February 24, 2012 - 11:13 am
- Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
- Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
- Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
- When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
- Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
- Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
- Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
- Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
- Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
- Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
Well old Bertie was sometimes not a fool.
But let’s give the citation here? Googling I find it all over, but:
http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html
This Liberal Decalogue first appeared at the end of the article “The best answer to fanaticism: Liberalism” in the New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951). It was then included in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 3, 1944-1967.
Thanks, I picked it up about 4th hand.
Bertrand Russell’s rules for Liberals, when applied to current “Liberals,” shows how illiberal the current crop of “Liberals” is.
One example follows.
When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
What was that I heard about “settled science?”
“Settled science” is an oxymoron on the order of “political science”, “government worker” or “civil war.”
Bertrand Russell’s rules for Liberals, when applied to current “Liberals,” shows how illiberal the current crop of “Liberals” is.
Isn’t that funny.
Come on guys, they do not call themselves liberals anymore, they are now progressives. Just like it is not called global warming anymore.
Good thing he had a trust fund. He could have never held down a day job with that set of principles.
Had to bookmark this…
Also, “do not fight for your country”.
I profoundly disagreed with Russell on most things (I’m Catholic), but I will applaud a lot of these. Still, snarkiness compels a few caveats:
“Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.” Are you absolutely certain of that?
“Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.” Indeed, Bertrand, and some of them tell me not to respect yours.
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” And so were all those opinions now rejected, too. Mere novelty entails no guarantees of worth or merit.
“Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.” A worthy principle, but one that entails two pitfalls: 1) It tempts people to think that mere dissent proves one intelligent, and 2) it tempts people to believe that a dissent not subject to rational argument only proves stupidity.
“Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.” Who is the bigger fool — the one who has found a paradise he can live with, or the one who believes that to be happy is proof of foolishness?
Good points. Lots of contradictions. How can he be absolutely certain that those living in a fool’s paradise are a) really living in a fool’s paradise and b) not just expressing an eccentric opinion that will later be accepted? For a philosopher, he seems pretty clueless.
Regarding temptation #2, I’ve always considered “I don’t want to” a sufficient reason for dissent. Pure hard-headedness may not be subject to rational argument, but that doesn’t keep it from working. And in the end, the logic of the gun really does trump the logic of Aristotle – at least in most parts of the real world.
The society that has inherited the logic of Aristotle is currently the society that makes the best guns.
Hmm, Bertrand Russell said those things? It shows that over time the socialists have indeed become stupider.
I especially love #5. It comes in handy when I hear the “majority of scientists” or “almost every economist” arguments. It seems those who make those arguments forget that “majority” and “almost” are fractional by nature and there are other authorities that are in the minority and are never mentioned.
At least for the “majority of scientists” argument, I’ve always found that pointing out that the majority of scientists at one time believed the now-discredited (and indeed laughable) phlogiston theory tends to embarrass them into silence.
For those that are too clueless to understand the point, you just gently point out that there are many theories — including the phlogiston theory — that were once widely accepted but are now completely discredited. Thus, wide acceptance of a theory does not in any way indicate scientific truth.
“settled science is an oxymoron”
I’ve often wondered why no one has ever argued simply that science is not “settled”. You prove that it’s true or false. You never settle half way.
Well, in part because science never proves anything true or false, either. What science does is propose a model, a hypothesis, that the proposer claims is a good model. That model has to be falsifiable, ie, there must be experiments that would DISprove it. Since it would take an infinite number of tests to confirm the hypothesis everywhere and for all time, no experiment can prove a hypothesis. On the other hand, a DISproof, just one, is all that’s needed.
(“Only one” get more complicated when you’re talking about a statistical model, but that’s for another comment.)
– would rather die than think — and most do.”
I think we’re getting into “Mystery Men” territory here.
“If a thing seems to be positively false beware a false positive,” etc.
Mr. Martin,
My sincerest ‘Thank You!’
Somehow, I’d not seen these before.