(2005-12-03) Sandall Popper Open Society Tribe

Roger Sandall on Karl Popper, The Open Society, and Tribalism. Popper's main purpose in writing The Open Society was to try and explain the whole political, intellectual, and emotional phenomenon of Nazism. What Hitler represented was "arrested tribalism", and the more Popper thought about the matter the more he saw an atavistic yearning for the past - closed, pre-rational, taboo-ridden, undemocratic, militaristic, and fearful of Liberty - as something deeply menacing... "Why do all these social philosophies support the revolt against Civilization? And what is the secret of their popularity? Why do they attract and seduce so many intellectuals? I am inclined to think that the reason is that they give expression to a deep-felt dissatisfaction with a world which does not, and cannot, live up to our moral ideals and to our dreams of perfection... the revolt against civilization may be... a reaction against the strain of our civilization and its demand for Personal Responsibility."