281
Soviet propaganda often depicted
workers liberated from capitalism.
From a capitalist view, however, such
images showed a triumph of negative
freedom over positive freedom.
See also: Jean-Jacques Rousseau 154–59 ■ John Stuart Mill 190–93 ■
Søren Kierkegaard 194–95 ■ Karl Marx 196–203 ■ Jean-Paul Sartre 268–71
THE MODERN WORLD
For Berlin, the problem is that these
two forms of freedom are often in
conflict. Think, for example, of
the freedom that comes from the
discipline of learning how to play
the tuba. As a beginner, I can
do little more than struggle with
my own inability to play—but
eventually I can play with a kind
of liberated gusto. Or think of the
fact that people frequently exercise
their “positive” freedom by voting
for a particular government,
knowing that their “negative”
freedom will be restricted when
that government comes to power.The goals of life
Berlin points to another problem.
Who is to say what a suitable goal
of “positive” freedom should be?
Authoritarian or totalitarian
regimes often have an inflexible
view of the purpose of human life,
and so restrict “negative” freedoms
to maximize their idea of human
happiness. Indeed, political
oppression frequently arises from an
abstract idea of what the good life
is, followed by state intervention
to make that idea a reality.
Berlin’s response to this is
twofold. First, it is important to
recognize that the various freedoms
we may desire will always be in
conflict, for there is no such thing
as “the goal of life”—only the goals
of particular individuals. This
fact, he claims, is obscured by
philosophers who look for a universal
basis for morality, but confuse “right
action” with the purpose of life
itself. Second, we need to keep
alive the fundamental sense of
freedom as an absence of “bullying
and domination”, so that we do not
find our ideals turning into chains
for ourselves and for others. ■freedom is freedom from external
obstacles: I am free because I am
not chained to a rock, because I am
not in prison, and so on. This is
freedom from something else. But
Berlin points out that when we
talk about freedom, we usually
mean something more subtle than
this. Freedom is also a matter of
self-determination, of being a
person with hopes, and intentions,
and purposes that are one’s own.
This “positive” freedom is about
being in control of one’s own
destiny. After all, I am not free just
because all the doors of my house
are unlocked. And this positive
freedom is not exclusively personal,
because self-determination can
also be desired at the level of the
group or of the state.
Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga,
Latvia, in 1909. He spent the
first part of his life in Russia,
firstly under the Russian
empire, and then under the
rule of the new Communist
state. Due to rising anti-
Semitism, however, and
problems with the Soviet
régime, his family emigrated
to Britain in 1921. Berlin was
an outstanding student at
Oxford University, where he
remained as a lecturer. He
was a philosopher with broad
interests, ranging from art and
literature to politics. His essay
Two Concepts of Liberty was
delivered in 1958 at Oxford
University, and it is often
considered one of the classics
of 20th-century political
theory. He is celebrated for
being one of the foremost
scholars of liberalism.Key works1953 The Hedgehog and the
Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s
View of History
1958 Two Concepts of Liberty
1990 The Crooked Timber of
Humanity: Chapters in the
History of Ideas
2000 The Power of Ideas
2006 Political Ideas in the
Romantic Age