Isaiah Berlin: A Life — 15: Fame

1. 1. Berlin distinguished between negative liberty (freedom from interference) and positive liberty (freedom to realize one's potential), arguing that positive liberty can lead to tyranny.
2. 2. Berlin argued that political values like liberty, equality, and justice are often incompatible, and serious political choice involves genuine loss, not just trade-offs.
3. 3. Berlin defended political quietism and was skeptical of the republican ideal of participation, arguing that politics is a necessary but not emancipatory activity.
4. 4. Berlin warned that national liberation movements often fight for recognition and status, not liberty, and that calling them fights for liberty guarantees disillusionment.
5. 5. Berlin refused to ground liberty on ultimate principles, dismissing the search for guarantees as nostalgia for religious consolation.
6. 6. Berlin's anti-Communism led him to oppose unilateral nuclear disarmament, arguing that liberal principles require a willingness to fight for survival.
7. 7. Berlin refused to support the FLN in Algeria due to its use of terrorism against civilians, applying his anti-violence principle consistently, even to Zionists.
8. 8. Berlin blocked Isaac Deutscher's appointment at Sussex University, calling his presence 'morally intolerable' due to Deutscher's subordination of scholarship to ideology.
9. 9. Berlin debated E.H. Carr over historical inevitability, insisting that historians must consider the ideas and intentions of individuals, not just socio-economic forces.
10. 10. Berlin advised President Kennedy on Soviet behavior during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and later lectured at the White House on the Russian intelligentsia.
11. 11. Berlin collaborated with Stravinsky on the cantata 'Abraham and Isaac', providing a transliteration of the Hebrew text.
12. 12. Berlin's encounter with Anna Akhmatova in 1965 marked the end of their connection; he saw her as an 'uncontaminated, unbroken' reproach to Marxist fellow-travelers.