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bertrand russell He may have lived a long life interested in big topics like logic, mathematics, politics, and society, but that prevents him from thinking seriously about how he handles his own day-to-day relationships. It wasn’t something. That doesn’t mean he treated all such relationships completely coolly. Look at his three divorces. The first of these divorces was formalized in 1921, when he married his sweetheart Dora Black. The couple, who had similar bohemian reformer ideals and would eventually have two children, founded the 1927 He founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in .
A few years later, Russell published his “Ten Commandments” in a culture magazine. EverymanYou can read the full text here. This 1978 issue Russell Society News. (Proceed to the second page.)
“I think we all have our own list of virtues that we try to practice, and when we fail to practice them, we feel ashamed, completely independent of what others think, as far as conscious thought is concerned. ” he writes by way of introduction. “I have listed the virtues that we should wish for. Possession in the form of chapter ten is as follows:
- Don’t lie to yourself.
- Do not lie to others unless you are acting under oppression.
- When you feel it is your duty to inflict pain, examine why.
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When you desire power, examine yourself to see why you deserve it.
- When you have power, use it to build people up, not oppress them.
- Trying to live without vanity is impossible, so choose the right audience for your admiration.
- Don’t think of yourself as a completely self-contained unit.
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Trust me.
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Be right.
- Please be kind.
In the full text, Russell details the ideas behind each of these virtues. “When you want to believe in a theological or political doctrine that will increase your income, if you’re not very careful, the arguments for it will outweigh the arguments against it.” Therefore, it’s important not to lie to yourself. . When it comes to lying to others, not only should the government tell the public the truth, but “parents should tell their children the truth, even if it seems inconvenient.” And in families as well as nations, “the intelligent but weak cannot be expected to abandon the use of their intellect in a conflict with the foolish but strong.”
Russell’s fifth commandment also applies to the relationship between old and young. Because “those who deal with young people necessarily have power, and that power is easy to exercise in ways that please the educator rather than to the benefit of the child.” And his eighth commandment is, “Time “suggestion of a series of humble but necessary virtues, such as keeping one’s faith, keeping one’s promises, keeping one’s plans involving other people, and refraining from betrayal, even in its mildest form.” are. Sadly, “I believe that modern education has deemphasized discipline and is therefore unable to produce human beings who can be trusted with respect to their social obligations.”
They write that this “normative emphasis, especially on the merits of some humble virtues, may have been influenced by the practical experience of progressive education at the time.” Bertrand Russell’s collection of papers Edited by Andrew Bourne. But Russell continued to revise long after he left Beacon Hill School in 1932, and the world situation of the following decades forced him to revise it for what he considered a liberal worldview. I encouraged them to take advantage of it. One version broadcast on the BBC in 1951 included: “Never be absolutely certain of anything,” “Take more pleasure in intelligent dissent than passive agreement,” and “Pernicious Don’t use your power to suppress an opinion that you think will oppress you – many of the students of the past few generations may have successfully internalized all of this.
Related content:
Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy
Bertrand Russell: Authority and the Individual (1948)
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
