It might, of course, be disingenuous but it is surely right to point this out from time to time. Orwell was wary of uncritical hero-worship in the 1930s which often put him at odds with the political Left. He was particularly uncomfortable with British Socialism’s adulation of Stalin.

‘Good to be back Boltonianblogging!!!!!!!’

Great to see you back! Long may it continue.

Thanks for the background.

Popper’s pop at Aristotle is really giving Hegel’s philosophy in particular a historical context, as I read it. As he says in Ch1 of vol 2, ‘I shall, therefore, not attempt a serious treatment of Aristotle…’ Having said that, I admit that he seems a little damning in his opinions. Was his (Aristotle’s) view of all non-aristocrats not as Popper depicted – I know that his opinion of women was a little bizarre and, to our eyes, fairly unpleasant? If Popper merely gives us a partial picture of the man and his philosophy I would plead that this is exactly what he set out to do – he had far bigger fish to fry in terms of enemies of the open society.

Yes, his interpretation of the middle ages is unsubtle and, possibly, lazy but it forms a tiny element of background to his thesis. This impression is commonly held by non-specialists of the period, I would argue. I agree that one ought to define when and where one is talking about to make one’s case, rather than the blanket condemnation of all things, ‘Medieval.’ However, my, admittedly, scant knowledge of the period leads me to the view that life for 95% of the population in feudal England from the mid 11thC to the mid 15thC was not pleasant, even by the standards of the time. And the Church was complicit in this oppression. I know that feudalism was not the norm everywhere (Kent for example) and that some people in some places at certain times were better off than others but this does not negate the general prevailing system of the day, namely that the aristocracy held almost all the nation’s assets and power.

Yes, you are right to pull me up on my description of the governance of the open society – it is my definition not Popper’s. My view of what an open society can be summed up as, ‘Liberal, capitalist democracy.’ Balance, in other words. The moral balance between taboo and tolerance, for instance. So, stealing somebody else’s property is a social taboo but if a poor woman whose husband spends all their income on drink, is caught stealing food from a supermarket to feed her child, she will be treated leniently by society – a hard rule softly enforced. The balance between the leaders and the led; capital and labour; the Legislature and the Executive; north and south; the administration and the media; short term and long-term etc. Whenever this balance is upset in some way, as right now, it will correct itself, indeed over-correcting in many instances. That is not to say that there are no victims from this process but I would say that the 95% in the feudal England analogy is at the other end of the spectrum nowadays in terms of freedom, wealth and happiness. A wild guess, of course, as I cannot possibly know what it was like to have lived as a peasant during those times.

Popper is generally vaguer about what the open society is than what it isn’t but he is sure of its benefits: to protect all citizens from tyranny (one sectional interest exercising an undue level of power). It cannot guarantee, or even facilitate, good government but it allows bad leaders to be overthrown bloodlessly – and that surely is worth having (and, if necessary, fighting for).

Popper uses the word, ‘Destiny,’ in relation to historicism. Both Hegel and Marx, in their different ways, subscribed to the concept of inevitability based on historical patterns – and it is this that Popper condemns.

You might well be correct about Popper’s influence but the threat of tyranny has not gone away despite his view that open societies are inherently stronger and more enduring than closed ones. If I can be dictatorial for a minute, I would make it a condition that all aspiring MPs read at least vol. 2.

Maybe helpful (for anyone else who drops by) to know I was supposed to prepare this for a ‘three perspectives on Popper’ thingy. I was the medieval person. The modernist did far more of an overview and sketched out context.

I felt very awkward doing it – precisely because Popper is not writing history and I think it’s simply uncharitable to take him to task for his very brief forays and references to anything medieval. To put it in perspective, the most extended discussion of anything vaguely ‘medieval’ is about three pages at the beginning of volume two. It is infuriating, in a sense, insofar as Popper does, at other points, seem to suggest that this period exemplified all the ‘bad things’ of a closed society, but he does – to be frank – play on some rather heavy-handed platitudes, even if he’s right to be spittleful when it comes to the argument from cathedrals! Incidentally, I don’t take the above to be particularly measured. These things are always, for me anyway, rather last minute. It may be of interest for a few biggie issues it (inadvertently!) raises.

I didn’t change things in the above which emerged in discussion afterwards…maybe of interest…

1. Almost everyone – and it was in a history seminar room – was simply confused about historicism. Or, to put it better, thought Popper is v confusing on this. I stand by this. I don’t find him completely compelling on this, and share Taylor’s bafflement, esp on whether people adhere to it in the way he suggests and whether it ties into all of the other negative effects (e.g. utopian social engineering and so on). In short, whether it’s the terrible thing he quite makes out.

But one professor was very interesting for pointing out: given that phase of Marxian thought contemporary with Popper at time of writing and, second, given popular works of grand history (i.e. Toynbee, Spengler a bit earlier), Popper was not – as some of us probably were edging towards – dealing in straw men. He suggested that the fact we found this so baffling and borderline strawman is partly because we don’t encounter this way of doing history any more – and this perhaps is even a measure of Popper’s influence (or the influence of his kind of wariness).

2. Agree with much of what you say, btw. But I don’t think what you spell out as an open society is Popperian. His sense – from my reading – was quite different (and depended on an interplay between those binary opposites: I know he’s not being literal, but I do think a narrative of emancipation is integral to his kind of position).

People who were in the know on Marxism said he totally misrepresents Marxist and (some phases of?) Marxian thought. I can’t say.

On Plato, I know just enough to recognise his interpretation is most equivocal. The response among classicists to OS was, generally, negative – and this is probably telling, even when one takes into account that classicists can be a precious bunch sometimes.

As for Aristotle, Popper’s anaylsis simply stinks, not least for the merry waltzing between, say, some finer point about Aristotelian metaphysics and its putative social effect a few millennia later! Gilbert Ryle, who was largely positive when he reviewed Open Society, also said Popper stinks on Aristotle (without saying Popper stinks on Aristotle).

And Hegel…well, to judge Popper on this would mean reading even a little bit of Hegel and that’s just not happening any time soon (especially with, in my case, four seasons of The Wire still to be watched).

So, for me, I am v wary of Popper as reader. Yes, maybe Hegelian and Marxist dialectic is wrong. But I’m not quite sure Popper’s right on this, or right for the right reasons.

3. The bit he really loses me on is doing a kind of grand sociological thing. Even with some concessions for hazy details given the large scope, how his equivocal readings of, say, Plato and Aristotle translate into sociological realities is, I must confess, a little beyond me. Perhaps, in fairness, he was using a kind of model he probably did encounter in the Marxism of the time: we’re talking about walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

Even bearing in mind that it’s not historical or sociological but ideologically focussed first and foremost, I must confess I found Open Society underwhelming. Even if these aren’t his focus, the historical and sociological dimenions are at least ancillary to his ideological point: and they are usually more hit than miss for me.

As hinted…perhaps best to read as a historical document, as a polemic written in the 40s. That sounds dismissive. Don’t mean it like that. In a funny way, the very influence of his ideas (or ideas like his) may be why I find the work underwhelming – does that make sense, or should I spell out?!

Phew…more than enough for now…it’s the Kuhn/Popper stuff which, maybe, is more interesting?

Good to be back Boltonianblogging!!!!!!!

This is very much an initial and, therefore, not deeply considered response.

You are right to point out that Popper is weak on the part the Middle Ages played in the development of the open society. but in his defence I do not think that, ‘The Open Society and its Enemies,’ was written as a history – at least that is not how it reads to me. My interpretation is that he was stating categorically that certain ideologies were wrong: in particular those propounded by Plato, Hegel and Marx. This assertion is quite clearly correct and nowadays hardly disputed.

What I think he was trying set out was why they were in error and what caused it. He was, incidentally, much kinder on Marx than either Plato or Hegel, mainly due to motive: both Plato and Hegel were democracy-hating absolutists and Popper quiet clearly loathed them.

I also agree that, ‘the Poverty of Historicism,’ is a less impressive work than the ‘The Open Society…’ but is still unearths nuggets of truth. It cannot be denied that both Hegel and Marx were historicists and that their conclusions were wrong, largely because of this enslavement to idealistic (Hegel) and materialistic (Marx) dialectics.

The progress from a closed to an open society is not inevitable – power will not willingly be given away but even in closed societies there are different interests, which will struggle with each other for supremacy. I suppose the obvious one which signalled the end of the Middle Ages is that between Church and State.

I suppose the open society can be defined in political terms as when the three modes of government defined by Aristotle (Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy) not only share power but are bound together, however uneasily, by the fear of losing all semblance of influence. Substitute ‘President’ and ‘Senate’ for the first two in a republic.

Popper’s view was that open societies are inherently stronger than closed regimes but that does not mean absolutism cannot return for short but destructive periods.

I had not thought of linking falsification with his social and political thinking – an interesting angle.

I shall revisit the works and comment further.