tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21346696.post1434710774871217606..comments2023-11-03T05:33:56.202-04:00Comments on On Not Being a Sausage: Daniel Mahoney on Vaclav Havel's To the Castle and BackDeirdrehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02106311465508277283noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21346696.post-35146516510734222492007-07-08T08:04:00.000-04:002007-07-08T08:04:00.000-04:00Great. Thanks. I've riffed on this over at FaithIn...Great. Thanks. I've riffed on this over at <A HREF="http://faithinsociety.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">FaithInSociety</A><BR/>(see the Saturday, July 07, 2007 entry). It's interesting to compare the "nonpolitical politics" of Havel with that of the arch-pragmatist Isaiah Berlin. I think ultimately the former is too idealistic and the latter too pessimistc - which means that, ironically, their respective political positions end up just as 'political' as the ideological kind they both, in different ways, reject. I appreciate Havel's refusal to let go of the promise of the future, and Berlin's refusal to let go of the agony of now. But that's where it all gets stuck if we have no realisable eschatology... and they don't.Simon Barrowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05366440538616508935noreply@blogger.com