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Living in an Atomic Age 53 -05-19 (2) Obsolete Ideas
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Living in an Atomic Age 53 -05-19 (2) Obsolete Ideas
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- [00:01]
Nicole Byer
We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair's got style tips for Every home. This is Nicole Fire helping you make those rooms. Flyer Today's style tip when it comes to making a statement, treat bold patterns like neutrals. Go wild like an untamed animal. Print area rug under a rustic farmhouse table. From wayfair.com Ooh, fierce. This has been your Wayfair style tip to keep those interiors superior.
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Bertrand Russell
Wayfair Every style, every home In a.
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Ted Malone
Moment, ABC presents the second lecture in the series by famous philosopher author Bertrand Russell on living in an atomic age. And a little later this evening, be sure to hear the story of the coronation on abc. Ted Malone and producer Blevins Davis are in London collecting fascinating facts and human interest stories. Tonight they describe the regalia of the coronation, the scarlet and gold coach, the jewel encrusted crowns, the special robes. Our coronation reporters also interview the persons responsible for these royal props, silversmiths, jewelers and coachmen, as well as the Duke of Norfolk, who is in charge of all coronation details. Don't miss another exciting story of the coronation tonight on abc, in cooperation with the British Broadcasting Corporation, the public affairs department of the American Broadcasting Company presents the second in a series of six transcribed lectures entitled Living in an Atomic Age by the distinguished English philosopher, mathematician, sociologist and author Bertrand Russell. The subject of the second lecture is Obsolete Ideas.
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Bertrand Russell
Lord Russell Human beings, ever since their fathers invented language, have allowed themselves to be dominated by tradition. This has been at once the main cause of progress and the main obstacle to progress. Consider it first as a cause of progress. Where should we be if each generation had to invent reading, writing and arithmetic for itself? How should we get on if arts and crafts were not handed on? Even in the most progressive age, much the greater part of our activity is and must be based upon tradition. We may rebel against our parents narrow mindedness, but we can only rise above them by standing on their shoulders. But although respect for tradition and obedience to custom are necessary up to a point, most societies have carried them much too far and some have brought themselves to destruction by this sole defect. Human beings change their ways much more quickly than animals do. Civilized men change their ways more quickly than uncivilized men, and modern civilized men change their ways more quickly than civilized men of former ages. Civilized societies during the last hundred and fifty years have radically transformed their physical environment, the methods by which they secure a livelihood, and the apparatus of comfort over and above the minimum necessary for survival. The prime cause of these changes has been A vast increase of knowledge and skill the new techniques in the material realm demand, if they are to bring their full benefit, in increase of human welfare, an accompaniment of new mental habits. It is in this respect, more than in any other that our world falls short. In an age of machines and skilled scientific production, we retain the feelings and many of the beliefs that were appropriate to the ages of scarcity and primitive agriculture. The need of new political and social ideas is due to our increase of efficiency, both for good and evil. In the old days, many things that are now possible could not be achieved by any known means. Extreme poverty for the great majority was unavoidable. Population perpetually pressed upon the limits of subsistence, except where it was catastrophically diminished by famine or pestilence. Wars created aristocracies of conquerors who lived without compunction upon the labour of the vanquished. It was not until the French Revolution that this system began to be superseded by one involving less general misery. Now, in certain important Western countries, extreme poverty has almost disappeared. Famine is unknown, large scale pestilences have yielded to medical science, and a low birth rate has made it possible to preserve a high level of prosperity when it has been reached. All this is new in human history. Struggle, fight, starvation and premature death have been the lot of the great majority of human beings ever since there were human beings just as they were the lot of the animals before them. The fundamental source of this beneficent revolution is scientific production and the scientific habit of mind which has given rise to it. Two other things besides scientific methods of production have been necessary, namely democracy and a low birth rate. But these by themselves would not have been sufficient, and would scarcely have been possible without science, except for brief periods in exceptional circumstances. Though not sufficient to produce a happy community, they are necessary, and machine industry without them may lead to a new form of serfdom quite as dreadful as anything in the gloomy annals of the past. We hear much about the Western way of life and the need of defending it against the Eastern menace. But few in the west are clear as to the essentials of the Western way of life, or as to what makes it worth defending. If we were clear about this, our propaganda would be more effective, and we should have less need than we have at present to depend upon military might as our sole protection. What the west has discovered, though as yet the realization is incomplete, is a method by which practically everybody can have as much of material goods as is conducive to happiness without excessive hours of labour and with that degree of mental culture that is needed to make leisure delightful. This is rendered possible by the fact that one man's work can now produce much more than is required for one man's subsistence. But as yet this system has only a precarious life. It is threatened from without by those whom envy renders destructive, and it is threatened from within by those who are still under the domination of beliefs and passions appropriate to a bygone age. The kernel of these beliefs and passions is the struggle for life, where this struggle is now still necessary. It is necessary because men are misguided, not because nature is niggardly. In former times, if two men each wished to live on the produce of a piece of land which only yielded enough for one, they must either both starve or fight till one was killed. In practice, it was not single men who fought, but groups of men called successively tribes, nations, coalitions, or United Nations. These considerations apply to the present east west tension. The Russians believe, whether sincerely or not, that they can only prosper by first ruining the West. The west, not unnaturally, concludes that it can only survive by I will not for a moment deny that while these reciprocal sentiments exist, they make themselves true. If A and B each know that the other is after him with a pistol, they may consider general maxims about the desirability of co operation irrelevant. The question for each reduces itself to the very simple one, which of us will kill the other first? But the difference between their interests is caused by their sentiments, not by any external natural cause. And so it is with the public enmities in the modern world. They have no justification in economic fact or sober self interest, but result solely from the surviving pugnacity of mankind, which once served a purpose that is now merely antiquated. If Russia and the west each became convinced that the other had no hostile intentions, each would be spared all the expense of armaments. Each would derive benefits from reciprocal commerce each would escape from the dread of the atomic bomb and the destruction of large parts of the population. The motives of self interest which on each side promote hostile feeling, are merely a reflection of the exactly identical motives of self interest of the other side, and are based on each side upon the assumption that the other side is irrationally inclined. Of course, human nature being what it is, this naked analysis would seem shocking to both sides. Whoever hostility exists, however obsolete, may be its sources. It appears on both sides as a great moral crusade in which it is the duty of every true man to uphold high ethical ideals. But all this is merely a part of the psychological camouflage by which Homo sapiens conceals from himself his own lack of wisdom. We cannot blame governments for our troubles, nor can they be cured by merely governmental action. What is needed is a change in the ordinary outlook of ordinary people. The change that is wanted is sometimes thought to be a moral change. But my own belief is that nothing is required beyond a just estimate of self interest. I know that it is difficult to rouse enthusiasm for such a view. Suppose you said to a population, if you pursue course, a half of you will die in agony half and the other half will live in squalor. Whereas if you pursue course B, you will all prosper. And suppose that on this basis you conducted a great political campaign. What do you think would happen? All the earnest moralists would rise up and say, sir, your aims are base. There are more important things than material prosperity. Should a great nation shrink from suffering if it is incurred in a noble cause? Was it by such degraded self thinking that our ancestors made our nation great? Perish the thought away with money grubbers. Let us live like heroes, and if fate so wills it, die like heroes. You will find that you are completely powerless against the mass hysteria so generated. You will find men pointing the finger of scorn at you as a coward, and you will be lucky if your cowardice does not lead to your being lynched. While the thousands who are lynching you can rest their inflexible courage with your baseball troopery. The popular fear of intelligence is one of the great dangers of our times. If teachers and educational authorities had more understanding of this sort of person, of the sort of person the modern world needs, they could, within a generation, produce an outlook that would transform the world. But their ideal of character is an old fashioned one. They admire most the sort of character which would give a man leadership in a gang of pirates. And if you say that commerce is a different thing from piracy, they think you are soft and hope you are mistaken. All this is due to the persistence of old martial ideas that were descended to us from earlier ages. These ideas, I repeat, were appropriate to an age of unavoidable scarcity, but are not applicable to our own times, when whatever scarcity still exists is due to human stupidity and nothing else. Consider the application of such a mentality to international banking and you will not be surprised by the Great Depression which it produced while it rained unchecked, nor by the belief of the Nazis that the Depression would be curbed if only enough Jews were exterminated, nor by the Russian belief that we should all be rich if all the rich men were liquidated. None of these mistakes would have been made by men in whom intelligence was capable of controlling passion. None of them would have been made by men who understood that when different groups have different intelligence, it is because of unwise passions and not because of any physical fact. If we are to live happily with a modern technique, and it is possible for modern technique to bring a far higher level of happiness than was formerly possible, we must vanish certain ideas and substitute certain others for love of domination. We must substitute justice for brutality. We must substitute intelligence for competition. We must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family and further our common interests by the intelligent use of natural resources, marching together towards prosperity, not separately towards death and destruction. The mental change required is difficult and will not be achieved in a moment. But if the need is recognized by educators, and if the young are brought up as citizens of this world, and not a bygone world of predatory warriors, the change can be achieved within a generation, so that we may hope to save at least a portion of mankind from the universal destruction with which we are threatened by the pursuit of obsolete ideas.
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Ted Malone
You have just heard the second in a series of six lectures by Bertrand Russell entitled Living in an Atomic Age. Be sure to listen next week when the third lecture will be presented by Lord Russell on the subject the Modern Mastery of Nature. This has been a transcribed feature of the Public Affairs Department of the American Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the British Broadcasting Corporation. This program was presented from New York. This is ABC Radio Network.
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Nicole Byer
We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair's got Style tips for every home. This is Nicole Byer helping you make those rooms Flyer Today's Style Tip when it comes to making a statement, treat bold patterns like neutrals. Go wild like an untamed animal. Print area rug under a rustic farmhouse table from wayfair.com Ooh fierce. This has been your Wayfair style tip to keep those interiors superior.
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Bertrand Russell
Wayfair Every style Every home why choose.
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Bertrand Russell
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