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The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen

#1
C C Offline
‘Time is money’, say the English. In reality, time is much, much more precious than money: time is ourselves.— Alexander Herzen

http://berlinbooks.org/brb/2016/12/the-living-truth/

EXCERPT: It is difficult to write about Alexander Herzen (1812-1870). Just when you think you’ve got the right idea about him, a central insight, he turns away. One can hardly say the simplest thing about him: he was a Russian aristocratic philosopher, but born a landowner’s illegitimate son who polemicised against Tsarism. An early revolutionary, he cautioned against going too fast, lest Russian society broke under the strain. Hailed for denouncing official misrule, ultimately he was scorned by both the Romantic dissenters of the 1840s and the nihilists of the 1860s.

Once as famous as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy, he died in relative obscurity. Patient, even unrealistic about people’s real intentions, he could be a bitter critic who engaged in long-running feuds. An attentive and loving family man, he committed adultery and was distraught when his wife fell in love with a minor German poet. Trained in the natural sciences at Moscow University, he went on to write philosophy, political essays, socialist polemics, history, fiction and a monumental memoir.

Herzen left no central body of doctrine after his death, was adopted by figures as different as Lenin and Isaiah Berlin, and continues to generate various interpretations about his ‘real’ significance.

One can say one thing with certainty, however: to read Herzen is to get involved in ‘those damned questions’, as Dostoevsky called them. How should we live? Where does human responsibility end and fate, or God, or evil begin? What is freedom – is it a supreme virtue or a crime? Is Utopia attainable or even desirable? Is a ‘better’ society valuable to the present, or a nasty dream, used to deceive today’s freethinkers?

Such questions weren’t idle to many 19th century Russians: instead, they were treated with a seriousness that is easy to caricature [...] but harder to dismiss.

Moreover, Herzen’s magnum opus – his autobiography "My Past & Thoughts" – transgresses genres and stylistic registers: it is at once a realistic account of a 19th century life, a biting reflection on Tsarism, a love story with a bitter twist, a historically fascinating analysis of European revolution and counterrevolution, and a searing socialist testament. It rivals Tolstoy’s War & Peace in its impatient ambition to say more than others, in a form shaped around its multifaceted content.

To be frank, this kind of seriousness is astonishing. [...]

[Slavic scholar Aileen M.] Kelly is a superb guide, not only aware but fully conversant with Herzen’s explorations of thinkers as diverse as Francis Bacon, Saint-Simon, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Proudhon and Bakunin, not to mention the less famous names Herzen either championed or, not infrequently, argued with.

The book is also a joy to read in terms of its style. On the one hand, Kelly quotes from Herzen generously. The thinking on display is resonant, memorable and (to use an unfashionable, but apt term) profound:

“To deny false gods is necessary, but not sufficient: one must look beneath their masks for the reason for their existence.”

“[...] Terrible questions cannot be avoided: wherever the unfortunate one turns, they are before him, written in fiery letters by the prophet Daniel.”

“[...] It’s a simple matter: the more stable a thing, the more like stone, the more removed it is from our affections…because what is lasting is unmoving, unfeeling, while what is fragile is process, movement, energy, das Werden.”

“The oligarchic pretension of the have-nots to possess a monopoly on suffering in society is as unjust as all forms of exclusiveness and monopoly.”


The writing is forceful (‘necessary’, ‘must’, ‘fiery’) and yet delicate (‘precariousness’, ‘fragility’, ‘precious’); other-worldly (‘gods’, ‘prophet’) and yet prosaic (‘have-nots’, ‘suffering’).

It is also impatient with staying within tight boundaries (one is reminded of Henry James’ dismissal of Tolstoy’s novels as “loose, baggy monsters”, which he thought said too much, thereby sacrificing “economy and an organic form’; Tolstoy, like Herzen, fundamentally disagreed with being too well-ordered, instead prioritising writing that said things that mattered; albeit with vigour and beauty).

Kelly is not cowed by Herzen’s anger or attempts to recast Russian philosophy and politics in a more forceful style. Her own style is restrained, but not excessively withdrawn; careful, not reticent (it is, though, as unmistakably English as Herzen’s is Russian). Essentially, Kelly is a good listener, following her subject throughout his polemics, pointing out to us what is a continued argument against an old foe, what is new, or (with the benefit of hindsight) what is the embryo of a larger argument yet to come.

Also, Kelly is wonderfully free from academic obscurity or pedantry – her biography is not exactly easy reading, but it is deeply engaging, written for an interested, if not necessarily specialist audience....
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#2
Secular Sanity Offline
Yay! My next read. It looks like it’s going to be good.

Thanks for the tip, C C.

Much obliged!
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#3
C C Offline
(Jan 26, 2017 12:53 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Yay! My next read. It looks like it’s going to be good. Thanks for the tip, C C. Much obliged!


Maybe he's the Marcia Brady of revolution. The tug of war or turbulence a middle child abides in might produce some interesting eccentricities, even if they get brushed to the wayside by history.

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"Herzen drew criticism from both liberals who were against violence and from radicals who thought Herzen was too soft. Liberals led by Boris Chicherin and Konstantin Kavelin believed individual freedom would be achieved through the rationalisation of social relations. Their etatist variety of liberalism was opposed by Herzen as it supposed that Russian society would evolve to an ideal state based on a Hegelian view of reason. They believed the revolutionaries would merely postpone the establishment of the ideal state, while Herzen thought that, on the contrary, they were blind to historical reality.

"Herzen was disliked by Russian radicals as too moderate. Radicals such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolay Dobrolyubov wanted more commitment towards violent revolution from Herzen and the withdrawal of any hope in the reformist Tsar. Radicals asked Herzen to use The Bell as a mouthpiece for violent radical revolution, but Herzen rejected these requests. He argued that the Russian Radicals were not united and strong enough to seek successful political change, stating, "You want happiness, I suppose? I dare say you do! Happiness has to be conquered. If you are strong, take it. If you are weak, hold your tongue". Herzen feared a new revolutionary government would merely replace the dictatorship with another dictatorship.

"The radicals describe Herzen as a liberal for not wanting immediate change, but Herzen rejects their pleas arguing for change at a pace that will ensure success. Herzen briefly joined with other Russian liberals such as Kavelin to promote the peasant 'awakening' in Russia. Herzen continued to use The Bell as an outlet to promote unity with all sections of the Russian society behind a demand for a national parliament.

"However his hopes of acting as a uniting force were ended by the January Uprising of 1863/1864, when the liberal support for Tsarist revenge against the Poles ended Herzen's link with them; Herzen had pleaded the insurgents' cause. This breach resulted in a declining readership for The Bell, which ceased publication in 1867. By his death in 1870, Herzen was almost forgotten."
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