16
PARTISAN REVIEW
knows, perhaps attain to-a harmonious society in which
all
these val–
ues are happily realized together. I do not myself believe this.
I do not see how complete individual liberty-which has cer–
tainly been and is a human ideal-can be reconciled with, say,
untrammeled social equality. I needn't enlarge on this truism: if the
strong and able are given unlimited liberty, they can destroy the stu–
pid and weak;
if
the weak are to be protected from the strong, the
strong must to that extent be controlled and their liberties are not
unlimited. Again, too much knowledge may not be compatible with
maximum happiness-it may entail anguish and suffering; there is a
conflict between spontaneity and efficiency, Christian humility and
"pagan self-assertiveness"-Mill's words, I think-or between some
forms of creativity and perfect rationality. And so on.
In other words, when you have values that are not compatible–
as these are not-you have to choose-or have some kind of compro–
mise between the two (or three or four) that prevents too much ero–
sion of one or another. To stop the pike from gobbling up the carp
means that you have to protect the carp. But neither may you destroy
the pike: they too have a certain right to exist. Hence laws, rules, con–
trol: obstacles to
full
freedom. This is a platitudinous statement. I am
not saying anything new in explaining why one needs to have some
kind of compromise between conflicting ends, which constantly
breaks down and constantly has to be restored.
It
may be very tedious
to have to do this, but that is what human life, because of its complex
needs, is committed to: we cannot help our condition. A strong sense
of reality may not necessarily be compatible with some forms of
genius-say mathematical imagination. Yet we value both.
Krauze:
Knowledge is pain?
Berlin:
If,
of course, you believe that knowledge always liberates, no. But
I don't
think
it always does.
Krauze:
Spinoza did. . . .
Berlin:
And so did Freud and many distinguished rationalist thinkers–
and there is a large amount of truth in that. But
if
you are an inspired
artist, your art may to some extent be fed by illusion, or a peculiar,
somewhat abnormal, kind of vision, or some psychological wound.
If
the wound is cured, you may become happier, but it is possible that
you will no longer seek that realization-even salvation-in art that
you did before. Not every artist, of course, is neurotic in that sense.
There are sane and happy artists. Haydn, Goethe, Mendelssohn, and
I dare say Shakespeare too, were not deeply wounded or deluded art-
