Bertrand Russell, Face to Face Interview Complete, 1959 - Subtítulos en español

In 1959 John Freeman's guest on "Face to Face" was the outstanding mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell. Then within two months of his 87th birthday. But far from being a frail old gentleman, he appeared before the camera as spry, as mischievous and articulate, as the public have ever known him, throughout a long career as a campaigner in various courses at odds with the establishment. But it was from the establishment he came, grandson of two Lords, one of them Lord Russell, the liberal Prime Minister. He went to Cambridge in 1890 where he wrote the 'Principles of Mathematics' And later his great work: 'Principia Mathematica'. His academic work as one of the greatest philosophies of his days, continued at Cambridge until the first World War, when his vigorous campaigning as a pacifist got him expelled from Trinity. But he continued as a writer. His 'History of Western Philosophy published in 1945 gaining him a more popular acceptance and lasting financial security. Russell, a late victorian was an early crusader for free love. In revolt against the humbug and hypocrisy of much of edwardian life. A freedom exemplified unashamedly in his own private life. After teaching in America he returned to Britain in triumph after World War 2 Was given the order of merit in 1949, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. From the 50's onwards his main concern was the threat of nuclear annihilation. He was the first president of the campaign for nuclear disarmament, at the time of the "Face to Face" interview. And 2 years later, still battling against the authority, he was arrested at an anti-nuclear sitting in Parliament Square and sentenced to 7 days in jail. He was 89 years old. His "Face to Face" interview reveals the qualities that sustained his reputation for decades. Lucidity of mind, transparent honesty, and an endearing sense of fun. By the death of the third Earl Russell, or Bertrand Russell, as he prefered to call himself. At the age of 90, a link with a very distant pass is severed. His grandfather, Lord John Russell, the Victorian Prime Minister visited Napoleon in Elba. His maternal grandmother was a friend of the Young Pretender's widow. In his youth he did important work of importance in mathematic and logic, But his excentric attitude during the first World War... In second World War, he took no public part, having escaped to a neutral country just before its outbreak. In private conversation, he was willing to say that homicidal lunatics were well employ in killing each other, but the sensible man will keep out of their way while they were doing it. He appeared in extreme old age full of enjoyment. No doubt owing in large measure to his invariable health. Though politically, during his last years, he was as isolated as Milton after the restauration. He was the last survivor of a dead epoque. That I wrote in 1937. A year before the second World War began. As a prophecy of what I thought The Times would say about me when I die. I observe that the day I attributed to my death is 1962. Which is coming ominously near and begins to cause me some alarm! But before you feel to much alarm, let us examine this obituary which was written in jest, and see how true it really is. To star with it let's go back to the distant past. What is your very earliest memory Lord Russell? Well, I supose my very earliest memory is stumbling out of a pony carriage when I was 2 years old, and... my earliest at all vivid memories are arriving at the house of my grandparents, Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park, after the death of my father, who died when I was 3. How did you come to be in the care of your grandparents. Your mother had also died? Yes she also ... She died when I was 2 and my father when I was 3. You have any memory of your parents? Very little. I remember nothing of my mother. I remember my father once giving me a leaflet printed in red letters. The red letters pleased me. What was life like at Pembroke Lodge? Did your grandparents, for instance, entertain the great people of the day? Yes, not very much. My grandfather was already an invalid, he could only get about in a bath chair. He died when I was 6. My grandmother survived a long time, until a long time after I was married, But she lived in semi-retirement. We saw a lot of distinguished people, specially literary people. Your grandfather had been a politician in his day, as your father? My grandfather, yes. My grandfather was twice Prime Minister. My father was in Parliament for a very brief period. Did you meet the great and famous who use to come to visit or were you shut away in the nursery? Oh, I used to meet them, yes. Who specially impressed you at that age? Well, I think Mr Gladstone specially impressed me. What's your memory of him? Oh, I have a great many memories of Mr Gladstone. He had an eye that could quell anybody. People who didn't know him, can't quite understand his political importance, that depended of his hawk's eye. My most painful recollection of him, is when I was 17 and very, very shy. And he came to stay with my people and I was the only male in the family and after the ladies retired after dinner, I was left tete-a-tete with Mr. Gladstone. And he didn't do anything to alleviate my shyness. He made only one remark, he said: This is very good port they've given me, but why have they given it me in a claret glass? And I didn't know the answer. Turning to your occupations as a child, What was the first books that impressed you. You were interested in history, in fairy stories, in adventure, or what? I was always very much interested in history, very much. Fairy stories, when I was younger, yes. And I regret to say that I liked Hans Andersen much better than Grimm. I don't now, but I did then, very much better. I read Hans Andersen Fairy Tales over and over again when I was young. Were you always sceptic from a small child, or did you believe in the conventions? Oh, I wasn't sceptic when I was very young. No. I was very deeply religious. And lost my conventional beliefs slowly, painfully. Very slowly, I remember it now. This is another very early memory that I have when I was 4 years old. They just been telling me this story of Little Red Riding Hood. And I dreamt that I has been eaten by a wolf, and to my great surprise, I was in the wolf's stomach and not in heaven! [Laughing] This is the begining back to scepticism. Yes. And, tell me, did you said your prayers when you were a child. Oh, Yes. When did you ceased doing that? Oh I supose that when I was about 12 or 13. Were you made to say them before that? Oh yes, I was made to at first, but I went on after I'd stopped being made to. Yes, will you tell me what experience it was that gave you your first intuition about scepticism when you were a child? [Laughs] Well, I supose you I'd say the time when I tried to catch an angel. They told me when I was an infant, that angels watched round my bed while I slept. And I've seen pictures of angels, and I thought I should very much like to see one. But I supose that the moment that I opened my eyes they fled away. So I thought: Well, next time I wake up, I won't open my eyes and they won't know. And I did so, and I made a grab, thinking I could catch an angel, but I didn't! Do you think now looking back that there's any really unfortunate legacy that you carried out of your childhood? I do, I mean, a sort of a family attitude, certainly on matters of sex. It was morbid, morbidly puritanical. Well, did you then in fact got a feeling of guilt about sex? No, well I don't know? No, I don't think I had to much occasion to. No. Well now, let's talk your school age. What sort of learning at that age? Did you first studied the classics? Well, to a certain degree I was never fond of the classics. I mean mathematics was what I liked. My first lesson in mathematics I had from my brother, who started me on Euclid. And I thought it was the loveliest stuff that I'd ever seen in my life I didn't know there was anything so nice in the world! Can you remember and tell us about that? Oh yes, I remember. I remember it very well. But I remember that it was a dissapointment because he said: Now we start with axioms. And I said: what are they? He said: There are things that you got to admit although we can't prove them. So I said: Why should I admit that you can't prove them? 193 00:10:44,090 --> 00:10:46,330 And he said: Well, if you won't we can go on. And I wanted to see how it went on, so I admited it in pro tem. What was it that first provided you with the incentive to become a mathematician? I liked it, well ... ... for a number of reasons. In the first place the ... ... sheer pleasure that I thought people get from music or from poetry. It just delighted me. Then apart from that, I thought that ... mathematics was the key to understanding the universe, and ... I found all sort of everyday things explained by means of mathematics. Have you found on the whole in your own life that the pursuit of either mathematics or philosophy has given you a some sort of substitute for religious emotions? Yes, it certainly did. I mean, oh, well, until I was about 40, I should think, I got the sort of satisfaction that Plato says you can get out of mathematics. It was an eternal world. It was a timeless world. It was a world, where there was a possibility of a certain kind of perfection. And I certainly got something analogous to religious satisfaction after it. What period of your life, What episode in your life led you to turn again from philosophy to some extend into social work and politics? Oh, the First War. The First War made me think, it just won't do to live in an ivory tower. This world is too bad, we must notice it. Were you a moral pacifist or was it more that the war seem to you to be inexpedient and unnecessary? I thought, as a politician, and I still think. That it would have been very much better for the world if Britain had remain neutral and the germans had won a quick victory. We should not have had either the nazis or the communists if that had happened. Because they were both products of the First World War. The war would have been brief. It would be nothing like too much destruction. I still think that is valid ... That is, speaking as a politician. Speaking as a human being, I use to have ocation to go to Waterloo. And there I would see troop trains going off, filled with young men who would almost sure to be slaughtered. And I couldn't bear it. It was too horrible. How much in fact did you actively campaign against it? Oh, as much as I could. All ... all over the place making speeches. And I did everything I could to head the conscientious objector. I wrote about it everywhere where I could. No, I did everything I think of to do. Did you have some public notoriety as an unpopular figure, or were you regarded as just a crank? I wasn't actually pelted with rotten eggs, but I had an almost worst experience. I was at a meeting of pacifists at the Southgate Brotherhood Church, And it was stormed by a mixture of colonial troops and drunken viragos. The drunken viragos came in bearing boards full of rusty nails, which they tapped everybody on the head. And the colonial soldiers looked on and applauded them. And the police looked on and did nothing. And women had all their clothes torn off their backs, badly mauled, and so forth and so on. And the viragos rusty nails were just about to attack me and I didn't quite know what one did about this! When somebody went up to the police and said: Look, you really ought to stop this, you know, he is a distinguished writer ... Oh (said the police), Yes, he is a well known philosopher, Oh (said the police), He is the brother of an Earl !! And then the police rushed and saved me! [Laughing] Were this the time when you went to prison or was that ... ? No, no. It was earlier. Well, what exactly did you go to prison for? For writing an article which ... ... I was convicted underground. This article was intended an likely to cause bad relations between England and the United States, because I pointed out United States' troops were used as strike-breakers. And I ... it was thought I oughtn't to have done that. Did you plead guilty to the charge? Oh No. No, I didn't. I said is nonsense. If you really think that the United States is going to alter its policy because an obscure article in a little sheet that nobody reads ...! [Laughs] Were you trialled by jury or by a Magistrate? By a Magistrate. In London? In London. An he said: This is the most despicable crime! And what they sentenced you to? He sentenced me to six months. And originally it was six months, as a normal rate criminal. And then on appeal, it was altered to six months in the first division, Which meant more lenient treatment? Oh, very much. A profound difference. I have heard it said that at the backstage your family were able to pull strings, which then gave you treatment quite different given to that of normal first division prisoners. Is that true? I should think is very likely, my brother knew everybody concerned, and when the home secretary wasn't being very obliging, my brother went and said 'He was my *** in Winchester' #?#?#?#?#?, so he did. Now, at the time of your own trial and imprisonment, do you think looking back that the Trinity College behaved either wisely or justly in depriving you of your fellowship? Not, certainly not. Specially as they did it while the case was sub judice. All the younger fellows had gone to the war. And the government of the college was left to the old boys. And the old boys felt we must do our bit. We can't fight, we are to old. And their bit was to get rid of me! [Laughs] Something very similar to that, of course happened in the Second World War when your appointment at the college of the city of New York was terminated. What actually did happened in the Second World War? Oh, in the Second World War I was completely patriotic supporting the war. And I was entirely orthodox in my views about that. Nevertheless you were thrown out of another college ... Ah, but that was for quite different reasons. That was on the ground of my views about marriage and morals. That was the Roman Catholic business. There was a woman intending to send her daughter to the college of the city of New York. Where her daughter was not going to study mathematics or logic which was the subject I was going to teach. But nevertheless this woman professed to be afraid that I should *** her daughter or corrupt her in some way, by my mere presence in other classrooms in the same university. And on that ground, she brought an action that I should be deprived of my position. And she accused me of being lewd, lecherous lascivious, obscene and aphrodisiac. And all these charges were upheld by the judge in the court. And the judge said that he would therefore annul this appointment. And did she bring any evidence to justify these charges? Yes, oh yes, it was proved that as I said that an infant under six months old, if seen touching his parts should not be slapped. That was a chief evidence. What happened to you when you lost your job in New York? Were you, for instance ... Did you had another job to go to in America? Well I didn't, no; I should have. I was completely ostracized. No newspaper would print a word I wrote. No magazine would print a word. Not hall would allow to lecture in it. So that I was cut off from all of my means of livelihood. And it I couldn't get any money out of England at that time because of currency regulations, and ... So I was expecting to starve.. I had these 3 childrens who I was educating. 2 of them at the university, 1 younger, and ... I expected we should all suffer very badly. We should had done, but for a certain man called Doctor Barnes, who came to my rescue and gave me a job. As a result of that alarming experience have you felt any permanent resentment against the americans? Oh no, not one ever. I think after all... My father when he stood for Parliament in a rural constituency in 1868, had suffered in exact the same way for exact the same causes, and I allow myself to reflect that urban New York in 1940, was exact at the same point in the road towards enlightment as rural England in 1868. But having made that remark I have no further resentment. Do you ever now in old age encounter this explosions of anger? Oh yes, I had a letter from an Anglican bishop not long ago, in which is said that all my opinions, on everything, were inspired by *** ***. And that opinions I express on this subject were among the causes of the Second World War. Do you think that on the whole the fanatics in the world are more usefull or more dangerous than the sceptics? Fanaticism is the danger of the world. It always has been and has done untold harm. No, I think fanaticism is the gravest danger there is. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism! But then are you not fanatical also against some other things? you see now. Your current campaign for instance in favor of nuclear disarmament. Would you encourage your supporters to undertake some of the extreme demonstrations that they undertake? Isn't that fanaticism? I don't think that's fanaticism, no, I mean, some of them may be fanatical. But I do give them support, but not for fanatical reasons. I support them because everything sane and sensible and quiet that we do, is absolutely ignored by the press. And the only way we can get into the press is to do something that looks fanatical. Do you think is possible that the anti nuclear campaign may already be a bit out of date in the lights of the preparations for bactereological and biological warfare, which we now know are going on? It certainly would be if it was only a campaign against nuclear weapons. But it is in fact a campaign against war. And the momentary argument against war is mainly derived to nuclear weapons. But if they were out of the way, there were be other arguments that would be just as potent. And the fact is, that scientific man cannot survive if he's going to continue to make war. I mean, the worst possibility is that human life may be extinguished. And it is a very real possibility, very real. And that is the worst. But assuming that doesn't happen, I can't bear the thought of many hundreds of millions of people dying in agony, only and solely because the rulers of the world are stupid and wicked. And I can’t bear it. Do you look back to the 19th Century on the whole with nostalgia and regret? Well, it all depends in what you are thinking about . The world was much more beautiful to look at, than it is now. Everytime I go back to a place that I knew long ago, I think, oh, how sad it is. This place seemed beatiful and now is hideous. And one thing after another, one piece of beauty after another is destroyed. And that I do profoundly regret. But when it comes to ideas, the world is inmensely less humbug than it was. And that I rejoice in. Of the sort of conventional self indulgencies or vices like drink or tobacco and so. Which is your favorite one? Oh, tobacco! I smoke a pipe all day long, except when I am eating or sleeping. Hasn't that shorten your life? Well they use to say it would when I first took to it, But I took to it some 70 ago, so it doesn't seem to have a very great effect so far. In fact, you know, on one occasion it saved my life. I was in an airplane and the man was getting a seat for me and I said: Get me a seat in the smoking part, so I can smoke I should die. And sure enough, there was an accident, a bad accident, and all of the people in the nonsmoking part of the plane were drowned, And the people in the smoking part jumped into the Norwegian fjord where we landed, and we were saved. So I owe my life to smoking! Did you have to swim to save your life? Oh yes, we all had to ... And did you think great thoughts about dead and survival when you were actually swimming? No, I was rung up by a journalist in Copenhaguen, and he said: What did you think while you were swimming in the fjord? I said: I thought the water was cold. Did you not think about mysticism and logic? And I said: No. And rang off. Did all this happened a great many years ago? Not a great many years ago, I think it was about 1949, as far as I can remember. When you were in your late seventies. Yes. Have you in your 87 years any unfulfilled ambitions? Oh well, of course there are all sort of things that I like to have written and haven't written yet. I mean ... Almost every day I think of some new subjects I should like to have written a book about. But there isn't time to write them all. Have you written an autobiography? I have, yes. Is it up to date? Uh ... well no, not quite. Are you going to allow it to be published in your lifetime? No, not until I'm dead. Why? Well, in the first place because it won't be complete until then. And the second place because there are all sorts of things that ought not to be said too soon. And it may even have to wait some time after I'm dead. I don't know. One last question Suppose Lord Russell, this film were to be looked at by our descendants, like a dead sea scroll in 1000 years time. What do you think is worth telling that generation, about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned from it? I should like to say two things. One intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only; What are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say to them, is very simple. I should say: Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected. We have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way. And if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.