#Letter to Bertrand Russell

[philosophybits]

Shall I get anything out??! It would be awful if I did not and all my work would be lost. However I am not losing courage and go on thinking … I very often now have the indescribable feeling as though my work was all sure to be lost entirely in some way or other. But I still hope that this won’t come true.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Letter to Bertrand Russell (5 September 1913)"

[vox-anglosphere]

Bertrand Russell was Britain's leading intellectual of the 20th century

[wittgensteining]

Ludwig Wittgenstein meeting Bertrand Russell for the first time aka when an unstoppable force (uber autism) met an immovable object (peak neurotypical)

[torchlitinthedesert]

Kenneth Tynan and the Beatles

Shout out to @mmgth for noticing Beatle mentions in the letters of Kenneth Tynan - including working with John Lennon, Paul's 1960s reputation, and glimpses of the breakup. (Alas, no George or Ringo.)

Tynan was a drama critic and later worked with Laurence Olivier at Britain's National Theatre. Philip Norman calls him "the most rigorous cultural commentator of his age": he championed working class plays in the 1950s, supported progressive art (and was widely believed to be the first person to say "fuck" on British television). So he's an interesting perspective: well connected, arty, eager for cultural change, but from an older generation, and outside the immediate rock/pop world.

The first mention is 1966, when Tynan is already working at the National Theatre.

28 September 1966

Dear Mr McCartney,

Playing 'Eleanor Rigby' last night for about the 500th time, I decided to write and tell you how terribly sad I was to hear that you had decided not to do As You Like It for us. There are four or five tracks on 'Revolver' that are as memorable as any English songs of this century - and the maddening thing is that they are all in exactly the right mood for As You like It. Apart from 'E. Rigby' I am thinking particularly of 'For No One' and 'Here, There and Everywhere'. (Incidentally, 'Tomorrow Never Knows' is the best musical evocation of L.S.D. I have ever heard).

To come to the point: won't you reconsider? John Dexter [theatre director] doesn't know I'm writing this - it's pure impulse on the part of a fan. We don't need you as a gimmick because we don't need publicity: we need you simply because you are the best composer of that kind of song in England. If Purcell were alive, we would probably ask him, but it would be a close thing. Anyway, forgive me for being a pest, but do please think it over."

Paul replied that he couldn't do the music because, hilariously, "I don't really like words by Shakespeare" - he sat waiting for a "clear light" but nothing happened. He ended, "Maybe I could write the National Theatre Stomp sometime! Or the ballad of Larry O."

It's interesting that Tynan approaches Paul individually - because they had theatre connections in common? Or did Tynan assume that John wrote the words and Paul the music, so Paul's the guy to ask for settings of Shakespeare lyrics? (Though he does correctly identify Paul songs in his letter, plus the musical setting of Tomorrow Never Knows, so he might just be asking because he's a Paul girl. He also wants Paul to know that he's cool and hip and has done acid.)

Tynan definitely is a Paul girl. On 7 November that year, he pitched possible articles (I think for Playboy). He offers articles on the War Crimes Tribunal (set up by Bertrand Russell on the US in Vietnam), an interview with Marlene Dietrich, or:

"Interview with Paul McCartney - to me, by far the most interesting of the Beatles, and certainly the musical genius of the group."

It's a reminder of how drastically Paul's reputation changed, between cultural commentators of the 1960s and post-breakup.

Tynan didn't get his Paul interview, but he worked twice with John.

On 5 February 1968, he's sorting out practical details for the National Theatre's company manager about about the stage adapation of John's book In His Own Write (which had already had a preview performance in 1967). It's a very Beatle-y affair:

Victor Spinetti and John Lennon will need the services of George Martin, the Beatles A & R man to prepare a sound tape to accompany the Lennon play. Martin did this tape as a favour for the Sunday night production, but something more elaborate will be required when the show enters the rep, and I feel he should be approached on a professional basis as Sound Consultant, or some similar title. I have written to him to find out if he is ready to help and will let you know as soon as he replies.

...John Lennon says that as far as his own contract is concerned, we should deal directly with him at NEMS rather than his publisher.

So John prefers to work within the Beatle structure: George Martin, Victor Spinetti, plus NEMS, rather than pursuing closer ties with his book publisher.

On 16 April 1968, Tynan writes to John about his ideas for a wanking sketch.

Dear John L,

Welcome back. You know that idea of yours for my erotic revue - the masturbation contest? Could you possibly be bothered to jot it down on paper? I am trying to get the whole script in written form as soon as possible.

John's reply is very John:

"you know the idea, four fellows wanking - giving each other images - descriptions - it should be ad-libbed anyway - they should even really wank which would be great..."

Oh John.

Tynan still wanted to interview Paul - and was noticing changes in Beatle dynamics. On 3 September 1968, Tynan pitched another feature on Paul, this time for the New Yorker:

In addition to pieces on theatre, I'd love to try my hand at a profile (I remember long ago we vaguely discussed Paul McCartney though John Lennon is rather more accessible)...

Accessible because Tynan had already worked with him, or because John was already flexing his PR muscles? The New Yorker was interested, because Tynan follows up on 14 October 1968:

4. A few days in the life of Paul McCartney (which we agreed should come at the end of the series of articles, because of the current overexposure of the Beatles.)

Why does he see the Beatles as "overexposed" in autumn 1968, when he hadn't in 1966? Was it the Apple launch? The JohnandYoko press campaign? The cumulative impact of a lot of Beatle news?

Tynan was still trying on 17 September 1969:

...I'd like to go on to either Mr Pinter [playwright Harold Pinter] or Paul McCartney... I incline towards McCartney who has isolated himself more and more in the past from the other Beatles and indeed from the public: he seems to have reached an impasse that might be worth exploring. On the other hand Pinter is a much closer friend and would be more accessible to intimate scrutiny."

I'm fascinated by this - that Paul's isolation was visible to those outside the Beatles circle (the letter is dated three days before the meeting of 20 September 1969, where John said he wanted a divorce).

But Tynan was right about Paul being inaccessible. On 5 January 1970:

I'm saddened to have to tell you that Paul McCartney doesn't want to be written about at the moment - at least, not by me. I gather that for some time now the Beatles have been moving more and more in separate directions. Paul went to a recording session for a new single last Sunday which was apparently the first Beatles activity in which he'd engaged for nearly nine months. He doesn't know quite where his future lies, and above all he doesn't want to be under observation while he decides.

So while Paul "doesn't want to be under observation", he's surprisingly open about the breakup - less blunt than "the Beatle thing is over", which he told Life in November 1969, but still frank.

Trying to persuade Paul to open up to "intimate scrutiny" in 1969 does suggest another reason why 1970s interviewers adored John. Tynan works for an older, more established press, but he's offering the kind of profile John would make his own - discussing his inner life and personal/artistic conflicts with cultural commentator who respects him as an artist. And Paul can't run away fast enough. As a journalist, you'd absolutely go for the guy who makes himself accessible and is eager to bare his soul, over Mr Doesn't Want To Be Written About At The Moment.

[ruknowhere]

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

-- Einstein's words in a letter to the professor emeritus of philosophy, Morris Raphael Cohen, supporting Bertrand Russell's candidacy as a teacher, ca. 1940.

📷Albert Einstein, photographed by Hermann Landshoff, 1950.

#Einstein #einsteinquotes #physics

[derangedrhythms]

do you take requests? any quotes about the harshness of being truthful to oneself, about sharp realizations about oneself’s or another’s interiority?

"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself."

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, tr. Peter Winch

"The intensity of the inner resistance against full self-knowledge is unfathomable."

— Brian Masters, from ‘The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer’

“In self-deception I am maneuvering to escape a truth about myself. I am a self divided against itself. This is the meaning of Kierkegaard's term “double-mindedness”. The opposite of self-deception, of willing obscurity about oneself, is to be transparent to oneself. It is to will one thing. To be transparent to oneself requires insight and courage. Not to will transparency is to be a fool and a coward.”

— John Mullen, from 'Kierkegaard's Philosophy: Self Deception and Cowardice in the Present Age'

"I look down into myself and shudder."

— Nikos Kazantzakis, from ‘Report to Greco’, tr. P. A. Bien

"And though he knows the mirror he so desperately needs to look into exists, the thought of looking into it fills him with mortal dread."

— Hermann Hesse, from ‘Steppenwolf’, tr. David Horrocks

"For it is towards oneself that one has the strongest resistances."

— Carl Gustav Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung Volume 4: Freud & Psychoanalysis; from ‘The Analysis of Dreams’, tr. R. F. C. Hull

"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls."

— Carl Gustav Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung Volume 12: Psychology & Alchemy; from ‘Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy’, tr. R. F. C. Hull

"—growing in and out of situations, gaining control of inner confusions or losing control, overcoming inner resistances or succumbing to them, exploring more of inner darkness and appropriating it as ‘personality’ or actually losing some personality to encroaching darkness."

— Ted Hughes, from 'Letters of Ted Hughes’ ⁠—Anne-Lorraine Bujon, 16th December 1992

"This was the dark cave of what she didn’t know about herself."

— Janet Fitch, from ‘Chimes of a Lost Cathedral’

"…as if the act of self-regarding was not as subtle, fraught and ever-changing as any bond between twin souls."

— Eleanor Catton, from ‘The Luminaries’

"There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror."

— Jean-Paul Sartre, from ‘No Exit’, tr. Stuart Gilbert

"No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and, however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it."

— Bertrand Russell, from 'The Conquest of Happiness'

"You say you live in pain. Let it be the pain of the death of the old false self, and the life-movement of the new real truthful self. We are all wrapped in silky layers of illusion which we instinctively feel to be necessary to our existence. Often these illusions are harmless, in the sense that we can still go on being reasonably good and reasonably happy. Sometimes, because of a catastrophe, a bereavement or some total loss of self-esteem, our falsehoods become pernicious, and we are forced to choose between some painful recognition of truth and an ever more frenzied and aggressive manufacturing of lies […] If you keep checking any lie and resisting the anger which deforms the world you will gradually realise that the poor old wounded self, with its furious whining and its hatred of itself and everything else, is not you at all. That self is dying, but another self is watching it die.”

— Iris Murdoch, from 'The Good Apprentice'

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the comics: Another Loss (Issue 23)

Moon Knight, Issue 23: Perchance to Scream

You guys, the covers are just going to get better from here on out for a while. I think Bill hit his stride and sweet Khonshu what a stride. 

The hatching. The gradients. The spots. The details in the buildings and windows. The pure white of the cape. The body build and muscles without going full Liefeld on us. I’d frame this and stare at it every chance I could get. LOOK AT IT. 

This is the start of cover designs that FIT Moon Knight. Everyone here on out wishes they could design covers like Bill Sienkiewicz and you will see many people try. It’s the lack of lines in the cape. The cape is just the empty space and still has such definition! 

AND THE LETTERING. 

Anyways… This is part two of the Morpheus saga! 

So we left off with Moon Knight discovering that the mystery figure that has been trying to kill him is Peter (Marlene's brother) who has been somewhat possessed by Morpheus, who has just gotten stronger and broken out of confinement! 

Not gonna lie, Morpheus has always been a weird bad guy. He was very 1980s bad guy feel and probably could have done a lot more or been a bigger part of the original rogues gallery, but I think in the 90s Marvel moved away from a lot of psychedelic and horror type things. They not only didn't know what to do with Moon Knight, but they completely trashed and forgot about his rogue gallery. 

Mackay did reach in and bring back a few of the originals, but he also killed them off. I have mixed feelings about this (Stained Glass Scarlet, Morpheus, and a few others). 

We open the comic with a quote: "I do not believe that I am now dreaming but I cannot prove I am not." - Bertrand Russell. 

Having just killed two hapless janitors, Morpheus celebrates his freedom then sets his sights on Moon Knight. 

We now turn to Moon Knight who has joined up with Marlene and Frenchie as they struggle to keep Peter awake to prevent him from causing any further dream hallucinations. 

They are headed for Grant's summer house in Maine. 

Peter mutters in his delirium about where they are going and Morpheus picks up on it in their psychic dream connection. 

Now, since Moon Knight was the one that discovered Peter, he's personally driving Peter to Grant's mansion... as Moon Knight. 

Peter also doesn't know that Moon Knight is "Steven" so Marlene and them keep up the secret identity thing and call him Moon Knight and act very formal. 

After the last comic where we see Moon Knight break down a bit and declare himself separate from Steven, Marc, and Jake, it's interesting that we see him acting as Moon Knight around the others. 

He even goes so far as to pull Marlene aside: 

"What is it, Steven? Are you--"

"No, it's nothing, Marlene. Just simple precaution. Remember, we don't want your brother to know I'm Grant, so just maintain the formal attitude and keep calling me Moon Knight. That's all." 

"Is it, Steven? You know I wouldn't commit a lapse like that to expose your identity. Are you sure there isn't something else?" 

"No... Well... Maybe I just wanted to see how you're holding up." 

Hmmmm. Doubtful that there was all. 

But he turns the conversation to see how Marlene is doing, what with her brother in such danger. (And I must say that the art here is STUNNING.This whole two part run is just off the wall amazing. 

It wasn’t just Bill flexed his art skills here. Look at the color! Shout out to Christie Scheele, the colorist who did many early Moon Knight issues! 

Back in the main room, Peter has figured out that Morpheus has connected to him telepathically and created a way to bridge the dream world with the waking world. 

They discuss ways they had previously defeated Morpheus and attempt to use it again. Marlene suggests a more mythological approach since Morpheus is named after a mythological being. She brings up Medusa being defeated by a mirror as an example, but is shot down as it being an unlikely help. 

Unable to come up with a strategy, they count themselves lucky that Morpheus is still locked up in the hospital. 

Unfortunately, we all know that he isn't. And we see him slowly sneaking up on the cabin while they talk. 

Marlene mentions she brought a gun with her for protection and Moon Knight tells her to keep it loaded, though he hates the things. 

(A weapon of Marc Spector, not of Moon Knight.) 

As Marlene heads to the kitchen to get some more coffee, Peter falls asleep and Morpheus makes his move. 

Again, shout out to the colorist! Look at that action panel! 

….Echo of your wrench. Moon Knight… This is why you need the others. You’re four guys sharing a brain cell that Steven mostly occupies. 

So... While they....tinker... Morpheus attacks Marlene. He goes to melt her mind and turn her into a zombie like slave when Peter interrupts him. 

He claims to want to touch his master. But when he does, Morpheus finds his powers gone! 

When Peter lets go, Morpheus regains his powers and banishes Peter to wait in the woods. 

Down in the basement where Frenchie and Moon Knight are tinkering, they have worked on the generator to the house in effort to use it against Morpheus. 

In the first encounter with Morpheus Moon Knight was able to defeat him by electrocution. It's a fair bet he thinks he can do this again. 

Dracula does owe him money. 

ANYWAYS. 

Marlene is being controlled by Morpheus now and Marlene produces some matches. She intends to set the whole place ablaze! 

She sets fire to the generator and Moon Knight just barely manages to get everyone out of the way before it blows up. 

Marlene manages to warn them that Morpheus is there. 

They manage to get out of the house but Moon Knight goes back in looking for Peter. 

Back inside, Morpheus is waiting for him. 

Morpheus attacks and Moon Knight uses a bed as a shield...against deadly sleep waves. 

Moon Knight…. What are you doing?

He takes a hit that sends him flying out the window. 

Thankful to be out of the house, he looks over and notices that Peter is waiting for them on the edge of a cliff in a trance. One bad move and he's done for! 

Moon Knight approaches to pull him to safety only to be attacked by Peter and pushed off the cliff and into another nightmare. 

We are treated to some pretty out there hallucinations. 

As Moon Knight falls into a river in real life, he dreams that he's under water with a giant clam that opens up to reveal a black knight on a giant horse. 

Moon Knight defeats the black knight and wakes up only to find he's still under water and drowning! 

He makes it to the surface before blacking out. He's still got to face Morpheus and find Peter. 

"There's strength in numbers, or so I've been told. Got to gather the others together before Morpheus strikes again..." Moon Knight thinks to himself. 

Which is ironic in a way. As we saw in the last issue how much he's afraid of working with Jake, Steven, and Marc. 

Moon Knight finds someone and mistakes them for Morpheus and socks them hard. 

Poor Frenchie. It's always Frenchie. He takes the hit. 

While apologizing, the real Morpheus finds them and attacks. 

Marlene distracts him with her gun while Moon Knight sneaks up behind him. 

He takes a hit and attacks again, sending his nightmare energy blasts after them. 

Splitting up, Moon Knight tells them to hide while he tries to lure Morpheus after him. 

Marlene attempts to hide in the forest but is attacked by one of Morpheus' dream tendrils that spread out looking for victims. 

She falls and spots someone coming towards her. Alarmed, she fires her gun. 

When the figure falls, she finds Peter there in the snow and not Morpheus. 

She runs to him and he tells her it was just his shoulder. In pain and bleeding, he at least has been knocked out of Morpheus' control for the moment. 

Frenchie joins back up with Marlene and she asks which way Moon Knight went. Peter is growing drowsy again and his blood loss is not helping. 

He notes that Moon Knight ran back towards the burning house, but he isn't sure why. 

We see Moon Knight returning from the house with a full length mirror. Hmmmm...

No, he doesn't plan to reflect back Morpheus' power. He plans to use it to create a trap. He uses the reflection to make it look like Peter, Frenchie, and Marlene are hiding in a bunch of trees. 

And it works! Morpheus attacks the mirror and is stunned enough to let Moon Knight jump him from behind. 

Clinging on for dear life, Moon Knight clings to his back where Morpheus can't use his creepy eye power against him while he beats him over the head with his truncheon and also squeezes his wind pipe to knock him out. 

Morpheus is knocked out indeed, but how do they get him back to the hospital before he wakes up? They're out in the middle of no where in the snow in Maine. 

Peter steps in. 

"He's my patient! Robert Markham was my patient before I turned him into a monster! I created morpheus and now I've got to destroy him!" 

Peter recalls that when he touched Morpheus before, it had caused Morpheus to grow weak. 

He lays a hand on Morpheus with intent to end the monster he created. 

"Before anyone can stop him, Dr. Peter Alraune touches Morpheus - and even though it is the same as grasping the bare end of a high-voltage wire... He sustains the touch, through a storm of agony--until the dark power fades from Morpheus' eyes... And all life fades from his own eyes." 

Peter falls to the ground. Morpheus has transformed back to a normal (if not still mutated) man and Peter is dead. 

Again, praise to the art. 

The last two pages of this issue. 

So here is another example of someone close to Moon Knight that loses someone. 

We’ve seen Crawley lose his son, Marlene lose her father and now her brother, and later even poor Gena will lose a son. 

It’s easy to see the guilt build up over the years in Marc’s head about how he feels like he’s the cause. He loses his own brother and then his father dies before they can attempt to heal their broken bond. To Marc, he is poison and it only feeds into his self destructive hatred of himself. 

I really liked these two issues as they do show the vulnerability that is the Moon Knight system. The fear of rejection from the others and the reluctance to accept help from them. A system that doesn’t know how to accept inner help or communicate. This isn’t the first or last time that we see one of them hallucinate or dream about the others wanting to cause them harm or erase them all together. 

It’s so ingrained in them that they need to be normal and that they are ill that they struggle to not see themselves as a problem. 

This is a theme that will build a bit in the early OG issues but won’t really be properly addressed and resolved until Lemire. 

But there are some upcoming issues that I am very excited to get to. We’re going to start to see these boys really get into it. Plus, some absolutely amazing art! 

[wisdomfish]

Newton poses a problem for Dawkins.

Newton is possibly the greatest scientist of all time, and was a strong believer in God. So how does Dawkins deal with Newton? He tries to neutralize Isaac Newton by claiming he was a fake, motivated by money. This is how he does it – the passage is in Dawkins' book The God Delusion. Dawkins starts with a quote from Bertrand Russell who said: "Intellectually eminent men disbelieve the Christian religion, but hide the fact, because they are afraid of losing their income." The next sentence is: "Newton was religious." The insinuation is that Newton was faking belief in God to get money. This is totally false.

If Newton was faking it, he really overdid it. He wrote to his friend Richard Bentley: "When I wrote my treatise [Principia Mathematica], I had an eye upon such principles as might work for the belief of a deity, and nothing can rejoice me more, than to find it useful for that purpose." He read the Bible every day; attacked and ridiculed atheists and wrote letters encouraging opponents of atheism. Newton wrote:

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things, and knows all that is or can be done. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being.

And this: "It is the perfection of God's works, that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion." Galileo said: "The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go." Galileo, Newton and Einstein all believed in God, therefore Dawkins' claim that science and religion are in conflict is nonsense.

~ John Marsh 

[alphaman99]

[ FULL CITATION ]

"Children are instinctively hostile to anything ‘odd’ in other children, especially in the ages from ten to fifteen. If the authorities realize that this conventionality is undesirable, they can guard against it in various ways, and they can place the cleverer children in separate schools. The intolerance of eccentricity that I am speaking of is strongest in the stupidest children, who tend to regard the peculiar tastes of clever children as affording just grounds for persecution. When the authorities also are stupid (which may occur), they will tend to side with the stupid children, and acquiesce, at least tacitly, in rough treatment for those who show intelligence. In that case, a society will be produced in which all the important positions will be won by those whose stupidity enables them to please the herd.

Such a society will have corrupt politicians, ignorant schoolmasters, policemen who cannot catch criminals, and judges who condemn innocent men. Such a society, even if it inhabits a country full of natural wealth, will in the end grow poor from inhability to choose able men for important posts. Such a society, though it may prate of Liberty and even erect statues in her honour, will be a persecuting society, which will punish the very men whose ideas might save it from disaster.

All this will spring from the too intense pressure of the herd, first at school and then in the world at large. Where such excessive pressure exists, those who direct education are not, as a rule, aware that it is an evil; indeed, they are quite apt to welcome it as a force making for good behaviour."

— Bertrand Russell, The Basic Writings of Bertrand (1961), Part. XI The Philosopher of Politics Russell, 49. The Reconciliation of Individuality and Citizenship, p. 436

Image: Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) was a philosopher, mathematician, educational and sexual reformer, pacifist, prolific letter writer, author and columnist. Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely known intellectual figures of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his "rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West." Russell died of influenza at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, United Kingdom 2 February 1970, where his ashes were scattered over the Welsh hills.

[russellian-j]

　バートランド・ラッセルの言葉 366_画像版 n.2386j ( May 14, 2023) 　あなた（出版社Norton の社主のノートン: W. W. Norton, 1891-1945）は、私の兄がマルセイユで急死したのを（新聞などで）ご覧になったでしょう。私は兄から称号（爵位）を受け継ぎましたが（注：第三代ラッセル伯爵／兄のフランクは第二代ラッセル伯）、兄は破産していたため、お金は一銭も相続していません。爵位は私にとって大変迷惑なもので（注：特段の事情がない限り、爵位は返上できないため）、どうしたらよいか途方に暮れていますが、とにかく私の著作に関連して使用されることを望みません。…..私の爵位を私の著作の宣伝に利用しないことについて、あなたを信頼できると、私は確信しています。

You ( = W. W. Norton) will have seen that my brother died suddenly in Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny of money, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great nuisance to me, and 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. … but I am sure I can rely upon you not to make use of my title in the way of publicity. Source: Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931 In: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, v.2 More info.: Not available

＜寸言＞ 　英国においては、爵位は本家の長男が継ぐことになっていますが、祖父のジョン・ラッセルは、第６代ベッドフォード公爵家の三男でした。しかし、２度英国の総理大臣を務めた功績から、ビクトリア女王から伯爵の称号（及び Richmond Park 内の屋敷 Pembroke Lodge の永代使用権）が与えられました。ラッセルの両親は早くなくなったため、兄のフランクが第二代ラッセル伯を、ラッセルが1931年に（兄の急死により）第三代ラッセル伯を継ぎました。 　ラッセルはいろいろなところで貴族制度は廃止したほうがよいと書いていますが、爵位は特別な事情がない限り原則として返納することはできませんでした。そこで、自分の執筆・講演活動に関連しては称号を使用しないように関係者に求めていました。

[philosophybits]

Perhaps you regard this thinking about myself as a waste of time – but how can I be a logician before I’m a human being! Far the most important thing is to settle accounts with myself!

Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Letter to Bertrand Russell (Dec 1913/Jan 1914)"

[yeaaahhhsss]

Book I’ve Read!

These are titles I’ve read so far as my memory can recall! I do still remember the first novel I read (but not sure it really was the first or the first touching my heart...) so yeah this is it! (not in an orderly manner)

Fiction 1. Herr der Diebe (The Thief Lord) by Cornelia Funke 2. Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling (- The Philosopher’s Stone and The Order of The Phoenix 3. The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare (only City of Bones and City of Glass) 4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins 5. A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (only The Wide Window and The Penultimate Peril) 6. Legend of Great Tang’s Twin Dragons by Huang Yi 7. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson 8. Sherlock Holmes Series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle • Sign of Four • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Five Orange Pips • The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Empty House, ...of Norwood Builder, ...of Dancing Men, ...of Six Napoleons, ...of the Goldern Pince-Nez • His Last Bow: The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, ...of the Bruce-Partington Plans, ...of Lady Frances Carfax • The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Three Garridebs 9. Jack Nightingale Series by Stephen Leather (Nightfall, Midnight, and Lastnight) 10. The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger 11. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee 12. The Brother Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 13. On The Road by Jack Kerouac 14. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 15. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 16. Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 17. Book of Souls by Glenn Cooper 18. The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom 19. The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom 20. Love Letters to The Dead by Ava Dellaira 21. Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls 22. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 23. The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 24. The Universe of Us by Lang Leav 25. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 26. 

Comic books 1. Slam Dunk by Inoue Takehiko 2. Detective Conan by Aoyama Gosho 3. Interstellar Bridge/Seikan Bridge by Kyukkyupon 4. Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi 5. Yuyu Hakusho by Yoshihiro Togashi 6. Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba 7. Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba 8. Kuroko’s Basketball by Tadatoshi Fujimaki 9. Nozaki by Izumi Tsubaki 10. Haikyuu!! by Haruichi Furudate 11. Kocchi Muite! Miiko by Eriko Ono 12. Fullmetal Alchmeist by Hiromu Arakawa 13. Solanin by Inio Asano 14. A Man and His Cat by Umi Sakurai 15.

Nonfiction 1. Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs by Michael Collins, MD. 2. Ceci est ma femme by Oliver Sacks 3. The 5-Second Rule by Mel Robbins 4. Blink! by Malcolm Gladwell 5. David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell 6. What The Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell 7. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey 8. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamonds 9. When by Daniel H. Pink 10. The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli 11. The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russel 12. The View from Planet Earth by Vincent Cronin 13. Collapse by Jared Diamond 14. How to Lead When Your Boss Can’t or Won’t by J. C. Maxwell 15. Aristotle’s Children by R. E. Rübenstein 16. Atomic Habits by James Clear 17. The Naked Traveler 3 & 4 by Trinity 18. 

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

@decayed-foundations replied to your post “T. S. Eliot, in a letter: It is difficult to be a saint in the modern world. But it is almost impossible to be a satan. William...”

I was trying so hard to figure out what I was missing but then I saw the url. hi frank

Hi, yeah it's from A Nutshell Guide for the Perplexed by Bertrand Russell.

[formeroklahoman]

“I think people who are unhappy are always proud of being so, and therefore do not like to be told that there is nothing grand about their unhappiness. A man who is melancholy because lack of exercise has upset his liver always believes that it is the loss of God, or the menace of Bolshevism, or some such dignified cause that makes him sad. When you tell people that happiness is a simple matter, they get annoyed with you.“

— Bertrand Russell, Letter to W. W. Norton, 17 February (1931)

[denimbex1986]

'While Albert Einstein is not a prominent part of the film Oppenheimer (nor did he work Manhattan Project), he is connected to the weapons inception, and there are a few documented instances of his viewpoints regarding the atomic bombs. Christopher Nolan's ambitious movie, Oppenheimer, vividly recounts the historical narrative of the atomic bomb's development and the subsequent events following its deployment. Within the film, there are brief glimpses of Einstein (Tom Conti), who is an integral part of the story.

Despite Einstein's frequent association with the atomic bomb's creation, he was never granted clearance to participate in the project due to his ties to Germany and his personal political stances. Due to concerns about his security risk, the United States opted to keep Einstein away from the project. Even though Einstein's direct involvement in the weapon's creation was absent, his influence on its existence is undeniable. However, Einstein consistently expressed his sentiments regarding the detrimental nature of the atomic bomb and emphasized his lack of responsibility for its creation.

Albert Einstein's Reaction To The Bombing Of Japan

On August 6, 1945, the initial deployment of an atomic bomb occurred over Hiroshima, Japan, prompting Einstein to say, "Woe is me" (via American Museum of Natural History). Then on August 9, 1945, the United States dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. By the end of 1945, an estimated 200,000 people had lost their lives between the two cities. Einstein, a staunch pacifist, demonstrated his commitment to peace during World War I by penning the Manifesto to the Europeans, wherein he advocated for peace in Europe through a political union.

His saying, "Woe is me," in response to the bomb, signified his realization that the creation of such weapons would continue to spread and intensify, as more nations acquired these devastating weapons. Einstein was an icon of The International Peace Movement, which established itself between 1954 and 1963, aiming to eliminate warfare. In 1955, Einstein collaborated with Bertrand Russell, who was a British mathematician, philosopher, and logician to draft a manifesto. This significant document underscored the perils posed by nuclear weaponry, as it implored global leaders to pursue nonviolent resolutions to conflicts.

Albert Einstein Did Not Take Responsibility For The Manhattan Project's Atomic Bombs

As seen in the movie Oppenheimer, Einstein kept his distance from the Manhattan Project and took no responsibility for the genesis of the atomic bomb. He reiterated on numerous occasions, "I do not consider myself the father of the release of atomic energy. My part in it was quite indirect." Nevertheless, in 1939, he composed a letter to President Roosevelt, alerting him to Germany's endeavors in weaponizing atomic energy. Subsequently, he expressed remorse for this action as Germany failed to create the weapon.

Upon the United States' entry into World War II in 1941, Einstein's council was heeded, culminating in the birth of the Manhattan Project. While Einstein lacked security clearance to actively engage in the project, the very foundation of its creation was linked to the renowned equation, E=mc^2 (which explains the energy released in an atomic bomb). While Einstein never took responsibility for the atomic bomb's creation, the movie Oppenheimer underscores the inescapable truth, that without his warning to President Roosevelt, the realization of the atomic bomb might not have been attainable during that period.'

[nicklloydnow]

“Liberals of the eighteenth century were filled with a boundless optimism that said, Mankind is rational, and therefore right ideas will triumph in the end. Light will replace darkness; the efforts of bigots to keep people in a state of ignorance in order to rule them more casily cannot prevent progress. Enlightened by reason, mankind is moving toward ever-greater perfection. Democracy, with its freedom of thought, speech, and of the press guarantees the success of the right doctrine: let the masses decide; they will make the most appropriate choice.

We no longer share this optimism. The conflict of economic doctrines makes far greater demands on our ability to make judgments than did the conflicts encountered during the period of enlightenment: superstition and natural science, tyranny and freedom, privilege and equality before the law.

The people must decide. It is indeed the duty of economists to inform their fellow citizens. But what should happen if economists do not measure up to the dialectic task and become pushed aside by demagogues, or if the people lack the intelligence to grasp their teachings? With the awareness that men like J.M. Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Harold Laski, and Albert Einstein could not comprehend the problems of economics, must not the attempt to guide the masses in the proper direction be considered hopeless?

One is mistaken and fails to understand what is involved if one expects help to come in the form of a new election system or from some improvement in public education. Proposed changes to the election system would result in a portion of the masses" being denied the right to vote for legislators and other administrators. This offers no solution, for when an administration put into place by a minority has no popular support it is not sustainable over the long term. If it refuses to yield to public opinion, it will be overthrown by revolution. The advantage of the democratic system consists in the fact that it makes possible a peaceable alignment of the government system and its personnel with the will of the people. This, in turn, guarantees the continuance of uninterrupted and untroubled social cooperation within the state. Concerns taken up here are not just those having to do with democracy. Indeed, they are much more than that: they are concerns that exist under all circumstances and under every conceivable form of government.

It has been said that the problem lay within the realms of public education and public information. But we are badly deceived if we believe that the right opinions will claim victory through the circulation of books and journals and with more schools and lectures; such means can also attract followers of faulty doctrines. Evil consists precisely in the fact that the masses are not intellectually enabled to choose the means leading to their desired objectives. That ready judgments can be foisted onto the people through the power of suggestion demonstrates that the people are not capable of making independent decisions. Herein lies the great danger.

Thus had I arrived at the hopeless pessimism that had long pervaded the best minds of Europe. We know today from the letters of Jacob Burckhardt that this great historian, too, harbored no illusions about the future of European civilization. This pessimism had broken the will of Carl Menger. It had cast a shadow over the life of Max Weber, who had become a good friend of mine while spending a semester at the University of Vienna during the last months of war.

How one carries on in the face of unavoidable catastrophe is a matter of temperament. In high school, as was custom, I had chosen a verse by Virgil to be my motto: Tune cede malis sed contra audentior ito ("Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it"). I recalled these words during the darkest hours of the war. Again and again I had met with situations from which rational deliberation found no means of escape; but then the unexpected intervened, and with it came salvation. I would not lose courage even now. I wanted to do everything an economist could do. I would not tire in saying what I knew to be true. I thus decided to write a book about socialism. I had considered the plan before the beginning of the war; now I wanted to carry it out.” (p. 54 - 56)