Reviews for The Crooked timber of humanity: chapters in the history of humanity

The average rating for The Crooked timber of humanity: chapters in the history of humanity based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-23 00:00:00 Kingsley Igbinosa It was absurd to desire to take as prisoners the Emperor, kings, and dukes, since the possession of such prisoners would have greatly enhanced the difficulty of the Russian position, as was recognized by the most clear-sighted diplomatists of the time (J. Maistre and others). L. Tolstoy, War and Peace Maistre’s works are regarded as interesting rather than important, the last despairing effort of feudalism and the dark ages to resist the march of progress. He excites the sharpest reactions: scarcely any of his critics can repress their feelings. He is represented by conservatives as a brave but doomed paladin of a lost cause, by liberals as a foolish or odious survival of an older and more heartless generation. Both sides agree that his day is done, his world has no relevance to any contemporary or any future issue. Isaiah Berlin The first quote is from Part XIV, chapter XIX, the second from the longest essay (over 80 pages) in the book here reviewed: ”Joseph de Maistre and the Origins of Fascism”. Maistre’s name is not terribly familiar any more. Given that, here’s a brief quote from his Wiki article.Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre (1753 – 1821) was a Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat. He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution. Maistre was a subject of the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, whom he served as member of the Savoy Senate (1787–1792), ambassador to Russia (1803–1817), and minister of state to the court in Turin (1817–1821).His long sojourn in Russia, during the Napoleonic years, could be assumed as the way he has crept into Tolstoy’s masterpiece; though Berlin points out several similarities of view between Maistre and Tolstoy, the latter of whom he studied in depth (see his The Hedgehog and the Fox). I’m not going to discuss Berlin’s views of these similarities. But I have brought Tolstoy into this expanded review because I want to relate the rather curious way that I came to add these new words. The fact is, when I read the passage from War and Peace above, I immediately underlined Maistre’s name, and drew a long line from it to the bottom of the page, connecting it to a large circled asterisk, with that blob followed by one of these: “!” Not only did I recognize his name from having read Crooked Timber, but I know for certain why I remembered it. Berlin writes that Maistre “looked to the Society of Jesus to act as the elite of Platonic Guardians to save the states of Europe from the fashionable and fatal aberrations of his time. But the central figure in it all, the keystone of the arch on which the whole of society depends, is a far more frightening figure than king or priest or general: it is the Executioner. The most celebrated passage in [Maistre’s] Soirees is devoted to him.” Berlin’s very long quote of this celebrated passage contains the following, which has thankfully never given me a nightmare, but has more than once kept me from sleep for a while.… in a public square covered by a dense, trembling mob. A poisoner, a parricide, a man who has committed sacrilege is tossed to him [the Executioner]: he seizes him, stretches him, ties him to a horizontal cross, he raises his arm; there is a horrible silence; there is no sound but that of bones cracking under the bars, and the shrieks of the victim. He unties him. He puts him on the wheel; the shattered limbs are entangled in the spokes; the head hangs down; the hair stands up, and the mouth gaping open like a furnace from time to time emits only a few bloodstained words to beg for death. He has finished. His heart is beating, but it is with joy: he congratulates himself, he says in his heart ‘Nobody breaks on the wheel as well as I.’ He steps down… He sits down to table, and he eats. Then he goes to bed and sleeps.At the end of his more extensive quote of the passage, Berlin writes,This is not a mere sadistic meditation about crime and punishment, but the expression of a genuine conviction, coherent with all the rest of Maistre’s passionate but lucid thought, that men can only be saved by being hemmed in by the terror of authority. They must be reminded at every instant of their lives of the frightening mystery that lies at the heart of creation; must be purged by perpetual suffering, must be humbled by being made conscious of their stupidity, malice and helplessness at every turn. War, torture, suffering are the inescapable human lot; men must bear them as best they can. Their appointed masters must do the duty laid upon them by their maker (who has made nature a hierarchical order) by the ruthless imposition of the rules – not sparing themselves – and equally ruthless extermination of the enemy. As can be guessed by the title of this essay, Berlin attempts to show that the traditional assessment of Maistre, that “his day is done, his world has no relevance to any contemporary or any future issue”, is inadequate. Maistre may have spoken the language of the past, but the content of what he had to say presaged the future… His doctrine, and still more his attitude of mind, had to wait a century before they came (as come they all too fatally did) into their own. This thesis … clearly needs evidence … This study is an endeavor to provide support for it.… to provide support, that is, for the view that Maistre’s works and thoughts are closely connected to the development of fascism in the twentieth century. This painting by Vogelstein of Maistre, ca. 1810, seems to me to capture something of the darkness in his outlook. Original review This is one of those books that when you are done reading it, you say to yourself "If only I could remember every bit of knowledge & wisdom in that book, my life would be so enriched". Of course you can't. Hopefully I will take the time during the next few years to dip into this book again and try writing an essay or a real review or a summary of some type. If I do, the first of Berlin's essays that I will revisit are "Alleged Relativism in Eighteenth-Century European Thought" and "The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will: The Revolt against the Myth of an Ideal World".

Review # 2 was written on 2013-05-13 00:00:00 Jon Alve The Crooked Timber of Humanity is not an ode to conformity as some radicals might describe it, but an attempt to show our complexity as human beings. Isaiah Berlin has a reputation for being a magnificent essayist but this book has exceeded my expectations. Basically, you' ll get a good grasp of his value pluralism notion and become more skeptical towards utopian ideologies. Enlightenment was the triumph of reason and logic but the romantics soon showed its flaws, depicting the human condition as a warfield where equally valid but contradictory values are in constant conflict towards one another. Soon though, romantic idealism led to the disastrous events of the 20th century, a century with endless bloodshed and suffering. Our tragedy as human beings is, that we're forced to make choices sacrificing our unreflectiveness and absolutism and perhaps one part of ourselves in this process. Ideologies offering redemption, while necessary in order to broaden our horizons, offer little else, since they fail to encapsulate what makes us who we are. Berlin draws from the counter-enlightenment tradition (a term which I think he was the first to coin) but deals all historical movements and ideas with the outmost respect. His essay on Joseph De-Maistre for example, while critical and bitter towards some of his conclusions, remains a wonderfully balanced approach to a controversial figure. It also works as a prelude towards this book's last essay-also wonderful-, which discussed the then evident rise of fascism in Europe. I wish Berlin was still alive, offering his calm and insightful thoughts in today's similar landscape. From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.