Kudos to the Monitor’s editorial on Aug. 2 about Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on happiness.
I discovered Russell while a freshman in high school. I had a religious epiphany after reading his 1903 essay “A Free Man’s Worship.” Another favorite is his 1930 essay “Conquest of Happiness.” I highly recommend these to adolescent readers.
Russell is much maligned in some modern academic philosophy departments. Some believe that he is a third-rate, back-bench writer of popular philosophy. I disagree. His monumental work “Principia Mathematica,” co-authored with Alfred North Whitehead, and his 1950 Nobel prize in literature are indisputable testimonials to his brilliant mind and reasoning powers.
His views on the subject of happiness are prolific and inquisitive readers may find many of his works still in print and available at your local library or book store. I think that his most succinct comments on happiness can be found in his 1950 essay “The Science to Save Us From Science.”
“All those who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things: that it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire these things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can be refuted by science. Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”
I doubt that this will resonate with some who are mostly concerned about keeping what they’ve got and the rest of mankind can go to hell in a handbasket. The November election may decide who has the moral high ground. Russell is somewhere chuckling about the whole thing.
(Jim Baer lives in Concord.)