A few days ago I came across an excerpt from a 1958 interview with the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell, who had kept me so much company as a teenager with his Problems of Philosophy. It wasn’t my favorite book at the time; read avidly, Psychoptology from Daily Lifeby S. Freud. But Russell became a sort of distant uncle who I could turn to from time to time but hadn’t seen in a long time. In this interview, Russell highlights two testaments that he would like to leave for those who will eventually be here a thousand years from now. One intellectual and the other moral. For the intellectual testament, Russell states that when one is studying any subject, one should ask oneself only what the facts are and what truth those facts support. Never allow yourself to be diverted by what you would like to be true or by what you think would have beneficial social effects if believed. Look only and solely at what the facts are.
In his moral testament, he reveals the maxim that love is wise and hate is foolish: “in an increasingly interconnected world, we must learn to tolerate each other, learn to live with the fact that some people will say things we don’t like. If we want to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance that are absolutely vital for the continuation of human life.”
People haven’t heard or read Russell, obviously. Facts are not considered or are distorted under the cover of ideology. Facts, events, are interpreted in the light of personal or ideological desires, not seen for what they are.
In an increasingly intolerant, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian world, which defends invaders and not the invaded, which has completely lost the notion of what is fair, which is only tolerant towards those who inflict fear and not as a basis for behavior, which is strong with the weak but weak with the strong, in which respect and tolerance are no longer – if they ever were – values to be upheld, the words of the great philosopher are a beacon of common sense.
But the fog is thick. And what emanates from the lighthouse will easily be confused with other lights that dazzle other interests.
Assistant professor at the Autonomous University of Lisbon and researcher (at CIDEHUS).
Write without applying the new Spelling Agreement