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TheStateOfException OP t1_iztblw6 wrote

Submission Statement:

On the 31st of October 1958, a middle-aged Russian refugee delivered his inaugural Oxford lecture. Today, that lecture is still read by students of political philosophy. It's called Two Concepts of Liberty. Berlin used the lecture to condense much of what he had learned about human nature from his rather remarkable upbringing. His family first had to flee revolutionary Russia, then dodge Hitler. Berlin has a famous line in the lecture:

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>[...] philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilisation.

This article analyses the relevance of the idea for our own time, drawing links to the current culture wars and the importance of storytelling.

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vecinadeblog t1_iztm4vw wrote

Isaiah Berlin’s family moved to UK in 1921, when he was 12. I wouldn’t say they had to dodge Hitler. Also, in 1958 he was not a “refugee” but an established Russian-British philosopher.

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[deleted] t1_iztr4t8 wrote

[deleted]

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TheGrumpyre t1_izu46r4 wrote

I think there's a certain literary qualitiy to the "for want of a nail" view of historical events, where seemingly insignificant things have disproportionate effects on the world. But those events only stand out because they're ironically unexpected. Wars start because of tectonically sized movements of economies and political factions so vast that one single bullet could only make them flinch a little, but that doesn't make as memorable a story.

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ReddRobben t1_izuds8o wrote

Not as arrogant as claiming to blow up an entire philosophy based on a knee-jerk response to one quote taken out of context though…umuhright?

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ShalmaneserIII t1_izvcm83 wrote

> A pissed off Serbian with a revolver could destroy civilizations.

Yes, but why was he pissed off? Nationalism had to be invented somewhere.

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