Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Unpopular Essays
Bertrand Russell, On Being Modern-minded, 1950
The modern-minded man , although he believes profoundly in the wisdom of his period, must be presumed to be very modest about his personal powers. His highest hope is to think first about what is to be thought, to say what is about to be said, and to feel what is going to be felt; he has no wish to think better thoughts than his neighbours, to say things showing more insight, or to have emotions which are not those of some fashionable group, but only to be slightly ahead of the other in point of time. Quite deliberately he suppresses what is individual in himself for the sake of the admiration of the herd. A mentally solitary life, such as that of Copernicus, or Spinoza, or Milton after the Restoration, seems pointless according to modern standards...Why should an individual set himself up as an independent judge?Is it not clear that wisdom resides in the blood of the Nordic race or, alternatively, in the proletariat? And in any case what is the use of an eccentric opinion, which can never hope to conquer the great agencies of publicity?
Bertrand Russell, On Being Modern-minded, 1950
