Some Sources of Romanticism: 5 – Unbridled Romanticism
Isaiah Berlin
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Paranoia and Paranoidism
There is an optimistic version, of course, in romanticism. What the romantics feel is that by going forward, by extending our nature, we are liberating ourselves more and more. But there is another version of this same thing, a morpesmistic version, which i think is, curiously enough, something which really obsesses th twentieth century to some extent. There is the notion that although we individuals seek to liberate ourselves, yet the universe is not to be tamed this easy fashion. The pessimists think it is simply a huge, fathomless ocean of undirected will,. upon which we bob like a little boat with no direction on its course.
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