32:14.049 --> 00:32:16.369
the fragility of freedom during the Cold War.

00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:19.740
And he is a man whose ghost is arguably sitting

00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:22.140
at the table of every major political argument

00:32:22.140 --> 00:32:24.400
we have today. I mean, we're looking at a figure

00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:27.039
who was, by his own admission, a Russian Jew

00:32:27.039 --> 00:32:30.019
from Riga embedded deep in the British establishment.

00:32:30.119 --> 00:32:33.160
And that tension, that tension between the outsider

00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:35.799
looking in and the insider looking out, it colored

00:32:35.799 --> 00:32:38.339
every single thing he ever said. It certainly

00:32:38.339 --> 00:32:40.559
did. And the central question we're grappling

00:32:40.559 --> 00:32:44.039
with today is one that Berlin posed most famously

00:32:44.039 --> 00:32:47.359
in his 1958 lecture, Two Concepts of Liberty.

00:32:47.559 --> 00:32:50.599
We're asking, is his stark distinction between

00:32:50.599 --> 00:32:53.319
negative liberty, simply being left alone, and

00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:55.579
positive liberty, the power to take control of

00:32:55.579 --> 00:32:57.799
your destiny, is that the necessary firewall

00:32:57.799 --> 00:33:00.759
against tyranny? Or, as you might suggest, is

00:33:00.759 --> 00:33:02.940
his concept of value pluralism actually just

00:33:02.940 --> 00:33:05.180
a sophisticated recipe for political paralysis?

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:09.400
That is exactly where I stand. I'm here to represent

00:33:09.400 --> 00:33:12.079
the perspective that while Berlin was a brilliant

00:33:12.079 --> 00:33:15.299
historian of ideas, a charming intellect, his

00:33:15.299 --> 00:33:19.059
trauma -informed rejection of positive liberty

00:33:19.059 --> 00:33:22.519
is overly reductive. I believe his philosophy

00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:25.640
risks demonizing legitimate democratic aspirations,

00:33:26.019 --> 00:33:29.160
and frankly, it neuters our capacity for collective

00:33:29.160 --> 00:33:32.099
self -mastery. And I naturally take the posing

00:33:32.099 --> 00:33:35.240
view. I believe Berlin's defense of negative

00:33:35.240 --> 00:33:38.180
liberty and his recognition of value pluralism

00:33:38.180 --> 00:33:41.259
are not acts of resignation at all. They are

00:33:41.259 --> 00:33:43.380
essential tools for preserving human dignity.

00:33:43.799 --> 00:33:47.119
He provides the intellectual armor we need against

00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:49.980
the most dangerous idea of all, the belief that

00:33:49.980 --> 00:33:52.740
there is a single, final solution to human problems

00:33:52.740 --> 00:33:55.380
that justifies any means to achieve it. Well,

00:33:55.420 --> 00:33:57.019
let's test that armor because I think it has

00:33:57.019 --> 00:33:59.220
quite a few chinks in it. But before we start

00:33:59.220 --> 00:34:01.359
tearing it apart, we should probably establish

00:34:01.359 --> 00:34:04.109
what he actually meant. because negative and

00:34:04.109 --> 00:34:06.910
positive liberty can sound a bit like battery

00:34:06.910 --> 00:34:09.469
terminals to the uninitiated. That's a fair point.

00:34:09.590 --> 00:34:11.829
To understand Berlin, you have to start with

00:34:11.829 --> 00:34:14.829
his core realization, which is that human values

00:34:14.829 --> 00:34:18.030
don't play nice. Liberty and equality, justice

00:34:18.030 --> 00:34:20.570
and mercy, these aren't puzzle pieces that fit

00:34:20.570 --> 00:34:22.889
together to make a perfect picture. They collide.

00:34:23.170 --> 00:34:26.170
And they are incommensurate, meaning there is

00:34:26.170 --> 00:34:28.510
no common currency to weigh them against each

00:34:28.510 --> 00:34:31.010
other. If you have total liberty for the wolves,

00:34:31.130 --> 00:34:33.789
you cannot have security for the sheep. Right.

00:34:33.889 --> 00:34:36.670
You can't maximize everything at once. Exactly.

00:34:36.849 --> 00:34:39.590
And because values collide, Berlin argues we

00:34:39.590 --> 00:34:42.429
need a baseline for a free society. And that

00:34:42.429 --> 00:34:45.630
baseline is negative liberty. Berlin defines

00:34:45.630 --> 00:34:49.250
this very specifically as the area within which

00:34:49.250 --> 00:34:52.030
a subject, a person or a group, is or should

00:34:52.030 --> 00:34:55.449
be left to do or be what he is able to do or

00:34:55.449 --> 00:34:58.780
be without interference by other persons. Freedom

00:34:58.780 --> 00:35:02.980
from. Yes, freedom from. Freedom from the policeman,

00:35:03.300 --> 00:35:05.619
freedom from the censor, freedom from the state

00:35:05.619 --> 00:35:09.079
telling you what to wear or what to read or how

00:35:09.079 --> 00:35:12.360
to worship. It is specifically the absence of

00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:15.719
coercion. It's the size of the bubble around

00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:18.639
you that the state cannot cross. And this is

00:35:18.639 --> 00:35:20.800
where my issue begins. You used the word armor

00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:23.659
earlier. Berlin treats negative liberty as the

00:35:23.659 --> 00:35:26.940
sacred safe harbor. But he contrasts it with

00:35:26.940 --> 00:35:29.840
positive liberty, which he views with deep, almost

00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:33.239
pathological suspicion. Positive liberty is the

00:35:33.239 --> 00:35:36.119
answer to the question, who is the master? It

00:35:36.119 --> 00:35:38.519
is the freedom to, the freedom to participate

00:35:38.519 --> 00:35:41.139
in government, the freedom to self -actualize,

00:35:41.159 --> 00:35:43.219
the freedom to take control of one's destiny.

00:35:43.460 --> 00:35:45.840
And that sounds wonderful on paper. I mean, who

00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:47.900
doesn't want to be the master of their own destiny?

00:35:48.219 --> 00:35:51.260
But Berlin warns us to look at the receipt. In

00:35:51.260 --> 00:35:54.119
Two Concepts of Liberty, he traces how this freedom,

00:35:54.219 --> 00:35:57.500
too, gets twisted. It relies on a dangerous mental

00:35:57.500 --> 00:36:00.780
gymnastics, the concept of the split self. The

00:36:00.780 --> 00:36:03.980
split self? Yes. And this is crucial to his warning.

00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:06.760
To have self -mastery, you essentially have to

00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:09.460
divide the human being into two parts. You have

00:36:09.460 --> 00:36:11.960
the higher rational self, the part of you that

00:36:11.960 --> 00:36:15.000
wants to be moral, disciplined, thinks long -term,

00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:17.320
and so on. And then you have the lower irrational

00:36:17.320 --> 00:36:19.699
self, the part that wants to drink too much,

00:36:19.780 --> 00:36:23.039
be lazy, act on impulse. You get the idea. Sure.

00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:24.880
I think most of us feel that conflict when the

00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:27.900
alarm goes off on a Monday morning. We do. But

00:36:27.900 --> 00:36:30.199
the danger comes when you apply that internal

00:36:30.199 --> 00:36:33.539
struggle to politics. If you believe that a person

00:36:33.539 --> 00:36:36.260
is only truly free when their higher self is

00:36:36.260 --> 00:36:39.599
in charge, it becomes very easy for a state or

00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:42.800
a class or a dictator to say, look, you don't

00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:45.099
know what your rational self wants. You're being

00:36:45.099 --> 00:36:47.820
controlled by your lower impulses. Therefore,

00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:50.539
I will coerce you in the name of your real freedom.

00:36:50.800 --> 00:36:53.659
The forcing you to be free argument. Rousseau's

00:36:53.659 --> 00:36:56.599
paradox. Precisely. It allows the dictator to

00:36:56.599 --> 00:36:59.380
say, I am not oppressing you. I am liberating

00:36:59.380 --> 00:37:02.280
your true self from your ignorance. That is the

00:37:02.280 --> 00:37:04.659
logic of the Inquisition burning heretics to

00:37:04.659 --> 00:37:07.280
save their eternal souls. It is the logic of

00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:10.119
the Soviet gulag re -educating dissidents to

00:37:10.119 --> 00:37:13.150
help them understand the truth of history. Berlin

00:37:13.150 --> 00:37:15.969
protects us from the terrifying notion that elites

00:37:15.969 --> 00:37:18.849
can dictate our real will better than we can.

00:37:19.010 --> 00:37:22.409
I see the trap he's describing. And look, writing

00:37:22.409 --> 00:37:26.150
in 1958 with the shadow of Stalinism on one side

00:37:26.150 --> 00:37:29.230
and the memory of Nazism fresh on the other,

00:37:29.389 --> 00:37:32.389
I understand why he was terrified of the state

00:37:32.389 --> 00:37:35.050
claiming to know your inner will. But here is

00:37:35.050 --> 00:37:38.130
my problem. By treating positive liberty as this

00:37:38.130 --> 00:37:40.949
radioactive concept that inevitably leads to

00:37:40.949 --> 00:37:43.960
the gulag, He creates a false dichotomy that

00:37:43.960 --> 00:37:46.500
preserves the status quo. How does it preserve

00:37:46.500 --> 00:37:49.619
the status quo? Because positive liberty isn't

00:37:49.619 --> 00:37:52.719
just about totalitarian social engineering. There

00:37:52.719 --> 00:37:55.420
is a robust tradition, specifically the French

00:37:55.420 --> 00:37:58.199
liberal tradition, where positive liberty is

00:37:58.199 --> 00:38:01.260
simply about capacity. It's about the emancipation

00:38:01.260 --> 00:38:04.059
of people through the state. But through the

00:38:04.059 --> 00:38:06.639
state is exactly where the friction points lie.

00:38:07.210 --> 00:38:10.110
This obsession with non -interference, you end

00:38:10.110 --> 00:38:12.349
up with a very hollow freedom for the vulnerable.

00:38:13.010 --> 00:38:16.909
If I am poor, uneducated, and sick, I possess

00:38:16.909 --> 00:38:19.909
negative liberty in the sense that no policeman

00:38:19.909 --> 00:38:22.369
is physically stopping me from buying a yacht

00:38:22.369 --> 00:38:25.889
or attending Oxford. The door is open, but I

00:38:25.889 --> 00:38:28.809
have no actual capacity to walk through it. I

00:38:28.809 --> 00:38:31.809
am not free in any meaningful sense. Berlin actually

00:38:31.809 --> 00:38:34.690
addressed this. He famously said, liberty is

00:38:34.690 --> 00:38:37.469
not the only value. He acknowledged that sometimes

00:38:37.469 --> 00:38:39.570
you have to curtail liberty to provide social

00:38:39.570 --> 00:38:42.269
welfare or equality, but his point was that we

00:38:42.269 --> 00:38:44.929
shouldn't confuse terms. He said, everything

00:38:44.929 --> 00:38:48.349
is what it is. Liberty is liberty, not equality

00:38:48.349 --> 00:38:51.809
or fairness or justice. He acknowledged it, but

00:38:51.809 --> 00:38:55.130
he sidelined it. He creates an intellectual environment

00:38:55.130 --> 00:38:58.219
where any attempt at collective action, any attempt

00:38:58.219 --> 00:39:01.239
to use the state to solve big problems like inequality,

00:39:01.699 --> 00:39:04.400
gets framed as the first step toward tyranny.

00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:07.840
It's a slippery slope fallacy. He assumes that

00:39:07.840 --> 00:39:09.980
if we try to have Athenian -style democracy,

00:39:10.219 --> 00:39:13.219
where we collectively decide our future and shape

00:39:13.219 --> 00:39:16.480
our society, we are inevitably sliding toward

00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:19.079
Robespierre and the guillotine. I don't think

00:39:19.079 --> 00:39:21.360
he sidelines it. I think he creates a hierarchy

00:39:21.360 --> 00:39:23.960
of safety. You mentioned Athenian -style democracy.

00:39:24.590 --> 00:39:26.650
Berlin didn't deny the value of participation.

00:39:27.030 --> 00:39:29.449
He denied that participation was the same thing

00:39:29.449 --> 00:39:31.829
as liberty. That feels like a semantic game to

00:39:31.829 --> 00:39:34.289
avoid the hard work of governance. No, it's a

00:39:34.289 --> 00:39:37.389
crucial distinction. If you conflate liberty

00:39:37.389 --> 00:39:41.050
with democracy, you can justify the tyranny of

00:39:41.050 --> 00:39:44.409
the majority. If 51 % of the people vote to ban

00:39:44.409 --> 00:39:47.510
a religion, that is democratic, but it is not

00:39:47.510 --> 00:39:50.340
liberty. Berlin is saying we must keep the definition

00:39:50.340 --> 00:39:53.840
of liberty pure, meaning non -interference, so

00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:56.019
that we can clearly see when it is being violated.

00:39:56.079 --> 00:39:59.320
Even by a democracy, he wanted to make sure we

00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:01.159
couldn't hide the loss of freedom behind the

00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:04.139
mask of the people's will. But by keeping it

00:40:04.139 --> 00:40:07.559
so pure, he strips it of its power to inspire.

00:40:08.400 --> 00:40:11.000
Berlin warns against the rationalist conflation,

00:40:11.139 --> 00:40:13.940
this idea that we can take rational control over

00:40:13.940 --> 00:40:16.869
human destiny. But without some attempt at rational

00:40:16.869 --> 00:40:19.289
control, we are just leaves blowing in the wind

00:40:19.289 --> 00:40:22.130
of market forces or history. Berlin would say

00:40:22.130 --> 00:40:24.530
that is better than being leaves raked into a

00:40:24.530 --> 00:40:26.869
pile and burned for the sake of a tidy garden.

00:40:27.090 --> 00:40:30.469
That is a vivid image, but it brings us directly

00:40:30.469 --> 00:40:33.289
to the source of that imagery. We can't pretend

00:40:33.289 --> 00:40:35.869
Berlin was operating in a vacuum. You mentioned

00:40:35.869 --> 00:40:38.769
he was writing in 1958, but his fear goes back

00:40:38.769 --> 00:40:41.619
much, much further. He is projecting a specific

00:40:41.619 --> 00:40:45.139
trauma onto the entire history of political thought.

00:40:45.380 --> 00:40:47.480
You're referring to his childhood in Russia.

00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:50.860
I am. We have to look at the biography. You cannot

00:40:50.860 --> 00:40:53.599
separate the man from the theory. I agree, but

00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:55.820
I think the biography strengthens his case rather

00:40:55.820 --> 00:40:58.460
than weakening it. He wasn't just theorizing

00:40:58.460 --> 00:41:01.340
in an ivory tower in Oxford. He saw the alternative.

00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:04.159
Let's look at the facts, though. Born in Riga,

00:41:04.300 --> 00:41:06.539
moved to Petrograd, he witnessed the Russian

00:41:06.539 --> 00:41:09.159
Revolution's first hand as a child. There is

00:41:09.159 --> 00:41:11.739
a specific memory he recounted later in life

00:41:11.739 --> 00:41:14.500
to his biographer, Michael Ignatieff, that I

00:41:14.500 --> 00:41:17.519
think explains his entire philosophy. He was

00:41:17.519 --> 00:41:19.980
about seven years old, walking with his governess

00:41:19.980 --> 00:41:22.260
in Petrograd during the February Revolution,

00:41:22.599 --> 00:41:26.119
and he saw a man, a pharaoh, a tsarist police

00:41:26.119 --> 00:41:29.420
officer, being dragged away by a mob. The lynching

00:41:29.420 --> 00:41:33.000
bee, he called it. Yes. A crowd of 20 or so dragging

00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:36.340
a man to a not very agreeable fate. The man was

00:41:36.340 --> 00:41:39.619
struggling, white -faced, kicking his legs. Berlin

00:41:39.619 --> 00:41:41.980
said this gave him a permanent horror of violence

00:41:41.980 --> 00:41:43.960
that remained with him for the rest of his life.

00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:47.119
It's a horrific image. A seven -year -old watching

00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:49.840
a lynching would be scarred forever. Exactly.

00:41:50.019 --> 00:41:53.159
He saw what happens when a society pursues a

00:41:53.159 --> 00:41:57.070
singular, violent vision of justice. That Pharaon

00:41:57.070 --> 00:42:00.389
wasn't a combatant in that moment. He was a symbol

00:42:00.389 --> 00:42:03.989
of the old order being crushed by the new rational

00:42:03.989 --> 00:42:07.210
will of the people. When Berlin tells us to beware

00:42:07.210 --> 00:42:10.090
of positive liberty, he isn't just talking about

00:42:10.090 --> 00:42:13.050
abstract philosophy. He's remembering that police

00:42:13.050 --> 00:42:15.489
officer being dragged through the snow. That

00:42:15.489 --> 00:42:17.889
is a compelling narrative, and it gives his work

00:42:17.889 --> 00:42:20.929
tremendous emotional weight. But have you considered

00:42:20.929 --> 00:42:24.190
that this trauma might have distorted his vision

00:42:24.190 --> 00:42:27.500
rather than clarified it? In what sense? Berlin

00:42:27.500 --> 00:42:30.280
wasn't just an innocent bystander. He was born

00:42:30.280 --> 00:42:32.940
into a wealthy Jewish family. His father was

00:42:32.940 --> 00:42:35.460
the head of the Riga Association of Timber Merchants.

00:42:35.539 --> 00:42:38.420
To the Bolsheviks, his family wasn't just people.

00:42:38.559 --> 00:42:40.719
They were the bourgeoisie. They were the class

00:42:40.719 --> 00:42:44.920
enemy. True. They were targets. They felt increasingly

00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:48.559
oppressed. They faced anti -Semitism. They were

00:42:48.559 --> 00:42:51.440
exiles who fled to England to save their lives

00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:55.219
and their fortune. Even after he became Sir Isaiah

00:42:55.219 --> 00:42:58.639
Berlin, president of the British Academy, a man

00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:02.219
at the very heart of his establishment, he insisted,

00:43:02.440 --> 00:43:06.079
I am a Russian Jew from Rika. In all my years

00:43:06.079 --> 00:43:08.800
in England, cannot change this. He was honest

00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:10.579
about his identity. I don't see that as a flaw.

00:43:10.780 --> 00:43:13.599
It's not a flaw. But think about what that does

00:43:13.599 --> 00:43:16.860
to your worldview. His philosophy is a defense

00:43:16.860 --> 00:43:19.900
mechanism. It is the philosophy of an exile.

00:43:20.429 --> 00:43:23.610
who is terrified of systemic change because,

00:43:23.829 --> 00:43:27.710
in his experience, systemic change means the

00:43:27.710 --> 00:43:30.550
mob coming for his family's timber business.

00:43:30.949 --> 00:43:33.550
That seems a bit reductive. You're saying his

00:43:33.550 --> 00:43:36.090
philosophy is just bourgeois anxiety dressed

00:43:36.090 --> 00:43:38.489
up as political theory? I'm saying he developed

00:43:38.489 --> 00:43:41.550
an allergy to any radical change. So when he

00:43:41.550 --> 00:43:44.190
attacks positive liberty, he isn't just attacking

00:43:44.190 --> 00:43:46.889
a philosophical concept. He is attacking the

00:43:46.889 --> 00:43:49.809
very idea of revolution or radical social restructuring.

00:43:50.300 --> 00:43:52.639
His philosophy is not necessarily a universal

00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:55.460
truth about the human condition. It is the survival

00:43:55.460 --> 00:43:58.000
strategy of a displaced intellectual. He wants

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:00.119
a world where no one can knock on his door at

00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:02.579
midnight. I think that is a fair psychological

00:44:02.579 --> 00:44:05.559
profile, but I don't think it invalidates his

00:44:05.559 --> 00:44:08.400
insights. If anything, it gave him a unique vantage

00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:11.159
point. The British establishment he lived in

00:44:11.159 --> 00:44:13.820
was complacent. They took freedom for granted.

00:44:14.079 --> 00:44:17.219
Berlin knew how fragile it was. And this leads

00:44:17.219 --> 00:44:20.059
us to his concept of value pluralism. which I

00:44:20.059 --> 00:44:22.860
think stands on its own, regardless of his childhood

00:44:22.860 --> 00:44:26.679
fears. Value pluralism. The idea that we can't

00:44:26.679 --> 00:44:29.420
have it all. It's more than that. It's the idea

00:44:29.420 --> 00:44:33.000
that the good is not one thing. For centuries,

00:44:33.139 --> 00:44:37.340
Western philosophy, Plato, Hegel, Marx, was obsessed

00:44:37.340 --> 00:44:40.699
with monism. The idea that there is one perfect

00:44:40.699 --> 00:44:43.079
way to live, and if we just find the formula,

00:44:43.360 --> 00:44:46.610
all conflict will end. The idea that all good

00:44:46.610 --> 00:44:49.329
things are compatible. And Berlin says that is

00:44:49.329 --> 00:44:52.889
a lie. A dangerous lie. He argues that values

00:44:52.889 --> 00:44:56.210
are objective. They are real, but they are inherently

00:44:56.210 --> 00:44:59.829
incompatible. You cannot have total justice and

00:44:59.829 --> 00:45:03.610
total mercy. Justice demands consistency. Mercy

00:45:03.610 --> 00:45:07.289
demands exception. You cannot have total spontaneity

00:45:07.289 --> 00:45:11.030
and total planning. As Berlin put it, these collisions

00:45:11.030 --> 00:45:13.269
of values are of the essence of what they are

00:45:13.269 --> 00:45:16.179
and what we are. The tragedy of the human condition.

00:45:16.440 --> 00:45:19.519
But it's a liberating tragedy. Because if you

00:45:19.519 --> 00:45:22.219
accept that conflict is inevitable, you stop

00:45:22.219 --> 00:45:25.039
trying to purify the world. You stop trying to

00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:27.400
make the omelet. Because you realize the eggs

00:45:27.400 --> 00:45:30.719
are human lives. Monism tells you to break the

00:45:30.719 --> 00:45:33.699
eggs to get to the paradise. Pluralism tells

00:45:33.699 --> 00:45:36.719
you to compromise, to trade off, to muddle through.

00:45:37.039 --> 00:45:40.019
But this is where the paralysis comes in. I want

00:45:40.019 --> 00:45:41.900
to cite the critique by the philosopher Alan

00:45:41.900 --> 00:45:44.909
Brown here. Berlin ignores the fact that values

00:45:44.909 --> 00:45:47.070
are commensurable to the extent that they contribute

00:45:47.070 --> 00:45:49.889
to the human good. By treating values as these

00:45:49.889 --> 00:45:53.230
distinct, clashing atoms that can never be reconciled,

00:45:53.250 --> 00:45:55.929
Berlin removes the imperative to solve problems.

00:45:56.429 --> 00:45:59.409
But human good is exactly the kind of vague,

00:45:59.570 --> 00:46:02.750
monastic term Berlin warned against. Whose definition

00:46:02.750 --> 00:46:06.730
of human good? Yours? Mine? The Pope's? Stalin's?

00:46:06.889 --> 00:46:09.869
But without some unifying concept of the good,

00:46:10.030 --> 00:46:14.000
you end up with relativism. Berlin was fascinated

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:16.900
by the counter -enlightenment thinkers like Vico,

00:46:17.179 --> 00:46:20.239
Herder, and Haman. He loved them because they

00:46:20.239 --> 00:46:23.039
attacked the Cartesian fallacy that everything

00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:26.300
could be mapped out logically. But by elevating

00:46:26.300 --> 00:46:29.099
these irrationalist thinkers, Berlin elevates

00:46:29.099 --> 00:46:32.179
the idea that moral conflicts are insoluble.

00:46:32.380 --> 00:46:35.039
He elevates the idea that they are hard. No,

00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:38.719
he makes them impossible. If you say, well, liberty

00:46:38.719 --> 00:46:41.179
clashes with justice, and that's just the tragedy

00:46:41.179 --> 00:46:44.300
of life. you are effectively washing your hands

00:46:44.300 --> 00:46:46.880
of the duty to find a way to reconcile them.

00:46:47.059 --> 00:46:49.800
It's a philosophy that lets you sit in an Oxford

00:46:49.800 --> 00:46:53.280
common room, sip sherry and sigh about the tragedy

00:46:53.280 --> 00:46:55.860
of the human condition while the world burns

00:46:55.860 --> 00:47:00.019
outside. It is intellectually lazy. It says the

00:47:00.019 --> 00:47:02.539
world is a mess and trying to fix it usually

00:47:02.539 --> 00:47:05.539
makes it worse. So let's just do nothing. Lazy?

00:47:06.079 --> 00:47:08.460
I think that is a deeply unfair characterization

00:47:08.460 --> 00:47:11.039
of a man who worked for the British diplomatic

00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.159
service in Washington during the war, writing

00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:17.019
dispatches that Churchill himself read avidly.

00:47:17.119 --> 00:47:20.579
He wasn't indifferent. He was cautious. Cautious

00:47:20.579 --> 00:47:23.360
to the point of immobility. No, cautious because

00:47:23.360 --> 00:47:25.980
he understood the complexity of the world. And

00:47:25.980 --> 00:47:28.460
this caution is perfectly captured in his famous

00:47:28.460 --> 00:47:31.079
categorization of thinkers, the hedgehog and

00:47:31.079 --> 00:47:34.579
the fox. Ah, yes. The parlor game that got out

00:47:34.579 --> 00:47:37.420
of hand? Berlin always said he never meant it

00:47:37.420 --> 00:47:40.380
very seriously, calling it an enjoyable intellectual

00:47:40.380 --> 00:47:43.699
game, but it stuck because it captures something

00:47:43.699 --> 00:47:47.280
vital. He drew the line from the Greek poet Archilochus,

00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.340
the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows

00:47:50.340 --> 00:47:53.340
one big thing. So just to clarify for the listeners,

00:47:53.559 --> 00:47:56.920
the hedgehog relates everything to a single central

00:47:56.920 --> 00:48:01.000
vision like Plato, Dante, or Marx. Everything

00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:03.960
fits into the system. If you are a hedgehog,

00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:06.380
you have a hammer and everything looks like a

00:48:06.380 --> 00:48:09.539
nail. Correct. And the fox pursues many ends,

00:48:09.699 --> 00:48:12.739
often unrelated and even contradictory, like

00:48:12.739 --> 00:48:15.800
Aristotle or Shakespeare. They seize upon the

00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:18.059
variety of the world without trying to force

00:48:18.059 --> 00:48:20.860
it into a box. They see the world in all its

00:48:20.860 --> 00:48:24.719
messy detail. And, let me guess, Berlin is the

00:48:24.719 --> 00:48:28.179
fox? Berlin is the ultimate fox. He knew many

00:48:28.179 --> 00:48:30.619
things. He saw that the world cannot be boiled

00:48:30.619 --> 00:48:33.389
down to a single slogan. See, I come at it from

00:48:33.389 --> 00:48:36.309
a different angle. I think he used the fox label

00:48:36.309 --> 00:48:40.849
as a shield. A shield? Yes. It was a way to escape

00:48:40.849 --> 00:48:44.849
commitment. By claiming to be a fox, by claiming

00:48:44.849 --> 00:48:48.489
that the world is just a jumble of complex, contradictory

00:48:48.489 --> 00:48:51.889
experiences, he avoided the hard work of being

00:48:51.889 --> 00:48:55.269
a hedgehog. He avoided the responsibility of

00:48:55.269 --> 00:48:58.050
building a unifying system that could actually

00:48:58.050 --> 00:49:01.469
guide society. It's easier to be a fox. You can

00:49:01.469 --> 00:49:04.070
just critique everyone else's systems. Oh, that's

00:49:04.070 --> 00:49:06.809
too simplistic. Oh, that leads to tyranny. Without

00:49:06.809 --> 00:49:09.469
ever having to defend a positive vision of your

00:49:09.469 --> 00:49:12.690
own. That is a compelling argument, but I think

00:49:12.690 --> 00:49:15.030
you're mistaking his method for his motivation.

00:49:15.389 --> 00:49:17.949
Have you considered how he worked? You mean the

00:49:17.949 --> 00:49:22.210
dictation? Exactly. Berlin didn't sit down and

00:49:22.210 --> 00:49:24.909
construct rigid treatises like a bricklayer building

00:49:24.909 --> 00:49:28.070
a wall. He dictated. He spoke into a tape recorder,

00:49:28.289 --> 00:49:31.090
often while talking to friends. His secretaries,

00:49:31.130 --> 00:49:33.469
poor souls, had to transcribe tapes where he

00:49:33.469 --> 00:49:35.989
was laughing, joking, and the machine was rattling

00:49:35.989 --> 00:49:39.110
on the table. Mental spaghetti, I believe it

00:49:39.110 --> 00:49:41.949
was called. His writing style mimicked his speech.

00:49:42.510 --> 00:49:45.230
Animated, quick, and constantly jumping from

00:49:45.230 --> 00:49:48.469
one idea to another. This wasn't avoidance. It

00:49:48.469 --> 00:49:50.489
was a reflection of his belief that reality is

00:49:50.489 --> 00:49:53.530
messy. To write like a hedgehog, to force everything

00:49:53.530 --> 00:49:56.070
into a strict chapter one, chapter two structure,

00:49:56.210 --> 00:49:58.170
would have been to lie about the nature of the

00:49:58.170 --> 00:50:01.159
world. He refused to simplify the world artificially

00:50:01.159 --> 00:50:04.199
just to make it fit into a book. Or perhaps he

00:50:04.199 --> 00:50:06.219
simply lacked the discipline to synthesize his

00:50:06.219 --> 00:50:08.659
thoughts into a coherent whole. We must remember,

00:50:08.860 --> 00:50:11.679
he didn't enjoy writing. He relied on Henry Hardy

00:50:11.679 --> 00:50:14.199
to edit and compile almost all of his work from

00:50:14.199 --> 00:50:17.500
1974 onwards. A philosopher who doesn't write

00:50:17.500 --> 00:50:20.340
is a bit like a chef who doesn't cook. It suggests

00:50:20.340 --> 00:50:22.460
a certain lack of follow -through. He cooked

00:50:22.460 --> 00:50:25.679
with words, just not always on paper. But let's

00:50:25.679 --> 00:50:27.719
look at where this leaves us today. Because we

00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:31.780
aren't in 1958 anymore. Indeed. The Soviet Union

00:50:31.780 --> 00:50:34.760
is gone, but the debate between the rights of

00:50:34.760 --> 00:50:37.179
the individual and the power of the collective

00:50:37.179 --> 00:50:40.360
is louder than ever. I believe Berlin's legacy

00:50:40.360 --> 00:50:42.840
is a necessary warning. We live in a world that

00:50:42.840 --> 00:50:45.000
is polarizing again. On the left and the right,

00:50:45.059 --> 00:50:46.960
we see people who believe they possess the absolute

00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:49.300
truth and the moral authority to enforce it.

00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:52.260
They are hedgehogs with sharp quills. They believe

00:50:52.260 --> 00:50:53.900
if they can just capture the state, they can

00:50:53.900 --> 00:50:56.090
force the world to be rational. And you think

00:50:56.090 --> 00:51:00.170
we need more foxes. I do. By prioritizing negative

00:51:00.170 --> 00:51:02.869
liberty, Berlin sets a boundary that power cannot

00:51:02.869 --> 00:51:06.309
cross. By accepting value pluralism, he teaches

00:51:06.309 --> 00:51:09.110
us to tolerate imperfection. He tells us that

00:51:09.110 --> 00:51:11.389
liberty may clash with social justice and that

00:51:11.389 --> 00:51:13.730
there is no final resolution, only trade -offs.

00:51:13.889 --> 00:51:16.809
It is a humble philosophy. It keeps us safe from

00:51:16.809 --> 00:51:19.769
the tyranny of good intentions. His philosophy

00:51:19.769 --> 00:51:23.449
offers little for those seeking to build a better

00:51:23.449 --> 00:51:26.840
society today. Negative liberty is safe, yes.

00:51:26.980 --> 00:51:30.260
It is the liberty of the private room. But it

00:51:30.260 --> 00:51:33.260
is insufficient. Insufficient for what? Insufficient

00:51:33.260 --> 00:51:35.840
for the dignity of human beings he claimed to

00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:38.500
cherish. If we want to solve the massive collective

00:51:38.500 --> 00:51:42.059
problems of our time, inequality, pandemics,

00:51:42.179 --> 00:51:45.059
global justice, we need a bit of positive liberty.

00:51:45.320 --> 00:51:47.619
We need the courage to define a common good,

00:51:47.679 --> 00:51:50.059
even if that risks the collisions Berlin feared.

00:51:50.480 --> 00:51:53.420
We cannot live entirely in the tragedy. Sometimes

00:51:53.420 --> 00:51:56.530
we must act. We cannot just be foxes running

00:51:56.530 --> 00:51:59.070
around the edges of the forest. Sometimes we

00:51:59.070 --> 00:52:01.610
need to build a house. A powerful closing thought.

00:52:02.090 --> 00:52:04.610
It seems we are back to the collision of values

00:52:04.610 --> 00:52:08.329
ourselves. The need for safety versus the need

00:52:08.329 --> 00:52:11.309
for action. The fear of the gulag versus the

00:52:11.309 --> 00:52:14.230
hope of the agora. It is fascinating to reflect

00:52:14.230 --> 00:52:16.949
on the man himself, isn't it? A man who insisted

00:52:16.949 --> 00:52:20.090
he was a Russian Jew from Riga until the very

00:52:20.090 --> 00:52:22.929
end, yet became the quintessential Oxford Don.

00:52:23.449 --> 00:52:26.610
A man who was an outsider, who defined the inside.

00:52:26.849 --> 00:52:29.750
A man who didn't like writing, who used dictation

00:52:29.750 --> 00:52:32.429
tapes, and who was described as the world's greatest

00:52:32.429 --> 00:52:35.530
talker. And perhaps that is the ultimate lesson

00:52:35.530 --> 00:52:38.030
of Isaiah Berlin. He didn't leave us a rigid

00:52:38.030 --> 00:52:40.889
system. He didn't leave us a Bible of Berlinism.

00:52:40.989 --> 00:52:43.989
He left us a conversation. A conversation that

00:52:43.989 --> 00:52:46.630
reminds us that the best ideas and the truth

00:52:46.630 --> 00:52:49.429
itself often emerge from the rigorous, respectful

00:52:49.429 --> 00:52:52.210
challenge of opposing viewpoints, just like this

00:52:52.210 --> 00:52:55.860
one. Whether you are a hedgehog or a fox. Precisely.

00:52:56.219 --> 00:52:57.840
Thank you for listening to the debate.