A few days ago I was talking with a friend at work about Paul Berman's new book, Terror and Liberalism, and my friend asked me if I had ever read Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies.
Not only had I not read it, but I had never even heard of it.
Today, John brought it in for me to read and I immediately found it fascinating.
Originally published in the early 40s, Popper draws a straight line between Communism and Fascism, just as Berman does, and says that both are reactions against liberal society. Both systems are totalitarian and designed to crush dissent. Popper's larger thesis is that the mistakes in philosophy that makes totalitarian thinking possible can be traced back to Heraclitus and Plato (I haven't fully absorbed the Plato-Fascism connection yet, so I can't expand on it).
But seeing the connection in thinking between Popper and Berman, I was curious if Berman was influenced by Popper, so I tracked down an e-mail address for him. Within an hour of writing, I got this reply:
Your question is very good. The principal influence on my ideas on totalitarianism comes from the French philosopher Andre Glucksmann. But his ideas, in turn, have something in common with Popper's. I do feel that I have been influenced, in a secondary or indirect way, by Popper — which is not to say that I agree with everything Popper ever said. Last week I addressed the Carnegie Council in New York, and, in response to someone's question about European influences, I cited Popper as a source of my ideas.
Expect more from me on this subject in the coming weeks, months ... maybe even years.
Finally, in a bit of synchronisty, during dinner this evening, Billie and I watched last night's Charlie Rose (thanks TIVO) and he interviewed Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Nafisi addressed the budding democracy movement in Iran and threw in, apropos to no question, that it is not unusual to hear people there quoting Popper. Before today, I had never even heard of Popper, now is name is, um, popping up everywhere.
Article comments
1 - blogalizalizer
I'm reminded of Adam Gopnick's memoir in the New Yorker about meeting Popper toward the end of the philosopher's life.
Part of the reason is that his philsophical project was predominantly negative. Maybe that's why Habermas, who owed a lot to Popper but also made his career collapsing most of Popper's central distinctions in formulating his own theory of "communicative action," rules the roost of German liberal political thinkers these days. So it goes.
So, the connection with Iran was that, what, you were reading Popper and watching television while writing a fan letter to a guy who thinks that "whatever the failings of George W. Bush, he is a mere annoyance next to the totalitarian threat [of radical Islam]," as one reviewer notes? Berman seems awfully smart, and awfully naive, to me, in his failure to recognize that the worldview of Islamic radicalism is not something alien, but something that exists in our society as well, among those alienated by the neoliberal economic order. Tariq Ali.
By the way, a prominent Iranian blogger has been arrested. Follow the link to support Sina Motallebi.
2 - Howard Owens
Good comment, thanks. Berman should probably speak for himself, but based on the interview I've seen and what little of his I've read, I'm not sure he is as naive as you think.
Certainly, my first impression is that the meme that liberalism is a fraud is something I recognize as a common trait among leftists and religious-rightests in the west.
On my own site, I just posted something related to Bush and the force of freedom (re your link to Salon).
3 - Mac
Interesting.
I've just started reading Lolita in Tehran myself. I'm only about 10% in, but already I'm inclined to promote it. If you haven't already, you might want to give it a try.