-Caveat Lector- http://www.nationalpost.com/ National Post March 3, 2001 The shallow behaviour of a deep thinker Troy Jollimore National Post BERTRAND RUSSELL: THE GHOST OF MADNESS 1921-1970 By Ray Monk Random House UK xv+574 pp., $75 --- Bertrand Russell was one of the best known and most influential philosophers of the 20th century. At various times he was also a massively popular public speaker, an anti-nuclear and anti-war activist, an educational administrator and a frequently slapdash journalist. He was an aristocrat -- an earl, whose godfather was John Stuart Mill -- yet he always seemed to identify more with radical younger generations than his own relatively staid one, and ultimately became a vocal supporter of Che Guevara. A philanderer and outspoken opponent of monogamy and other conventional values, he was tormented with jealousy over his wives' extramarital affairs. He experienced four marriages, three divorces, two jail terms for civil disobedience (1918 and 1961) and, in 1950, won the Nobel prize for literature -- shortly after which he published two collections of short stories notable, if at all, only for their complete lack of literary merit. Such a life is a biographer's feast of ironies, reversals, and outright contradictions. Russell himself often strikes us as a great appreciator of the ironies. At the age of 50 he said of himself, "My brain is not what it was. I'm past my best -- & therefore, of course, I am now celebrated." He was right: in 1921, the year in which Volume 2 of Ray Monk's biography opens, Russell's best philosophical work was behind him. And yet, although he could not have known this, his life was barely half over and his most significant fame and most visible public roles were yet to come. How, precisely, a Cambridge logician and co-author of one of the most imposingly technical works of the century (the famous Principia Mathematica (1910), which was so massive that Russell and Alfred North Whitehead had to deliver the manuscript to the publisher in a wheelbarrow, and which Russell often maintained had been read in its entirety by no more than half a dozen people) became a modern celebrity and hero to the young is a mystery on which Monk's biography sheds little light. Partly this is due to Monk's tendency to neglect Russell's professional and public lives in favor of the complicated and ultimately tragic story of his subject's family life. Russell, Monk makes it clear, did not tend to treat his wives, lovers, and children as well as his idealistic statements about humanity and education might have led one to hope. What is equally clear, though not equally stressed, is that Russell's family and acquaintances tended not to treat him very well either. His children, perhaps, can hardly be blamed -- Russell's so-called scientific educational strategies (a main element being to ignore and neglect children to prevent them becoming spoiled egoists) scarred his children irrevocably, and several of them also suffered from a hereditary tendency toward schizophrenia, fear of which plagued and taunted Russell himself throughout his life. Even if the behavior of the children is somewhat understandable, most of them (with the possible exception of Kate, his second child) are far from sympathetic characters. (And really, if it's sympathetic characters you are looking for, you would be advised to choose another family and another book.) Monk's negative attitude and apparent dislike of Russell was noted by many reviewers of the first volume, some of whom have accused him of being unfair toward his subject. This charge is not entirely unfounded: Monk is frequently hostile toward Russell, is consistently uncharitable in his interpretations of many of his letters and actions and never misses an opportunity to point out when his subject might be taking himself, his writings or his public role somewhat too seriously. On the other hand, Monk is right that Russell's politics, while consistently humane, often fluctuated between naive wishful thinking and destructive pessimism. And he is quite correct, too, to complain of the shoddy and sometimes shockingly poor quality, not to mention the sheer triviality, of many of Russell's writings in later life, both philosophical (his flippant and shallow History of Western Philosophy comes to mind) and otherwise. Russell was often writing for money, of course, and a certain lowering of standards is to be expected. But it is difficult to take entirely seriously anyone who, 30 years after Principia Mathematica, writes an article for Vogue on the subject, "What Makes a Woman a Fascinator?" (His answers included a kind of beauty "that comes and goes, like a gleam of sun on a stormy day," and "a certain fundamental indifference to men, combined with a superficial interest in them.") Nonetheless, Monk's relentlessly critical view of Russell seems skewed or at least overdone. If nothing else, it leaves certain questions unaddressed. Why did so many women find Russell dashing and irresistible? Why, if Russell in later years was as careless and cynical as Monk portrays, did so many intelligent people stand in awe and envy of his ability? ("One does not like him," Virginia Woolf wrote. "Nevertheless, I should like the run of his headpiece.") And why, if Russell was an almost completely self-absorbed and uncaring megalomaniac, was he moved to devote so much of his life to the pursuit of global peace? Despite his best efforts to sully his subject's reputation, it may be that the image Monk will leave with most readers is of Russell the serene and elegant anti-war activist, "a white-haired prophet sitting with a resolute expression on his face among a vast throng of young, idealistic followers," having his visage broadcast onto television screens around the world. This was in 1961. Within a few years Russell would be dead. But, for the moment, he seemed entirely in his element: passionate, informed, relevant and vital. In the midst of this event, Russell was asked by a reporter to explain his reasons for taking part in the protest. "Because," he answered with typical understatement, "if the present policies of the Western governments are continued, the entire human race will be exterminated, and some of us think that might be rather a pity." Troy Jollimore is the author of the philosophical study, Friendship and Agent-Relative Morality. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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