Isaiah Berlin: A Life — 18: Retrospect

1. 1. Berlin resigned as President of Wolfson College in 1975, feeling his work of creation was done and preferring not to be tied to administration.
2. 2. As President of the British Academy from 1974, Berlin confronted Britain's economic decline and its impact on university culture.
3. 3. Berlin attempted to write a magisterial work on Romanticism but abandoned it, feeling his notes were unsystematic and he couldn't bear to revise the original Mellon Lectures.
4. 4. Berlin believed the meaning of life is a source of comfort precisely because it has none, and we make of it what we can.
5. 5. Henry Hardy, a postgraduate student, began collecting and re-editing Berlin's scattered essays in 1974, transforming Berlin's reputation over 23 years.
6. 6. Berlin's essay 'The Pursuit of the Ideal' argued that value systems are incommensurable, moral conflict is inescapable, and liberty must be prioritized to enable compromise between values.
7. 7. Berlin maintained that pluralism entails liberalism: only conditions of liberty allow humans to adjudicate conflicts between ultimate ends.
8. 8. In old age, Berlin made new younger friends, notably pianist Alfred Brendel and his family, sharing a passion for music and a sense of the absurd.
9. 9. Berlin returned to St Petersburg in 1988 for the last time, walking past Akhmatova's apartment and making a dry-eyed farewell to the city of his childhood.