Unpopular Essays

by Bertrand Russell

Book Overview

In this volume of essays Russell was concerned to combat the growth of dogmatism, whether of the Left or Right, which has hitherto characterised our tragic century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671202537
• ISBN13: 9780671202538
• Release Date: January 1950
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Russell is a titan!

Russell is a titan! He is concise. He is invigoration. He provides hope for those suffering with existential nausea. Read all you can.

Lifetime Book

I read this book 40 years ago, and it still sticks with me. Russell is a stuffy upper class Englishman, and has so much fun with it. "A dog, a wife, and a walnut tree, The more you beat them the better they be." I have no experience of the moral effect of flagellation on walnut trees, but no civilized person would now justify the rhyme as regards wives. The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses."

Great style, clear thinking

I had never read anything by Bertrand Russell before. I thought he would be difficult, but these essays were lucid and humorous. He manages to demolish the theories of almost every great philosopher of the past. His predictions for the future, either chaos or world government, haven't materialized yet, but either is still a possibility.

Pellucid prose from the sharpest wit of the century

Here is a short and easy way of capturing the sparkle and pixie wit of Lord Russell. It is also a good way to keep yourself laughing continuously in impish delight for several hours as Russell skewers dogma after dogma. One is reminded of nothing so much as a lightweight master of the epee skipping through an army of Goliaths armed with heavy truncheons and running his sword through them, one after another, before they know what has happened.-Just one example, the philosophic Goliath known as Aristotle: "Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities. He says that children should be conceived in the winter, when the wind is in the north, and that if people marry too young the children will be female. He tells us that the blood of the female is blacker than that of males...that women have fewer teeth than men and so on. Nevertheless, he is considered by the great majority of philosophers a paragon of wisdom." So much for Aristotle. He also never tires of skewering the clergy in general and their obscurantism. One of the most amusing sections is his account of the clergy's reaction to the invention of the lighning-rod: "When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God. For, as all right-thinking people were aware, lightning is sent by God to punish impiety or some other grave sin-the virtuous are never struck by lightning. Therefore if God wants to strike anyone, Benjamin ought not to defeat His design..." Finally, he wasn't above a little irony in his self-penned obituary by an imaginary Obit. writer, "...His life, for all its waywardness, had a certain anachronistic consistency, reminiscent of the aristocratic rebels of the early nineteenth century. His principles were curious, but, such as they were, they governed his actions. In private life he showed none of the acerbity that marred his writings, but was a genial conversationalist and not devoid of human sympathy..."-Nobody with even the slightest mote of skepticism toward all the nonsense that's passed for wisdom and deep philosophy in ages heretofore and with a spark of life and sense of humor can leave this book without a lighter heart than when he or she first picked it up.-I can't think of any higher praise for a book.

A terrific Polemicist

Russell skewers all who believe they are right, regardless of their motivation. To him, anyone spouting Dogma is an open target for ridicule.My favorite piece, "the superior virtue of the oppressed" is as relevent today as it was eighty years ago. In it, he attacks those who look for a cause to call their own. He dispells the notion of the good ole days and questions whether any group of humans is morally superior to any other, regardless of their place in the power scheme.A truly terrific writer. If you haven't read Russell, you know nothing about philosophy.