The article centers on the perspectives of Isaiah Berlin and Friedrich Hayek, two prominent classical liberals, and their shared understanding of totalitarianism's root. Both criticized the belief that society can be rationally engineered, dismissing the notion that all social and political questions are answerable with scientific certainty. They cautioned against the dangers of constructivism and the hubris of attempting to remake society based purely on logic.
Berlin and Hayek saw the attempt to apply the methods of natural sciences to human society as inherently flawed and naive utopianism. They highlighted the unintended consequences of such attempts, leading to coercion and violence in the pursuit of human perfection. This skepticism toward social engineering forms the core of their convergence.
The authors highlight the intellectual climate of the time, where the temptation to organize society was prevalent among intellectuals. Berlin and Hayek stood as contrarians, resisting the urge to engineer human society and defending a society where individuals pursue their goals freely. They traced the intellectual roots of social engineering back to thinkers like Auguste Comte and Henri Saint-Simon.
The article emphasizes Hayek's warning against assuming that consciously directed processes are superior to spontaneous processes. It highlights the Scottish Enlightenment's view of institutions as often arising from human action rather than conscious design. Society, the authors argue, is not a technical problem to be engineered, but a complex system requiring the freedom for the discovery of new possibilities.
The article concludes by contrasting the totalitarian belief in a single correct way of life with the liberal principle of allowing individuals with diverse beliefs and goals to coexist. It emphasizes the Declaration of Independence's emphasis on the individual's pursuit of happiness, a pursuit that should be self-directed, rather than dictated by the state.