I have just finished reading the first chapter named Childhood. I think that the best lifestory is always written by the person himself. No one can choose the correct words to describe his life than the person himself, and especially if he is Bertrand Russell.
Listening to his child voice in the written words, you can see how sensitive children are and essentially he was. Grown ups can shape a lot of a child’s life with a few meaningless words. The story about his Uncle William, who seems to me to have been a sick, cruel, and dark person, that human capacity for enjoyment decreases with age and that he (Bertrand) will never enjoy a summer day as much again. This story touched me a lot, as a child you are ruining all his expectations just by this sentence and your planting the seeds of fear that may forever blemish his ability to achieve enjoyment.
He was surrounded with grown ups who suffered from different psychological complexes that must have affected their behaviour and their interaction with him. But his adaptation and survival inherent skills helped him carve himself into what he turned into. Yet, he remembers his childhood as happy and he felt cared for by the grown ups in his life.
I think that also the open horizon and nature surrounding him from his early days had a great impact on him and as he always praises idleness, it gave him time to think and digest all that was happening around him from an early age.
Adolescence is always a very complex period of life. To Bertrand Russell, it was
Listening to his child voice in the written words, you can see how sensitive children are and essentially he was. Grown ups can shape a lot of a child’s life with a few meaningless words. The story about his Uncle William, who seems to me to have been a sick, cruel, and dark person, that human capacity for enjoyment decreases with age and that he (Bertrand) will never enjoy a summer day as much again. This story touched me a lot, as a child you are ruining all his expectations just by this sentence and your planting the seeds of fear that may forever blemish his ability to achieve enjoyment.
He was surrounded with grown ups who suffered from different psychological complexes that must have affected their behaviour and their interaction with him. But his adaptation and survival inherent skills helped him carve himself into what he turned into. Yet, he remembers his childhood as happy and he felt cared for by the grown ups in his life.
I think that also the open horizon and nature surrounding him from his early days had a great impact on him and as he always praises idleness, it gave him time to think and digest all that was happening around him from an early age.
Adolescence is always a very complex period of life. To Bertrand Russell, it was
“I thought that if I ceased to believe in God, freedom and immortality, I should be unhappy. I found, however, that the reasons given in favour of these dogmas were very unconvincing”
“In general, I find that things that have happened to me out of doors have made a deeper impression that things have happened indoors.”
Engagement and First Marriage chapters takes through young Russells first encounter love and marriage. It was an intellectually intensive period of his life, finishing his dissertation and writing his first book.
The initiation of writing of ‘Principia Mathematica’ and a huge change in his life started with the year 1900.
“Ever since my marriage, my emotional life had been calm and superficial. I had forgotten all the deeper issues, and had been content with flippant cleverness. Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath me, and I found myself in quite another region. Within five minutes I went through some such reflections as the following: the loneliness of the human soul is unendurable; nothing can penetrate it except the highest intensity of the sort of love that religious teachers have preached; whatever does not spring from this motive is harmful, or at best useless; it follows that war is wrong, that a public school education is abominable, that the use of force is to be deprecated, and that in human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.”
The next chapter titled ‘Principia Mathematica’ described his life From 1902 to 1910 which was in his own words very painful.
“They were extremely fruitful in the way of work, but the pleasure to be derived from the writing of Principia Mathematica was all crammed into the latter months of 1900. After that time the difficulty and the labour were too great for any pleasure to be possible. The last years were better than the earlier ones because they were more fruitful, but the only really vivid delight connected with the whole matter was that which I felt in handing over the manuscript to the Cambridge University Press.
Love played an important part in his live and the women in his life played an important role in supporting hin through the intellectual chaos of war and also through the turmults of his career. The next chapters takes you through his life in Cambridge before the first world war and then his journeys through Russia and China.
Through this period his first marriage was broken with Ottoline coming into his life, then Colette was his main refuge during the war years until his imprisonment. After the war starts another chapter of his love life with Dora (his second wife), with whom he found a school.
About the war, he wrote,
"As a lover of civilisation, the return to barbarism appalled me. As a man thwarted parental feeling, the massacre of the young wrung my heart. I hardly supposed that much good would come of opposing the war, but I felt that for the honour of human nature those who were not swept off their feet should show that they stood firm ".
About Russia, he wrote:
"The time I spent in Russia was one of continually increasing nightmare."
"Cruelty, poverty, suspicion, persecution, formed the very air we breathed.”
Then come the trip to China, and the writing of “The problem of China”. He fell very sick and nearly died in Peking and was nursed by his second wife Dora. When he came out of delirium and was recovering, he was exceedingly happy with the news that they were expecting their first child.
On his return from China, started a different chapter of his life. He got married, had two children and found a school to educate his children and other children. They found the school in his brother’s house, Telegraph house, on the South Downs, between Chichester and Petersfield. During this time he published, ‘Marriage and Morals’ and ‘The Conquest of happiness’.
In 1936, he married Peter Spencer, after he left Dora (his second wife), with whom he had his youngest child Conrad. Soon after that he sold the Telegraph house and left to America.
From 1938 to 1944, he stayed in America. It started as an 8 month lecture tour, that ended nearly 7 years later. Those years were filled with financial and intellectual challenges. During his work with the College of the City of New York, he was legally convicted and became taboo throughout the whole of the United States. By 1943, the troubles stated to blow over and he started again lecturing.
"The gradual change of my views, from 1932 to 1940, was not a revolution; it was only a quantitative change and a sgift of emphasis. I had never been held the non-resistance creed absolutely, and I did not reject it absolutely. But the practical difference between opposing the First War and supporting the Second, was so great as to mask the considerable degree of theoretical consistency that in fact existed."
Returning to England in 1944, was a difficult process that he insisted on undergoing.
"Throughout the forties and the early fifties, my mind was in a state of confused agitation on the nuclear question. It was obvious to me that nuclear war would put an end to civilisation."
And hence, started his long struggle to make a difference in the world, first by fighting against nuclear war. This part of the book (and till its end) is really of great interest to me. The great efforts to make a differnce and produce a change, that he exerted until way into his nineties is fascinating.
In 1949, his book 'The impact of Science on Society' was published based on lectures he gave at different venues.
"The chief matter with which I was concerned was the increase of human power owing to scientific knowledge."
Another fascinating thing about his life, is how he always looked for love and always found love. In 1950, he remet an old aquiantance Edith Finch, with whom he fell in love with and soon married. In the chapter titled 'At Home and Abroad', he talks about their unique relationship and the various activities they enjoyed together.
The rest of the book describes his various efforts to fight injustice around the work. He formed committies, organisations and wrote manifestos and letters. He gave lectures and speeches all around the world. What I really loved about the book is his complete honesty, he tells the story as he remmebers it with no embellishment to make it look prettier or to gain any affirmations. He stood for what he thought, which often caused him to step down from positions when it was in opposition to what he thought or believed. He appreciated people and gave the credit all through the book, all the women in his life where appreciated and respected.
I enjoyed the book a lot and recommend it, just be aware it is a BIG book, with a loot of letters and speeches or articles.
This is what jWoman has to say for today.
The initiation of writing of ‘Principia Mathematica’ and a huge change in his life started with the year 1900.
“Ever since my marriage, my emotional life had been calm and superficial. I had forgotten all the deeper issues, and had been content with flippant cleverness. Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath me, and I found myself in quite another region. Within five minutes I went through some such reflections as the following: the loneliness of the human soul is unendurable; nothing can penetrate it except the highest intensity of the sort of love that religious teachers have preached; whatever does not spring from this motive is harmful, or at best useless; it follows that war is wrong, that a public school education is abominable, that the use of force is to be deprecated, and that in human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.”
The next chapter titled ‘Principia Mathematica’ described his life From 1902 to 1910 which was in his own words very painful.
“They were extremely fruitful in the way of work, but the pleasure to be derived from the writing of Principia Mathematica was all crammed into the latter months of 1900. After that time the difficulty and the labour were too great for any pleasure to be possible. The last years were better than the earlier ones because they were more fruitful, but the only really vivid delight connected with the whole matter was that which I felt in handing over the manuscript to the Cambridge University Press.
Love played an important part in his live and the women in his life played an important role in supporting hin through the intellectual chaos of war and also through the turmults of his career. The next chapters takes you through his life in Cambridge before the first world war and then his journeys through Russia and China.
Through this period his first marriage was broken with Ottoline coming into his life, then Colette was his main refuge during the war years until his imprisonment. After the war starts another chapter of his love life with Dora (his second wife), with whom he found a school.
About the war, he wrote,
"As a lover of civilisation, the return to barbarism appalled me. As a man thwarted parental feeling, the massacre of the young wrung my heart. I hardly supposed that much good would come of opposing the war, but I felt that for the honour of human nature those who were not swept off their feet should show that they stood firm ".
About Russia, he wrote:
"The time I spent in Russia was one of continually increasing nightmare."
"Cruelty, poverty, suspicion, persecution, formed the very air we breathed.”
Then come the trip to China, and the writing of “The problem of China”. He fell very sick and nearly died in Peking and was nursed by his second wife Dora. When he came out of delirium and was recovering, he was exceedingly happy with the news that they were expecting their first child.
On his return from China, started a different chapter of his life. He got married, had two children and found a school to educate his children and other children. They found the school in his brother’s house, Telegraph house, on the South Downs, between Chichester and Petersfield. During this time he published, ‘Marriage and Morals’ and ‘The Conquest of happiness’.
In 1936, he married Peter Spencer, after he left Dora (his second wife), with whom he had his youngest child Conrad. Soon after that he sold the Telegraph house and left to America.
From 1938 to 1944, he stayed in America. It started as an 8 month lecture tour, that ended nearly 7 years later. Those years were filled with financial and intellectual challenges. During his work with the College of the City of New York, he was legally convicted and became taboo throughout the whole of the United States. By 1943, the troubles stated to blow over and he started again lecturing.
"The gradual change of my views, from 1932 to 1940, was not a revolution; it was only a quantitative change and a sgift of emphasis. I had never been held the non-resistance creed absolutely, and I did not reject it absolutely. But the practical difference between opposing the First War and supporting the Second, was so great as to mask the considerable degree of theoretical consistency that in fact existed."
Returning to England in 1944, was a difficult process that he insisted on undergoing.
"Throughout the forties and the early fifties, my mind was in a state of confused agitation on the nuclear question. It was obvious to me that nuclear war would put an end to civilisation."
And hence, started his long struggle to make a difference in the world, first by fighting against nuclear war. This part of the book (and till its end) is really of great interest to me. The great efforts to make a differnce and produce a change, that he exerted until way into his nineties is fascinating.
In 1949, his book 'The impact of Science on Society' was published based on lectures he gave at different venues.
"The chief matter with which I was concerned was the increase of human power owing to scientific knowledge."
Another fascinating thing about his life, is how he always looked for love and always found love. In 1950, he remet an old aquiantance Edith Finch, with whom he fell in love with and soon married. In the chapter titled 'At Home and Abroad', he talks about their unique relationship and the various activities they enjoyed together.
The rest of the book describes his various efforts to fight injustice around the work. He formed committies, organisations and wrote manifestos and letters. He gave lectures and speeches all around the world. What I really loved about the book is his complete honesty, he tells the story as he remmebers it with no embellishment to make it look prettier or to gain any affirmations. He stood for what he thought, which often caused him to step down from positions when it was in opposition to what he thought or believed. He appreciated people and gave the credit all through the book, all the women in his life where appreciated and respected.
I enjoyed the book a lot and recommend it, just be aware it is a BIG book, with a loot of letters and speeches or articles.
This is what jWoman has to say for today.
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