My "Book Talk" published on Aug 10, Bangladesh Post, on one of the trendsetting books on Philosophy, Historicism and Socio-Political psyche, by perhaps the best Philosopher of Science and Critical Rationalist of 20th century, Karl Popper. 23/08/2018 A Daily with a Difference | Latest Online English Daily among Bangladesh Newspapers NATIONAL WORLD BUSINESS SPORTS OPINION EDITORIAL SUPPLEMENT ALL SECTION Home Education & Culture The Open Society And Its Enemies From 100 best nonfiction books of all time THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES Avik Gangopadhyay reads Karl Popper, who dared to assault the “Totalitarian thoughts” of Plato, Hegel and Marx August 10, 2018 25 One of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century, Karl Popper (1902-1994) was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a critical-rationalist, a dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally and a committed advocate and staunch defender of the ‘Open Society’. One of the many remarkable features of Popper’s thought is the scope of his intellectual influence. The Open Society and Its Enemies, a book conceived in the 1930s, inspired by the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938, written in the secluded tranquillity of New Zealand’s South Island, and completed in the 1940s, become a key text of the 1960s, became a rallying cry, on behalf of western liberal democracy, for the post-war renewal of the European tradition. Karl Popper, an author-profound, immensely influential upon a new generation of college students, an émigré intellectual, determined to address “the difficulties faced by our civilisation”, became a touchstone for progressive opinion. His fierce critique of Plato, Hegel and Marx was understood as an assault on totalitarian thought, and became widely fashionable.The Open Society and Its Enemiesm, published in 1945 in two volumes: The Spell of Plato and The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath, was also the product of the philosopher’s own intellectual journey. In spite of the inevitable backlash by dissenting scholars and rivals, the rhetorical force and clarity of Popper’s writing is singular and impressive, and never less than intensely readable. As a young man, Popper had adopted Marxism. For a few months in 1919 he had even considered himself a communist, becoming quite at home with the orthodoxies of class conflict, and the central tenets of Marxist economics and history. He quickly became disillusioned, this youthful flirtation with Marxist ideology would lead him to distance himself from those who believed in violent revolution. Eventually, during the long disillusionment of the 1920s, he came to realise that the sacrifice of human life must be a last resort, and that radical thought and conduct must be exercised with exemplary caution and prudence. Popper was not only dismayed by the failure of democratic parties to prevent fascism from taking over Austrian politics in the 1920s and 1930s, he suffered directly from the consequences of this historic failure. The Nazis’ annexation of Austria, forced the young philosopher into permanent exile. Henceforth, he would devote himself to a lifelong assault on totalitarian thought. As well as popularising the open society, the book argued that communism and fascism were philosophically linked, and demonstrated the subtle interconnections of politics and culture: “The contention that Plato’s political programme is purely totalitarian, and the objections to this contention have led us to examine the part played, within this programme, by such moral ideas as Justice, Wisdom, Truth and Beauty.” In the spirit of the cold war, and the political climate in which The Open Society and Its Enemies was first being read, Popper did not hesitate to declare Marxism ‘a major problem’ and just ‘one of the many mistakes we have made in the perennial and dangerous struggle for building a better and freer world’. Accordingly, Popper did not hesitate to identify ‘the darkness of the present world situation’, claiming this to be his justification for his ‘severe treatment of Marx’. One of the signature sentences of the book reads, “This book sketches some of the difficulties faced by our civilisation – a civilisation which might perhaps be described as aiming at humaneness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom; a civilisation which is still in its infancy, as it were, and which continues to grow in spite of the fact that it has been so often betrayed by so many of the intellectual leaders of mankind.” This Austrian-born philosopher’s post-war rallying cry for western liberal democracy was hugely influential in the 1960s: “Our greatest troubles spring from something that is as admirable and sound as it is dangerous – from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows. These troubles are the by-products of what is perhaps the greatest of all moral and spiritual revolutions of history, a movement which began three centuries ago. It is the longing of uncounted unknown men to free themselves and their minds from the tutelage of authority and prejudice. It is their attempt to build up an open society … It is their unwillingness to sit back and leave the entire responsibility for ruling the world to human or superhuman authority … This revolution had created powers of appalling destructiveness; but they may yet be conquered.” Popper’s personal history and background, contributed to develop a deep and abiding interest in social and political philosophy. Historicism, which is closely associated with holism, is the belief that history develops inexorably and necessarily according to certain principles or rules towards a determinate end (for example, the dialectic of Hegel, which was adopted and implemented by Marx). The link between holism and historicism is that the holist believes that individuals are essentially formed by the social groupings to which they belong, while the historicist—who is usually also a holist—holds that we can understand such a social grouping only in terms of the internal principles which determine its development. These beliefs lead to what Popper calls ‘The Historicist Doctrine of the Social Sciences’, the views (a) that the principal task of the social sciences is to make predictions about the social and political development of man, and (b) that the task of politics, once the key predictions have been made, is, in Marx’s words, to lessen the ‘birth pangs’ of future social and political developments. Popper thinks that this view of the social sciences is both theoretically misconceived (in the sense of being based upon a view of natural science and its methodology which is totally wrong), and socially dangerous, as it leads inevitably to totalitarianism and authoritarianism-to centralised governmental control of the individual and the attempted imposition of large-scale social planning: “My theory of democracy is very simple and easy for everybody to understand. But its fundamental problem is so different from the age-old theory of democracy which everybody takes for granted that it seems that this difference has not been grasped, just because of the simplicity of the theory. It avoids high-sounding, abstract words like ‘rule’, ‘freedom’ and ‘reason’. I do believe in freedom and reason, but I do not think that one can construct a simple, practical and fruitful theory in these terms. They are too abstract, and too prone to be misused; and, of course, nothing whatever can be gained by their definition.” Rationalists never hesitated to re-evaluate political philosophies, be it Jean Paul Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir or Bertrand Russell. But Popper offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws. He develops a critique of historicism and a defence of the open society and liberal democracy. Armed with critical rationalism and theory of unpredictability his assertion is still echoed: “‘Scientific’ Marxism is dead”, he wrote, but, “its feeling of social responsibility and its love for freedom will survive”. Avik Gangopadhyay, an author, columnist and educationist, writes from Kolkata, India View in Publication Site