Synopsis of

1
Synopsis of Tagore and Nationality (Berlin
1996) from The Sense of Reality

• Cameron M. Weber
• New School for Social Research
• Krakow Program July 2007
• cameroneconomics.com

2
Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997)
3
Isaiah Berlin (1996)

• Problem Statement
• In our world crisis is caused by the feeling that
  individual talent and success, economic power and
  ability, and sometimes even political influence,
  have fallen too far out of step with the all
  important factor of the craving for social status
  (p. 254).
• See re Adam Smiths approbation from Theory of
  Moral Sentiments.

4
Isaiah Berlin (1996)

• Class consciousness is one of the most
  influential forms into which the demand for
  recognition pours itself (p. 261).
• Man commonly knows who stands in the way of their
  advancement.
• Dialectic of wanting to replace or reduce power
  of doomed class (Marx) yet wanting to emulate
  this class (Veblen).

5
Isaiah Berlin (1996)

• Resolution
• Equilibrium of system is disturbed by
  opportunities to upset the system by those who
  seek to change the status quo.
• Nationalism springs from the desire for
  recognition and based on reaction to 1)
  subjegation or 2) isolation.

6
Isaiah Berlin (1996)

• Corallaries
• Strength must be sought rigoursly, even
  ruthlessly, but by peaceful means (p. 263).
• So long as India is weak she will be bullied and
  ignored and humiliated.
• International order cannot be possible until all
  links in the chain (nations) are strong.

7
Isaiah Berlin (1996)

• Examples
• French and Russian revolutions where
  industrialization created middleclass without
  increase in political power of middleclass.
• Counter-culture reaction against staid
  middle-America in 1950s with Beatnicks, angry
  young men and the hip.
• Blind Catholic authority and individualist
  Protestant atomization.
• Punk and skinhead reaction against welfare state
  in England in the 1970s.
• Squat movement in Central Europe.