Sep 27, 2011
Bertrand Russell’s 10 commandments for teachers everyone with a brain
Bertrand Russell’s “Liberal Decalogue”…
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 worth while 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, endeavour 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.
- 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 that 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.
(via MetaFilter)
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I feel that I cannot be certain of his first commandment.
The reason I am uneasy with it is because I feel nearly certain that everyone will think I am lame for pointing this out.
I don’t think you’re lame. You have a valid point, if we follow his first “commandment” one thinks wait is he certain of the following things he is saying? Though I believe what he is trying to say here is always leave the option open that you could be wrong. Never become blinded, just incase new evidence presents itself.
1 and 5 trivially combine to “trust nobody, not even me, unless what they say actually makes sense”
Which is, strangely enough, at the core of Buddhism.
My review:
2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 are all good.
1 – leads to conviction-less people. Some people could do with fewer convictions but not everyone.
4 – true, but there’s wisdom in not arguing everything out all the time before making a decision. Particularly when married.
5 – should be ‘limit your respect…’
10 – fine, but Bertrand Russell’s opinion of what makes someone a fool is probably wrong. Someone I know once had tea with him – allegedly, Bertrand didn’t know how to make a cup of tea.
1 – may lead to “conviction less” people .. but maybe it’s better to be conviction less than having wrong convictions.
Being unsure of something doesn’t mean you won’t act when a situation calls for it. Let me give you an example, if you were 95% sure there was someone in a burning house .. wouldn’t you run in there to check? A person of conviction may believe the fire department will be there on time.
You don’t have to be 100% sure of things to be a contributing member of society.
Wow, this would never fly with the Texas Board of Education who essentially approve of all textbooks in the US.
#1 just seems a little too absolute for me.
And under what authority does Russell put forth #5?
Good job, Jimmie. You may proceed to #2.
This brings up the issue of the validity of different worldviews. What do you think of this short video on worldviews found at ScreenChomp: http://www.screenchomp.com/t/jkHxsUqAX
No-one does commandments as well as God, it seems.
But, if God knew anything about blogging he would have called them the Top 10 Commandments.
That was a good one!
As to rule #1, Russell seemed pretty certain that God does not exist. Hmmm.
He wasn’t absolutely certain. He was pretty certain.
I just dropped by to say what Josh just said. :)
Okay, good one. I’m from the south, so forgive my colloquialism.
A southerner living in California? :)
He felt the same way about space werewolves, underpants gnomes, and all the other similarly-evidenced things, too.
That’s not quite true. He took quite a bit of time wrestling with the matter as you can see in his writings. Who knows, if he had seen today’s evidence for the existence of God, he may have abandoned atheism. I remember being quite shocked when Anthony Flew made the leap to the theist camp.
I got a similar feeling from his writings. However, he wasn’t atheist but agnostic, as far as I can remember. He mainly believed that God’s existence was a matter of faith and not of scientific experimentation.
So what do you mean by “Hmmm”? What is your vew?
I really like #4, so true. Embarrassed but I don’t think I get number 6. How will they suppress me?
These would be really hard to live by.
Rule no 11. Remove the broom once in a while.
Is #9 where Al Gore got the phrase “inconvenient truth”?
five more from his lost apocryphal manuscript:
11. Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true.
12. Never Eat at a place called ‘Mom’s’.
13. Never play poker with a man named ‘Slim’.
14. Never buy a used pickup from the pool guy.
15. No matter how much the wife insists on buying white counter-tops for the kitchen, it is a terrible idea and don’t give in to her.
16. (and I can’t stress this one enough…) Never, ever get laid where you get paid. (also known as the Clinton/Sandusky maxim)
Now you tell me.
Is it not the case that Bertrand Russel was somewhat of a pompous, mummy of a person? It’s great that he was able to reason strongly, but why take much mere advice from someone if they didn’t like actual people?
I got the impression he had quite a sense of humour. Maybe he had confidence in himself, but he was open to being convinced that he was wrong, so I’m not sure that I would call him pompous really.
Somethong to ponder upon seriously, but take them more like recommendations than commandments.
Rusell, himself, recommends not believing anything unconditionally.
I think they all are philosophically incorrect. Sorry.
Nice to see intelligent discord! I am very good at #1 and I have to say it makes for a complicated life…oh to see things as black and white. But I guess that puts me in violation of number 10.
I saw a very old interview with him on BBC4.He was really interesting to listen to and very wise and made it simple.
Wheee, #1 is self refuting. Done.
Haha my thoughts exactly!
Russell was asked at the age of seventy seven why he hadn’t written his autobiography to which he replied “well I don’t know that my life is quite finished yet, who knows what could happen? I may end up becoming the President of Mexico and people would think it strange that I neglected to mention it.”
and when asked if he would ever die for his beliefs said ‘Of course not, I might be completely wrong’
So the first nullifies the rest. What a goofball.