The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Sir Karl Popper (Amazon)
This book is great! It’s the first I’ve read from Karl Popper, after having him come highly recommended, and I’m extremely impressed.
The Open Society is half political theory, half philosophy; its main thrust is a deconstruction of what Popper sees as a strain of thought that has wound its way all the way from Plato, to Hegel, to Marx, and finally to authoritarian thought in modernity. All three of these thinkers postulated systems of governance that require subordination of the individual to the state, or some form of higher authority; free will is seen as a sin rather than as an ideal.1
The most striking part of Open Society for me was Popper’s defense and revival of Socrates. Popper’s first volume is devoted entirely to a deconstruction of Plato, attention which Popper willingly gives in deference to Plato’s towering intellectual achievement, regardless of how much Popper disagrees with Plato’s ideology on a personal level. For Popper is inarguably a humanist, an individualist; he defends liberty and equality, all of which puts him in opposition to Plato’s philosophy of government. And Popper finds an ally in Plato’s old teacher: Socrates. Before reading Open Society, I had thought that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle form something of a trio of like-minded philosophers, but as Popper lays out, this is not the case: Socrates taught of individuality, free thinking, and the need to question one’s own knowledge and never be entirely sure of “learnedness;” Plato twists all of this, using Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own ends (after Socrates’ death, no less). Plato’s bastardization of Socrates, I find, is a despicable act to justify reprehensible aims.
Open Society’s greatest contribution is as a compendium, a collation of what has come before. It serves as a way to quickly get up-to-speed on strains of authoritarian thought; however, it prescribes no remedies or solutions of its own for the problem of governance. I believe Popper intended it to be a purely descriptive tome and deliberately avoided prescribing specific ideas for the improvement of society, as doing so would be entirely in line with Popper’s understanding of political engineering; while Popper is fundamentally an optimist about the future of society, part of his objection to authoritarian systems is his belief that we cannot design political systems wholesale; that doing so is likely to lead to suffering rather than liberation. Thus, he is in no position to “design” society either.
One of the things I liked the most about Popper’s writing was that he understood the fundamental imprecision of language, and made sure to clarify what he meant by certain terms, and what concepts he was actually discussing. The underlying concepts, not the terminology, are what matters to Popper.
If there’s one thing I have to criticize Popper for, it’s that his ideas underlying his optimism that we will be able to design a better society are somewhat naïve. Popper’s idea is that we must first tinker with and design “smaller” systems; individual institutions, regulations, and so on. In doing so, we will gain the insight necessary, perhaps, to actually be able to design a wholesale governmental system. I find this to be wrong in two ways:
Be warned that it’s a very dense tome, and can get pretty dry at times. While Popper is excellent at explaining his thinking in a clear and unambiguous way, this comes at the cost of concision in a lot of places. I could not describe his style as inspired, but it certainly doesn’t lead to confusion.
↥1 This isn’t completely true for Marx; after all, Marx saw communism as a way to liberate humanity, to allow each to express their particular talents and pursue what gave them fulfillment, without the constant constraints of having to sustain oneself physically. Still, as Popper points out, Marx understood himself that the kind of income redistribution desired by his ideals required some form of higher authority. Giving to everyone according to their needs begs the question: who determines what each needs? Who determines who shall give? The need for someone to decide seems to inherently concentrate power in the hands of a few, and in this way Popper sees Marx as totalitarian, especially as Marx’ conception of communism meant the combination of mankind into a single class, and the abolition of anything which might threaten the unity of said class, including thoughts of other forms of government, such as democracy.
Intentionally Irrational