14 MARCH 1992, Page 34

Hello to Berlin

Nigel Spivey

CONVERSATIONS WITH ISAIAH BERLIN by Ramin Jahanbegloo Peter Halban, £17.95, pp. 213 His friends have characterised Isaiah Berlin as Dr Johnson labelled Burke: the sort of man with whom you would be grate- ful to take shelter for five minutes, on account of his immediate wit, generous learning and essential benevolence. This book fails to do full justice to that quality. Burke apart, one longs for some vulgar Johnsonian tantrums or belly laughs, some passing indulgence of the commonplace or banal — perhaps even opinions on the beatification of Madonna, or the skills of Mr Gascoigne. But Berlin's interlocutor is an earnest soul, domiciled in France, and probably used to the unstinting gravitas of Parisian Thinkers. So the five dialogues of his collection are scarcely conversational at all — in fact, they are scarcely dialogues, since there is not a single point where Jahanbegloo disagrees (or dares voice his disagreement) with Berlin. That is a further feature of Continental academe, to consid- er your mentor invariably right; but it is less worthy in a British context (thank God), and it blocks the animation implied in the 'Table talk' promise of the book's title.

The object of reverence, however, comes out well. Berlin was an octogenarian when the interviews were conducted, and seems , not to mind a half-century's work being quoted back at him. His brains appear unmuddied by nostalgia, and he is discursive without once sounding self- important. His at-homeness with the 'history of ideas' makes him — as he admits — a rarity; so too his continence in publishing his own ideas. The result of Jahanbegloo's unctuous quizzing is not a revelation, but classic Berlin. There are one or two disclaimers ('Did I say that?' presumably accompanied with a hieratic wave of the pipe), to which any mortal is always entitled: but the texture of argument is as liberal and empiricist as those familiar with Berlin would expect.

Here is a typical exchange:

Jahanbegloo: For you, what are the main characteristics of modernity?

Berlin: I don't think there are characteristics of modernity. I don't know what that means. I don't know where it begins. Pre-Modernity, Modernity and Post-Modernity seem to me arbitrary concepts.

Compare Dr Johnson kicking a pebble to refute Bishop Berkeley; compare McTaggart declaring 'Time is unreal', and G.E. Moore responding with 'But I've just had breakfast!' Berlin's mind is a pleasure to read precisely because it can be read. One imagines a number of French philo- sophers to whom the question, 'What are the main characteristics of modernity?' would be the cue to hook both thumbs under their lapels, assume the carriage of a bishop, and start spouting — as mechanically, as effortlessly, as any ornamental fountain. Pseud's Corner, bull- shit, whatever you call it: none of that here. And it is comforting for those who have always thought Heidegger unintelligible (but never wanted to admit it) to learn that they are in Berlin's company.

It is difficult to summarise his own ideology: because he never creates one. He never attempts an architecture of ideas that is all grooved, and marbled, and symmetri- cal. The dogged asymmetry of the world, and of human behaviour in it, is always accommodated. This is why, despite his status as a 'political theorist', he has shown so little political 'action' (as we would understand it). Political parties want systems and symmetry. A young Isaiah Berlin witnessed the lynching of a police- man in the streets of Petrograd; old Sir Isaiah has not lost his fear of that sort of systematic violence. And since he does not impose symmetry where none exists, his answers to apparently simple questions are worth reading. It is not inconsistent for him to be described as 'morally inclined towards the Left', whilst here condemning Communism as 'a total failure'.

Some readers will be frustrated by this, and will want to know, in modern parlance, where then is the bottom line here?

I think I have found it. At one juncture, he says: 'Don't ask me what I mean by decent. By decent I mean decent — we all know what that is.'

I would term this commonsense: if only the sense of Isaiah Berlin truly were commonsense.

Nigel Spivey is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Wales.