“Symptoms of Orwell’s 1984,” pages 221-228
Readers enjoyed the gloomy portrait in 1984, and were comforted by the thought that only in Russia was the book relevant as description. Then they took steps that gradually converted Orwell's novel into an increasingly accurate prophesy beyond the Soviet Union.
Before 1914 freedom to travel and to speak, to publish and to emigrate, was widely available (at least to white men) outside of the benighted land of the Czars. Russia and its secret police were regarded as horrific. Now the non-Russian world is moving rapidly to non-freedom, though the gap with Russia doesn’t shrink, because the Russians have moved further into tyranny themselves. A Siberian exile in Czarist Russia was a model of freedom compared to Soviet labor camps, while travel to Western Europe has been suppressed even for non-exiled Russians.
Inhibition of the independent thought of first-rate people has been the rule throughout history, from ancient Athens onwards. “In most countries at most times, whatever subsequently came to be thought best was viewed with horror at the time by those who wielded authority [p. 223].” The Soviets (and now the West) have merely democratized the suppression, made it available to all, while the instruments of suppression, the police, have grown more powerful.
Organizations serve their ostensible purpose, but they also promote their own power, and it is this latter service to which they are most devoted. Woe betide the person who tries to publicize the wrongdoing of the police. And the courts enter too late in the game to offer protection to innocent non-conformists. Some prestigious universities can maintain intellectual freedom even in the face of McCarthy-like attacks, but less established schools cannot hold out. Fears of counterrevolutionaries in Russia and communists in the US have created a stifling culture.
Liberalism became established in fighting the increased power of monarchs; now, freedom lovers must counter the enhanced control by police and other organizations. A second police force is necessary, one aimed at establishing innocence, not guilt, of accused parties. Our current institutions make a mockery of the idea that it is better for many guilty people to go free than to convict one innocent: the state’s resources on the side of guilt cannot be matched by an accused person. Nonetheless, the social good really does demand that we worry more about a false conviction than a false acquittal. Perhaps the “assumption of guilt” would be appropriate when authorities are the accused, but not for other people.
The enhanced power of authorities busies itself with the suppression of truth and the promulgation of falsehood. Russians are denied knowledge of the rest of the world, and Chinese intellectuals must renounce any knowledge that does not descend from the approved sources. Not only are dissident thinkers punished, their families are as well. In much of the non-communist world, too, opinions at odds with the official ones will be ignored and their holders ostracized. “There is no longer, even among those who think themselves more or less liberal, a belief that it is a good thing to study all sides of a question [p. 227].” Libraries prune their collections on behalf of purported lovers of freedom: the censorship reveals their lack of confidence in winning arguments with ideas and evidence in a neutral marketplace of ideas. During World War II, British subjects were not prevented from listening to German radio: the tolerant policy of an authority confident in the rightness of its cause. “So long as we prevent Communists from being heard, we produce the impression that they must have a very strong case [p. 228].” We are sacrificing the means of acquiring truth – open and free discussion – to our fears, with the result that the gulf between truth and the officially accepted variety of truth grows to Orwellian dimensions. The intellectual suppression infects education, too. Teachers risk their careers by uttering ideas that deviate even moderately from the official truth. The suppression is accompanied with significant public support, despite the ignorance that is thereby mandated for children.
“Fear is the source from which all these evils spring, and fear, as is apt to happen in a panic, inspires the very actions which bring about the disasters that are dreaded [p. 228].” The fact that the dangers are real and even momentous does not justify a course of action which enhances those dangers. Our world of Orwellian doublethink is not stable; under current circumstances, it is succeeded by the equality of the global grave.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Portraits From Memory, "Chapter" Twenty-Eight
“The Road to Happiness,” pages 215-220
“For over two thousand years it has been the custom among earnest moralists to decry happiness as something degraded and unworthy [p. 215].” The Greek and Roman Stoics, the modern German philosophers, Carlyle: all have offered their support to immoral undertakings. An expression of disdain for happiness generally means that it is other people’s happiness that you disdain. Maybe you selflessly sacrifice your own happiness for mankind; you still are apt to fall into envy of those happy people who are less noble, and harden your heart towards them, as has happened to many Communists.
Theorists of the good life are apt to forget what frailty that flesh is heir to. Too much sacrifice of pleasure, even for a worthy cause, will render the cause repellent. (Recall Russell’s concern that many mothers sacrificed too much for their families.) The notion that a happiness consciously sought slips out of reach is true only if the method of seeking is mistaken, as it is if you take to drink. Your concrete ‘rule to live by’ should be specific to your preferences, but it should not be inconsistent with happiness.
Many people who possess the requisite conditions for happiness – health and sufficient income – are nonetheless unhappy. Generally this problem is due to an incorrect theory. Other animals, who lack theories but act on instinct, take pleasure in existence. Humans sometimes do not let their plans conduce enough with instinct, so even if they fulfill their plans, they cannot be happy. People who are happy share some common characteristics. “The most important of these things is an activity which at most times is enjoyable on its own account, and which, in addition, gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence [p. 217]” – like the Reading Bertrand Russell blog, Bertie does not add. Sometimes this involves child-rearing, sometimes artistic or scientific creation, sometimes gardening.
The sorts of activity that bring happiness require that a person not be overly fatigued. Alas, most jobs do not naturally bring happiness, and leave people too tired for active pursuits in their non-work time. Other people curtail their natural impulses (or insist that their children do) to avoid the negative thoughts of neighbors; the price of their propriety is constant boredom, borderline or full-on. The pursuit of success in society undermines happiness, even though such success can contribute to happiness – provided social success is not the goal of one's activity, and is accompanied by meaningful accomplishments.
Happiness in healthy and well-fed people requires “a stable framework built round a central purpose [p. 219]” – work and family, again, if suitable, serve this function – and some spontaneous, purposeless activity. Then quotidian existence can bring simple joy, without any need for deep theorizing. If the daily routine is not suitable, then a new routine, one consistent with happiness, is the antidote. And it may be that it is our physical, animal selves that need a larger place in our routine. Long walks do more than Milton can in enlivening the daily tasks of man.
“For over two thousand years it has been the custom among earnest moralists to decry happiness as something degraded and unworthy [p. 215].” The Greek and Roman Stoics, the modern German philosophers, Carlyle: all have offered their support to immoral undertakings. An expression of disdain for happiness generally means that it is other people’s happiness that you disdain. Maybe you selflessly sacrifice your own happiness for mankind; you still are apt to fall into envy of those happy people who are less noble, and harden your heart towards them, as has happened to many Communists.
Theorists of the good life are apt to forget what frailty that flesh is heir to. Too much sacrifice of pleasure, even for a worthy cause, will render the cause repellent. (Recall Russell’s concern that many mothers sacrificed too much for their families.) The notion that a happiness consciously sought slips out of reach is true only if the method of seeking is mistaken, as it is if you take to drink. Your concrete ‘rule to live by’ should be specific to your preferences, but it should not be inconsistent with happiness.
Many people who possess the requisite conditions for happiness – health and sufficient income – are nonetheless unhappy. Generally this problem is due to an incorrect theory. Other animals, who lack theories but act on instinct, take pleasure in existence. Humans sometimes do not let their plans conduce enough with instinct, so even if they fulfill their plans, they cannot be happy. People who are happy share some common characteristics. “The most important of these things is an activity which at most times is enjoyable on its own account, and which, in addition, gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence [p. 217]” – like the Reading Bertrand Russell blog, Bertie does not add. Sometimes this involves child-rearing, sometimes artistic or scientific creation, sometimes gardening.
The sorts of activity that bring happiness require that a person not be overly fatigued. Alas, most jobs do not naturally bring happiness, and leave people too tired for active pursuits in their non-work time. Other people curtail their natural impulses (or insist that their children do) to avoid the negative thoughts of neighbors; the price of their propriety is constant boredom, borderline or full-on. The pursuit of success in society undermines happiness, even though such success can contribute to happiness – provided social success is not the goal of one's activity, and is accompanied by meaningful accomplishments.
Happiness in healthy and well-fed people requires “a stable framework built round a central purpose [p. 219]” – work and family, again, if suitable, serve this function – and some spontaneous, purposeless activity. Then quotidian existence can bring simple joy, without any need for deep theorizing. If the daily routine is not suitable, then a new routine, one consistent with happiness, is the antidote. And it may be that it is our physical, animal selves that need a larger place in our routine. Long walks do more than Milton can in enlivening the daily tasks of man.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Portraits From Memory, "Chapter" Twenty-Seven
“How I Write,” pages 210-214
When young, Russell loosely modeled his writing after that of John Stuart Mill, but with the additional goal of a sort of efficiency, the use of the minimum number of words consistent with clarity. At the age of twenty-one, Russell fell under the influence of Logan Pearsall Smith (who, like Mill, was (later) a relative of sorts). Pearsall Smith venerated style over substance, and invoked odd rules such as prodigious comma use and employing the word “and” only at the start of a sentence. Pearsall Smith also emphasized one more commonplace piece of wisdom, that of improving writing via rewriting. Russell’s attempts to abide by the rewriting precept (for style, not substance) brought a perverse result, weaker second drafts. But the experiment gave Russell the evidence he needed to save time in the future by eschewing rewriting.
Russell used to suffer from anxiety when contemplating a serious piece of writing, and he would make many frustrating, false starts. He overcame this problem by first thinking about a problem, sorting it out – and then taking time off: “…I needed a period of subconscious incubation which could not be hurried and was if anything impeded by deliberate thinking [p. 211].” Generally his subconscious would produce resolutions of the problems that remained, and the book would quickly appear, Athena-like. This process played out for his 1914 lectures and book Our Knowledge of the External World, where the resolution only coalesced in the moment he began to dictate, seamlessly, the material to a stenographer. [Russell also described his practice of waiting and letting inspiration come of its own accord in Chapter 5 of The Conquest of Happiness.] Though the resulting work was far from perfect, it would not have been improved at the time by further effort at composition.
Russell went through a more florid phase in his writing, associated with the time of producing "A Free Man’s Worship," “a work of which I do not now think well [p. 212].” The intentional imitation of Milton at that time was a mistake, as is all effort at imitation. Russell repeats his point from the previous chapter, that successful style involves a personal element that conscious imitation undermines. But reading good writers, without imitating them, can lend pleasing rhythm to prose.
Russell offers a few pieces of advice for writers: Prefer short words to long words; avoid run-on sentences; and, don’t use scientific-sounding terminology that muddles what it should clarify. Or rather, if you are a professor, go ahead and employ academic parlance for your first publication. You then will have established your bona fides, like Russell did, and henceforth you will have license to write in an understandable manner.
When young, Russell loosely modeled his writing after that of John Stuart Mill, but with the additional goal of a sort of efficiency, the use of the minimum number of words consistent with clarity. At the age of twenty-one, Russell fell under the influence of Logan Pearsall Smith (who, like Mill, was (later) a relative of sorts). Pearsall Smith venerated style over substance, and invoked odd rules such as prodigious comma use and employing the word “and” only at the start of a sentence. Pearsall Smith also emphasized one more commonplace piece of wisdom, that of improving writing via rewriting. Russell’s attempts to abide by the rewriting precept (for style, not substance) brought a perverse result, weaker second drafts. But the experiment gave Russell the evidence he needed to save time in the future by eschewing rewriting.
Russell used to suffer from anxiety when contemplating a serious piece of writing, and he would make many frustrating, false starts. He overcame this problem by first thinking about a problem, sorting it out – and then taking time off: “…I needed a period of subconscious incubation which could not be hurried and was if anything impeded by deliberate thinking [p. 211].” Generally his subconscious would produce resolutions of the problems that remained, and the book would quickly appear, Athena-like. This process played out for his 1914 lectures and book Our Knowledge of the External World, where the resolution only coalesced in the moment he began to dictate, seamlessly, the material to a stenographer. [Russell also described his practice of waiting and letting inspiration come of its own accord in Chapter 5 of The Conquest of Happiness.] Though the resulting work was far from perfect, it would not have been improved at the time by further effort at composition.
Russell went through a more florid phase in his writing, associated with the time of producing "A Free Man’s Worship," “a work of which I do not now think well [p. 212].” The intentional imitation of Milton at that time was a mistake, as is all effort at imitation. Russell repeats his point from the previous chapter, that successful style involves a personal element that conscious imitation undermines. But reading good writers, without imitating them, can lend pleasing rhythm to prose.
Russell offers a few pieces of advice for writers: Prefer short words to long words; avoid run-on sentences; and, don’t use scientific-sounding terminology that muddles what it should clarify. Or rather, if you are a professor, go ahead and employ academic parlance for your first publication. You then will have established your bona fides, like Russell did, and henceforth you will have license to write in an understandable manner.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Portraits From Memory, "Chapter" Twenty-Six
“History As an Art,” pages 190-209
The stuff of mathematics and physics is largely for specialists, and there is little to be said for experts in these fields to try to conduct their work with an eye to pleasing the masses. But all individuals benefit from possessing the rudiments of history, and hence history must appeal to non-specialists. I [Russell] am such a non-specialist, and this chapter presents my consumer perspective on what history needs.
History is both a science and an art, though for individual writers, one or the other of these dimensions predominates. Part of the science lies in sifting through contradictory claims to ascertain facts, and even artistic historians must be faithful to facts. Scientific approaches often try to go beyond the facts, to identifying causal laws that link facts. But in history the facts themselves frequently are of more interest than the purported connections, whereas in physical sciences it is usually the other way around: how eclipses arise and the regularities that govern them are more interesting than any isolated eclipse. History and poetry share the property that what has happened (or the poem itself) is of more import than how it came about.
Causal relations in history shouldn’t be undervalued, however, even though they might not be as reliable as in physical sciences. “[A]s everybody now recognizes, supposed laws of economics have a much more temporary and local validity than was thought a hundred years ago [p. 193].” History does not offer the same vista for recurrence as astronomy does. Even previously valid relationships, like drought bringing subsequent conquest, cannot be expected to remain valid. The potential to accurately predict the consequences of the activities of Columbus, for instance, are quite limited. “For these reasons I think that scientific laws in history are neither so important nor so discoverable as is sometimes maintained [p. 194].” The grand theories (of Marx or Spengler, say) that purport to capture the past and the future march of mankind are misguided.
One interesting sidelight of history is individuals or people who somehow become detached from their original culture, and then develop along unexpected byways. Alas, one of Russell’s examples, of how the Thomas Pride whose purge of Parliament led to the execution of Charles I, was forced into American exile and lent his name to Pride’s Crossing, does not seem to comport with those facts that historians must honor.
What does history offer non-historians? Russell engages in introspection. His view of himself as but a drop in the river of existence – a view that he recommends for a happy life – developed from reading history. Learning history shows that life is not static, and that perfection is not attained, that our wisdom to date is but a small slice of what is possible. The truths we hold dear, history suggests, will not be everlasting, so we should be wary of overconfidence. Hold your beliefs with passion, but do not allow yourself to act on those beliefs in ways that will have horrendous consequences if your beliefs are wrong.(Russell is reiterating a point he made in Unpopular Essays.)
How to ensure that non-specialists maximize their benefit from reading history? First, a historical book must be written in an interesting way, so that non-specialists will read it, as they would a novel. But a historian has to care about the material in order to make it interesting, so while it is necessary to respect facts, it also helps to make judgments, to take sides, as it were, among the characters that history offers up. Historians who adopt a completely disinterested stance are dull writers. “No doubt a love of drama can lead an historian astray; but there is drama in plenty that requires no falsification, though only literary skill can convey it to the reader [p. 199].”
Word choice is one element of literary skill; technical terms should be avoided. A pleasing rhythm can be imparted by a writer who is so versed in his material that he needn’t check sources as he composes. A good style is of necessity personal, so a writer cannot succeed by aping another writer’s style. The facts have to cohere into a story, and too much rumination can destroy the vitality of the tale. “Conscientious people are apt to work too hard and to spoil their work by doing so [p. 200].” [Russell sees conscientious writers and mothers as falling into the same trap!]
Gibbon had feeling for his characters, and could imagine well what it was like to be in their presence – even if he does impose on them some 18th century straitjackets. The result is a lively chronicle, and suggests that an excellent history needs a sole authorial voice, not a committee of specialists. The growth of knowledge renders it harder for any one writer to succeed, but success remains possible and can be encouraged. The secret is a division of labor -- though not one that extends to the writing of an individual work – and standing on the shoulders of predecessors, as Gibbon did with Tillemont. The writing of large-scale history does not provide the time for much archaeological or archival research, so information from these sources must be imported from others. “Broadly speaking the amassing of facts is one thing, and the digesting of them is another [p. 201].”
Plutarch’s Lives provide an example of another type of history, that of accounts of the lives of notable individuals – perhaps a genre that now is undervalued. The turn towards history of common people has much to recommend it, and it has filled large gaps. Nevertheless, it should not involve the sacrifice of the study of heroes, or to see all great acts as being socially determined. Indeed, an insistence on societal determinism can become self-fulfilling, as it undermines the individual motivation to undertake great things. People rightly can aspire to leading significant lives, and historical studies like Plutarch’s can stir those aspirations. Even those historical personages whose significance is not of the heroic variety provide information; after all, we take instruction from fictional characters like Oedipus and Hamlet, and existence in reality offers a further advantage! “All forms of greatness, whether divine or diabolic, share a certain quality, and I do not wish to see this quality ironed out by the worship of mediocrity [p. 203].” To value the history of great figures is not to devalue the study of everyday lives, nor to embrace Carlyle’s or Nietzsche’s hero fetish. And individuals have made scientific and artistic contributions that would not have been forthcoming had those specific individuals not existed, while the value of states or other collective entities is no more than the collection of the value of their individual human constituents.
People don’t read as much as they used to, and this trend is more pronounced in the field of history. The present day is fast moving, and offers its own fascinating collection of individuals -- so history is neglected. But there is weakness on the supply side, too, as well as the demand side. Specialization and journal articles have become the historian’s stock in trade, not the ambitious broad stories of the past.
The study of history doesn’t so much provide lessons as it alters mindsets. “It is an ancient doctrine that tragedy comes of hubris, but it is none the less true for being ancient, and hubris recurs in every age among those who have forgotten the disasters to which it has always led [p. 207].” Our clever scientists are the slaves of foolish politicians, and so the work of the clever people is heralding the destruction of humanity. If the politicians understood history, they might right the course along which we are hurtling to our doom. They could learn to cooperate more, and to fear and hate less. They could learn the likelihood of the falsity of some of their cherished opinions. This wisdom exists, though it must be made readily available to both the masses and to the politicians. Oh for a Prophet to awaken men to the catastrophe to which they unwittingly sprint, and to point the way to a better path, one that will elevate mankind, not destroy it. But such a Prophet would be liquidated or ignored, so we need something other than prophesy: we need the people and their leaders in the powerful nations to recognize that they must change their course to provide hope for a future. “I believe that if men are to feel this hope with sufficient vividness to give it dynamic power, the awareness of history is one of the greatest forces of which the beneficent appeal must be felt [p. 209].”
The stuff of mathematics and physics is largely for specialists, and there is little to be said for experts in these fields to try to conduct their work with an eye to pleasing the masses. But all individuals benefit from possessing the rudiments of history, and hence history must appeal to non-specialists. I [Russell] am such a non-specialist, and this chapter presents my consumer perspective on what history needs.
History is both a science and an art, though for individual writers, one or the other of these dimensions predominates. Part of the science lies in sifting through contradictory claims to ascertain facts, and even artistic historians must be faithful to facts. Scientific approaches often try to go beyond the facts, to identifying causal laws that link facts. But in history the facts themselves frequently are of more interest than the purported connections, whereas in physical sciences it is usually the other way around: how eclipses arise and the regularities that govern them are more interesting than any isolated eclipse. History and poetry share the property that what has happened (or the poem itself) is of more import than how it came about.
Causal relations in history shouldn’t be undervalued, however, even though they might not be as reliable as in physical sciences. “[A]s everybody now recognizes, supposed laws of economics have a much more temporary and local validity than was thought a hundred years ago [p. 193].” History does not offer the same vista for recurrence as astronomy does. Even previously valid relationships, like drought bringing subsequent conquest, cannot be expected to remain valid. The potential to accurately predict the consequences of the activities of Columbus, for instance, are quite limited. “For these reasons I think that scientific laws in history are neither so important nor so discoverable as is sometimes maintained [p. 194].” The grand theories (of Marx or Spengler, say) that purport to capture the past and the future march of mankind are misguided.
One interesting sidelight of history is individuals or people who somehow become detached from their original culture, and then develop along unexpected byways. Alas, one of Russell’s examples, of how the Thomas Pride whose purge of Parliament led to the execution of Charles I, was forced into American exile and lent his name to Pride’s Crossing, does not seem to comport with those facts that historians must honor.
What does history offer non-historians? Russell engages in introspection. His view of himself as but a drop in the river of existence – a view that he recommends for a happy life – developed from reading history. Learning history shows that life is not static, and that perfection is not attained, that our wisdom to date is but a small slice of what is possible. The truths we hold dear, history suggests, will not be everlasting, so we should be wary of overconfidence. Hold your beliefs with passion, but do not allow yourself to act on those beliefs in ways that will have horrendous consequences if your beliefs are wrong.(Russell is reiterating a point he made in Unpopular Essays.)
How to ensure that non-specialists maximize their benefit from reading history? First, a historical book must be written in an interesting way, so that non-specialists will read it, as they would a novel. But a historian has to care about the material in order to make it interesting, so while it is necessary to respect facts, it also helps to make judgments, to take sides, as it were, among the characters that history offers up. Historians who adopt a completely disinterested stance are dull writers. “No doubt a love of drama can lead an historian astray; but there is drama in plenty that requires no falsification, though only literary skill can convey it to the reader [p. 199].”
Word choice is one element of literary skill; technical terms should be avoided. A pleasing rhythm can be imparted by a writer who is so versed in his material that he needn’t check sources as he composes. A good style is of necessity personal, so a writer cannot succeed by aping another writer’s style. The facts have to cohere into a story, and too much rumination can destroy the vitality of the tale. “Conscientious people are apt to work too hard and to spoil their work by doing so [p. 200].” [Russell sees conscientious writers and mothers as falling into the same trap!]
Gibbon had feeling for his characters, and could imagine well what it was like to be in their presence – even if he does impose on them some 18th century straitjackets. The result is a lively chronicle, and suggests that an excellent history needs a sole authorial voice, not a committee of specialists. The growth of knowledge renders it harder for any one writer to succeed, but success remains possible and can be encouraged. The secret is a division of labor -- though not one that extends to the writing of an individual work – and standing on the shoulders of predecessors, as Gibbon did with Tillemont. The writing of large-scale history does not provide the time for much archaeological or archival research, so information from these sources must be imported from others. “Broadly speaking the amassing of facts is one thing, and the digesting of them is another [p. 201].”
Plutarch’s Lives provide an example of another type of history, that of accounts of the lives of notable individuals – perhaps a genre that now is undervalued. The turn towards history of common people has much to recommend it, and it has filled large gaps. Nevertheless, it should not involve the sacrifice of the study of heroes, or to see all great acts as being socially determined. Indeed, an insistence on societal determinism can become self-fulfilling, as it undermines the individual motivation to undertake great things. People rightly can aspire to leading significant lives, and historical studies like Plutarch’s can stir those aspirations. Even those historical personages whose significance is not of the heroic variety provide information; after all, we take instruction from fictional characters like Oedipus and Hamlet, and existence in reality offers a further advantage! “All forms of greatness, whether divine or diabolic, share a certain quality, and I do not wish to see this quality ironed out by the worship of mediocrity [p. 203].” To value the history of great figures is not to devalue the study of everyday lives, nor to embrace Carlyle’s or Nietzsche’s hero fetish. And individuals have made scientific and artistic contributions that would not have been forthcoming had those specific individuals not existed, while the value of states or other collective entities is no more than the collection of the value of their individual human constituents.
People don’t read as much as they used to, and this trend is more pronounced in the field of history. The present day is fast moving, and offers its own fascinating collection of individuals -- so history is neglected. But there is weakness on the supply side, too, as well as the demand side. Specialization and journal articles have become the historian’s stock in trade, not the ambitious broad stories of the past.
The study of history doesn’t so much provide lessons as it alters mindsets. “It is an ancient doctrine that tragedy comes of hubris, but it is none the less true for being ancient, and hubris recurs in every age among those who have forgotten the disasters to which it has always led [p. 207].” Our clever scientists are the slaves of foolish politicians, and so the work of the clever people is heralding the destruction of humanity. If the politicians understood history, they might right the course along which we are hurtling to our doom. They could learn to cooperate more, and to fear and hate less. They could learn the likelihood of the falsity of some of their cherished opinions. This wisdom exists, though it must be made readily available to both the masses and to the politicians. Oh for a Prophet to awaken men to the catastrophe to which they unwittingly sprint, and to point the way to a better path, one that will elevate mankind, not destroy it. But such a Prophet would be liquidated or ignored, so we need something other than prophesy: we need the people and their leaders in the powerful nations to recognize that they must change their course to provide hope for a future. “I believe that if men are to feel this hope with sufficient vividness to give it dynamic power, the awareness of history is one of the greatest forces of which the beneficent appeal must be felt [p. 209].”
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Portraits From Memory, "Chapter" Twenty-Five
“A Plea for Clear Thinking,” pages 185-189
Non-human animals tend to use sounds, not facts, to express emotions, and our political speech recapitulates this atavistic phenomenon. The word "liberty" transmogrifies with every speaker, until “true liberty” as used by Hegel “amounted to little more than gracious permission to obey the police [p. 185].” The word “democracy” has become similarly unhinged, especially as used in the Eastern bloc and much of Asia. The political advantage to twisting terminology comes from the inertia associated with our emotional attachments to words.
Children should be taught to use words with precision, not to shroud them with emotional layers. Trained philosophers already do this, and it protects them against parochialism. At a philosophy conference a few years before World War II, during the casual moments, the international cast of philosophers discussed the world’s pressing political issues – and they did so respectfully and evenhandedly. “If that congress could have taken over the government of the world, and been protected by Martians from the fury of all the fanatics whom they would have outraged, they could have come to just decisions without being compelled to ignore the protests of indignant minorities among themselves [pp. 186-187].” Governments that wanted to could, through education, raise a populace of such fair-minded creatures. But governments choose to promote irrationality and envy instead.
Discussing the mathematical meaning of a word like “infinity” or the philosophical meaning of “truth” tends to take away the political loading – and politicians do not use terms in this way. Woodrow Wilson’s principle of national self-determination was flawed by not defining a “nation.” A definition would have made the meaning clear, but the arbitrary cut-off demanded for clarity would have undermined the power of Wilson’s language.
Philosophy training suggests a tool to achieve the evenhanded approach necessary for clear thinking: recast propositions from concrete to abstract form. Instead of talking about nations such as Britain or India, use placeholders such as A or B. Does the claim you examine survive when expressed in these general terms, irrespective of what country replaces the letter? This technique removes the emotional loading (connected with the specific country) from the investigation of the proposition at-hand. [Russell suggested this technique in Chapter 2 of Unpopular Essays, too.]
As noted in the previous two chapters, our unbiased thinking must be complemented with proper feeling. “Unless a wish for the general welfare exists, no amount of knowledge will inspire action calculated to promote the happiness of mankind [p. 189].” Some people, out of incorrect thinking, work in ways that do not conduce to the general welfare; they will choose to reform their behavior when their knowledge improves. A global educator who clarified those words that now produce passion could end most enmity, most strife. Today’s dispassionate observers, alas, are resisted not only by some natural human propensities, but also by assertive institutionalized intolerance. Precise thinking can be of service, even if, by itself, it cannot induce proper feeling.
Non-human animals tend to use sounds, not facts, to express emotions, and our political speech recapitulates this atavistic phenomenon. The word "liberty" transmogrifies with every speaker, until “true liberty” as used by Hegel “amounted to little more than gracious permission to obey the police [p. 185].” The word “democracy” has become similarly unhinged, especially as used in the Eastern bloc and much of Asia. The political advantage to twisting terminology comes from the inertia associated with our emotional attachments to words.
Children should be taught to use words with precision, not to shroud them with emotional layers. Trained philosophers already do this, and it protects them against parochialism. At a philosophy conference a few years before World War II, during the casual moments, the international cast of philosophers discussed the world’s pressing political issues – and they did so respectfully and evenhandedly. “If that congress could have taken over the government of the world, and been protected by Martians from the fury of all the fanatics whom they would have outraged, they could have come to just decisions without being compelled to ignore the protests of indignant minorities among themselves [pp. 186-187].” Governments that wanted to could, through education, raise a populace of such fair-minded creatures. But governments choose to promote irrationality and envy instead.
Discussing the mathematical meaning of a word like “infinity” or the philosophical meaning of “truth” tends to take away the political loading – and politicians do not use terms in this way. Woodrow Wilson’s principle of national self-determination was flawed by not defining a “nation.” A definition would have made the meaning clear, but the arbitrary cut-off demanded for clarity would have undermined the power of Wilson’s language.
Philosophy training suggests a tool to achieve the evenhanded approach necessary for clear thinking: recast propositions from concrete to abstract form. Instead of talking about nations such as Britain or India, use placeholders such as A or B. Does the claim you examine survive when expressed in these general terms, irrespective of what country replaces the letter? This technique removes the emotional loading (connected with the specific country) from the investigation of the proposition at-hand. [Russell suggested this technique in Chapter 2 of Unpopular Essays, too.]
As noted in the previous two chapters, our unbiased thinking must be complemented with proper feeling. “Unless a wish for the general welfare exists, no amount of knowledge will inspire action calculated to promote the happiness of mankind [p. 189].” Some people, out of incorrect thinking, work in ways that do not conduce to the general welfare; they will choose to reform their behavior when their knowledge improves. A global educator who clarified those words that now produce passion could end most enmity, most strife. Today’s dispassionate observers, alas, are resisted not only by some natural human propensities, but also by assertive institutionalized intolerance. Precise thinking can be of service, even if, by itself, it cannot induce proper feeling.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Portraits From Memory, "Chapter" Twenty-Four
“A Philosophy for Our Time,” pages 178-184
Philosophy is more-or-less timeless. Precisely when philosophy is most needed – in ages like the current one when wisdom is in short supply – it is perceived as being of little value. Philosophy is an aid to both our thoughts and our feelings.
Philosophy can undo the native parochialism of our vision – a parochialism of time as well as of place. History can expand our temporal horizons, and astronomy can do likewise for our physical ones. Study helps us recognize the arbitrary nature of our place in space and time. We need to be emancipated from the exigencies of our physical survival before this emancipation of our mind can occur. But when our animal needs are satisfied, the breadth of learning that philosophy offers is a reliable route to an expanded outlook.
Ruminating on the old mind or matter conundrum is the sort of exercise that “stretches the mind and makes it more receptive of new and perhaps fruitful hypotheses [p. 180].” The detachment that is requisite for philosophical thinking allows us to take a detached view of the opinions commonly held by people of our own nation, or religion, or class. We will recognize that these parochial opinions are precisely those that typically lack sufficient supporting evidence. “When one large body of men believes A, and another large body of men believes B, there is a tendency of each body to hate the other for believing anything so obviously absurd [p. 180].” We can avoid this tendency by insisting that our degree of belief in an opinion be no more certain than the evidence allows. Note how anthropology has shown us that societies can survive with practices that, in the absence of the anthropological data, we might suppose to be inconsistent with human nature.
Breadth of thinking is paralleled by breadth of feeling – a point Russell made in the previous chapter. We needn’t feel as much for strangers as we feel for our family, but our concern for family can fuel a more general benevolence. Philosophy can help supplement our existing sympathies, as it supplements our vision. “If your hopes and wishes are confined to yourself, or your family, or your nation, or your class, or the adherents of your creed, you will find that all your affections and all your kindly feelings are paralleled by dislikes and hostile sentiments [p. 182].” The resulting us-versus-them mentality drives the worst problems in the world, the wars and the cruelties; it is what stands in the way of global cooperation, while the threat of global destruction is its offspring. The elimination of wars and poverty is feasible given current technology, if we could extend our sympathies. Our absurd hostility towards others clearly undermines our own self-interest. Philosophy can help us overcome the intellectual components of this misplaced partiality, but not the emotional, fearful ones. “Frightened populations are intolerant populations [p. 183],” despite the irrationality and perversity of intolerant policies.
For real dangers, the impersonal approach that philosophy instills brings the best results. Broad interests and wide sympathies give less scope for fear; we will see ourselves, and others, as part of the river of life, one that will outlast us. [Russell is echoing his thoughts in Chapter 17 of The Conquest of Happiness. ] Constant happiness is beyond our capabilities, “but I do think that the true philosopher is less likely than others are to suffer from baffled despair and fascinated terror in the contemplation of possible disaster [p. 184].”
Philosophy is more-or-less timeless. Precisely when philosophy is most needed – in ages like the current one when wisdom is in short supply – it is perceived as being of little value. Philosophy is an aid to both our thoughts and our feelings.
Philosophy can undo the native parochialism of our vision – a parochialism of time as well as of place. History can expand our temporal horizons, and astronomy can do likewise for our physical ones. Study helps us recognize the arbitrary nature of our place in space and time. We need to be emancipated from the exigencies of our physical survival before this emancipation of our mind can occur. But when our animal needs are satisfied, the breadth of learning that philosophy offers is a reliable route to an expanded outlook.
Ruminating on the old mind or matter conundrum is the sort of exercise that “stretches the mind and makes it more receptive of new and perhaps fruitful hypotheses [p. 180].” The detachment that is requisite for philosophical thinking allows us to take a detached view of the opinions commonly held by people of our own nation, or religion, or class. We will recognize that these parochial opinions are precisely those that typically lack sufficient supporting evidence. “When one large body of men believes A, and another large body of men believes B, there is a tendency of each body to hate the other for believing anything so obviously absurd [p. 180].” We can avoid this tendency by insisting that our degree of belief in an opinion be no more certain than the evidence allows. Note how anthropology has shown us that societies can survive with practices that, in the absence of the anthropological data, we might suppose to be inconsistent with human nature.
Breadth of thinking is paralleled by breadth of feeling – a point Russell made in the previous chapter. We needn’t feel as much for strangers as we feel for our family, but our concern for family can fuel a more general benevolence. Philosophy can help supplement our existing sympathies, as it supplements our vision. “If your hopes and wishes are confined to yourself, or your family, or your nation, or your class, or the adherents of your creed, you will find that all your affections and all your kindly feelings are paralleled by dislikes and hostile sentiments [p. 182].” The resulting us-versus-them mentality drives the worst problems in the world, the wars and the cruelties; it is what stands in the way of global cooperation, while the threat of global destruction is its offspring. The elimination of wars and poverty is feasible given current technology, if we could extend our sympathies. Our absurd hostility towards others clearly undermines our own self-interest. Philosophy can help us overcome the intellectual components of this misplaced partiality, but not the emotional, fearful ones. “Frightened populations are intolerant populations [p. 183],” despite the irrationality and perversity of intolerant policies.
For real dangers, the impersonal approach that philosophy instills brings the best results. Broad interests and wide sympathies give less scope for fear; we will see ourselves, and others, as part of the river of life, one that will outlast us. [Russell is echoing his thoughts in Chapter 17 of The Conquest of Happiness. ] Constant happiness is beyond our capabilities, “but I do think that the true philosopher is less likely than others are to suffer from baffled despair and fascinated terror in the contemplation of possible disaster [p. 184].”
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Portraits From Memory, "Chapter" Twenty-Three
“Knowledge and Wisdom,” pages 173-177
That knowledge has increased though wisdom has not is a common observation. But what is wisdom? In part, it involves taking a balanced view of an issue, where the weights attached to different elements are appropriate. As professional specialization intensifies, the resulting narrowness of expertise makes this component of wisdom harder to come by. The problem is closely connected with unanticipated and undesirable consequences, as when inquiry into the nature of the atom eventually gave lunatics the power to destroy humanity. Wisdom likewise requires that breadth of knowledge be matched by breadth of feeling, so that understanding and empathy extends beyond our own narrow (or national) circle.
Private relations need wisdom as much as public affairs do. People can be at odds with each other through a version of what now [i.e. 2012] we would term the fundamental attribution error. Convincing personal enemies that their rivals are not particularly wicked, though they may seem so, would lead to an uptick in wisdom.
“I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and the now [p. 175].” We start as fully solipsistic infants, and maturity (and wisdom) broadens our horizons. We can learn about things that are remote, and wisdom requires that we do so, and that we then give remote effects sufficient weight in our decision making. The evolution towards impartiality is simultaneously the path of wisdom. This type of wisdom can and should be taught. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is a step in the right direction, though we must extend the meaning of neighbor to Communist or some other detested type.
But what if those whom we hate are evil doers? Must we love them and allow them to threaten us? No. But if we want our resistance to be effective and beneficial, it “should be combined with the greatest degree of understanding and the smallest degree of force that is compatible with the survival of the good things that we wish to preserve [p. 176].” Great leaders like Elizabeth I and Abraham Lincoln have possessed these elements of wisdom, and not been in thrall to the common errors of their times.
The dire consequences (visited upon their possessors) of hate and tunnel vision should be imparted in the course of education. While specialized skills need to be taught, and moral education will not feature in this pragmatic education, nonetheless, the broader context in which specialization operates needs to be conveyed. The increasing power of what can be accomplished (or destroyed) via specialization puts a premium on instilling wisdom.
That knowledge has increased though wisdom has not is a common observation. But what is wisdom? In part, it involves taking a balanced view of an issue, where the weights attached to different elements are appropriate. As professional specialization intensifies, the resulting narrowness of expertise makes this component of wisdom harder to come by. The problem is closely connected with unanticipated and undesirable consequences, as when inquiry into the nature of the atom eventually gave lunatics the power to destroy humanity. Wisdom likewise requires that breadth of knowledge be matched by breadth of feeling, so that understanding and empathy extends beyond our own narrow (or national) circle.
Private relations need wisdom as much as public affairs do. People can be at odds with each other through a version of what now [i.e. 2012] we would term the fundamental attribution error. Convincing personal enemies that their rivals are not particularly wicked, though they may seem so, would lead to an uptick in wisdom.
“I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and the now [p. 175].” We start as fully solipsistic infants, and maturity (and wisdom) broadens our horizons. We can learn about things that are remote, and wisdom requires that we do so, and that we then give remote effects sufficient weight in our decision making. The evolution towards impartiality is simultaneously the path of wisdom. This type of wisdom can and should be taught. Loving our neighbor as ourselves is a step in the right direction, though we must extend the meaning of neighbor to Communist or some other detested type.
But what if those whom we hate are evil doers? Must we love them and allow them to threaten us? No. But if we want our resistance to be effective and beneficial, it “should be combined with the greatest degree of understanding and the smallest degree of force that is compatible with the survival of the good things that we wish to preserve [p. 176].” Great leaders like Elizabeth I and Abraham Lincoln have possessed these elements of wisdom, and not been in thrall to the common errors of their times.
The dire consequences (visited upon their possessors) of hate and tunnel vision should be imparted in the course of education. While specialized skills need to be taught, and moral education will not feature in this pragmatic education, nonetheless, the broader context in which specialization operates needs to be conveyed. The increasing power of what can be accomplished (or destroyed) via specialization puts a premium on instilling wisdom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)