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PARTISAN REVIEW
must presuppose that needs are
not
expressed through the media–
tion of interests. It must be assumed that if our guiding values
are to be universal , then each of the many needs must be purged
of every element of interest - the need satisfaction of certain
groups of people will not in principle collide with the need
satisfaction of another group . This is the only way in which
the
progress of humanity can be conceived.
This is an outlook that refuses to be reconciled with the world
as it is , as it has always been, and is likely to remain, namely one of
disharmony, fragmentation, imperfection, conflicting values, clash–
ing interests, limited gratifications and scarcities of all kinds (least of
which are material). This outlook (and emotional predisposition) is
the polar opposite of the worldview memorably summed up by
Isaiah Berlin (in the volume discussed earlier):
The world that we encounter in ordinary experience is one in
which we are faced with choices between ends equally ultimate
and claims equally absolute, the realization of some of which
must inevitably involve sacrifice of others. Indeed, it is because
this is their situation that men place such immense value upon
the freedom to choose; for if they had assurance that in some
perfect state, realizable by men on earth, no ends pursued by
them would ever conflict, the necessity and agony of choice
would disappear . . . .
Apparently visions of this perfect state continue to haunt and
tempt many Western intellectuals, even some of those who have
seen at close range the results of the attempt to construct societies
based on values "with a claim to universal validity."
PAUL HOLLANDER
