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A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching | Brain Pickings
Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one, but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
- Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
- Do not think it worthwhile 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, endeavor 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. [Grace: This is not to be confused with not respecting people in general. BE KIND.]
- 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 than 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.
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"To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness."
- Bertrand Russell (via swissmiss) -
"Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way — and if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet."
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swissmiss | The Ten Commandments of Teaching
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. 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.
Russell is my homeboy.
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"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."
- Bertrand Russell -
High Resolution“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you’d thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you’ve never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it’s as if a hand has come out, and taken yours” - Hector, The History Boys
We read to help us forget and to remember. For those of you who have been asking about reading recommendations, here’s my top 5 for this year, accompanied by excerpts that made me fall in love.
- The Help - Kathryn Stockett
I linger at the window. Outside, a fine rain has started to fall, misting the glassy cars and slicking the black pavement. I watch Lou Anne slip away in the parking lot, thinking, There is so much you don’t know about a person. I wonder if I could’ve made her days a little bit easier, if I’d tried. If I’d treated her a little nicer. Wasn’t that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.
- Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival - Anderson Cooper
I wished I knew how to explain it to them. It’s as if a window opens, and you realize the world has been re-formed. I wanted to see the starvation. I needed to remind myself of its reality. I worry that if I get too comfortable, too complacent, I’ll lose all feeling, all sensation.
The next day, I was on a plane, on my way. I’d been relieved of the burden of vacation. I was in motion once again, hurtling through space. Nothing was certain, but everything was clear. - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone’s heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone’s hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don’t really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn’t have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon, it would sound like war.
- An Object of Beauty - Steve Martin
On the way back to the Carlyle, his mental reenactment of their last kiss told him, yes, she loves me, and he once again saw Lacey as an illuminating white light, forgetting that white is composed of disparate streaks of color, each as powerful as the whole.
- The Conquest of Happiness - Bertrand Russell
To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: “Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a laborer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.”
- The Help - Kathryn Stockett
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Memorandum, or a brick wall of text that will be read by no one.
- I just finished watching Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere. It was an entrancing sort of poem about a man who feels nothing despite the hedonism and celebrity that surrounds him. He seems to be a passenger in his own life, drifting in and out. The only thing that is somewhat constant is his partial custody of his daughter. Both are aware of the fact that neither is a large part of each other’s life (what a cluster of syntax. apologies), yet it is this awareness that encourages a warm affection between them. It’s not a movie for lovers of plot, but if you’re watching a Sofia Coppola movie, you would know that. I thought it was a sweet film.
- Picked up Bertrand Russell’s Conquest of Happiness again, in which he delineates the contributors of unhappiness and proposes the remedies to prevent emotional devastation and promote a more positive comportment.
His explanation of persecution mania, in particular, is fascinating. Persecution mania (hereafter PM) is “always rooted in a too exaggerated conception of our own merits”. Think. Perhaps this reminds you of someone you know? There is the philanthropist (“always doing good to people against their will, and is amazed and horrified they display no gratitude.”) and the inventor (“who has never been able to get any one to examine the merits of his invention”), to name a few of the PM archetypes.
Par for the course, Russell suggest four general maxims:
I thought them to be wise and well-thought out. Often I forget that much of my anxiety is of my own creation and these maxims are simplistic, straight-forward reminders that life is very much a large, red, WWII propaganda poster, “Keep Calm and Carry On”, what have you.
1. Remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
2. Don’t over estimate your own merits.
3. Don’t expect others to take as much interest in you as you do your self.
4. Don’t imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desire to persecute you.
Anyways, I recommend Russell’s book. - I’d really like to say hello to my new followers. I’m quite flattered by and grateful for your delusion. I hope that you will enjoy my posts, and I promise that the personal drivel (such as this) will be minimal.
- My addiction to cherry Dr. Pepper knows no bounds as I have consumed two cans and have no intention of stopping.
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Twenty-something.
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The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of my employers. No one should be held responsible for my stupid thoughts.
