REVIEW: Karl Popper, "The Open Society and its Enemies" (Princeton, 1994)
William Manson, Ph.D. (Columbia University)
I'm restricting my commentary to vol. 1, "The Spell of Plato." I admittedly approached this book with some skepticism about Popper's "open" vs. "closed" dichotomy (distinguished, quite vaguely, in Chapter 10). Written in the early 1940s, the book is clearly a period-piece, with some useful things to say about "utopian"-totalitarianism and the racialistic nationalism which often accompanied it (as in Nazi Germany). But, in my opinion, his choice to present Plato's totalitarian political schema as a definitive blueprint for later, 20th century collectivist-nationalistic dictatorships is ill-conceived. Yes, Plato advocated "racial breeding," total indoctrination (thought-control), a rigid caste system, and so forth. But Popper is insufficiently historicist: after all, Plato's 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. Another major failing, I think, is Popper's sloppy use of the already-vague term "tribalism"--to subsume any manifestations of ethnic-identification, shared culture, "nationalism," "group egoism," etc. Anthropologists could have provided the much-needed concept of "ethnocentrism"--and how, for instance, even the slave-holding, "democratic" Athenians Popper so admires glaringly exhibited it. But I couldn't find a single reference to the concept in the book. Popper fulminates endlessly about the dangerous, irrational "tribalism" of Sparta--which he contrasts to the Athenian imperialism which may have positively brought "democracy" to benighted tribalists. (The slaughtered people of the island of Melos didn't think so.) His idealization of the imperialist politician Pericles is unwarranted--and, in praising Athenian "democracy," Popper only cursorily acknowledges that its economy was based on slavery. Popper deems Pericles' restriction of citizenship (in 451 B.C.) to those born of Athenian parents as a "dubious concession to the popular tribal instincts" (p. 570 n.16), but he conspicuously omits any questioning of the exclusion of women (as well as that of the majority-population, who were slaves, i.e., non-Greek "barbarians"). From Plato, he argues, it was then only a short leap to Rousseau's "general will" (and thus Robespierre, etc.).
But what of the centuries-old power struggles between European landed aristocracies and the Court--with monarchs invariably legitimating their power as a "divine right" (further cemented with monotheism, another aspect which he neglects)? And "divine" emperors often ruled over urbanized polyglot populations (cities being regional marketplaces). Maybe I missed something, but I couldn't even find any clear elaboration of his vaunted "open society" concept. One would think that such cosmopolitanism would require such features as de-centralized political power, literacy and libraries, and polytheism in preference to monotheism--none of which he discusses at any length.
But my major criticism, perhaps, is his relative lack of substantiating historical detail--compared to, say, the great sociologists like Max Weber. Classical sociologists (Tonnies, Simmel, Durkheim) are barely mentioned at all. Yet their incisive theories far surpass Popper on the issues of Gemeinschaft, social order, national solidarity, and "modernity." Moreover, as Popper was writing this tome around 1940, Frankfurt school social-psychological thinkers had already developed quite penetrating theories regarding fascism, totalitarianism, and "the authoritarian personality" (see, for example, the impressive historical analysis in Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom," 1941). In his unremitting hatred for "tribal" (cultural) irrationalism, Popper also seems to overlook the irrational (cultural) roots of modern capitalism, as brilliantly delineated by Max Weber in his classic "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1905).
Popper's "closed society" is vigilantly nationalistic, with narrow-minded, sanctified dogma and stringent boundaries against outside influences (i.e., "autarky"--economic "protectionism"). Yet, certainly in today's world, near-totalitarian societies may be the big players in world trade--thanks in part to the paramount power of trans-national corporations. The pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union, "closed" in many respects, nonetheless claimed in principle to have transcended ethnic loyalties on behalf of a universalizing economic "freedom."
As to Popper's overall schema and style, I was disappointed. I had expected more scholarly rigor--with many in-text quotations from leading scholars to bolster his arguments. Instead, despite the end-notes, the book reads like a somewhat discursive lecture--strong, preconceived arguments, with insufficient substantiation. Finally, despite a display of massive erudition, his opinionated writing style--with its unfortunate penchant for vague, simplistic dichotomies (e.g., "tribalism" vs. "democracy")--almost conveys the impression of a second-rate proselytizer rather than a first-rate scholar and thinker.
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