Bertrand Russell

“I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.”
Bertrand Russell

Wisdom

“The leaders of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.”

Bertrand Russell, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923), Part II. Ch: XII, p. 249

First published in 1923, The Prospects of Industrial Civilization is often considered the most ambitious of Bertrand Russell’s works on modern society, offering a glimpse into often-ignored subtleties of his political thought. The book was written with Dora Black (who became Russell’s second wife) while Russell was teaching in China in 1920.

Russell argues that industrialism can be a threat to human freedom, since at present, it is fundamentally linked with toxic versions of nationalism, which are then based on institutionalized racism, dogmatism and warfare. The current features of industrialism, argues Russell, supports large populations which are subject to wide and often harsh governmental controls, endangering our human freedoms. For example, Russell strikingly likens Lenin’s Bolshevik Russia to Cromwell’s Puritan England, asserting that both were ‘religious and dogmatic dictatorships’ designed to force an essentially feudal society to adopt modern industrialism.

However, Russell is not blind to the positive side of industrialism; without our machine-based technologies, an economy of mere subsistence would be the best for which any society could hope, but argues that a world global village, a world government, all the while passionately subscribing to the prevailing Western values of democracy and individual freedoms should be its eventual and welcome results.