Zeno
04-27-2005, 12:48 PM
All movements go too far, and this is certainly true of the movement toward subjectivity, which began with Luther and Descartes as an assertion of the individual and has culminated by an inherent logic in his complete subjection. The subjectivity of truth is a hasty doctrine not validly deducible from the premises which have been thought to imply it; and the habits of centuries have made many things seem dependent upon theological belief which in fact are not so. Men lived with one kind of illusion, and when they lost it they fell into another. But it is not by old error that new error can be combated. Detachment and objectivity, both in thought and in feeling, have been historically but not logically associated with certain beliefs; to preserve them without these beliefs is both possible and important. A certain degree of isolation both in time and space is essential to generate the independence required for the most important work; there must be something which is felt to be of more importance than the admiration of the contemporary crowd. We are suffering not from the decay of theological beliefs but from the loss of solitude.
-From the essay, ‘On Being Modern-Minded’, by Bertrand Russell (In Unpopular Essays, 1950)
-From the essay, ‘On Being Modern-Minded’, by Bertrand Russell (In Unpopular Essays, 1950)