Sceptical Essays by Bertrand Russell (October 2018)
Bertrand Russell’s Skeptical Essays introduced me to the 20th century Englishman’s philosophy and the collection is dense with essays describing many of his most well known ideas. A key section of this work set Russell’s three ground rules for skepticism. First, agree whenever the experts are in unanimous agreement. Second, do not accept any opinion with certainty whenever the experts disagree. And finally, when the experts agree to disagree, suspend your own judgment.
These ground rules helped me apply his insight that thinking is fully free so long as the competition among all beliefs remains open and there are no advantages for holding one belief or another. By understanding how to use the wisdom and knowledge of experts as a reference point, a thinker can efficiently identify the best subjects to apply his or her mental energy. It also helps determine when opposition to a belief is honest from an intellectual perspective because comparing a point of view to the consensus of the experts reveals whether there is any political, social, or selfish benefit for maintaining a certain worldview.
A common theme in these essays is how ideas can shape institutions as a means of building a stronger society. Russell notes that politicians who wish to serve through government must recognize how passions excite people and create energy. A good politician harnesses these passions and helps people funnel them into productive activity without letting people harm themselves (or the politician’s platform).
I compared this thought to a couple other observations to form a conclusion about young politicians. First, the young tend to overestimate their ability to persuade others to act reasonably. Second, in general those who believe in rational opinions ahead of their passions will often completely dismiss the importance of passion as a motivator. I took these thoughts to conclude that the biggest threat to a young (or perhaps just inexperienced) politician’s success is relying too much on logic and not recognizing the importance of connecting to a voter’s passions or feelings.
One up: Russell makes many observations about education that I intend to cover in an upcoming post. For now, I’d like to highlight two of his chief complaints.
First, he notes that memorization is widely known to have no effect on training the memory. He asks - why do we then spend so much time having students memorize? I suppose he answers his own question in another section when he suggests that spelling ability is merely one of many ways a snob separates the educated from the uneducated.
One down: I enjoyed the statement that a belief should be considered true if it helps promote life and achieve our desires. However, I suspect this idea can prove harmful at a community level if individuals rely on it as a central principle to guide their own lives. A community can fight off the selfish impulse baked into the concept by learning to harness group desires ahead of individual urges. A shared lifestyle of harmonious cooperation can result as long as groups place universal dreams, goals, and desires ahead of those of any one individual.
Just saying: The point that modern society respects anyone who works every day without considering the harm certain employers bring to society is an important example of the way our present-day mentality challenges our capacity to succeed in the future. The approach I prefer is to find ways to respect those who do not disappear into a workspace for eight hours every day. This would give those who know best the harm caused by a given employer – the employees – an alternative to their current lifestyle that does not risk disrespect from the surrounding community.
Footnotes / endnote
0. Good men? Apparently, they do a lot of harm...
Although I enjoyed many of his essays, I only chose to reread one, ‘The Harm That Good Men Do’. Somewhat to my surprise, I found I didn’t enjoy it as much on the second pass. I suspect this had to do with how much I enjoyed the fresh quality of Russell’s ideas and the fact that his writing didn’t capture my imagination in the same way once I established familiarity with his thinking.
