Abstract
Isaiah Berlin contributed significantly to the study of the history of nationalist ideas in modern Europe, to the revival among political theorists (and others) of interest in nationalism as a theory, and to the articulation of theories of “liberal nationalism” in the 1990s. Berlin was also a life-long Zionist, whose reflections on the impulses behind nationalism owed much to his reflection on the condition of Jews in the diaspora. While Berlin’s views on nationalism have long claimed attention, and while there has more recently been excellent work done on his Jewish identity and commitment to Zionism, the connection between both his liberalism and his views on nationalism, and his personal background and experiences, remains to be more fully explored. Deploying biographical reconstruction and textual analysis, I here undertake to draw such connections, emphasizing how Berlin’s personal condition and the response to nationalism that it influenced in turn shaped his liberalism. I conclude that Berlin’s experiences coming from a specifically Russian-Jewish background, as well as his position in British society, his wartime service in the British government, and his intellectual formation, significantly shaped his views on nationalism. I also suggest that both his response to nationalism and his advocacy of a distinctive liberalism reflect Berlin’s commitment (never made fully explicit) to a pluralistic ethos, which itself may be seen as a response to the condition of Jews (and other minorities and migrants) in the modern world.
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Notes
For work on nationalism influenced by Berlin, see especially Margalit and Raz 1990; Tamir 1995; Margalit 1997. I do not here offer a full conceptual reconstruction of Berlin’s views on nationalism. For such reconstruction, see Hampshire 1991; Gray 1996: 98–121; Crowder 2004: 108–114; and Miller 2005 (which offers the most thorough untangling of the skeins of Berlin’s complex account), as well as the discussions in Dworkin et al. 2001: 143–98.
For further expression of Berlin’s sympathy for national resistance to imperialism, see Berlin 1996c. Berlin was not always consistent in this view; he could allow some value to paternalistic rule—or, at least, that it could have (unintended) positive consequences: see e.g. Berlin 2013e, p. 328. He nevertheless, in the same letter, and more characteristically, added that even enlightened tyranny was tyranny—and that tyranny which begins as enlightened “almost invariably degenerates into something much less satisfactory” (Berlin 2013e, pp. 330–31). The overall burden of Berlin’s writings suggest that what goes for tyranny also goes, in his eyes, for paternalistic rule more generally.
For Gellner’s views, see e.g. Gellner 1983. Gibbon’s remark (in the second chapter of the first volume of his great work) is that “The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.” (Gibbon 1994: 56)
In the same vein, Berlin (gently) criticized Kedourie for his failure to take into account the “circumstances and needs” that “called it [nationalist ideology] into being,” or to give the desire for “self-government for its own sake, even at the cost of security or efficiency,” its due. Berlin 1960–61.
Berlin gave affirmative voice to this condition when describing his own identity, and allegiances: “I remain totally loyal to Britain, to Oxford, to Liberalism, to Israel, to a number of other institutions with which I feel identified.” (Berlin and Jahanbegloo 1991: 87).
While Berlin believed that cultural tradition and membership was important to many individuals, he also suggested that the preservation of such tradition was valuable or important simply because, and only so long as, it was such a source of value. If national (or other communal) sentiment should “evaporate” or cease to play a valued role in individuals’ lives, it should not be preserved artificially. See Margalit, contribution to discussion in Dworkin et al. 2001: 183.
My thanks to John A. Hall for his invitation to present the paper from which this article grew, and his advice and support through its composition; to the other organizers of and participants in the conference on “Jewish Conditions, Theories of Nationalism” held under the auspices of the Woolf Institute at Cambridge University on 19 May 2016; and to Laura Hartmann and Henry Hardy for their comments on earlier drafts.
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Cherniss, J.L. Isaiah Berlin: Russo-Jewish Roots, Liberal Commitments, and the Ethos of Pluralism. Int J Polit Cult Soc 30, 183–199 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-017-9255-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-017-9255-9