Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duelRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Why Men Fight: A method of abolishing the international duel
Russell, Bertrand
Liberty; Property; Social problems; State, The; War
But it is not through even the most sincere and courageous believers
in the traditional religion that a new spirit can come into the world.
It is not through them that religion can be brought back to those who
have lost it because their minds were active, not because their spirit
was dead. Believers in the traditional religion necessarily look to
the past for inspiration rather than to the future. They seek wisdom
in the teaching of Christ, which, admirable as it is, remains quite
inadequate for many of the social and spiritual issues of modern life.
Art and intellect and all the problems of government are ignored in
the Gospels. Those who, like Tolstoy, endeavor seriously to take the
Gospels as a guide to life are compelled to regard the ignorant peasant
as the best type of man, and to brush aside political questions by an
extreme and impracticable anarchism.
If a religious view of life and the world is ever to reconquer the
thoughts and feelings of free-minded men and women, much that we are
accustomed to associate with religion will have to be discarded. The
first and greatest change that is required is to establish a morality
of initiative, not a morality of submission, a morality of hope rather
than fear, of things to be done rather than of things to be left
undone. It is not the whole duty of man to slip through the world so
as to escape the wrath of God. The world is _our_ world, and it rests
with us to make it a heaven or a hell. The power is ours, and the
kingdom and the glory would be ours also if we had courage and insight
to create them. The religious life that we must seek will not be one
of occasional solemnity and superstitious prohibitions, it will not be
sad or ascetic, it will concern itself little with rules of conduct.
It will be inspired by a vision of what human life may be, and will
be happy with the joy of creation, living in a large free world of
initiative and hope. It will love mankind, not for what they are to
the outward eye, but for what imagination shows that they have it in
them to become. It will not readily condemn, but it will give praise to
positive achievement rather than negative sinlessness, to the joy of
life, the quick affection, the creative insight, by which the world may
grow young and beautiful and filled with vigor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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