The Open Society and Its Enemies

I have just finished volume two, save the addenda (perhaps worth a post of their own, what do I know?). It took a little longer than I had estimated, as I found it necessary to read up on the first part of vol. II again – I had read this once, but some time ago – in order to refresh the points made there.

It’s a good book. As it says on the back (a quote from The Economist): “A brilliant polemic … It remains the best intellectual defence of liberal democracy against know-it-all totalitarianism.” I haven’t exactly read all the books that defends liberal democracy against totalitarianism, so I don’t feel comfortable passing such a judgment, but it is probably one of the best. I highly recommend it. You do need to read volume one first though, in order to get the full blast of Popper’s genius.

It was written more than sixty years ago. Don’t let this scare you away. Most of the analysis is still very much relevant, indeed perhaps just as important today as it was when Popper wrote it.

A few quotes from the book follows below (they are not meant to “encapsulate the meaning” of the book or “be representative” or anything like that, they are merely to be considered “appetizers”).

Objectivity: [It] is not only impossible to avoid a selective point of view, but also wholly undesirable to attempt to do so; for if we could do so, we should get not a more ‘objective’ description, but only a mere heap of entirely unconnected statements. But, of course, a point of view is inevitable; and the naïve attempt to avoid it can only lead to self-deception, and to the uncritical application of an unconscious point of view. {p. 289}

Rationality: ‘The world’ is not rational, but it is the task of science to rationalize it. ‘Society’ is not rational, but it is the task of the social engineer to rationalize it. [...] Ordinary language is not rational, but it is our task to rationalize it, or at least to keep up its standards of clarity. {note 19 to chapter 24, p. 406. Popper calls this attitude ‘pragmatic rationalism’, and if it is to be so called, then I am a pragmatic rationalist}

The aims of politics (I have brought a shorter version of the quote previously): of all political ideals, that of making the people happy is perhaps the most dangerous one. It leads invariably to the attempt to impose our scale of ‘higher’ values upon others, in order to make them realize what seems to us of greatest importance for their happiness; in order, as it were, to save their souls. It leads to Utopianism and Romanticism. We all feel certain that everybody would be happy in the beautiful, the perfect community of our dreams. [...] But, as I have said before, [...] the attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. {p261-262. In a note elsewhere, p.377, where he discusses Marx position on this issue, in coining ‘the second principle of sane politics’ he quotes a Viennese poet, K. Kraut, according to whom all politics consists of choosing the lesser evil}

Another quote relevant to both the aims of politics part and the rationality-part, is part of the conclusion: although history has no meaning, we can give it a meaning. [Popper's emphasis, not mine] [...] Neither nature nor history can tell us what we ought to do. Facts, whether those of nature or those of history, cannot make the decision for us, they cannot determine the ends we are going to choose. It is we who introduce purpose and meaning into nature and into history. Men are not equal; but we can decide to fight for equal rights. Human institutions such as the state are not rational, but we can decide to fight to make them more rational. [...] We can make it our fight for the open society and against its enemies (who, when in a corner, always protest their humanitarian sentiments, in accordance with Pareto’s advice); and we can interpret it accordingly. {p.307}

“Overcoming bias“: If scientific objectivity were founded, as the sociologistic theory of knowledge naïvely assumes, upon the individual scientist’s impartiality or objectivity, then we should have to say goodbye to it. [...] science and scientific objectivity do not (and cannot) result from the attempts of an individual scientist to be ‘objective’, but from the friendly-hostile co-operation of many scientists [Popper's emphasis]. {p.241}