Freedom and Organization: Volume 10 (Routledge Classics)

The Open Society and Its Enemies

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According to historicist methods, this fundamental question of sociology must be reformulated in this way: what is the origin of society and of the state? Every single one of the typical stages in the degeneration of the state is brought about by a corresponding stage in the degeneration of the human soul, of human nature, of the human race. For the history of the downfall of the first or perfect state is nothing but the history of the biological degeneration of the race of men. I think that most of us, especially those whose general outlook is humanitarian, mean something like this: a an equal distribution of the burden of citizenship, i.

And what is in the interest of this best state? To arrest all change, by the maintenance of a rigid class division and class rule. His reply to this question was that the wisest, and the best, should rule. Does not this excellent reply modify the character of his theory? The wise shall lead and rule, and the ignorant shall follow. All long-term politics are institutional. The principle of leadership does not replace institutional problems by problems of personnel, it only creates new institutional problems. It is quite wrong to blame democracy for the political shortcomings of a democratic state.

We should rather blame ourselves, that is to say, the citizens of the democratic state. In what follows, the magical or tribal or collectivist society will also be called the closed society, and the society in which individuals are confronted with personal decisions, the open society. The aspects I have in mind are connected with the fact that, in an open society, many members strive to rise socially, and to take the places of other members. For Aristotle, every form of professionalism means a loss of caste. It looks as if the son of the Macedonian court physician was troubled by the question of his own social position, and especially by the possibility that he might lose caste because of his own scholarly interests which might be considered professional.

The chief danger to our philosophy, apart from laziness and woolliness, is scholasticism, … which is treating what is vague as if it were precise … F.

Freedom and Organization: Volume 10 (Routledge Classics)

This spirit was preserved, more or less purely, in the movement of the Cynics who, like the early Christians, preached the brotherhood of man, which they connected with a monotheistic belief in the fatherhood of God. Hegelianism is the renaissance of tribalism. Most of the modern totalitarians are quite unaware that their ideas can be traced back to Plato. But many know of their indebtedness to Hegel, and all of them have been bro They have been taught to worship the state, history When nationalism was revived a hundred years ago, it was in one of the most mixed of all the thoroughly mixed regions of Europe, in Germany, and especially in Prussia with its largely Slav population.

It was Fichte who provided German nationalism with its first theory. The borders of a nation, he contended, are determined by language. This does not improve matters. Where do differences of dialect become differences of language? How many different languages do the Slavs or the Teutons speak, or are the differences merely dialects? From our enemies, we can try to protect ourselves.

Modern totalitarianism is only an episode within the perennial revolt against freedom and reason. Thus the formula of the fascist brew is in all countries the same: Hegel plus a dash of nineteenth-century materialism especially Darwinism in the somewhat crude form given to it by Haeckel A Nation that has not formed itself into a State—a mere Nation—has strictly speaking no history, Freyer has very similar ideas, but he expresses them more frankly He who has the grip has the booty.

He who makes a faulty move is done for … he who wishes to hit his mark must know how to shoot. In order to taste life one has not only to risk, but to lose! To combat this influence forcefully and on every occasion is the duty of everybody who is able to judge independently. For if we are silent, who will speak? In spite of his merits, Marx was, I believe, a false prophet. As Lenin was quick to realize, Marxism was unable to help in matters of practical economics.

Politics are impotent.

The Location of Culture (Routledge Classics)

They can never alter decisively the economic reality. The main if not the only task of any enlightened political activity is to see that the alternations in the juridico-political cloak keep pace with the changes in the social reality, In view of such experiences, we need not wonder that Marx did not think very highly of liberalism, and that he saw in parliamentary democracy nothing but a veiled dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

According to Marx, every particular social system must destroy itself, simply because it must create the forces which produce the next historical period. We can love mankind only in certain concrete individuals. But by the use of thought and imagination, we may become ready to help all who need our help. The myth of revolution is a reaction against the unimaginative banality and conceited self-sufficiency of bourgeois society and of an old tired culture.

But one element of this contention remains true; namely, that all scientific descriptions of facts are highly selective, that they always depend upon theories. What the searchlight makes visible will depend upon its position, upon our way of directing it, and upon its intensity, colour, etc. Now the sciences which have this interest in specific events and in their explanation may, in contradistinction to the generalizing sciences, be called the historical sciences.

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This view of history makes it clear why so many students of history and its method insist that it is the particular event that interests them, and not any so-called universal historical laws. For example, the interpretation that man steadily progresses towards the open society or some other aim is incompatible with the interpretation that he steadily slips back or retrogresses.

Historicism is out to find The Path on which mankind is destined to walk; it is out to discover The Clue to History as J.

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Macmurray calls it , or The Meaning of History. But is there such a clue?

Is there a meaning in history? And in this sense, in the sense in which the question of the meaning of history is asked, I answer: History has no meaning. There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.

My insistence that success should not be worshipped, that it cannot be our judge, and that we should not be dazzled by it, and in particular, my attempts to show that in this attitude I concur with what I believe to be the true teaching of Christianity, should not be misunderstood. The whole problem of educating man to a sane appreciation of his own importance relative to that of other individuals is thoroughly muddled by these ethics of fame and fate, by a morality which perpetuates an educational system that is still based upon the classics with their romantic view of the history of power and their romantic tribal morality which goes back to Heraclitus Aug 17, Jozef Borja-Erece rated it it was amazing.

We must learn to do things as well as we can, and to look out for our mistakes.

And when we have dropped the idea that the history of power will be our judge, when we have given up worrying whether or not history will justify us, then one day perhaps we may succeed in getting our power under control. In this way we may even justify history, in our turn. It badly needs a justification. Buzzwords which are just as ambiguous as they are powerful. But Open Society clears the ambiguity up very nicely. Contemporary Association While nowadays the work might be linked in the public consciousness to George Soros, global supercapitalism, and sentiments commonly associated with extreme leftist liberalism; its target audience and subsequent reach as a commentary is much broader.

It really is one of those few arguments which, in a widespread social utility context, deserves to be put out there as frequently as possible. Popper in the Open Society condemns historicism and its foundations in determinism and holism.

It justifies violence and atrocity as natural if not unavoidable phenomena and makes of the perpetrators and victims equally insignificant and inconsequential actors. Cities will be sacked and plundered. Women and children will be raped and tortured.

Colonies will be colonized. Races will be enslaved. Genocide will occur in Rwanda. All will be as it was meant to be according to the dictation of the natural cycle. And this is all to be seen as natural. A serious nope. Impunity and crime was justified by power. Power was both the means and the end.

Just look at the Great Game to understand the cause of my doubt — national governments and powerful institutions of our world still vying on the international political scene exclusively for military and economic supremacy over each other. Power is still, quite literally, the only thing they work for. This widespread existential endorsement of historicism is the reason our history is so violent and bloody.

Conservatism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The reason why we still seem to find ourselves in a tension-riddled, war-torn mess as a human race regardless of the significant technological, diplomatic, and ideological advances that we seem to have seen over the past few centuries. We still view human lives as some kind of means to an end — an end of tribal nationalistic or institutional power, it seems — instead of ends in themselves. How many lives have been either spent or laid down for the sake of country, company, or collective of some sort? It is as if country, company, or collective are a higher purpose and end than each of the human beings that they both represent and serve.

What we seem to consistently fail to recall is that country, company, and collective are nothing more than the human beings they are made up of. No, it is glorious only because the sacrifice is made for the sake of the human beings who comprise that nation. Not for the culture that comprises that nation. But for the human beings who comprise that culture. Not for the families who comprise that nation. But for the human beings who comprise those families. Only after we have brought this sanctity of every human life to the forefront of our values as a global society can we begin to build in the right direction for ourselves.

And democratic in that elected leaders are truly elected in accordance with the will of the people and not some technocratic manipulation therefore allowing all leaders to be accountable and replaceable if their leadership during the given term does not result in acceptable outcomes for the people. This is the democratic spirit in its purest dialectic form.

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