The Automatic Salute

Sometimes a famous person is so frequently quoted, and is considered such an integral part of the modern intellectual repertoire, that many people reflexively stand at attention and salute whenever his name is mentioned. One of these famous people is the British writer and activist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970).

Russell was smart, eloquent, and compelling. Some of his writing, it must be said, can appeal to anyone concerned with the decline of intellect:

The ideal of contemplation, which the monks took over from the neo-platonists, and modern men of learning from the monks, is being hustled and bustled out of existence by those who urge that everything should be “dynamic.”

Despite these occasional rays of light, the bulk of Russell’s writing (and political activity) constitute a major platform for the dissemination of collectivist ideology. For example, his fascination with world government:

The State has one purpose which is on the whole good, namely, the substitution of law for force in the relations of men. But this purpose can only be fully achieved by a world-State, without which international relations cannot be made subject to law.

In 1920, Russell toured the Soviet Union. He was somewhat critical of what he saw, but often framed his criticism in a way that opened the door to moral equivalence between free and totalitarian states:

The Bolshevik philosophy appeared to me profoundly unsatisfactory, not because of its communism, but because of the elements which it shares with the philosophy of Western financial magnates.

This statement is the outgrowth of a misconception that runs through modern collectivist thought: If a society has not completely attained a certain predefined ideal condition, then it is bad. Even if a country has attained, say, 80% of what is usually considered “progressive”—equal distribution of wealth, freedom for anti-social lifestyles, general equality—it still receives the same grade on its report card as a country that has attained only 10% of the ideal.

The huge steps taken by the modern democracies, won with untold struggle over the course of centuries, are belittled and dismissed with a wave of the hand. Consider the following passage, which sounds hauntingly similar to our contemporary Leftist friends:

Even in a democracy, all questions except a very few are decided by a small number of officials and eminent men; and even the few questions which are left to the popular vote are decided by a diffused mass-psychology, not by individual initiative. This is especially noticeable in a country like the United States, where, in spite of democracy, most men have a sense of almost complete impotence in regard to all large issues….This state of things leads, not only in America but in all large States, to something of the weariness and discouragement that we associate with the Roman Empire….The few men who achieve power in such States are men of abnormal ambition and thirst for domination, combined with skill in cajolery and subtlety in negotiation.

The “state” (always capitalized by Russell) is seen at all times as malevolent. There are no shades; no nuances. This is reminiscent of those in America who respond with hysterical tantrums to any exercise of governmental power in the traditional sense; i.e., when it is designed to protect or benefit the entire nation. We see in Russell the germination of the myth that the Western democracies wield some kind of demonical power:

The power of the State may be brought to bear, as it often is in England, through public opinion rather than through the laws. By oratory and the influence of the Press, public opinion is largely created by the State….

It is hard to reconcile this denigration of the state with his attraction to world government. Again, the paradox is reminiscent of the current anti-Western crowd, with its mistrust of “authority” alongside blind faith in the UN and other international bodies.

Another contradiction in Russell’s thought lies in his call for “collective happiness.” Consider, firstly, this classic manifesto of early twentieth century utopianism:

It has at last become technically possible, through the progress of machinery and the consequent increased productivity of labor, to create a society in which every man and woman has economic security and sufficient leisure….In a world in which there was leisure and economic security for all, the happiness of all would be greater than that of ninety-nine per cent of the present inhabitants of the planet. Why, then, do the ninety-nine per cent not combine to overcome the resistance of the privileged one per cent?….Instead of combining to produce collective happiness, men compete to produce collective misery. Since this competition among subject populations is useful to the holders of power, they encourage it, under the name of “patriotism,” in the schools and the Press.

And, as night follows day, the glory of socialism:

Men who disbelieve in private property, and feel the capitalist the real enemy, have a bond which transcends national divisions. It has not been found strong enough to resist the passions aroused by the present war [WWI], but it has made them less bitter among socialists than among others….A few sincere socialists have found in their creed a force capable of resisting the assaults of national passion….

The glaring contradiction is this: It is precisely private property and “capitalism” that have provided the conditions that make it “technically possible, through the progress of machinery and the consequent increased productivity of labor, to create a society in which every man and woman has economic security and sufficient leisure.” Wrecking these conditions inevitably spoils the very environment that makes “progress” possible.

This is a perfect example of a massive blind spot in modern socialist and other utopian thinking—one that has caused, and continues to cause, untold damage to our civilization.

[Quotes taken from Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell, New York, Modern Library (Everyman), 1927, pp xiv, 76, xiii, 71-72, 61, xv-xvi, 64-65, respectively.]