{"id":2503,"date":"2020-12-16T20:45:16","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T20:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=140126"},"modified":"2020-12-16T20:45:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T20:45:16","slug":"a-critique-of-poppers-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-vol-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/16\/a-critique-of-poppers-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-vol-1\/","title":{"rendered":"A Critique of Popper\u2019s The Open Society and its Enemies (Vol. 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I admittedly approached this work with some skepticism about Karl Popper\u2019s well-known \u201copen\u201d vs. \u201cclosed\u201d dichotomy (which indeed is only distinguished, and quite vaguely, in Chapter 10).  Written in the early 1940s, the book is clearly a period-piece, with some useful things to say about totalitarian \u201cutopianism\u201d (and the ethnic-racialistic \u201ccleansing\u201d which sometimes accompanied it).<\/p>\n

For this essay, I\u2019m restricting my criticisms to vol. 1, \u201cThe Spell of Plato.\u201d  In my opinion, Popper\u2019s choice to present Plato\u2019s Republic<\/em> and The Laws<\/em> as providing the blueprint for later 20th century, collectivist-nationalist dictatorships is ill-conceived.  Yes, Plato advocated \u201cracial breeding,\u201d total indoctrination (thought-control), a rigid caste system, and so forth.  But Popper is insufficiently historicist: after all, Plato\u2019s politics was ultimately based on a peculiarly Orphic-Pythagorean metaphysics, in which a timeless, purified, perfectly designed State would mirror the absolute Forms and Ideas thought to be the ultimate reality.<\/p>\n

Another major failing, I think, is Popper\u2019s sloppy use of the already vague term \u201ctribalism,\u201d to subsume any manifestations of ethnic-identification, shared culture, \u201cnationalism,\u201d \u201cgroup egoism,\u201d and the like.  Anthropologists could have provided the much-needed concept of \u201cethnocentrism\u201d \u2014 and how, for instance, even the slave-holding, \u201cdemocratic\u201d Athenians Popper so admires glaringly exhibited it.  Popper fulminates endlessly about the dangerous, irrational tribalism of Sparta \u2014 which he contrasts to an Athenian imperialism which may have positively brought \u201cdemocracy\u201d to benighted tribalists.  (Sound familiar?).  The slaughtered people of the island of Melos certainly didn\u2019t experience it that way.   In praising Athenian \u201cdemocracy,\u201d Popper only cursorily acknowledges that its economy was based on slavery (non-Greek slaves comprising the majority of the city\u2019s population).  Popper\u2019s idol, the imperialist ruler Pericles, had limited citizenship to those born of native Athenians \u2014 but this was merely \u201ca dubious concession to the popular tribal instincts.\u201d (Popper also conspicuously omits any questioning of the exclusion of the Athenian women from civic rights.)<\/p>\n

From Plato, Popper argues, it was then only a short leap to Rousseau\u2019s \u201cGeneral Will\u201d (and thus Robespierre,etc.).  But what of the centuries-old power struggles between European landed aristocracies and the Court \u2014 with monarchs invariably legitimating their power as a \u201cdivine right\u201d (further cemented with monotheism, another aspect which Popper neglects)?  And \u201cdivine\u201d emperors often ruled over urbanized, polyglot populations (cities being regional marketplaces).  One would think that, commercial markets notwithstanding, a truly \u201copen society\u201d would require de-centralized political power, literacy and libraries, as well as secularized polytheism in preference to monotheism \u2014 none of which he discusses at any length.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, my major criticism is Popper\u2019s relative lack of substantiating historical detail \u2014 compared to, say, the great sociologists Max Weber, Tonnies, Simmel, and Durkheim.  Yet their incisive theories far surpass Popper on the issues of Gemeinschaft, social order, national solidarity, and \u201cmodernity.\u201d  Moreover, when Popper was writing this tome around 1940, the \u201cFrankfurt school\u201d of social-psychological thinkers had already developed quite penetrating theories regarding fascism, totalitarianism, and \u201cthe authoritarian personality\u201d (cf. Erich Fromm\u2019s Escape From Freedom,<\/em> 1941).  In his unremitting hatred for \u201ctribal\u201d (cultural) irrationalism, Popper also seems to overlook the irrational, cultural roots of modern capitalism (cf. Max Weber\u2019s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,<\/em> 1905).<\/p>\n

Popper\u2019s \u201cclosed society\u201d is vigilantly nationalistic, with narrow-minded, sanctified dogma and stringent boundaries against outside influences.  Yet certainly in the world today, near-totalitarian societies may be the big players in world trade, thanks to the \u201ctrade agreements\u201d brokered by transnational corporations.  The pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union, \u201cclosed\u201d in many respects, nonetheless claimed in principle to have transcended ethnic loyalties on behalf of a universalizing class-egalitarianism and \u201cSoviet humanism.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to Popper\u2019s overall schema and style, I was disappointed.  I had expected more scholarly rigor \u2014 with many in-text citations from leading scholars to strengthen his arguments.  Instead (despite the end-notes), the book reads like a somewhat discursive lecture \u2014 strong, preconceived arguments, with inadequate substantiation.  In sum, despite an apparent display of massive erudition, Popper\u2019s opinionated writing style \u2014 with its unfortunate penchant for vague, simplistic dichotomies (e.g., \u201ctribalism\u201d vs. \u201cdemocracy\u201d) \u2014 almost conveys the impression of a second-rate proselytizer rather than a first-rate scholar and thinker.<\/p>\n

This article was posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2020 at 12:45pm and is filed under Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admittedly approached this work with some skepticism about Karl Popper\u2019s well-known \u201copen\u201d vs. \u201cclosed\u201d dichotomy (which indeed is only distinguished, and quite vaguely, in Chapter 10).\u00a0 Written\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410,4],"tags":[411],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/281"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2504,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}