Bernard Shaw said, “Hamlet is a half-dozen
characters rolled into one”, the same can be said of Bertrand Russell who is a
mathematician,
philosopher,
logician,
writer/Nobel laureate (in
literature),
atheist, and
advocate for social reform/
pacifist.
Noble and
aristocratic origin
He was born into an aristocratic family; his grand
father, John Russell, 1
st Earl Russell, was twice the Prime Minister
for Queen Victoria. He was left an orphan at age of 3 and was raised by his
grand parents. Queen
Victoria
once stopped by to visit his grand father and Bertrand Russell was sitting on
the Queen Victoria’s lap. I’ll quote some of his family myth of interest; he
wrote in his autobiography:
"
Edith [his 4th wife, an American,
as was his 1st wife] and I each had family myths to relate.
Mine began with Henry VIII, of whom the founder of my family had been a
protégé, watching on his Mount for the signal of Anne Boleyn’s death at the
Tower. It continued to my grandfather’s speech in 1815, urging (before Waterloo) that Napoleon
should not be opposed. Next came his visit to Elba
[where Napoleon was exiled to], in which Napoleon was affable and tweaked his
ear. . . ."
He succeeded to the earldom in 1931 when his
brother died; he wouldn’t use the title except when strictly necessary for
formal occasions. Friends asked Alfred North Whitehead (Russell’s
teacher/colleague/friend) how to call him, Whitehead answered, “
Well, it is
difficult to say, I always call him Berti.” In a letter to his publisher
friend, Russell wrote,
“
You will have seen my brother died suddenly in Marseilles, I inherit
from him a title, but not a penny, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great
nuisance to me, as I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it
employed in connection with any of my literary work.”
Alfred North
Whitehead: mentor, colleague, collaborator, and friend
 |
| an excellent book |
Thanks to Harry and Peggy’s giving me
Dialogues
of Alfred North Whitehead, I came to know Bertrand Russell.
Whitehead and Russell collaborated on the epochal
Principia Mathematica.
Whitehead was 11 years his senior and recruited him to the elite, prestigious
and intellectual Apostles Society at
Cambridge
University. Russell
at one time moved into Whitehead’s house working on the
Principia
Mathematica, the 1
st of 3 volumes was published in 1910. (Carnegie Library does have these books, bur are considered reference books and are not allowed to be checked out.)
But, the difference in temperament and political
view pulled them apart. In his autobiography (Volume II, 1914-1944) he
wrote, “
The first days of the war [WWI] were utterly amazing. My best
friends, such as the Whiteheads, were savagely warlike.”
While serving a six-months imprisonment in 1918
for his pacifistic action, Russell wrote a letter to the Whiteheads whose
youngest son, Eric, was killed serving in the Royal Flying Corps. (the letter
didn’t survive) Mrs. Whitehead, Evelyn, replied,
“. . .
Hearts don’t break so here we are; indeed,
I will try to make life sweet still for North and Jessie, but I am not clever
at facing it without my Eric. . . I cannot tell you about Alfred, he looks much
older. . . Dear Bertie, which ever one of us you prefer to see will go; just
choose the one who will best fit your mood—You will hold out—old friendships
strain but do not break. Later on we will talk of all this time of
divergence and of my beloved Eric—With dear love from us all, Yours affectionately
. . .”
In his biography,
The Life of Bertrand Russell
(by Ronald Clark), it was mentioned that Russell and Mrs. Whitehead, Evelyn,
might have something romantic more than affectionate friendship. Russell
kept silent in his 3-volumes autobiography, but in one of his letters to
Ottoline Morrell (his “soul mate” so to speak), with whom he had a long affair,
he wrote,
“
Much my strongest affection after my love for you
is affection for Mrs. Whitehead. This is rooted in years of difficult and very painful cooperation in tasks which both think very important—chiefly
keeping Whitehead from knowledge of things which upset his balance. It is
not a feeling in which there is anything to cause you jealousy but it is quite
indestructible and very deep."
When Alfred Whitehead died in 1947, Evelyn burnt
all the letters Bertrand Russell wrote to Alfred or her.
Why I
am not a Christian
– by Bertrand Russell 1927
Russell lectured at
Peking University
for one year in 1920.
It
is reputed that both Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai attended his lectures.
During his visit to China, 趙元任 was his translator,
accompanying him traveling across China.
He wrote in his autobiography,
“
I was told that the Chinese said that they would
bury me by the Western Lake
西湖,
and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did
not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for
an atheist.”
His letter to Colette or Ottoline (both had affair
with Russell) echoed his eerie sentiment.
“
I have missed much by not dying here, as the
Chinese were going to have given me a terrific funeral in Central Park;
then bury me on an island in the Western Lake 西湖,
where the greatest poets and emperors lived, died and were buried.
Probably I should have become a God. What an opportunity missed.”
When asked what he would say to God if he found
himself before Him, Russell answered, “
I should reproach him for not giving us
enough evidence.”
Many of the great minds whose work attract me are
all atheists: Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehaed (an
agnostic at one time), Richard Dawkins, James Watson, Francis Crick, Lin
Yu-Tong, . . . the list goes on. The thought of it at times frightened me
until one day it dawned on me that I was attracted by their being among the
greatest intellectuals in general, not by their atheistic views in
particular. They are men of courage, of superman power; they are
superhuman being, and not the ordinary mortals. They can be sustained in
times of sorrow without the mercy and comfort of the Almighty; they can “
walk
through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil’ even though they do
not feel “
thou art with them.”
Reading science is to seek the ‘
truth’ of Nature, and that of
humanity/literature,
beauty of life
and yet neither science nor art can provide the
strength
or
comfort in time of sorrow and trial,
which comes from the merciful Almighty, and that is where religion/faith comes
into play.
Immoral personal
life for one with strong moral conviction
He was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950
(Churchill was his runner-up then, and had to wait another 3 years for his
laurel) “In recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he
champions humantarian ideals and freedom of thoughts.” He fought
ferociously with force and style for his strong moral conviction, however
unconventional and unpopular it might be.
However, it is ironic, in my view, that his
personal life leaves a lot to be desired as far as the morality goes.
While reading his biography and autobiography, it is not a small task to keep
track his four marriages and numerous affairs/liaisons that include Lady
Ottoline Morrell, Colette (Lady Constance Malleson), T.S. Eliot’s wife, the
list goes on.
He went to
China with Dora Black (his former
student and eventually 2
nd wife) in 1920 while still marrying to his
first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith (an American quaker). During his one-year
stay in
China,
he got Dora pregnant while writing love letters to both Ottoline and Colette
staying behind in
England.
He probably should have listened to the lyric of
Jolene (by Dolly
Paton) “
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I 'm begging of you, please don't take
my man even though you can.” Something you don't do it just because you
can. On emerging from his delirium (from pneumonia) his first action was
to write to Ottoline:
Dear O,
I am just able to write again so I want to tell
you how profoundly you have been in my thoughts all this strange time. I
am told I tried to write to you during my delirium but of course I could only
produce a meaningless
scrawl. . . . My
most true love, B
His affair with Ottoline began at a dinner’s
invitation by the Morrells and her husband, Philip, was unexpectedly called
away, and after dinner Russell and Ottoline sat talking over the fire until
four in the morning. Russell wrote recording the event, “I did not know I
love you till I heard myself telling you so.”
He didn’t admit some of the affairs in his
autobiography (He might be brutely honest at time, he is still no Jean Jacques
Rousseau after all and was not writing a
Confession), he wrote, “
I
became great friends with him [T.S. Eliot], and subsequently with his wife,
whom he married early in 1915. As they were desperately poor, I lent them
one of the two bedrooms in my flat, with the result that I saw a great deal of
them. I was fond of them both, and endeavoured to help them in their
troubles until I discovered that their troubles were what they enjoyed.”
T. S. Eliot was Russell’s student when he was lecturing at Harvard, as J.
Robert Oppenheimer ('Oppei') was Alfred North Whitehead's, also at Harvard.
Russell, not a
man without blemish
Russell is not a man without blemish; he might
twist the fact or conveniently ignored evidence to make his point.
He was denied a passport to lecture at
Harvard in 1916, upon hearing the news he wrote, “
I loathed the
thought of the exile. But you cannot imagine how it infuriates
me as a piece of tyranny. I want a fuss made about it. I want it pointed out that I was going to teach logic that the Government thinks logic wd. put America against us.” The fact
is that Professor Woods of Harvard Philosophy Department explicitly stated on
his invitation that the courses based on his political views of War would be
included.
Woods also made arrangement of lecture-engagements
at half a dozen other universities, and only
University of Michigan
wanted Russell only on philosophy, “owing to the strong local feeling for the
Allies”.
He wrote in his autobiography (Volume 3,
1944-1969),
“
When I was called to Stockholm, at the end of 1950, to receive the
Nobel Prize—somewhat to my surprise, for literature, for my book Marriage and Morals—I was apprehensive,
since I remembered that, exactly three hundred years earlier, Descartes had
been called to Scandinavia by Queen Christina
in the wintertime and had died of cold.”
I read the Nobel presentation speech, which
emphasizes he ‘champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”
Several of his nearly 100 books were mentioned including
A History
of Western Philosophy, but not
Marriage and Morals (1929) in
which he expressed very liberal views that shocked his contemporaries or even
the fainthearted of our time. He argued that “
a lapse into sexual
unfaithfulness by either married partner should not, necessarily, be a ground
for divorce.” (from his Biography) Admittedly, he might be just ahead of his
time; some of his proposals in the book were made into laws in
England.
If you can read only one book of his, pick
A
History of Western Philosophy, you’ll be ‘entertained’ intellectually.
(I use 'entertain' instead of 'enlighten', as it may be more enticing to get
one to read.) It was a ‘best seller’ in
America when it was published in
1946. Russell wrote, “
I had no idea it would have a success which, none
of my other books have had, even, for a time, shining high upon the
Americanlist of best sellers.”
No pacifist can
survive Hitler, not even Bertrand Russell
He was a staunch pacifist during the WWI, but he
realized there will be no peace as long as Hitler is around; he wrote,
". . .
But Hitler’s Germany was a
different matter. I found the Nazis utterly revolting—cruel, bigoted, and
stupid. Morally and intellectually they were alike odious to me.
Although I clung to my pacifist convictions, I did so with increasing
difficulty. When, in 1940, England was threatened with
invasion, I realized that, throughout the First War, I had never seriously
envisaged the possibility of utter defeat. I found this possibility
unbearable, and at last consciously and definitely decided that I must support
what was necessary for victory in the Second War, however difficult victory
might be to achieve, and however painful in its consequence."
In a letter to a friend, he wrote on
Dec 22, 1939, “
I try hard
to remain a pacifist, but the thought of Hitler and Stalin triumphant is hard
to bear.”
To the same friend, he wrote on
May 19, 1940, “
Perhaps it
would have been better if the Kaiser had won, seeing Hitler is so much worse.
I find that this time I am not a pacifist, and consider the future of
civilization bound up with our victory. I don’t think anything so
important has happened since the fifth century, the previous occasion on which
the Germans reduced the world to barbarism.” He was talking like a
Churchill!
He was an outspoken critic of the American
military intervention in Viet-Nam (and, for sure,
Iraq, if he were still with
us.) This is his broadcast after the explosion of the first hydrogen
bomb, “
Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the
way lies open to a new paradise: If you can not, nothing lies before you
but universal daeth.”
In the end,
Russell prevailed and the true character shown on those supported him in time
of trials
Being an atheist, pacifist and political activist
advocating provacative, unpopular, liberal, or revolutionary views on all
things, Russell ran into trouble at all times: imprisonment twice,
dismissals from Trinity College (in 1916 and was reappointed in 1944) and the
City College of New York. But, in the end, he prevailed. He was
bestowed on the honors of the Order of Merit (
OM)
in 1949 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.
During the debacle of the
City College
affair in 1940, John Dewey, Whitehead and many other academics came to Russell’s
defense. Aldous Huxley sent him a letter.
Dear Bertie:
Symapthy,
I am afraid, can’t do much good; but I feel I must tell you how much I feel for
you and Peter in the midst of the obscene outcry that has broken out around
your name in New York.
Aldous
Huxley
When the Student Council of the
City College
sent him a letter of support, Russell replied,
“
I am very happy to have the support of the
student council in the fight. Old York
was the first place where Christianity was the state religion, and it was there
that Constantine
assumed the purple. Perhaps New
York will be the last place to have this honor. . . “
“
I am afraid that if and when I take up my duties
at the City College you will all be disappointed to
find me a very mild and inoffensive person, totally destitute of horns and
hoofs.”
In a long letter, John Dewey wrote,
“ . . .
If men are going to be kept out of
American colleges because they express unconventional, unorthodox or even unwise
views (but who is to be the judge of wisdom or lack of wisdom?) on political,
economic, social, or moral matters, . . . I am heartily glad my own teaching
days have come to an end.”
When Russell was reappointed as a Fellow at the
Trinity College, Whitehead sent him a letter on
Jan. 3, 1944, saying “ . . .
Our warmest congratulations. It is exactly
what ought to have happened.”
Bertie is a
fervid egoist
“
Bertie is a fervid egoist.” Virginia Woolf wrote
in her diary about her friend. What a great observation! Russell's
own assessment, “
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have
governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and
unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
He died of influenza on
February 2, 1970 at age of 98—a long,
arduous life, “not entirely uneventful.” as Churchill spoke of his own.
