While Berlin never wrote a philosophical magnum opus that would cement his place among the pantheon of philosophers—a source of expressed regret during his life—his fragmented writings, in my opinion, is still well worth reading. His theory of value pluralism, for instance, has fostered in me a greater acceptance and empathy towards diverse perspectives. It has made me less dogmatic and more aware of the contingencies shaping both my beliefs and those of others. Berlin posited that people harbor myriad values and objectives, some clashing, others incommensurable—and yet each can be equally correct, valid, and 'rational.'

Berlin’s political philosophy is also important for our own times. I remember upon reading Berlin, I was pushed to reevaluate my position on political doctrines that espouse eternal, ahistorical Truths, claiming to be able to explain everything and be applied to everyone everywhere at all times. Berlin rejected all forms of millenarianist preachings, whether religious or secular (always, perhaps foolishly, having Marx in his crosshairs); the belief that we ought to bracket our freedom temporarily in order to reach a future utopia. Rather, to him, life was an end in itself and not an instrumental means to some future felicity.

He staunchly rejected the idea of a 'libretto of history', a phrase he borrows from the Russian thinker Alexander Herzen whom he also admired. There, Berlin often quotes the Bishop Joseph Butler when he remarked that "Every thing is what it is, and not another thing", in that, we are what we are, and not separate individuals that may wholly transcend our contemporary time. We are what we are and live where we live, and we can't simply transform ourselves and be part of some idyllic past which no longer exists or a utopian future which does not yet exist—that was Berlin's dictum.

My admiration for Berlin is further amplified by his exquisitely eloquent prose, which reads like an engaging, real-time conversation with the reader (many of his publications are, in fact, collections of lecture transcripts). He was also endowed with such an exceptional capacity in presenting the thoughts of others in a such a clear and digestible yet brilliantly entertaining and at times ironic, satirical and somewhat exaggerated way, to the extent where I find myself at times pausing to remind myself that Berlin is describing someone else's ideas (occasionally, I admit, a crude and simplified caricature of them) and not what he actually thinks. Indeed he has the talent of presenting ideas better and more convincing than its original progenitor could have ever intended. 

Berlin's oratory skills are unmatched. Never has anyone been able to deliver a lecture quite as powerfully and eloquently as him. Here is one example from his lectures on Romanticism: 

https://youtu.be/aIffazJIrLo 

One could easily imagine him in another possible world employed as a defence barrister, fervently arguing in defence of a murderer, utterly unconvinced of his innocence but nonetheless showing immense gusto for his client's case anyway, as though it was his own and more than his client could originally ever have done or cared to do. Or even more so he would have made for an excellent Greek sophist, defending specious philosophies he is totally unconvinced of in the Agora squares. When, for instance, Berlin writes about the otherwise despicable philosophy of Joseph de Maistre—his ultramontane, extremely conservative and fascistic doctrines—he has me almost convinced sheerly by his articulateness.

On top of this, his ability to biographically portray the convictions and presuppositions of historical figures—Tolstoy, Herzen, Bakunin, Belinsky Turgenev, Stankevich, De Maistre, Marx, Holbach, the Romantics; Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, Vico and others—in such a vivid manner as to in some sense psychoanalyse their own lives and personalities and link them to some fundamental axiom that that particular figure held, and then extend that to the zeitgeist and general attitude that is paradigmatic of the age in which they had lived. It would seem to me that Berlin borrowed this methodology from the Russian thinker Belinsky whom he greatly admired, and I'm purely judging this by his own testament while writing about Belinsky himself. Berlin writes about these thinkers as if he was personally acquainted with them even though they lived centuries before his own time. And he always shows solemn care to understand them in relation to their social, economic and environmental context; to put himself in their perspective and live through their experiences, beliefs and convictions. These talents, I think, require a huge deal of ingenuity and imagination as well as an exceptional honesty of mind.

Addressing Berlin's Zionism and Cold War Liberalism

I always thought that a person's life experiences and upbringing are shaped by and to a certain extent reflective of their philosophical ideas and thoughts; their convictions and why they held them, their presuppositions and so on. This is why I was rather taken aback upon discovering that Isaiah Berlin was a committed Zionist, which made the tropes of "broken pedestal" and "never meet your heroes" resonate all too clearly. Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology that aims to create an ethno-nationalist state in a multi-ethnic country, which in effect, ethnic cleansed a majority Palestinian population (in 1947) to establish a Jewish ethnostate. This seems an incongruous belief for someone I admired so deeply. So, in effect, Berlin advocated for settler colonialism and ethnic cleansin; he was a racist. Although Berlin rarely discussed politics and claimed to have little interest in the subject, his personal involvement with Zionism and his close friendship with Chaim Azriel Weizmann, the first president of Israel, were quite significant. In his personal diaries, one reads hundreds of letters on the subject of Zionism in positive light, letters sent to various very influential political figures. No mention of the Nakba ever appears, of the almost million Palestinians forcibly displaced, 500 villages torched and destroyed, the countless massacres perpetuated, all to make way for his Jewish ethnostate. These were events happening during his time, which he supported. Berlin believed that Jews, historically persecuted, could only find safety in their own nation-state—even if it meant the violent displacement of thousands of Palestinians.

In an interview Berlin remarked: 

For those who went there [Israel], it is not home. True, those Jews that were born in Israel have their home. But Arabs, their enemies, are there too. They force them to fight. Maybe it’s better to live in New York? In any case, I should not be able to live in Israel. I should be unhappy there. 

Here, we find a remarkable absence of historical context concerning the Palestinian experience—including displacement, occupation, and systemic inequality—from a historian no less! This phrasing “they force them to fight” places the onus of conflict squarely on the Palestinian side, effectively erasing the context of how Israel was founded and how it has maintained its territorial claims. Resisting occupation is therefore, in Berlin’s world, forcing the occupier to fight! Notwithstanding the displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians (Berlin himself should empathise with this, having been displaced with his Bourgeoisie family from under Bolshevik rule), it is the ongoing actions of the Israeli state—land seizures, settlements, and military incursions—that "force" Palestinians to resist. Early Zionists like Berlin were careful to promote a narrative of binary conflict between two competing groups with equally valid claims in order to deflect criticisms of settler colonialism.

This pierces my heart to hear, leaves me utterly heart-broken and melancholy, as if I had broken a century-long love affair. It infuriates me so much because I so deeply respect this man, and if it had been any other intellectual I would hardly care. But it also perhaps gives us a glimpse into Berlin’s affinity for romantic motifs—particularly those related to national identity embraced by the likes of Fichte and Herder—and its connection to his Zionism and Jewish heritage and religion, of which he kept close to heart throughout his life despite being an atheist. I don't want to make too many inferences but this might also suggest that Isaiah identified with some of the conservative attitudes and beliefs of the Romantic movements concerning religion, culture and heritage and exclusivist identities. But this again might just be a symptom of Berlin's marvellous ability to portray the beliefs of others in such an acute way that could comes off as his own.

One may also be surprised that Berlin, the author of ‘negative liberty’ and who repeatedly cautioned against sacrificing individuals for ideological or abstract causes, was also in support of a hawkish stance on the Vietnam war and other Cold War conflicts and had no qualms in sending thousands of conscripts to their death and the massacre of countless Vietnamese. For some reason or the other, this particular inconvenient fact has been omitted form Ignatieff’s biography of Berlin.

Nevertheless, these things must be viewed from the context and time in which Berlin lived—a time where Jews had just been exterminated en masse in Nazi Germany and were disenfranchised elsewhere, and subsequently at a time when the paranoia of the Red Scare was running rampant in US politics, a place where he had worked for a large part of his early life, as well as his early childhood memories in Riga and St Petersburg where he supposedly witnessed violent scenes of communist revolution. While this doesn't justify his beliefs, we can attempt to understand them just as much as we are able to understand the perspectives of individuals like Martin Luther with his strong views on the Catholic Church, or the staunch racist imperialism of Winston Churchill, or the aristocratic convictions of Louis XIV, or the anti-Black racial biases of Gandhi and Woodrow Wilson, or the anti-Semitic outbursts of Martin Luther. If we walked in their shoes, saw the worlds they grew up in, and faced the challenges they confronted, we may perhaps comprehend why they believed what they believed without claiming that such beliefs are justified in light of our current standards and insights.

Moreover, we may be relieved to read in the final passages of the book that, upon reaching old age, Berlin at least regretted ignoring the Palestinians’ right to self-determination all the while calling for the Jewish right for a nation state at the expense of the former, as well as his later espousal of a two state settlement. His final statement on the matter was made on his dying days, in which he wrote: 

Since both sides begin with a claim of total possession of Palestine as their historical right; and since neither claim can be accepted within the realms of realism or without grave injustice: it is plain that compromise, i.e. partition, is the only correct solution, along Oslo lines – for supporting which Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish bigot. Ideally, what we are calling for is a relationship of good neighbours, but given the number of bigoted, terrorist chauvinists on both sides, this is impracticable. The solution must lie somewhat along the lines of reluctant toleration, for fear of far worse – i.e. a savage war which could inflict irreparable damage on both sides. As for Jerusalem, it must remain the capital of Israel, with the Muslim holy places being extraterritorial to a Muslim authority, and a smallish Arab quarter, with a guarantee from the United Nations of preserving that position, by force if necessary. (16/10/1997)