Bertrand Russell on the Romantic Movement

[@nickdaring]

The depth, density and clarity of his ideas is staggering. I had to continuously pause the playback to contemplate the rush of ideas presented to me! I guess I should sit down and read the entire book. Cool stuff.

[@niriop]

The sheer depth of Russell's knowledge is astounding, but in tying it all together we see his true genius.

[@andrewmccloud8581]

My Godfathers. The jubilation experienced while gracing my ears with this man's astounding knowledge on the Romantic Movement was the single most poignant moment of my viewership, which I had anticipated to be anodyne. Bravo, Sir Bertrand, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS, a set of titles well earned and received.

[@andrewswanlund]

I was struck listening to this how Russells' judgement dominated his assessment of the Romantic Era. After thinking about it I realized he actually had ample opportunity to develop a more nuanced understanding of the benefits that have been brought about; really a remarkable uplift of human thinking, helping us think about things that would have gone in one ear and out the other of the Enlightenment brain. For instance, Russell must have been aware of the post-positivism movement that recognized things like 'the scientific method is not always suitable for the social sciences'. Also thinking about the early rejection of the existence of the unconscious by the psychological establishment because it couldn't be proven. I'm not a revisionist but it's hard to see people still ressonating with rejecting large scale influential movements with dismissive logic. Not certain but just wanted to share my thoughts, which were triggered yesterday listening to Isaiah Berlin who has a similarly biased view, though with more insightful tidbits.

[@jadedrakerider]

Listening to this was like having my eyes pried open. I had no idea how much Romanticism persists and even how much of my own world view has been effected by it.

[@diyanabd4735]

This recording is fantastic. We tend to forget that the Romantic Movement was essentially aristocratic. Their disdain for economics and capitalism was not at all similar to socialism which represents the working class, but theirs was more of an upper class movement against convention, driven by passion and intellect. And Russell is a genius of course.

[@DarkAngelEU]

If you have some knowledge about art history it shouldn't be that hard to conclude painters weren't peasants. Painters still had patrons, art was still an exclusive thing for the higher classes and the revolt of the poor is even today a rare occasion (strikers today still are lower middle-class while the poor either live on the street or work 24/7 just to make ends meet). A great deal of hippie musicians had rich parents and chose to revolt in a similar fashion like the romantics did against these conventions of society, however they used their parents' money to accomplish these goals. The first real rebel in my eyes has to be either Goya or Manet, true Romantic heroes that used their skills not for simple pleasure but actually a desire to change the world.

[@echo1174]

It is absolutely everything to do with Socialism, if you understand the dictatorship of Napoléon I and III you know absolutely everything you need to know about the 20th century dictators as far as policies and apparatus of the state, just different forms of social Darwinism added on. The socialists were the biggest enemy of the workers, who do you think all those tens of millions of people they killed were? who did they take the right to vote from, that had only just been introduced after WWI. Both Fascism, Communism and the Nazi's. The only genuine workers movement was hijacked or accused of being 'Utopian'. The original 'Social Democrats' were genuine workers parties before they got jumped over by opportunists and 'Democratic Socialists' and 'Revisionists'. If you find the opinions of workers, as rare as those opinions are because the European intellectuals were the Land Lords and they wrote and published they're own opinions, genuine workers saw Communists and Fascists a like, the main enemy. What we take for granted today as being 'Liberal Democracy' was created by workers movements of the 19th and early 20th century who fought for workers rights, equal universalism, child labour laws, better wages and working conditions, universal rights with universal accountability and universal suffrage. None of these things existed before the 1890's. The socialism everyone remembers today is pre-Liberal, Pre-Democratic, pre-industrial German and Russian aristocrats who all coalesced around Napoléon III in France 1848 and all justified his dictatorship, except for a few Anarchists. This is the period that 'Socialism' becomes associated with te 'Left-Wing' also, this is the point where what we now call Communism and Fascism [Theory] moves into two separate ideologies coming from the same place and time. The Social Democrats, genuine workers, where pretty much Lockean classical Liberals who wanted the Social contract to apply to everyone equally and wanted certain forms of protectionism like Social security and unemployment benefits. Not that radical sounding today but were very radical at the time and took a lot of organizing and struggle to get these gains.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

Although Bertie himself was as aristocratic as they come .? To be fair : it never appeared to cloud his judgement . How we need incisive intellects like his today !! ( though, I have no doubt he'd be No Platformed by most of our leading universities - he didn't do ' box ticking ' or ' victimhood " studies..

[@andyhawkins642]

Yes, William Morris was opposed to machine production, which would put his stuff out of most people’s reach.

[@elfpagesmusic]

Thank you for posting; an amazing synthesis in such a brief space.

[@giovansarto953]

The Byronic Hero is the alter ego of the vampyre, an ancient myth which was reintroduced during the Industrial Revolution as a Gothic Villain. He embodied the dark aspect, or the shadow, of the Romantic Hero, the shadow or the Poet's own ego.

[@charold3]

So, to Russell, to be romantic is to be a damn fool. Russell was brilliant, obviously, but I don't buy a lot of this. He cuts corners and gets much wrong here (too tedious to list). I. Berlin is quirky re romanticism (German-centered) but is much better.

[@wotan237]

This chapter was my favorite in Russells big book

[@lukespink726]

Scientific achievement is a different species than industrialism, though they emanate from a single source. The elevation of a space shuttle and travel throughout the solar system has less to do with creating the right assembly line than it does with elevating our minds through the use of passion into sublime complexity. Science is the methodology of modern Romantics as much as it is anyone else's mere tool.

[@tathagatasen7136]

Never heard a more succinct assessment of Romanticism!

[@Samgurney88]

Am I alone in thinking that Russell's genius is perhaps at times unrecognized? Whenever I read his works he is silently aware of many perspectives which he is subsuming, rejecting or responding to. Without a sense of this, he can seem flat and cold.

[@rkrw576]

He was recognized and passed out of fashion when Wittgenstein overtook him. What his analytical philosophy explored - based on mathematics and logic - was clearly eclipsed. However, his popularizations are fantastic, as this chapter demonstrates

[@Samgurney88]

​ @Robert Crawford Wow, this is an old comment. I agree with you re Wittgenstein, neo-pragmatism, the later developments in analytic philosophy that followed Russell. I've learnt much more about that since I wrote the above comment. Russell still deserves enormous credit as a pioneer and one of the fathers of modern analytic philosophy. I still think I was right, though - at least in a certain part of the popular imagination, Russell was a one-dimensional, hyperlogical thinker to whom certain thoughts and experiences were alien. The boldness, lucidity and popularity of his style augmented this impression. But a closer study of his intellectual development and corpus as a whole I still think reveals a more subtle, multi-faceted and profound intellect.

[@freyashipley6556]

Um . . . do I sense that Bertrand Russell's attitude toward the Romantics was a bit mocking?

[@DuskAndHerEmbrace13]

Yes. As is pretty common. It certainly wasn't the best movement for philosophy at all.

[@thelivingalchemist]

Absolutely. Of course, he was a romantic figure himself... Constantly at odds with society, with women, and with himself, haunted by the spectres of madness and solitude.

[@95julius02]

​@@thelivingalchemist You can be romantic AND mock the romantic movement. I would say im pretty romantic too, but its just a fiction world i creat and thats pretty mockable id say

[@DarkMoonDroid]

This is so important. omg

[@Debunker246]

thank you for posting

[@igormihov6279]

it all depends how one relate himself to the known or the world. Through art according to Hegel we are free or achieve sense of freedom. Thus art is the expression of the Spirit.

[@peterchaloner2877]

Excellent content gabbled. SLOW DOWN.

[@Maharishi2]

Truncated lecture. Russell distorted Romanticism by overemphasizing economic and financial issues.

[@moesypittounikos]

In his History, Russell writes he'd rather his knowledgeable enemy write about his ideas than his unknowledgeable best friend. But that doesn't make sense. But an enemy who is well qualified in your philosophy is still an enemy. People like Bertrand Russell don't believe in an unconscious, or even an egoistic intent. They see the world in weights and measures, in black and white. Bertrand Russell was a strict empiricist and he utterly failed to understand anything outside his clever head. He has no claim to understanding the romantics.

[@hotstixx]

"dònt believe in an unconscious" ? - Simply not the case.

[@t.d.e.bachmann1804]

You shouldn't do it. He may be disgusted.