Thursday, September 23, 2004
Futurist
Reading Russell in his Unpopular Essays has been interesting. He makes a fairly decent historian when he debunks philosophical and other forms of intellectual rot though the ages, in An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish. However, he proves to be a rather curious futurist with rather simplistic beliefs about the way events will/should unfold themselves, in The Future of Mankind. I found this particular excerpt, written during the period of the Cold War, particularly satisfying to my sense of irony :-
The first step - and it is one which is now not very difficult - is to persuade the United States and the British Commonwealth of the absolute necessity for a military unification of the world. The gevernments of the English-speaking nations whould then offer to all other nations the option of entering into a firm Alliance, involving a pooling of military resources and mutual defence against aggression. In the case of hesitant nations, such as Italy, great inducements, economic and military, should be held out to produce their co-operation.
At a certain stage, when the Alliance had acquired sufficient strength, any Great Power still refusing to join should be threatened with outlawry, and, if recalcitrant, should be regarded as a public enemy. The resulting war, if it occurred fairly soon, would probably leave the economic and political structure of the United States intact, and would enable the victorious Alliance to establish a monopoly of armed force, and therefore to make peace secure. But perhaps, if the Alliance were sufficiently powerful, war would not be necessary, and the reluctant Powers would prefer to enter it as equals rather than, after a terrible war, submit to it as vanquished enemies. If this were to happen, the world might emerge from its present dangers without another great war. I do not see hope of such a happy issue by any other method...
The first step - and it is one which is now not very difficult - is to persuade the United States and the British Commonwealth of the absolute necessity for a military unification of the world. The gevernments of the English-speaking nations whould then offer to all other nations the option of entering into a firm Alliance, involving a pooling of military resources and mutual defence against aggression. In the case of hesitant nations, such as Italy, great inducements, economic and military, should be held out to produce their co-operation.
At a certain stage, when the Alliance had acquired sufficient strength, any Great Power still refusing to join should be threatened with outlawry, and, if recalcitrant, should be regarded as a public enemy. The resulting war, if it occurred fairly soon, would probably leave the economic and political structure of the United States intact, and would enable the victorious Alliance to establish a monopoly of armed force, and therefore to make peace secure. But perhaps, if the Alliance were sufficiently powerful, war would not be necessary, and the reluctant Powers would prefer to enter it as equals rather than, after a terrible war, submit to it as vanquished enemies. If this were to happen, the world might emerge from its present dangers without another great war. I do not see hope of such a happy issue by any other method...
