Your criticism of Russell makes some sense for the time during which he received the Nobel, but his later work on exposing and trying to stop US atrocities in Southeast Asia deserved more than your cursory aside. His writings on this, and his work in organizing a civil tribunal to publicize the US crimes mark him as someone vastly superior to most of the other laureates on this list.
As an example if his wirk
during this period, here's a couple of quotes from his 1966 preface to Wilfred Burchett's book, "Vietnam North":
"In the West, many who profess to be sympathetic to the people of Vietnam occupy themselves primarily with devising schemes wherein the Vietnamese must treat the United States as moral equals. No matter that this great industrial colossus has waged a war of extermination. No matter that the Vietnamese endure forced labor and a policy of scorched earth in the South, as well as torture, mutilation and poisoning. No matter that new and fiendish weapons are employed experimentally against a people whose only offense is to struggle violently for their national independence and the right to conduct their own affairs. Western opinion, and notably a part of that which claims sympathy for the Vietnamese, fails to make the moral distinction between the aggressor and the victim....
"Pilots conscious of their targets and of the weapons they carry and use — men responsible for the murder of thousands of civilians —were considered for trial in Vietnam after their capture. This possibility brought an hysterical and ugly response in the Western press. The very attempt to judge the responsibility of pilots who have bombed the people of Vietnam is held illegitimate. What viciousness and racism! The rules are made in the West. An agrarian people is isolated by the United States and, if they resist, that is proof of their wickedness. If they move from resistance to reprisal, that is treated as cause for their wholesale annihilation. The perpetrators of the attack are treated as immutably safe from reprisal. The cities of the United States are not to experience what the Vietnamese suffer. The aircraft carriers and the bases are out of bounds to Vietnamese reprisal. They are to be allowed to continue their attacks unimpeded by anyone, least of all the victims. This base and inhuman morality is implicit in every Western report I have seen. This is nothing other than racist arrogance — the morality of the brute and the bully."
Overall, I should mention, I am enjoying your review of the Nobel laureates. Very entertaining indeed!
"Though a great experimental modernist in art, he was deeply conservative in politics."
A statement true of many of the 20th century greats: Ives, Matisse, Borges, Nabokov, Hopper, Stravinsky.
Your criticism of Russell makes some sense for the time during which he received the Nobel, but his later work on exposing and trying to stop US atrocities in Southeast Asia deserved more than your cursory aside. His writings on this, and his work in organizing a civil tribunal to publicize the US crimes mark him as someone vastly superior to most of the other laureates on this list.
As an example if his wirk
during this period, here's a couple of quotes from his 1966 preface to Wilfred Burchett's book, "Vietnam North":
"In the West, many who profess to be sympathetic to the people of Vietnam occupy themselves primarily with devising schemes wherein the Vietnamese must treat the United States as moral equals. No matter that this great industrial colossus has waged a war of extermination. No matter that the Vietnamese endure forced labor and a policy of scorched earth in the South, as well as torture, mutilation and poisoning. No matter that new and fiendish weapons are employed experimentally against a people whose only offense is to struggle violently for their national independence and the right to conduct their own affairs. Western opinion, and notably a part of that which claims sympathy for the Vietnamese, fails to make the moral distinction between the aggressor and the victim....
"Pilots conscious of their targets and of the weapons they carry and use — men responsible for the murder of thousands of civilians —were considered for trial in Vietnam after their capture. This possibility brought an hysterical and ugly response in the Western press. The very attempt to judge the responsibility of pilots who have bombed the people of Vietnam is held illegitimate. What viciousness and racism! The rules are made in the West. An agrarian people is isolated by the United States and, if they resist, that is proof of their wickedness. If they move from resistance to reprisal, that is treated as cause for their wholesale annihilation. The perpetrators of the attack are treated as immutably safe from reprisal. The cities of the United States are not to experience what the Vietnamese suffer. The aircraft carriers and the bases are out of bounds to Vietnamese reprisal. They are to be allowed to continue their attacks unimpeded by anyone, least of all the victims. This base and inhuman morality is implicit in every Western report I have seen. This is nothing other than racist arrogance — the morality of the brute and the bully."
Overall, I should mention, I am enjoying your review of the Nobel laureates. Very entertaining indeed!
That is fair. I did minimise the later Russell maybe too much in the portrait. Thanks for sharing.