A Message to the Twenty-First Century

From 2015 The Best American Essays

 

By Isaiah Berlin

A Message to the Twenty-First Century

21세기에 드리는 글/ 이사야 벌린

 

• Sir Isaiah Berlin OM CBE FBA (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas.^[4] Although increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.

 

• Born in Riga (at that time capital of Livonia, a governorate of the Russian empire) in 1909, he moved to Petrograd, Russia, at the age of six, where he witnessed the revolutions of 1917. In 1921 his family moved to the UK, and he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.^[5] In 1932, at the age of twenty-three, Berlin was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. In addition to his own prolific output, he translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English and, during World War II, worked for the British Diplomatic Service. From 1957 to 1967 he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he played a critical role in creating Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its founding President. Berlin was appointed a CBE in 1946, knighted in 1957, and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defence of civil liberties, and on 25 November 1994 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at the University of Toronto, for which occasion he prepared a "short credo" (as he called it in a letter to a friend), now known as "A Message to the Twenty-First Century", to be read on his behalf at the ceremony.^[6]

 

^{1909년 러시아제국 치하 “리가” 출생}

^{1915년 “페트로그라드” 로 이사 (6세)}

^{1917년 러시아 혁명 (8세)}

^{1921년 영국으로 이사 (12세), 옥스퍼드 大  코르푸스 크리스티 칼리지}

^{2차대전중 영국외교부 근무}

^{1957-1967 옥스퍼드 大  사회정치론 교수}

^{1957년 기사작위}

^{1994 년 Short Credo발표(=A Message to the Twenty-First Century)}

• An annual Isaiah Berlin Lecture is held at the Hampstead Synagogue, at Wolfson College, Oxford, at the British Academy, and in Riga. Berlin's work on liberal theory and on value pluralism, as well as his opposition to Marxism and Communism, has had a lasting influence. In its obituary of the scholar, the Independent stated that:

l  Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time [...]. [T]here is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top end of the range of human potential.^[7]

 

全文

 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” With these words Dickens began his famous novel A Tale of Two Cities.

‘디킨스’ 의 유명소설 “두 도시 이야기”는 ‘최상의 시대였다, 최악의 시대였다’란 구절로 시작한다.

 

But this cannot, alas, be said about our own terrible century. Men have for millennia destroyed each other, but the deeds of Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon (who introduced mass killings in war), even the Armenian massacres, pale into insignificance before the Russian Revolution and its aftermath

러시아 혁명과 그 여파에 미칠만한 (인류사적) 大사건은 없었다..

: the oppression, torture, murder which can be laid at the doors of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and the systematic falsification of information which prevented knowledge of these horrors for years—these are unparalleled.

레닌, 스탈린, 마오, 폴포트…가 자행한 압제..살인..또한 전대미문

 

They were not natural disasters, but preventable human crimes, and whatever those who believe in historical determinism may think, they could have been averted. I speak with particular feeling, for I am a very old man, and I have lived through almost the entire century. My life has been peaceful and secure, and I feel almost ashamed of this in view of what has happened to so many other human beings.

난 이미 늙은 몸이며, 삶의 대부분 평화롭고 안전하게 살아와, 동시대의 많은 타인들이 격은 고난을 생각하면 부끄러움..

I am not a historian, and so I cannot speak with authority on the causes of these horrors. Yet perhaps I can try. They were, in my view, not caused by the ordinary negative human sentiments, as Spinoza called them—fear, greed, tribal hatreds, jealousy, love of power—though of course these have played their wicked part. They have been caused, in our time, by ideas; or rather, by one particular idea.

이 모든 끔찍한 일은 이념의 이름으로 벌어진 일이다..그 특정한 이념 말이다..

It is paradoxical that Karl Marx, who played down the importance of ideas in comparison with impersonal social and economic forces, should, by his writings, have caused the transformation of the twentieth century, both in the direction of what he wanted and, by reaction, against it.

 

정작 자신이 (非人,中立)의 사회경제적 압력에 대비 이념의 역할을 경시한 칼 맑스가 자신이 주장한 방향으로 또한 동시에 그 반동에 의해 20세기에 변형을 촉발시킨 것은 역설적..

The German poet Heine, in one of his famous writings, told us not to underestimate the quiet philosopher sitting in his study; if Kant had not undone theology, he declared, Robespierre might not have cut off the head of the King of France.

하이네는 서재의 조용한 철학자를 간과치 말라 했다. 칸트가 신을 부정하지만 않았더라면, 로베스피에르가 프랑스 왕을 단두하는 일이 일어나지 않았을 수도….

 

He predicted that the armed disciples of the German philosophers—Fichte, Schelling, and the other fathers of German nationalism—would one day destroy the great monuments of Western Europe in a wave of fanatical destruction before which the French Revolution would seem child’s play.

피히테, 쉐링 같은 독일철학자들과 독일민족주의 선봉대의  무장사도들이 언젠가 서구문명을 파괴하게 되면 , 그에 비해 프랑스혁명은 아이들 장난….일 거라고 예견했다.

 

This may have been unfair to the German metaphysicians, yet Heine’s central idea seems to me valid: in a debased form, the Nazi ideology did have roots in German anti Enlightenment thought.

기실 나찌 이념은 독일의 반계몽사상에 뿌리..

 

There are men who will kill and maim with a tranquil conscience under the influence of the words and writings of some of those who are certain that they know perfection can be reached.

자신이 완벽에 이를 수 있다고 확신하는 자들의 사상의 영향 아래, 무심히 인간을 도륙하는 사람들이 있다.

 

Let me explain. If you are truly convinced that there is some solution to all human problems, that one can conceive an ideal society which men can reach if only they do what is necessary to attain it, then you and your followers must believe that no price can be too high to pay in order to open the gates of such a paradise.

진정 모든 인간 문제에 대한 해답을 갖고 있다, 필요한 그 어떤 일을 해내기만 하면 그 이상 사회를 이룰 수 있다 확신하게 되면, 당신과 당신의 추종자들은 그 천국의 문을 열기 위해 치르지 못할 대가란 없다고 믿게 되는 것이다.

 

 

 

Only the stupid and malevolent will resist once certain simple truths are put to them. Those who resist must be persuaded; if they cannot be persuaded, laws must be passed to restrain them; if that does not work, then coercion, if need be violence, will inevitably have to be used—if necessary, terror, slaughter.

바보가 아니면 믿을 것이 분명하며, 아니라면 설득되어야 하며, 아니라면 법으로 규제해야 하며, 아니라면 협박, 혹 폭력이 필요하면 반드시 행사해야..죽여서라도..

 

Lenin believed this after reading Das Kapital, and consistently taught that if a just, peaceful, happy, free, virtuous society could be created by the means he advocated, then the end justified any methods that needed to be used, literally any.

레닌은 맑스의 자본론을 독파한 후,  그 자신이 주창한 수단으로 정의,평화, 행복,자유 사회를 이룰 수 있다면, 그 것이 무엇이든 목적이 수단을 정당화한다는 일관된 믿음을 가졌다.

 

The root conviction which underlies this is that the central questions of human life, individual or social, have one true answer which can be discovered.

이런 확신의 근저에는 인간 삶, 개인, 사회문제의 해결에 단 한 가지 정답이 있다는 뿌리신념이,,, 

 

 

It can and must be implemented, and those who have found it are the leaders whose word is law. The idea that to all genuine questions there can be only one true answer is a very old philosophical notion. The great Athenian philosophers, Jews and Christians, the thinkers of the Renaissance and the Paris of Louis XIV, the French radical reformers of the eighteenth century, the revolutionaries of the nineteenth— however much they differed about what the answer was or how to discover it (and bloody wars were fought over this)—were all convinced that they knew the answer, and that only human vice and stupidity could obstruct its realization. This is the idea of which I spoke, and what I wish to tell you is that it is false.

자신이 답을 알고 있다고 믿는 것은 잘못이다..

 

 

Not only because the solutions given by different schools of social thought differ, and none can be demonstrated by rational methods—but for an even deeper reason. The central values by which most men have lived, in a great many lands at a great many times—these values, almost if not entirely universal, are not always harmonious with each other. Some are, some are not. Men have always craved for liberty, security, equality, happiness, justice, knowledge, and so on.

 

 

But complete liberty is not compatible with complete equality—if men were wholly free, the wolves would be free to eat the sheep. Perfect equality means that human liberties must be restrained so that the ablest and the most gifted are not permitted to advance beyond those who would inevitably lose if there were competition.

완전한 자유는 완전한 평등과 조화롭게 병존할 수 없다. 제약 없는 자유는 스스럼 없는 약육강식의 세상을, 강제된 완전 평등 사회는 출중한 인간의 성취를 저지하게 될 것…

 

Security, and indeed freedoms, cannot be preserved if freedom to subvert them is permitted.

자유를 억압할 자유마저 허용 된다면…

 

Indeed, not everyone seeks security or peace, otherwise some would not have sought glory in battle or in dangerous sports. Justice has always been a human ideal, but it is not fully compatible with mercy.

인간은 정의를 갈구하나, 항상 자비, 자선과 일치할 수 있는 것은 아니다

 

Creative imagination and spontaneity, splendid in themselves, cannot be fully reconciled with the need for planning, organization, careful and responsible calculation.

창조적 상상력, 자발성은 그 자체로 아름답지만, 계획, 조직, 조심스럽고 책임 있는 계산과 반드시 합치 되지는 않는다

 

 

Knowledge, the pursuit of truth—the noblest of aims—cannot be fully reconciled with the happiness or the freedom that men desire, for even if I know that I have some incurable disease this will not make me happier or freer.

 

I must always choose: between peace and excitement, or knowledge and blissful ignorance. And so on. So what is to be done to restrain the champions, sometimes very fanatical, of one or other of these values, each of whom tends to trample upon the rest, as the great tyrants of the twentieth century have trampled on the life, liberty, and human rights of millions because their eyes were fixed upon some ultimate golden future?

평화와 흥분 중에서 또는 지식과 운 좋은 무지 사이에서 선택이 이루어져야한다. 따라서 이러한 다양한 가치들 중에서 간혹은 광신적이기도 한 승자들, 이십세기의 극악한 독재자들이, 그들이 뭔가 궁극적 밝은 미래만을 목표한답시고 수많은 다른 사람들을 짓밟는 것을 어떻게 통제할 수 있을 지?

 

I am afraid I have no dramatic answer to offer: only that if these ultimate human values by which we live are to be pursued, then compromises, trade-offs, arrangements have to be made if the worst is not to happen.

궁극의 답은 없으나, 삶의 궁극적 인간가치를 추구하고, 최악의 것을 피하고자 한다면, 협상, 교환, 조절이 필요하게 된다.

 

 So much liberty for so much equality, so much individual self-ｅxpression for so much security, so much justice for so much compassion.

평등에 대등한 자유, 공공안전에 대등한 개개인의 자기주장, 동정심에 대등한 정의.

 

My point is that some values clash: the ends pursued by human beings are all generated by our common nature, but their pursuit has to be to some degree controlled—liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I repeat, may not be fully compatible with each other, nor are liberty, equality, and fraternity.

때로 가치는 충돌한다. 인간이 추구하는 목적은 공통의 본성에 추동되지만 그 추구는 어느 정도 통제될 필요가 있다, 즉 자유와 행복추구권 같은 것은 상호간 완벽히 합치될 수 있는 가치가 아니며, 자유, 평등 그리고 우애 같은 것도 마찬가지다.

 

So we must weigh and measure, bargain, compromise, and prevent the crushing of one form of life by its rivals.

따라서 재어보고, 대어보고, 타협해서 한 형태의 삶이 그 경쟁자로부터 파괴되지 않도록 해야 한다.

 

 I know only too well that this is not a flag under which idealistic and enthusiastic young men and women may wish to march—it seems too tame, too reasonable, too bourgeois, it does not engage the generous emotions.

이러한 주장이, 너무 느슨하고, 너무 합리적이며, 너무 부르조아적이라, 동의를 구하기 쉽지 않은 바, 이상주의적이며 적극적인 청년들이 환호할만한 깃발이 아니란 것은 잘 안다.

 

 

But you must believe me, one cannot have everything one wants—not only in practice, but even in theory.

하나 분명한 것은, 원한다고 하여 모든 것을 다 가질 수는 없는 법, 행동뿐 아니라, 이론으로도 마찬가지다.

 

The denial of this, the search for a single, overarching ideal because it is the one and only true one for humanity, invariably leads to coercion.

이 것을 부정하면, 즉 인류에 타당한 단 하나만의 진리인 유일하며 궁극인 사상이 있다는 맹신은 반드시 협박에 이르게 된다.

 

 And then to destruction, blood—eggs are broken, but the omelette is not in sight, there is only an infinite number of eggs, human lives, ready for the breaking.

 

그 다음은 파괴, 유혈이다. 계란을 깰 수는 있으나 오믈렛은 만들지 못하는. 수많은 개수의 계란, 즉 인간 생명의 파괴뿐.

 

And in the end the passionate idealists forget the omelette, and just go on breaking eggs.

종국에 열정적 이상주의자들은 오믈렛은 망각한 채, 그저 계란만 끝없이 깨뜨리고 있는 것이다.

 

 I am glad to note that toward the end of my long life some realization of this is beginning to dawn.

내 삶의 종착이 다가오는 참에 이러한 깨달음이 찾아온 것은 다행이다

 

Rationality, tolerance, rare enough in human history, are not despised.

합리, 허여의 정신은 인류사에 희박하다만 천대받은 것만은 아니다.

Liberal democracy, despite everything, despite the greatest modern scourge of fanatical, fundamentalist nationalism, is spreading.

다른 무엇보다도, 요즘의 광란적, 근본주의적 민족주의의 횡행에도 불구하고 자유민주주의 는 확산되고 있다.

 

Great tyrannies are in ruins, or will be—even in China the day is not too distant. I am glad that you to whom I speak will see the twenty-first century, which I feel sure can be only a better time for mankind than my terrible century has been. I congratulate you on your good fortune; I regret that I shall not see this brighter future, which I am convinced is coming. With all the gloom that I have been spreading, I am glad to end on an optimistic note. There really are good reasons to think that it is justified.

 

극악한 독재자들은 패했다, 또 그렇게 되고야 말 것이다. 중국에서 조차 그 종말은 멀지 않다. 21세기는 내가 보낸 세기보다는 더 나은 시대가 될 것임이 기쁘다. 그대들 행운에 축하를. 이 다가올 분명한 시대를 직접 보지 못한다는 사실이 슬프다. 내가 설파해온 모든 비관적 전망에도 불구하고, 긍정적인 시대의 조짐이 기쁘다. 이것이 정당한 결론임이 타당하다 믿을 이유는 많다.

 

 

© The Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust 2014