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View Full Version : Isaiah Berlin The Creepy Mentor of Tony Blair




Eric Arthur Blair
10-16-2009, 09:28 PM
This vid explains Berlin's basic philosophy. From the leftist perspective of the BBC.

YouTube - Negative vs Positive liberty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84wJlDC8--o)

This is the alternative view from Alan Watt

Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher who taught at Oxford University, came out with that was called Positive Freedom. ‘Positive Freedom’, it sounds wonderful and all these Orwellian terms always do, like "Positive", that's a nice word and "Freedom" is a nice word. However, what it was, was that society existed for a plan, if we're all working together in a war, like World War II, when you all pull together, you allow the governments to expand bureaucracies and deal with your food supply, rationing, all that kind of stuff, lack of privacy, ID cards, all working towards the great plan that the elites guide us along and that's called ‘Positive Freedom’. In reality, you have no freedom, unless you're going along in the flow, willingly.

Whereas Negative Freedom was where you'd have more choices to do as you wish, less government intervention / intrusion into your life, you'd still be watched of course, they always have; but again, you wouldn't know too much of what was really working in the world, or working on you, from the top. You'd be kept in a sort of blissful ignorance. When Mr. Blair was the Prime Minister of Britain, and I had the letter here, it was a copy that was sent to me, he wrote to Mr. Berlin and asked him if they could combine the two, in other words: the goal was always to try and merge the two together and then gradually eliminate the first one and leave you simply with Positive Freedom. We're all on Planet ship Earth, like the Star Trek Enterprise, there are leaders there who are guiding us along and they will manage society, from birth to death.

http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.ca/transcripts/Alan_Watt_CTTM_LIVEonRBN_297_Mandatory_Servitude_A pr132009.html

Shortly before his death (on 5 November 1997), Berlin received the following letter from the then Prime Minister (who was unaware, since Prospect had concealed this, that the interview he was enquiring about had been given at least 5 years earlier). Berlin was too ill to reply.

A Letter from Tony Blair

10 Downing Street
23 October 1997

Dear Isaiah

I very much enjoyed your interview with Steven Lukes in Prospect this month. I hope you don’t mind me following up with a letter asking your thoughts.

The brief discussion in the interview of the relationship between your two concepts of liberty is, I think, illuminating. The limitations of negative liberty are what have motivated generations of people to work for positive liberty, whatever its depradations [sic] in the Soviet model. That determination to go beyond laissez-faire continues to motivate people today. And it is in that context that I would be interested in your views on the future of the Left.

You seem to be saying in the interview that because traditional socialism no longer exists, there is no Left. But surely the Left over the last 200 years has been based on a value system, predating the Soviet model and living on beyond it. As you say, the origins of the Left lie in opposition to arbitrary authority, intolerance and hierarchy. The values remain as strong as ever, but no longer have a ready made vehicle to take them forward. That seems to me to be today’s challenge. Political economy has been transformed over the last 25 years, and it is here that there is a great deal of work to be done. But there remains action, too, to devolve political power and to build a more egalitarian community.

So reconstruction, yes, but the end no!

I would be interested in your further views on the current situation, its historical place and significance, and the prospects for renewal.

All good wishes.

yours ever

Tony Blair