A Rare Recording of Bertrand Russell
Written by Bertrand Russell
Narrated by Bertrand Russell
4/5
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About this audiobook
Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872 – February 2, 1970) was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.
Russell was a philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, prominent anti-war activist, and an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The following is a 1959 speech on nuclear disarmament.
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was born in Wales and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His long career established him as one of the most influential philosophers, mathematicians, and social reformers of the twentieth century.
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Reviews for A Rare Recording of Bertrand Russell
275 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hmm.. Self-help book from 1930 written by a philosopher-mathematician. Nothing awful, but nothing profound either, and frankly I'd be surprised if it really helped anyone.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bertrand Russell has always been one of the most fascinating philosophers to me, and this is such an excellent piece of work by him. Sure, it is dated, and has a lot of genderisms and society talk and even underlying racism, but its pretty easy to pack away and say 'product of its time' and say its the old British style. There is a charm to his old folksy / British ways of writing things and sayings that underpins the racist sounding terms or the male-centric nature of things. I also imagine that if Bertrand Russell was alive today (2020) and writing, his style would be much different, and more inline with our cultural norms of today.
Russell certainly depicts people in a certain way in this. Men are X and women are Y. Norms are Z and A. There isn't a lot of wiggle room in his thinking in this volume. His comments on what makes people anxious or upset or unhappy are because of these symptoms - B through G - and thats all there is to it. Some might label this as 'narrow-minded' which might be apt, but I think its more a product of how society was then, what the norms were, and his attempts at doing more psychology than philosophy in this volume.
He talks mainly of what leads to unhappiness, primarily through mental fatigues and the such. He discusses what one can do to KEEP happiness or CREATE happiness. Mental fatigue, anxiety, etc is pretty much the root of the evil in his opinion; and that kind of leads me to say this is a far more psychological outlook at happiness than a philosophical one. This isn't a complaint or a problem, just more or less my commentary and notes on this piece of work.
I think there is very much a level of 'your mileage may vary' on this volume. Some might get a lot of out of it, some might not get much at all. I think men might find it more interesting than women, as his depictions of women are ...rather Victorian... "housewife" type ideas of women. (And remember, Russell was a women's rights activist). I do think, no matter what, this is something anyone looking into happiness, or the 'right life' or 'living well' should read. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In The Conquest of Happiness Bertrand Russell proves better at speculating about causes of unhappiness than at providing prescriptions to achieve the conquest (strange word) of happiness. Russell had one of those Victorian upbringings famous for under nourishing one’s instinctual well-being, and what happiness he achieved may have needed a triumphal psychology. But “cultivation” of happiness through decisions and actions better expresses what he’s after: Happiness is not a monolith out there you cause to tumble at your feet; you raise it within. Russell’s task is to diagnose how Victorian morality can impede pleasure and how any age’s commercialism potentially fatigues and diminishes the vital self. He then advises how not to be their victim.Interesting observations appear throughout but they aren’t enough, I think, to fulfill the promise made by the book’s title. It says something that the short epigraph from Whitman’s “Song of Myself” may be the most memorable thing here.* Next best is Russell’s argument that happiness is likeliest found when a person is not wholly preoccupied by his own self, while still taking care and time to discover his deepest impulses and allow an independent personality to flourish that’s consonant with them. It is for those puzzled by that prescription, and who are open to a rational man’s advice, that the book has its greatest value. Unfortunately, there is an excess of not well-supported pronouncements by the happy author, pronouncements which are true because . . . why? Because he has said them? This disinclination to substantiate disputable assertions ill befits a man aware of the virtues of weighing evidence and not just saying stuff. Let’s call his book My Claims about Happiness. After all, just saying stuff is a privilege restricted to book reviewers (e.g., me) and politicians and sports columnists and such.To sum up, The Conquest of Happiness falls short despite that there is in it much that’s sensible. More could have been done here to convince us. Perhaps Russell couldn’t do it. Or could not care to.* In the Liveright paperback reset and reissued in 1996, the epigraph has a misspelling. In “the mania of owing,” “owing” should be “owning.” Important difference!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'd never read any Bertrand Russell, so when I found this book in my boyfirends' stash and asked him what he thought and he said, "AMAZING!" I thought I would take it for a whirl. I was not disappointed. In this book, Russell tackles the problem every day unhappiness. I like the fact that he put a disclaimer on the scope of his work. He recognized healthily, that there are times in life when one should be unhappy such during a tragic loss or illness. However, Russell methodically, rationally describes causes of garden variety unhappiness among moderns humans. The chief of those causes, according to Russell, is a narcissistic preoccupation with one's self. I don't think Russell is referring here to the ability to self-reflect. I think he's talking about preoccupation with one's inner moods to the preclusion of external occupations. And I agree with him. Happiness is a mix of knowing one's self and maintaining a healthy interest in people and things external to one's own psyche. While I don't think necessarily that getting a hobby or studying is a cure all, I do believe that if one can find an interest that takes up some of the mental space spent on ruminating that one can, in effect, forget to be unhappy.Of course, Russell doesn't frame finding happiness as a formula. He spends several chapters highlighting causes of unhappiness and suggesting remedies. Of particular note is Russell's idea that we create much of our own unhappiness by adhering to strict, idealistic moral codes that are rooted in outdated assumptions. We fail to live up to unattainable standards and then compensate with inner thought flagellations that do little to improve our behavior. I love the idea of examining morals throughout one's life and even though it can be difficult to disentangle from dogmatic thinking, I believe Russell makes a good case for doing so.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My introduction to Mr. Russell, and I will be reading more of his work. True to its title, Russell's book is a guide to the perplexed who ask, "Why can't I be happy?" Divided into two sections - firstly, why people who are unhappy are unhappy, and secondly, why people who are happy are. The former is stronger than the latter. Mainly common sense, but oh how difficult to change the habits which lead to unhappiness! Readers should also note that this work was originally written in the late 1920s (copyright date 1930), and Russell was definitely a man of his time, with comments about race (he spends several pages at one point discussing the declining birth rate among "the white races" with it clearly being seen by him as a problem) and gender roles which would be shocking to read if not seen in context of the time. Despite these shortcomings, Russell has something worthwhile to say here, and I would recommend it to anyone, with the caveat that you may want to hurl the book across the room at times.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent advice on how to be happy and on how to avoid unhappiness.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With the exception of a few outdated references regarding Russia and some scientific discoveries of his day, this book is as relevant now as it was when published in 1971--maybe even more so. Russell gives sound, practical and concise self-help style advice on ways to increase personal happiness without all the fuzzy-wuzzy psycho-babble you'd expect from a similarly titled book published today. Definitely recommend.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I found a reference to Mr. Russell in The Gulag Peninsula with the inference that he was nieve in his views about the Communist Revolution. In this book he is nieve about other things as well. About the nature of evil and his godlike reverence for people of science. This book in general makes alot of sweeping assumptions and then some really bad solutions from them. I wont say there isn't grains of wisdom in it, but there's alot of junk inbetween.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent book to teach one how to appreciate what one has rather than what lacks.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Russell is one of my favorite philosophers. He's fairly chatty and casual here, and it's an interesting work, though not as rigorous as some of his other pieces. Short and to the point, this is a point-of-view that you hear echoes of here and there in modern "self-help" philosophy, and I agree with most of what he has to say. Still, it isn't Russell's best, or the best of this "genre" of philosophy. Good, but Russell sets high standards for himself.