1
" 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 disregard any hypothesis
which has proved inadequate…
In religion and politics, on the contrary, though there is
as yet nothing approaching scientific knowledge, everybody
considers it de rigueur 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. "
― Bertrand Russell , Free Thought and Official Propaganda
2
" Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won
because people have ceased to consider religion so important
as it was once thought to be. But in politics and economics,
which have taken the place formerly occupied by religion,
there is a growing tendency to persecution, which is not by
any means confined to one party.
The persecution of opinion
in Russia is more severe than in any capitalist country. I met
in Petrograd an eminent Russian poet, Alexander Block,
who has since died as the result of privations. The Bolsheviks
allowed him to teach aesthetics, but he complained that they
insisted on his teaching the subject “from a Marxian point
of view.” He had been at a loss to discover how the theory of
rhythmics was connected with Marxism, although, to avoid
starvation, he had done his best to find out..
The examples of America and Russia illustrate the
conclusion to which we seem to be driven — namely, that so
long as men continue to have the present fanatical belief in
the importance of politics free thought on political matters
will be impossible, and there is only too much danger that the
lack of freedom will spread to all other matters, as it has done
in Russia. Only some degree of political skepticism can save
us from this misfortune. "
― Bertrand Russell , Free Thought and Official Propaganda
5
" 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 true. For example, the art of reading the newspapers should be taught. The schoolmaster should select some incident which happened a good many years ago, and roused political passions in its day. 41 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. "
― Bertrand Russell , Free Thought and Official Propaganda
15
" 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 true. For example, the art of reading the newspapers should be taught. The schoolmaster should select some incident which happened a good many years ago, and roused political passions in its day. 41 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 "
― Bertrand Russell , Free Thought and Official Propaganda
