Unpopular Essays, Chapter 9

Chapter 9 (pages 137-159), “Ideas That Have Helped Mankind.” There is an e-version of this chapter available here. [Update: Apparently the entirety of Unpopular Essays is available online here.]

This is the first of two paired chapters, where the subsequent chapter reveals the malicious ideas.

How do we know what helps mankind? Population increase and greater foresight have been benefits, but greater happiness does not necessarily follow. Foresight itself is accompanied by anxiety, which undermines happiness – as does the curbing of impulse. We have a greater variety of pleasures than do other animals, though even this advantage can leave us prey to boredom. We are more kind (than other animals) to individuals within our herd, but no kinder to outsiders – and our intelligence broadens the power of the worser instinct.

Russell divides the helpful ideas into two types: “those that contribute to knowledge and technique, and those that are concerned with morals and politics [p. 139].”

Certainly one helpful idea in the knowledge/technique branch has been the development of language, which allows discoveries and inventions to accumulate over time. (Writing was a subsequent advance from language.) The control of fire and the domestication of animals have been boons. Agriculture was helpful, though it also encouraged bloody religious practices. “Moloch would not help the corn to grow unless he was allowed to feast on the blood of children [p. 140].” Six-year olds were also sacrificed to the cotton mills of Manchester, however. “It has now been discovered that grain will grow, and cotton goods can be manufactured, without being watered by the blood of infants [p. 141]” And perhaps there is evidence of progress in the fact that the realization took substantially less time for cotton than for grain.

Entering historic times, advances in mathematics and astronomy, starting in Babylonia, were valuable, and then Greece brought rationalism – to an extent, among some ancient Greeks, that is still unsurpassed. Though the Greek flower was wilting after the third century BC, enough was uncovered in the Renaissance to spark modern science. Alas, the Greek penchant for seeking for purpose in nature led science somewhat astray for quite awhile, too.

The next great advance was achieved by the likes of Newton, Galileo, Descartes, and Leibniz. Most of current technology and astronomy can be tied to these developments. Galileo’s law of inertia allowed science to dispense with the assumed different behavior of sublunar and superlunar objects. All motion could be traced to material, not mental or spiritual, processes.

The religious faith of European scientists was tested by the 17^th century discoveries, but survived pretty well in Britain until Darwin. If humans evolved, at what point were they ensouled? (Indeed, the notion of a soul has proven to be scientifically useless.) Which of our animal ancestors had enough free will to justify eternal punishment for misdeeds?

Without moral progress, scientific progress might only enhance suffering. (Russell notes that he might view a nuclear holocaust without too much distress, if he thought that animals besides man might survive it. But others might want to see humans survive, so Russell will look at what moral ideas might promote this end.)

The Stoics, following on Alexander the Great’s martial stratagem of eviscerating the Greek/barbarian distinction, developed the idea of the brotherhood of man, that all men are children of Zeus. Rome spread this idea, and Christianity, too – Buddhism even earlier. Christianity proved to be a force against cruelty and in support of charity, despite the failings of individual Christians. It is the foundation of “modern Liberalism, and remains the inspiration of much that is most hopeful in our sombre world [p. 150].”

The Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity of the French Revolution are ideals with religious origins. Equality can be traced to Orphic Societies in ancient Greece, to Stoicism, and to Christianity. When it has landed on favorable ground, this commitment to equality has helped reduce inequities. For instance, it helped provide a Christian justification for ending slavery.

The term “liberty” has meant very different things in different times and places. But the two serious meanings are (1) freedom from foreign domination and (2) freedom of private pursuits. Both forms of liberty can be taken too far.

Individual liberty grew in practice from religious toleration, which itself resulted from the stalemate, following a century of bloodshed, between Protestants and Catholics in seventeenth century Europe. The idea of religious tolerance was mainly Dutch, and was imported to England; John Locke became the greatest of the theoretical proponents of individual liberty at that time.

By the nineteenth century, religious freedom was matched, in the western-style democracies, with freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom from arbitrary arrest. “But their hold on men’s minds was much more precarious than was at the time supposed, and now, over the greater part of the earth’s surface, nothing remains of them, either in practice or in theory [p. 153].”

Russell supports representative democracy, “for those who have the tolerance and self-restraint that is required to make it workable [p. 153].” But democracy cannot successfully be introduced everywhere, immediately. [Russell returns to this theme towards the end of the subsequent chapter, at pages 178-179.]

Government and law are two political ideas that have improved social organization. Government is necessary for law, but not vice versa. Government controls its own citizens and resists outside pressures. “War has always been the chief promoter of governmental power [p. 154].” Power acquired to wage war is used by governments, where they can, to promote their own interest at the expense of individual citizens.

People with power will abuse it if they can do so with impunity. Democracy tries to fight this tendency, by granting power temporarily and through popular approval. Protection against abuses also derives from a commitment to personal liberty, which consists of two parts: (1) a reliance on due process of law before punishment can be meted out; and (2) the recognition of a private sphere where the government cannot interfere. “This sphere includes free speech, free press and religious freedom [p. 155]” – though none of these freedoms are absolute. Throughout history, the first step has been the establishment of a government, followed by pressure to make the government respect individual liberty.

In the international arena, that first step, establishing a government, has not taken place, “although it is now evident that international government is at least as important to mankind as national government [p. 155].” Russell counters the contention that an international government would be oppressive with the observation that this was originally the case with national governments, too (and still is in much of the world), but that is not a reason to prefer anarchy. The choice before us now, thanks to technology, is whether to see the human race greatly reduced in numbers, or to establish an international government.

Social cohesion in apes is confined to the family; humans have seen it expand into tribes and nations. But technology now only allows two states, the US and the USSR, to chart an independent course. The next step required to avoid disaster, a step to be taken by agreement, and not by war, is to move to a single independent state. If this is done, we will see a Golden Age beyond our imagining, one that brings the elimination of poverty and the diminution of disease, so that “the great mass of mankind may enjoy the kind of carefree adventurousness that characterises the rich young Athenians of Plato’s Dialogues [p. 158].”

Unpopular Essays, Chapter 8

Chapter 8 (pages 124-136), “The Functions of a Teacher”

Russell starts with a capsule summary of teaching over the course of history, with the general trend being from independent intellectualism to propaganda spreading. “The teacher has thus become, in the vast majority of cases, a civil servant obliged to carry out the behests of men who have not his learning, who have no experience of dealing with the young, and whose only attitude towards education is that of the propagandist [p. 125].”

Government-provided education is both necessary and potentially dangerous – the chief danger (a’ la Nazi Germany and Russia) that only people who ostensibly accept the state’s dogmatism will be allowed to teach. Further, they will be obliged to teach obedience to authority. “The result is that the young in Nazi Germany became, and Russia became, fanatical bigots, ignorant of the world outside their own country, totally unaccustomed to free discussion, and not aware that their opinions can be questioned without wickedness [p. 126].” This state of affairs is worsened when the creed instilled is not an international one, but one of extreme nationalism.

Imparting information is the foundation of what a teacher does, upon which all else rests, but in itself it is not very important. In democracies, defending the state through teaching is desirable, as long as the methods used in such a defense are rational. Uniformity of opinion is not necessary for a strong state, despite frequent claims to the contrary: “…in every important war since 1700 the victory has gone to the more democratic side [p. 128].” Dogmatists like to believe that others will be misled into untruths if they are allowed to hear all sides of a question. If one dogma holds a monopoly, society becomes static; if multiple dogmas take hold in different areas, conflict threatens civilization. Teachers should be a bulwark against either of these outcomes, and attempt to instill the habit of impartial inquiry.

But teachers must do more, they must be “guardians of civilization [p. 129].” Civilization has both a knowledge dimension and an emotional dimension; both share an enlarged understanding of what lies beyond the personal. “The civilized man, where he cannot admire, will aim rather at understanding than at reprobating [p. 130].”

“No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection towards his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he himself believes to be of value [p. 131].” This is not to endorse the behavior of a propagandist, who tries to push students into the molds he has created; rather, it is to give them the tools to “survey the world and freely choose a purpose which to them appears of value [p. 131].” Teachers should “open vistas…as delightful as they are useful…[p. 131].” Happiness is a worthy goal, and teachers should work against the psychological mishap where one seeks to keep others from being happy. Generally this type of cruelty grows from envy.

Teachers are overworked. Their job requires (Russell quotes Shakespeare without attribution) an “expense of spirit [p. 132].” Overworked teachers become “harassed and nervous, out of touch with recent work in the subjects that they teach, and unable to inspire their students with a sense of the intellectual delights to be obtained from new understanding and new knowledge [p. 132].”

But the more serious problem is that teachers who hold unapproved opinions are expected to be quiet about them, and even to teach approved untruths. (Russell mentions the expectation that teaching will be misleading in civics classes in the US.) When students are old enough to see the obvious falsehood, they tend towards cynicism instead of endeavoring to improve matters.

Falsehood is not edifying, though many proclaim otherwise. Any virtuous effect that falsehood brings about will prove unable to stand up to the first breath of reality. “In any case, to tell lies to the young, who have no means of checking what they are told, is morally indefensible [p. 133].”

Teachers need to instill the tolerance that comes from trying to understand those who are different. But rather than overcoming “ignorant intolerance [p. 134],” much nationalistic education perpetuates it. Teachers require more independence (like the independence of physicians towards patients) “from the interference of bureaucrats and bigots [p. 134].” Some great universities have managed to secure this independence, but most educational institutions have not so managed. Organisations can straitjacket thought, but they should allow some non-conformity – else the rigidity “will in the end crush all that is best in man [p. 136].”

Unpopular Essays, Halftime

The length of Chapter 7 has pushed this intermission well past the midpoint of Unpopular Essays. The first “half” of Unpopular Essays provides a few broad themes, as well as the occasional nugget of wisdom or pithy adage – it is Russellian, I suppose.

One of the themes that emerges in Chapter 1 is how trade and contact with foreigners helps to undermine dogmatism. (See also the final part of Chapter 7 on this score.) In Chapter 2, we learn that inculcating what might be called a foreign frame of mind improves our thinking, too, especially in matters political. This is important, because dogmatism is a source of human misery.

The alternative to dogmatism is liberalism, which concerns itself not with what opinions are held, but the manner in which they are held – a liberal recognizes that he or she might be wrong, and that new evidence might require an adjustment in one’s opinions. (Education of the probabilistic nature of the world would be helpful, too, in turning political debate away from absolutist statements.) Liberalism is policy-relevant, in that it suggests that one adopt policies that will not prove disastrous if indeed, your opinions do turn out to be wrong. Avoid committing present evils based on some (possibly wrong) theory of how those evils will be justified by putative long-term benefits. That is, Russell’s consistent political advice is that of insuring against our own mistakes, even as we work to minimize those mistakes. (This point is raised most thoroughly in Chapters 1 and 2.)

In Chapter 3, Russell appears to ignore his own general political advice, when he argues that it may prove necessary to establish world government by force. Russell seems pretty convinced of the desirability of (the right form of) world government. (Even false dogmas would not be so bad if all nations taught the same ones – Chapter 7, part 2; Russell displays the same preference for global political monopoly in Marriage and Morals.) Russell’s prediction (Chapter 3) about the possible future courses for the world through the end of the 20^th century proved to be false (or at least unfulfilled in a timely manner). His more general notion, that international law could be developed into something that would bring on a relative golden age, remains a common hope.

The human propensity to embrace nonsense avidly also is a theme of the first half of Unpopular Essays, though it is most prominent in Chapter 7. Russell’s writings on this score resonate, alas, given our current war on terror: fear breeds cruelty, along with the supposed justifications for the cruelty.

I won’t recount my favorites among the pearls of wisdom in the first half, with one exception (from Chapter 7, part 3): the idea that, when you find yourself getting angry with your interlocutor during a discussion, your anger should serve as a signal that your own opinion goes beyond what the evidence allows.

Onward.

Unpopular Essays, Chapter 7, part 3

This, the third and final part of a summentary of "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish," covers pages 109-123.

Abnormal human behavior – say, repeated bedwetting or exhibitionism – is typically met with punishment, even when punishment is clearly inefficacious: “most people enjoy punishing anyone who irritates them [p. 109]…” Punishment is misapplied at the national level, too. Rank and file Nazis should be considered to be something like lunatics, not criminals. Lunatics are restrained, but not punished, “and so far as prudence permits we try to make them happy [p. 110].” Punishing everyday Germans in the wake of WWII will make them hate the victors, and render peace precarious.

Lots of current superstitions derive from the nonsense of ancient philosophers. Plato and Aristotle are steeped in absurd claims. “Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones [p. 111].” Many behaviors we now take for granted, including activities important for health, such as cleaning and washing, were once considered unnatural. “Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent [p. 112].” Birth control is often considered unnatural, though celibacy (perhaps due to its antiquity) is not so attacked. [Hmmm -- see "All's Well That Ends Well."]

Ideas about women are frequently fallacious – including the notion of their superior virtue, which was used as both a reason to keep women out of politics and a reason to admit them into it. Russell doubts all generalisations about women, which arise “from paucity of experience [p. 114].” Generalisations about national characteristics also are fallacious, and often have been revised over time, as in the case of Germans, the French, and Russians. “The truth is that what appears to one nation as the national character of another depends upon a few prominent individuals, or upon the class that happens to have power [p. 115].”

One can avoid silly errors by following some precepts. First, make personal observations if possible – this would have saved Aristotle from promulgating some whoppers. “Thinking that you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake…[p. 115].”

“If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do [p. 116].” We feel pity for (not anger towards) people who sincerely spout obvious untruths. If you find yourself getting angry during a discussion, this is a signal that “your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants [p. 116].” You can guard against dogmatism by living abroad, or by exposing yourself to contrary opinions. If a live opponent is not at hand, you should invent an imaginary opponent, and put up the best argument for an opposing viewpoint. [Here, Russell is echoing a point made by his godfather in Chapter 2 of On Liberty: "...if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's advocate can conjure up."] Be wary of any opinion that happens to conduce to your own self esteem. We might also keep in mind that in other parts of the universe there might be beings vastly superior to humans.

Fear undermines rationality and promotes superstition. “To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life [p. 118].” But one way of dealing with fear – persuading yourself that you are immune from danger – is itself a spur to superstition. Plato laid down, for his Republic, that a belief in the happiness of the next world would be inculcated, to diminish the fear of death among soldiers. Other religions and philosophies also have tried to provide talismans against fear. Stoicism preaches that virtue is the only thing that matters; so as long as you are virtuous, the fact that your enemies might harm you is of no concern – they cannot deprive you of your virtue. “The difficulty was that no one could really believe virtue to be the only good…[p. 120].” Teaching indifference to your own suffering, were it to succeed, would lead to indifference towards the suffering of others.

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd [p. 121].” Fear promotes cruelty, which in turn engenders those beliefs that “seem to justify cruelty. Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear [pp. 121-122].”

“Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one [p. 122].” [In a column dated today (April 2, 2008), Garrison Keillor provides a slightly different take: "Many men have been carried to the cemetery with honor guards and rifle salutes who, if the truth be known, knew their missions were not worth the price but went anyway. Many, many of our honored dead were dissenters." Keillor is praising (in the military, though not among civilians) this willingness to risk everything without sufficient cause.]

But superstitions can be fun. “A wise man will enjoy the goods of which there is a plentiful supply, and of intellectual rubbish he will find an abundant diet, in our own age as in every other [p. 123].”

Unpopular Essays, Chapter 7, part 2

This is part 2 of what I imagine will be 3 parts summarizing "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish." This part covers pages 96 to 108.

The habitability of earth will end, and humans will become extinct. Then why should the whole terrestrial experiment have been run? “The importance of Man, which is the one indispensable dogma of the theologians, receives no support from a scientific view of the future of the solar system [p. 96].” People love to believe in other marvels, too, as can be seen in the accounts of ancient, reputable historians. Men are considered mad if they put credence in a myth that they have created, if the myth is peculiar to themselves. In wartime, emotions are collective, and myths can be widely shared. Accusations of Jews committing ritual murder have never been based on any evidence, but are nevertheless often believed, and used as an excuse for cruelty and torture. False medical beliefs (including old “cures” for madness) also tend to involve suffering for the patient. There has been resistance to anesthesia as undoing the will of God. Myths about race and blood have a long provenance. “The whole conception of superior races is merely a myth generated by the overweening self-esteem of the holders of power [pp. 100-101].” Maybe someday there will be real evidence that one race, on average, is more intelligent than another. But there is no such evidence now.

Further, races are thoroughly mixed, and the more the mixed, the higher the level of culture, it seems: look at the ancient Greeks, whose culture emerged from a melting pot. “The supposed merits of racial purity are, it would seem, wholly imaginary [p. 101].”

Soviet Russia has countered false theories of race and blood with false theories about the superiority of some forms of social origins. “There were two theories that had to be reconciled: on the one hand, proletarians were good and other people were bad; on the other hand, communists were good and other people were bad [p. 102].” So a proletarian was redefined as a supporter of the government: hence Lenin was a proletarian, and a kulak was “any peasant who opposed collectivization [p. 102].”

Economics fosters its own sets of superstitions. Why is gold thought to be so peculiarly valuable? Its value only lies in its ability to buy goods, and if you renounce that use, gold is worthless. After World War I, “There was supposed to be some mystic virtue about gold that made it worth while to dig it up in the Transvaal and put it underground again in bank vaults in America [p. 103].” In the end, this mystical property attributed to gold brought on the great depression.

“Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth [p. 103].” The claim that human nature is unvarying is a cover for the inability to see beyond your own narrow environment. Anthropological evidence on marital and sexual customs around the globe shows the falsity of typical claims about unvarying human nature. Some hermits have even done all they could to minimize the roles of food and sex in human life. “There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action [p. 104].” The ability of governments to produce belief in falsehoods seems greater now than in the past, as the situation in Russia, Germany, and Japan prior to WWII makes clear. “No one can deny, in the face of the evidence, that it is easy, given military power, to produce a population of fanatical lunatics [p. 105].” One could imagine a similar ease in producing reasonable people, but this does not cohere with the self-interest of politicians, who will not be admired by reasonable people.

The belief that war is inevitable is a highly problematic form of the permanence-of- human-nature fallacy. If institutions could be developed to make war unprofitable, people would get along quite well without it. “Exactly the same arguments that are now used about the impossibility of preventing war were formerly used in defence of duelling, yet few of us feel thwarted because we are not allowed to fight duels [p. 106].” Give Russell a lever – that is, a large army and enough resources to reward followers above the common run – and he can move the world to believe any absurdity you name. Of course, many people would recognize the foolishness, but it would not be spoken of publicly.

The falsity of dogmas foisted upon populations by governments would not be so bad if all governments taught the same false dogmas. But as they teach differ ones, they generate hostilities.

While much conventional thinking is nonsense, so is much unconventional thinking. “There are infinite possibilities of error, and more cranks take up unfashionable errors than unfashionable truths [p. 108].”

Unpopular Essays, Chapter 7, part 1

Chapter 7 (pages 82-123), “An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish”

This essay is sufficiently long that I will eschew tradition and devote multiple posts to its summentary. This is the first post, covering pages 83 to 95.

Russell laments the irrationality in man and nations, but fights despair by studying the past – through which mankind has somehow managed to survive. “The follies of our own times are easier to bear when they are seen against the background of past follies [p. 82].”

Aristotle thought that man added a rational dimension to the vegetable and animal dimensions shared with other forms of life. The intellect that is the source of this rationality is best signaled (according to Aristotle) by “mastery of arithmetic [p. 83].” But now we have an easier system of numbers along with calculating machines, so the ability to do arithmetic is less suggestive of a divine nature.

But if arithmetic is not evidence of our rationality, what is? Perhaps we can reveal man’s rational nature by looking at some exemplars: let us examine the wisdom of the clergy. Alas, when the clergy has been most powerful, its wisdom has been most questionable. During the Age of Faith, all sorts of superstitious, unscientific nonsense was promulgated. “Devils would settle on the food that monks were about to eat, and would take possession of the bodies of incautious feeders who omitted to make the sign of the Cross before each mouthful [p. 84]” – hence the custom of saying ‘bless you’ after a sneeze, to prevent demons from entering someone’s body after the sneeze left him or her momentarily soul bereft. Since the Age Of Faith, the clergy have been abandoning one position and then the next as science advances. “At each stage, they try to make the public forget their earlier obscurantism, in order that their present obscurantism may not be recognised for what it is [p. 85].” For instance, clergy objected to the invention of the lightning-rod, because lightning strikes were used by God to punish the wicked.

The standard clerical approach to sin is rather puzzling, in that sometimes what is considered sinful is something that alleviates human suffering. Informed consent to euthanasia for the terminally suffering has been opposed as sinful because the consent implies that the process is a form of suicide – hence sinful. Any God who wants to prolong suffering would not be worthy of worship. Things that aren’t considered sinful – such as cruelty to soulless animals – are as much a puzzle as those that are. Religious views towards corpses (including dissection and cremation) also are curious.

“Although there are many kinds of sin, seven of which are deadly, the most fruitful field for Satan’s wiles is sex [p. 89].” Russell proceeds with a clever litany of religious views on sex, marriage, divorce, and petting.

Modern morals include “rational precepts as to how to live together peaceably in a society [p. 91],” along with traditional taboos; the latter tend to be accepted uncritically, even when they promote misery. It would be better if people came up with some sort of rationale for ignoring the harmful taboos encased in ancient scriptures.

“There are logical difficulties in the notion of sin [p. 92].” To sin is to disobey God or to act contrary to God’s will, but God is supposed to be omnipotent – so presumably God intended the sin. And what is God’s will, anyway? Which authority should we follow? “In practice, people choose the book considered sacred by the community in which they are born, and out of that book they choose the parts they like, ignoring the others [p. 93].”

Outside of mundane facts, people choose their beliefs to make them feel good about themselves; for instance, people commonly think of their native city or country as possessing marks of superiority. Likewise, religious beliefs about the centrality of man’s place in the universe and our difference from other animals flatter us. “The whole of theology, in regard to hell no less than to heaven, takes it for granted that Man is what is of most importance in the Universe of created beings [p. 95].” Even modern theologians who accept evolution see man as the shining goal of those millions of years of gradual change – though if we are so outstanding, why not just start with us?

Unpopular Essays, Chapter 6

Chapter 6 (pages 76-81), “On Being Modern-minded”

While a modern person knows much about other countries, he is likely to see little value in the ideas and opinions of the past – a stance which has only become complete since the Great War. Fashion now dominates opinion, making thought unnecessary, and requiring only knowledge of how to appropriately use jargon. The jargon words themselves may originally have been the product of thought: “like paper money they were originally convertible into gold [p. 77].” Now they have depreciated, raising the nominal value of ideas while the real values decline.

A modern person does not aspire to transcend the thought or emotion of his contemporaries, only to arrive at the common ideas slightly ahead of the curve. A solitary mental life holds no appeal, nor can it conduce to social improvement as its ideas cannot compete with popular ones. Monetary rewards and (fleeting) fame are available to those whose opinions match those of their contemporaries. The return to discovering new truths also has fallen, as the pace of scientific advance ensures that any such truths will rapidly be superseded. “Newton lasted till Einstein; Einstein is already regarded by many as antiquated [p. 79].” Further, the old, motivating belief that one’s scientific work served God’s purposes has been eclipsed. The substitute ideals of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, proved unsustainable, too. But it isn’t the “decay of theological beliefs [p. 81]” that is the main problem; rather, it is the “loss of solitude,” a “certain degree of isolation both in space and time [p. 81].”