Bertrand Russell 1950 Nobel Prize

[TheDensley7]

If anybody is worth aspiring to, it's this man, not some fatuous drug-addled pop star.

[treehugger625]

okay, new rule: don't post stuff on here hatin' on B.R. until you've read his books.

[omgz0rtbh]

@treehugger625 Which ones? Principia Mathematica? Without criticizing Russell, I think he would also agree that it is not necessarily requisite to read someone's book(s) in order to criticize them. I have, as most others, not read Mein Kampf, but I am still quite confident in my view that Hitler was no person worthy of admiration.

[deceiver123m]

@treehugger625 k i read em and hes a piece of shit elitist scum. Prove me wrong

[treehugger625]

@deceiver123m i can't prove you wrong; if you've read all of his books and come to the conclusion that that's your opinion, that's fine. although i have to say "piece of shit elitist scum" is a pretty vague, ineloquent way of criticizing someone. but do what you want, if you wanna spend your free time posting hateful comments on youtube videos then go for it. i couldn't care less.

[possumverde]

I'll admit that I don't know all there is to know about Bertrand Russell but from what I've read about his views concerning the formation of the "new" nation of Israel, I'd say all he was saying was "Two wrongs don't make a right." Yes, it's horrible what happened to the Jewish people during World War 2, but to compound that error by visiting an injustice upon others (who had nothing to do with the holocaust) is not the right way to atone...

[theonlymatheus]

he owns

[taz0k2]

wha?

[zimmerma93]

Bertrand Russell was my childhood hero.

[geodesicks]

@zimmerma93 : Mine too!

[8data]

Russell and Wittgensteins Dialogue

is Now Understood to Be Worthwhile to Human Endeavor

and Practical to All of Our LIves

[haldenver]

Laughable.

If we all had multiple lives, we could read the "works". To show what a loser i am, i read them in my only life: BUMMER.

The guy was a clever fool of cross-word genius.

Wake up : politically, always wrong. And no understanding of humans; contact, debate...

But due to his logic/maths work ( all definitions and tautologies) seen as a wise man on CIVILISATION?? Laughable..

A great,intelligent, IDIOT ( read and comment)

[Por0]

skönt :D

[neothomist1275]

We "useless eaters" need to be "culled off"...give that man a prize.

[quangojones]

I'm always uncomfortable and suspicious seeing philosophers in noble garb.

Are they really in it for Truth or glory?

[vigilante666]

Yes that is quite true -leaving Jean Paul Sartre out of it- But I think Russell's dedication to the truth is beyond doubt considering what he went through in his life. You can see his dedication especially in his opposition to the use of nuclear weapons he was a pacifist, although he became a relative pacifist after Germany attacked Britain. But still, he was even sacked from his own college as a professor because of his anti-war stance. He certainly does not seem to be a man after glory.

[quangojones]

Although often noble, I'm unconvinced pacifism encompasses truth and humility.

I believe, Russell's charming persona, as a frightfully posh, besuited, pipe-smoking, *public intellectual*; was largely a means of socioeconomic and political gain.

And as a supposedly serious "philosopher" - at some point, he ought to have confessed (which, to my knowledge, he never did).

[vigilante666]

I am not a supporter of pacifism either but the point is I believe Russell provided a dissenting voice and listened his intellect no matter what happened. This is only my interpretation but I am far away from being a fervent admirer of Russell so I admit that you can never really know how genuine he was since he seems to modify his ideas given the present circumstances. But I would still count him a Socrates -thus a public intellectual- rather than a Plato living in his ivory towers.

[quangojones]

Although our short discourse has rather neatly concluded, Socrates mention begs the juxtaposition of a philosopher who (seemingly) lived and died according to his proclamations, with hypocritical fops such as Marx and Ghandi.

[vigilante666]

My comparison did not derived from their philosophical approaches if that is what you mean. I am trying to stress out whether Russell was a public intellectual or not. That is why I likened him to Socrates rather than Plato- who, in my opinion was an intellectual but not a public one.

[quangojones]

Oh, I view the modern public intellectual, as a learned media whore, with a cult following and a book to plug.

[vigilante666]

You seem too cynical to appreciate anything. It reminds me of Georges Sorel who called Zola a clown during the Dreyfus affair. Not everyone is after a show you know. Of course the influence and possibly the sincerity of public intellectuals diminished over time with the emergence of globalization, post modernism and technocrats but still just because the modern intellectual uses the media to address a wider public does not necessarily mean he/she has something to publicize.

[quangojones]

No, but it's normally the case.

When Chomsky, Hitchens, Greer and co, release (lightweight) books, they'll happily appear on trash like Fox News, Ali G and Big Brother.

[regalkidney]

I'm not sure there exists such a sharp contrast between self-promotion and sincerity. The self isn't much of anything without the ideas it's attached too, and likewise ideas don't mean much unless one is personally attached to them. Promotion of one is always going to be caught up with promotion of the other.

[quangojones]

I've yet to see a Lucian Freud press junket.

'With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.'

~ Albert Einstein

[regalkidney]

maybe it would be more useful just to say he was a public intellectual rather than "a socrates," since socrates was many other things as well.

[elvismilk]

didn't you know that he gave no acceptance speech, viva why i am not a christian

[petruchio2100]

You aren't worth talking to. Since when do Teddy Bear's have venom and hate? You are the hater. I never should have responded to your sick rant.

[petruchio2100]

He thought Christianity was illogical. After his romantic period was over! But he didn't hate it. He was just too rationalist-empiricist to embrace it. He always exemplified its values... yes, in a very liberal way. A liberal aristocrat! A very big man. (and, of course, a friend of Einstein. Or wasn't Einstein Jewish?)

[petruchio2100]

Russell hating the Jews? You don't know anything about Russell's mind. He was the furthest thing from a bigot or a hater.

[tahmidal07]

Err, Is not it true that he beleieved in imperialism in his earlier life? I have read so in the first part of his autobiography. Did he ever change that?

[Alessandro1985]

He wasn't openly or obsessively racist. He just very occasionally made some very dodgy comments. But the racism was not a large part of his life (he rarely espoused it). Most of his jewish friends probably just didn't notice it - I imagine it didn't come up. Read the biography by Ray Monk.

[maegan1981]

Instead of reading a biography(!) about him, read his own books. Calling him an anti-semite or just insinuating it is beyond obnoxious.

[jennajameson123]

Russell's greatest mathematical work is philosophical in nature.

[pedrodave]

Jewish TeddyBear, you really need to get a grip. You seem to be losing your grasp of reality. You are highly delusional and are spouting lots of pointless rubbish. Your paranoia is palpable.

[Alessandro1985]

But, despite Bertrand's personal faults - and there were incredibly many (according to his biographers) - he was still a brilliantly original mathematical logician.

[Alessandro1985]

I don't think Bertrand was really that anti-semitic. At any rate, many of his best friends, many of the people he most admired, and many of the people whose lives he helped the most, were in fact Jewish.

However, Bertrand definitely held a few racist, eugenicist, opinions. He said, and even wrote in print, that Blacks were greatly genetically inferior. He wrote that they were genetically far less intelligent. He thought they were suitable 'only for manual labour'.

[BeatBuddy]

This is my last reply to you.  I have better things to do than to play games with a Bush loving peon.

[BeatBuddy]

You make maggots look intelligent.

[BeatBuddy]

It's Clampett, imbecile!

[BeatBuddy]

Jethro Bodine, Ellie Mae's cousin in the Beverley Hillbillies. Just your intellectual level.

[BeatBuddy]

Russell debating with you is like Bill Buckley in dialogue with Jethro Bodine.

[BeatBuddy]

Only someone who doesn't know a goddam thing about Russell would make such an asinine remark. How to acquire wisdom? Listen to what JTB has to say, then go for the opposite.

[BeatBuddy]

Russell beckoned others to challenge his beliefs, Jesus said follow me. Russell's thinking never was, unlike the thinking of JTB, close to the Nazi mentality.

[BeatBuddy]

Sorry Pal, but I'm very well read on Russell and the last thing he was is being antiSemite. He is rightfully held up as the humanist of the century. But you are paranoid, you think everyone is an antiSemite.

[BeatBuddy]

If only more people had Russell's uncanny wisdom and remarkable insight. But due to JTB's limited intellectual capabilities, we can't expect him to concur.

[pedrodave]

Fantastic to see this outstanding man is present on youtube. Thanks for posting this.

[poerkie]

Russell > Jesus

[anticonsumer]

the genius that steered me towards atheism.

[HendrixTshirt]

great man.