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PARTISAN REVIEW
socialists. "Neosocialism"? ... People talk about "neocom–
munism" and "Eurocommunism." "Neocommunism" simply
means communism that is not so loyal to Leninist-Stalinist princi–
ples as it used to be. But there is little that is really "neo" about it.
"Neoclassicism" 1 understand: that really meant imitating
ancient classical models, centuries later. "Neoromanticism" I
understand, because European romanticism in its richest phase
came to an end, I suppose, somewhere in the 1850s or so, and
after that there· were other movements-positivism, naturalism,
symbolism and so on-and then romanticism awoke again , in
perhaps another guise-surrealism, expressionism, existential–
ism. But I really do not understand what is meant by "neoconser–
vatism. "
Krauze:
In your essay "Benjamin Disraeli, Karl Marx and the
Search for Identity" you study the peculiar psychological predica–
ment of these two heirs of the newly emancipated Jews. Their
lives and ideas are, in a sense, "an attempt on the part of those
whom history and social circumstances had cut off from their
original establishment ... to replant themselves in some new and
no less secure and nourishing soil." Ludwig Borne and Heinrich
Heine, in their own ways, also had this hunger for identification,
a tendency to emphasize or idealize elements of a culture to
which-being Jews-they did not wholly belong. My question is:
How does this particular Jewish attitude operate in your case?
Could it be, for instance, that you have vindicated liberty, push–
ing it further than many British-born thinkers, out of a peculiar
psychological condition not unlike the one you discuss in that
essay?
Berlin:
How can I possibly tell? Others may be in a better position to
do so. I lay no claim to know much about myself-no claim to
true self-knowledge. I do not know how these forces, of which I
am not conscious, have shaped my life or character. You may be
right about that-I have no idea. In the case of Disr?f'
l
i
and
Marx, these were people who were affected by the reje, .,on of
newly emancipated Jews by the society around them. That is to
say, by the fact that in spite of the opening of the doors of the
ghetto, they did not acquire equal status. And in reaction to that,
Marx suppressed his Judaism and Disraeli harped on his, exag–
gerated it to some extent, constantly talked about it and tried to
