Written Seven Years Ago Today-- Some Quotes From Lord Bertrand Russell, Why He Would Be Cheerleading For The Covid Virus Today
Some quotes from Bertrand Russell, leading Neo-Malthusian of the 20th Century--
Bertrand Russell’s “Cure” for Overpopulation--
“At present the population of the world is increasing at about
58,000 per diem. War, so far, has had no very great effect
on this increase, which continued throughouteach of the
world wars… War, as I remarked a moment ago, has hitherto
been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological
war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread
throughout the world once in every generation survivors
could procreate freely without making the world too full.
There would be nothing in this to offend the consciences of
the devout or to restrain the ambitions of nationalists. The
state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of
that? Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness,
especially other people's.”
Impact of Science on Society, 1952 Unwin, Chapter 7: Can a Scientific Society be Stable, pages 114–118
Bertrand Russell on Race--
“In extreme cases there can be little doubt of the superiority of one race to another[...] It seems on the whole fair to regard Negroes as on the average inferior to white men, although for work in the tropics they are indispensable, so that their extermination (apart from the question of humanity) would be highly undesirable.”
—Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals, pg. 266 (1929)
"Socialism, especially international socialism, is only possible as a stable system if the population is stationary or nearly so. A slow increase might be coped with by improvements in agricultural methods, but a rapid increase must in the end reduce the whole population to penury, ... the white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence. ... Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary."
--Prospects For Industrial Civilization, 1923
Call for Preemptive Nuclear Strike vs. Russia--World War II in fact had hardly ended before that self-styled pacifist, that man of peace, Bertrand Russell was urging the preemptive nuclear bombing of the Soviet Union. In 1959, he discussed the apparent contradiction in a BBC interview.
{BBC commentator}: Lord Russell, is it true or untrue that in
recent years you advocated that a preventative war might be
made against communism, against Soviet Union.
{Russell}: It's entirely true, and I don't repent of it now.
It was not inconsistent with what I think now.... At that time
nuclear weapons existed only on one side, and therefore the
odds were the Russians would have given way. I thought they
would....
