Surrealpolitik

Surrealpolitik: Free Thought and Official Propaganda

Author: Bertand Russell

Project Gutenberg (2014, first published in 1922)

Quick Summary

Bertrand Russell delivers the Conway Memorial Lecture in 1922 on the subject of what constrains the freedom of thought. By freedom of thought, he explains exactly what he means: thought that is free from three great obstacles: legal penalties, economic penalties, and distortion of evidence. Besides propaganda, the factors preventing us from overcoming these obstacles are (mis)education and economic pressure -- but propaganda is the one that gets the headline status in the lecture's title. He emphasizes the importance of the "will to doubt," which he contrasts with William James' preaching of the "will to believe," and which strives to maintain a "critical undogmatic receptiveness" or a "tentatively agnostic frame of mind" -- which if it could be attained would cure "nine-tenths of the evils of the modern world."

Quotes

There are 11 quotes currently associated with this book.

In England, under the Blasphemy Laws, it is illegal to express disbelief in the Christian religion, though in practice the law is not set in motion against the well-to-do. It is also illegal to teach what Christ taught on the subject of non-resistance. Therefore, whoever wishes to avoid becoming a criminal must profess to agree with Christ's teaching, but must avoid saying what that teaching was. (page 70)
Tags: [Propaganda]
Legal penalties are, however, in the modern world, the least of the obstacles to freedom of thoughts. The two great obstacles are economic penalties and distortion of evidence. It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on one side of a controversy are perpetually presented as attractively as possible, while the arguments on the other side can only be discovered by diligent search. (page 79)
Tags: [Propaganda]
William James used to preach the "will to believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will to doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error. The methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known; they consist in hearing all sides, trying to ascertain all the relevant facts, controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the opposite bias, and cultivating a readiness to discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate. These methods are practised in science, and have built up the body of scientific knowledge. (page 115)
Tags: [Propaganda]
In religion and politics, on the contrary, though there is as yet nothing approaching scientific knowledge, everybody considers it de rigeur to have a dogmatic opinion, to be backed up by inflicting starvation, prison, and war, and to be carefully guarded from argumentative competition with any different opinion. If only men could be brought into a tentatively agnostic frame of mind about these matters, nine-tenths of the evils of the modern world would be cured. (page 124)
Tags: [Propaganda]
Critical undogmatic receptiveness is the true attitude of science. (page 133)
Tags: [Propaganda]
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite. (page 142)
Tags: [Propaganda]
If it is admitted that a condition of rational doubt would be desirable, it becomes important to inquire how it comesabout that there is so much irrational certainty in the world. A great deal of this is due to the inherent irrationality and credulity of average human nature. But this seed of intellectual original sin is nourished and fostered by other agencies, among which three play the chief part -- namely, education, propaganda, and economic pressure. (page 142)
Tags: [Propaganda]
The whole machinery of the State, in all the different countries, is turned on to making defenceless children believe absurd propositions the effect of which is to make them willing to die in defence of sinister interests under the impression that they are fighting for truth and right....Without an elaborate system of deceit in the elementary schools it would be impossible to preserve the camouflage of democracy. (page 160)
Tags: [Propaganda]
Propaganda, conducted by the means which advertisers have found successful, is now one of the recognized methods of government in all advanced countries, and is especially the method by which democratic opinion is created. (page 244)
Tags: [Propaganda]
If there is to be toleration in the world, one of the things taught in schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not giving full assent to propositions which there is no reason to believe. For example, the art of reading the newspapers should be taught. The school master should select some incident which happened a good many years ago, and roused political passions in its day. He should then read to the school children what was said by the newspapers on one side, what was said by those on the other, and some impartial account of what really happened. He should show how, from the biased account of either side, a practised reader could infer what really happened, and he should make them understand that everything in newspapers is more or less untrue. The cynical scepticism which would result from this teaching would make the children in later life immune from those appeals to idealism by which decent people are induced to further the schemes of scoundrels. (page 307)
Tags: [Propaganda]
One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instruction as to the prevalent forms of mendacity. (page 316)
Tags: [Propaganda]