Last Essay:
"1967"
This is Bertrand Russell's last manuscript.
Untitled, it was annotated "1967" by Russell, at the age
of 95,
two or three years before he died. Ray Monk published it first
in The
Independent of London on the 25th anniversary of the Russell
Archives. The essay's politics are uncannily
prescient.
The time has come to review my life as a whole, and to ask whether
it has served any useful purpose or has been wholly concerned in
futility. Unfortunately, no answer is possible for anyone who does
not know the future. Modern weapons make it practically certain
that the next serious war will exterminate the human race. This is
admitted by all competent authorities, and I shall not waste time
in proving i... (From: mcmaster.ca.) It is impossible to imagine a more dramatic and horrifying combination of scientific triumph with political and moral failure than has been shown to the world in the destruction of Hiroshima. From the scientific point of view, the atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination of genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of mankind. Atoms are so minute that it might have seemed impossible to know as much as we do about them. A million million bundles, each containing a million million hydrogen atoms, would weigh about a gram and a half. Each hydrogen atom consists of a nucleus, and an electron going round the nucleus, as the earth goes round the sun. The distance from the nucleus to the electron is usually about a hundred-m... (From: mcmaster.ca.) A Free Man's Worship
by Bertrand Russell
A brief introduction: "A Free Man's Worship" (first published
as "The Free Man's Worship" in Dec. 1903) is perhaps Bertrand Russell's
best known and most reprinted essay. Its mood and language have often been
explained, even by Russell himself, as reflecting a particular time in
his life; "it depend(s)," he wrote in 1929, "upon a metaphysic which is
more platonic than that which I now believe in." Yet the essay sounds many
characteristic Russellian themes and preoccupations and deserves consideration--and
further serious study--as an historical landmark of early-twentieth-century
European thought. For a scholarly edition with some documentation, see
Volume 12 of The Collected Papers of... (From: Drew.edu.) Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind from "Unpopular Essays" by
Bertrand Russell
.
The misfortunes of human beings may be divided into two
classes: First, those inflicted by the non-human environment and, second, those inflicted
by other people. As mankind have progressed in knowledge and technique, the second class
has become a continually increasing percentage of the total. In old times, famine, for
example, was due to natural causes, and although people did their best to combat it, large
numbers of them died of starvation. At the present moment large parts of the world are
faced with the threat of famine, but although natural causes have contributed to the
situation, the principal causes are huma... (From: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/2528/br_ide....) The Impulse to Power introduction to the book
"Power" by Bertrand Russell
.
Between man and other animals there are
various differences, some intellectual, some emotional. One of the chief emotional
differences is that some human desires, unlike those of- animals, are essentially
boundless and incapable of complete satisfaction. The boa constrictor, when he has had his
meal, sleeps until appetite revives; if other animals do not do likewise, it is because
their meals are less adequate or because they fear enemies. The activities of animals,
with few exceptions, are inspired by the primary needs of survival and reproduction, and
do not exceed what these needs make imperative.With men, the... (From: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/2528/br_pow....) In Praise of Idleness This text was first provided by the Massachusetts Green Party, but I found out that they have moved or deleted their page, so now I'm keeping a "mirror" of their text.
.
In this essay,
Lord Bertrand Russell proposes a cut in the definition of full time to four hours per day.
As this article was written in 1932, he has not the benefit of knowing that, as we added
more wage-earners per family (women entered the work force) and families shrunk (fewer
kids), and the means of production become more efficient (better machines) the number of
hours each wage-earner must work to support the family has stayed constant. These facts
seem to uphold Russell's point. Like most of my generatio (From: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/2528/br_idl....) A LIBERAL DECALOGUE
By Bertrand Russell
Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new
decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it.
The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might
be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence,
for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your
husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by
authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.... (From: Drew.edu.) In these days, under the influence of democracy, the virtue of cooperation has taken the place formerly held by obedience. The old-fashioned schoolmaster would say of a boy that he was disobedient; the modern schoolmistress says of an infant that he is non-cooperative. It means the same thing: the child, in either case, fails to do what the teacher wishes, but in the first case the teacher acts as the government and in the second as the representative of the People, i.e. of the other children. The result of the new language, as of the old, is to encourage docility, suggestibility, herd-instinct and conventionality, thereby necessarily discouraging originality, initiative and unusual intelligence. Adults who achieve anything of value have se... (From: SantaFe.edu.) Throughout recent years, a vast amount of money and time and brains has been employed in overcoming sales resistance, i.e. in inducing unoffending persons to waste their money in purchasing objects which they had no desire to possess. It is characteristic of our age that this sort of thing is considered meritorious: lectures are given on salesmanship, and those who possess the art are highly rewarded. Yet, if a moment's consideration is given to the matter, it is clear that the activity is a noxious one which does more harm than good. Some hard-working professional man, for example, who has been saving up with a view to giving his family a pleasant summer holiday, is beset in a weak moment by a highly trained bandit who wants to sell him... I
am persuaded that there is absolutely no limit in the absurdities that can, by government
action, come to be generally believed. Give me an adequate army, with power to provide it
with more pay and better food than falls to the lot of the average man, and I will
undertake, within thirty years, to make the majority of the population believe that two
and two are three, that water freezes when it gets hot and boils when it gets cold, or any
other nonsense that might seem to serve the interest of the State. Of course, even when
these beliefs had been generated, people would not put the kettle in the refrigerator when
they wanted it to boil. That cold makes water boil would be a Sunday truth, sacred and
mystical, to be professed in aw... CHAPTER XI
ON INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE
THERE is a common impression that everything that we believe
ought to be capable of proof, or at least of being shown to be highly
probable. It is felt by many that a belief for which no reason can be
given is an unreasonable belief. In the main, this view is just.
Almost all our common beliefs are either inferred, or capable of
being inferred, from other beliefs which may be regarded as giving
the reason for them. As a rule, the reason has been forgotten, or has
even never been consciously present to our minds. Few of us ever ask
ourselves, for example, what reason there is to suppose the food we
are just going to eat will not turn out to be poison. Yet we feel,
when challenged, that a per... Proposed Roads
To Freedom
By
Bertrand Russell
PART II -
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE
CHAPTER IV
WORK AND PAY
THE man who seeks to create a better order of
society has two resistances to contend with: one that
of Nature, the other that of his fellow-men. Broadly
speaking, it is science that deals with the resistance
of Nature, while politics and social organization are
the methods of overcoming the resistance of men.
The ultimate fact in economics is that Nature only
yields commodities as the result of labor. The necessity
of SOME labor for the satisfaction of our wants
is not imposed by political systems or by the exploitation
of the working classes; it is due to physical
laws, which the refor... (From: Gutenberg.org.) The Century Magazine, July 1929, Vol. 118, No. 3, Pgs. 311-315
The Twilight Of Science
Is The Universe Running Down
Bertrand Russell
It is a curious fact that just when the man in the street has begun to believe thoroughly in science, the man in the laboratory has begun to lose his faith. When I was young, no physicist entertained the slightest doubt that the laws of physics give us real information about the motions of bodies, and that the physical world does really consist of the sort of entities that appear in the physicist's equations. The philosophers, it is true, throw doubt upon this view, and have done so ever since the time of Berkeley; but since their criticism never attached itself to any point in the detai... (From: Anarchy Archives.) II
THE STATE
UNDER the influence of socialism, most liberal thought in recent years has been in favor of increasing the power of the State, but more or less hostile to the power of private property. On the other hand, syndicalism has been hostile both to the State and to private property. I believe that syndicalism is more nearly right than socialism in this respect, that both private property and the State, which are the two most powerful institutions of the modern world, have become harmful to life through excess of power, and that both are hastening the loss of vitality from which the civilized world increasingly suffers. The two institutions are closely connected, but for the present I wish to consider only the State. I shall try to s... (From: WikiSource.org.)
