In Praise of Idleness

A Timeless Essay

Bertrand Russell

• Editorial: Nero
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781925203684
• Categoría: Philosophy
• Categoría: Philosophical Essays

New York Times bestselling author Bradley Trevor Greive breathes new life into Bertrand Russell's classic work, In Praise of Idleness, with a magical package that includes BTG's new introduction, biographical afterword, historical notes, additional quotations and comic illustrations. This is the perfect gift for the fearless literary connoisseur who values creativity, big ideas and revolutionary spirit.Considered "the Voltaire of his time", Bertrand Russell was a fearless iconoclast who stood unbowed before political and religious leaders; his disdain for conventional thinking and accepted beliefs set him apart from his academic peers and at odds with the authorities throughout his long and storied life.Russell's penetrating insights and exquisite turns of phrase feel as fresh and relevant today as when they were first written. Arguing that we can achieve far more by doing far less, and that traditional wealth accumulation is a form of cultural and moral poverty, Russell demands greater depth from our age of abundant creativity and heralds the next wave of enlightened entrepreneurs.'Bradley Trevor Greive, best known for his humorous inspirational books, has done us all a favour by bringing the full force of his bestseller clout to reviving the work of polymath philosopher Bertrand Russell' — The Age 'If you have any intellectuals hiding around the house, or know someone who fantasises about donning a smoking jacket for some "pipe time", this charming little book is sure to appeal … This is the Christmas gift that will keep on giving in terms of guidance.' — Courier Mail 'Beautiful' — Law Journal 'Although written in 1920, it feels timely, reminding us that we'll never accomplish anything of lasting merit if we're constantly busy (at work, on our phones, on the internet). Grieve's illustrations, notes and elaborations make for a beautiful package – and the ideal gift for the overachiever in your life.' — Weekly Review 'Utterly and completely delightful - and wise!' —Heather Rose, Stella Prize winning author of The Museum of Modern Love

notes

1.Taken from Principles of Social Reconstruction – Chapter V: Education (Routledge, 1997) p.115.

2.T. S. Eliot’s poem “Mr. Apollinax” presents an unforgettable portrait of Russell as, among other things, an “irresponsible foetus”. First published in 1916 in both Poetry magazine, Chicago, and The Egoist magazine, London – thanks to the influence of Ezra Pound – and later included in T. S. Eliot’s first anthology, Prufrock and Other Observations, published by The Egoist Ltd, London, in 1917 – thanks, once again, to the tireless Ezra Pound – Eliot’s debut collection is credited with dragging Romantic poets into the Modernist age, kicking, screaming and utterly baffled.

3.Eliot, then a promising doctoral student in Harvard’s prestigious philosophy department, first met Russell in the spring of 1914, when he attended Russell’s guest lectures and also joined a gathering of twelve postgraduate students who had tea with Russell each week: Eliot was so impressed by Russell’s distinctive voice and dazzling intellect he could not remember anything about any of his fellow attendees, other than that they ate cucumber sandwiches. Suffice to say Eliot greatly admired the distinguished visiting professor (acclaimed by fellow students as “almost superhuman” and by the eminent American philosopher, Josiah Royce, as “the most discussed logician since Aristotle”). Russell, in turn, thought very highly of the promising philosopher (and soon to be celebrated poet) who would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, two years before Russell himself.

After being awarded a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, Eliot moved to England in the autumn of 1914, and a chance encounter with Russell on a London street resulted in a renewed and deeper friendship. When the presumed sexless Eliot joined Russell for dinner in London, in 1915, he surprised his host with his mysterious bride of two weeks, Vivienne Haigh-Wood: surprised and curiously aroused, it turned out. Russell promptly invited the financially strapped young couple to share his lodgings and soon seduced Mrs Eliot. Some scholars believe T. S. Eliot was complicit in his wife’s extramarital affair – either way, this thoroughly toxic ménage à trois ably assisted the complete destruction of the fatally flawed Eliot marriage and no doubt contributed to Vivienne’s cruel alienation, alleged drug abuse and mental breakdown. Eliot himself credited his failed first marriage and its aftermath with gifting him the state of mind necessary to create his most famous poem, The Waste Land.

4.Russell is the model for the pitilessly brilliant Sir Joshua Malleson in D. H. Lawrence’s novel Women in Love (stormy sequel to The Rainbow; arguably his best work and also, tragically, the first of his novels to be banned and the only one to be seized and burnt by the authorities) and likely also Bertie Reid, the fractured man-mollusc in Lawrence’s short story The Blind Man. You might imagine that two great men of letters, one central and the other peripheral to the Modernist movement – both hypersexual, slim-hipped, small-bodied, angry pacifists crowned with curiously distorted heads – would be the best of friends … but in fact they did not enjoy an easy relationship; the irony was that D. H. Lawrence, oft persecuted as a literary libertine, considered Russell far too liberal. Strange but true.

5.Bertrand Russell directly inspired Mr Scogan, the cynically prescient character in Aldous Huxley’s first novel, Crome Yellow, whose darkly astute observations presaged Huxley’s most famous work, Brave New World.

6.As an interesting aside, Russell’s seminal work, The Scientific Outlook (1931), appeared in print just one year before the publication of Brave New World (1932). Though Russell’s publisher discouraged him from taking action against Huxley for plagiarism, it is generally accepted that Russell’s book provided vitally important source material for Huxley’s dystopian classic. Beyond their sometime friendship, this direct intellectual connection would explain, at least in part, why Russell was a vocal champion of Brave New World when many other leading scientific and literary figures, including H. G. Wells, the “father of science fiction” himself, considered Huxley’s best-selling novel offensively bleak. Russell even made a knowing, though essentially positive, reference to the success of Brave New World in a prefatory note to the second edition of The Scientific Outlook (1949).

7.Aldous Huxley died on November 22nd, 1963, within the same hour as C. S. Lewis and President John F. Kennedy: Huxley succumbed to laryngeal cancer on the wings of LSD, Lewis fell out of his sickbed to die in his brother’s embrace, and JFK was shot repeatedly by Lee Harvey Oswald and/or persons unknown while parading through the streets of Dallas, Texas. The perverse coincidence of this morbid timing bears no especial relevance to Bertrand Russell, or the subject of Active Idleness, but continues to shock and fascinate me nonetheless.

8.One cannot talk about Russell’s extraordinary influence upon and within the realms of philosophy and logic without mentioning Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the reverse is also true. Wittgenstein was inspired to study the foundations of mathematics after reading Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics (1903). They met rather suddenly in 1911, when Wittgenstein arrived in Cambridge to study under Russell and barrelled into the professor’s rooms at Trinity College unannounced while Russell was taking tea with a learned colleague. Though initially unsure if the stormy Wittgenstein was mad, a genius, or both, Russell grew to love and admire his student, describing his brilliant pupil in the third volume of his autobiography as follows: “He was the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating.”

9.Russell soon came to view Wittgenstein as his intellectual heir, and although this came to pass, insomuch as Wittgenstein went on to be regarded alongside Russell as the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, the two did not collaborate as Russell has hoped, and eventually they grew apart, largely on account of Wittgenstein’s erratic behaviour and his growing belief that Russell, along with virtually every sentient being, could not hope to truly understand him or his work. Despite Wittgenstein’s growing disdain for his former teacher, Russell generously wrote the introduction to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, explaining and thus affirming its importance: though less than eighty pages, this pugnacious little volume established Wittgenstein’s professional reputation. In a cruel twist of fate it was Wittgenstein’s harsh but accurate criticism of Russell’s Theory of Knowledge that brought this major work to a shuddering halt. Deeply wounded by his protégé’s cutting insights, Russell not only abandoned the 208-page manuscript in 1913 but, as revealed in a letter written in 1916 to his then lover (Lady Ottoline Morrell – a.k.a. “Lady Utterly Immoral”, as she was nicknamed by Aldous Huxley), Russell also came to believe that he “… could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy”.

10.Wittgenstein was born in Austria within a week of Adolf Hitler … as were many other less well-known Austrians, I’m sure. Interestingly, however, these two historical figures attended the same provincial high school in Linz (K.u.k. Realschule) for at least part of the school year in 1904; however, they were never classmates – Hitler, who was a very poor student, was sent back a class, while Wittgenstein was promoted a year ahead of his peers – thus, despite their being the same age, the two youths were two full grades apart. Not being able to fathom what could possibly have transformed a sensitive boy into a demonic Nazi leader has led to desperate speculation that it might have been young Ludwig, the wealthy Jewish boy with evident intellectual superiority, who first seeded pathogenic anti-Semitism within the future German Führer’s evil little heart; though no meaningful evidence exists to suggest that either of the two school boys even knew the other existed at the time.

11.Russell’s pioneering work in mathematical logic proved a major departure point for the founder of computer science. The profound connection between these two great minds endures to this day at the Alan Turing Memorial, located next to the University of Manchester. The bronze plaque beneath the sombre statue of Turing holding an apple features the following quote from Russell’s essay The Study Of Mathematics (1902): “Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.”

12.In Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, written by Barry Miles (1998), and in numerous interviews, McCartney revealed that he sought out Russell in London in the mid 1960s, when the philosopher was living in nearby Chelsea. It was Russell who first told McCartney of the ominous conflict underway in Vietnam – which was, at that time, still largely unreported in the media – and who encouraged Paul to rouse his band’s political conscience. McCartney then took Russell’s message back to his fellow Beatles (who were recording a new album at Abbey Road Studios) where he claimed it had an immediate and lasting impact on the band, especially John Lennon. Indeed, Lennon later returned his MBE (Member of the British Empire, (awarded to each member of The Beatles by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965)), as a protest against Great Britain’s support for American policy during the Vietnam War.

13.On the 14th of October, 1931, Albert Einstein wrote an unsolicited letter to Russell and it is abundantly clear from the gushy first paragraph (copied verbatim (in English) below) that he was a genuine fan:

Dear Bertrand Russell

For a long time I have had the wish to write you. All I wanted to do, was to express my feeli...