Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy

russell rules 2

Image by J. F. Horra­bin, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Bertrand Rus­sell saw the his­to­ry of civ­i­liza­tion as being shaped by an unfor­tu­nate oscil­la­tion between two oppos­ing evils: tyran­ny and anar­chy, each of which con­tains the seed of the oth­er. The best course for steer­ing clear of either one, Rus­sell main­tained, is lib­er­al­ism.

“The doc­trine of lib­er­al­ism is an attempt to escape from this end­less oscil­la­tion,” writes Rus­sell in A His­to­ry of West­ern Phi­los­o­phy. “The essence of lib­er­al­ism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irra­tional dog­ma [a fea­ture of tyran­ny], and insur­ing sta­bil­i­ty [which anar­chy under­mines] with­out involv­ing more restraints than are nec­es­sary for the preser­va­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty.”

In 1951 Rus­sell pub­lished an arti­cle in The New York Times Mag­a­zine, “The Best Answer to Fanaticism–Liberalism,” with the sub­ti­tle: “Its calm search for truth, viewed as dan­ger­ous in many places, remains the hope of human­i­ty.” In the arti­cle, Rus­sell writes that “Lib­er­al­ism is not so much a creed as a dis­po­si­tion. It is, indeed, opposed to creeds.” He con­tin­ues:

But the lib­er­al atti­tude does not say that you should oppose author­i­ty. It says only that you should be free to oppose author­i­ty, which is quite a dif­fer­ent thing. The essence of the lib­er­al out­look in the intel­lec­tu­al sphere is a belief that unbi­ased dis­cus­sion is a use­ful thing and that men should be free to ques­tion any­thing if they can sup­port their ques­tion­ing by sol­id argu­ments. The oppo­site view, which is main­tained by those who can­not be called lib­er­als, is that the truth is already known, and that to ques­tion it is nec­es­sar­i­ly sub­ver­sive.

Rus­sell crit­i­cizes the rad­i­cal who would advo­cate change at any cost. Echo­ing the philoso­pher John Locke, who had a pro­found influ­ence on the authors of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence and the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion, Rus­sell writes:

The teacher who urges doc­trines sub­ver­sive to exist­ing author­i­ty does not, if he is a lib­er­al, advo­cate the estab­lish­ment of a new author­i­ty even more tyran­ni­cal than the old. He advo­cates cer­tain lim­its to the exer­cise of author­i­ty, and he wish­es these lim­its to be observed not only when the author­i­ty would sup­port a creed with which he dis­agrees but also when it would sup­port one with which he is in com­plete agree­ment. I am, for my part, a believ­er in democ­ra­cy, but I do not like a regime which makes belief in democ­ra­cy com­pul­so­ry.

Rus­sell con­cludes the New York Times piece by offer­ing a “new deca­logue” with advice on how to live one’s life in the spir­it of lib­er­al­ism. “The Ten Com­mand­ments that, as a teacher, I should wish to pro­mul­gate, might be set forth as fol­lows,” he says:

1: Do not feel absolute­ly cer­tain of any­thing.

2: Do not think it worth­while to pro­duce belief by con­ceal­ing evi­dence, for the evi­dence is sure to come to light.

3: Nev­er try to dis­cour­age think­ing, for you are sure to suc­ceed.

4: When you meet with oppo­si­tion, even if it should be from your hus­band or your chil­dren, endeav­or to over­come it by argu­ment and not by author­i­ty, for a vic­to­ry depen­dent upon author­i­ty is unre­al and illu­so­ry.

5: Have no respect for the author­i­ty of oth­ers, for there are always con­trary author­i­ties to be found.

6: Do not use pow­er to sup­press opin­ions you think per­ni­cious, for if you do the opin­ions will sup­press you.

7: Do not fear to be eccen­tric in opin­ion, for every opin­ion now accept­ed was once eccen­tric.

8: Find more plea­sure in intel­li­gent dis­sent than in pas­sive agree­ment, for, if you val­ue intel­li­gence as you should, the for­mer implies a deep­er agree­ment than the lat­ter.

9: Be scrupu­lous­ly truth­ful, even when truth is incon­ve­nient, for it is more incon­ve­nient when you try to con­ceal it.

10. Do not feel envi­ous of the hap­pi­ness of those who live in a fool’s par­adise, for only a fool will think that it is hap­pi­ness.

Wise words then. Wise words now.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in March, 2013.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Russell’s Advice to Peo­ple Liv­ing 1,000 Years in the Future: “Love is Wise, Hatred is Fool­ish”

Bertrand Rus­sell & Buck­min­ster Fuller on Why We Should Work Less, and Live and Learn More

Philoso­pher Bertrand Rus­sell Talks About the Time When His Grand­fa­ther Met Napoleon

Aldous Hux­ley Tells Mike Wal­lace What Will Destroy Democ­ra­cy: Over­pop­u­la­tion, Drugs & Insid­i­ous Tech­nol­o­gy (1958)


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Comments (5)
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  • dan green says:

    Hav­ing gone through the list for maybe the twen­ti­eth time in my life, I think I now under­stand why the ILlib­er­als hate us so deeply. Those com­mand­ments reflect what any ‘lib­er­al­ly’ edu­cat­ed per­son should be.

  • D Schultz says:

    “Have no respect for the author­i­ty of oth­ers.” This can begin with an author­i­ty like Bertrand Rus­sell and his “new deca­logue.”

    “Do not feel absolute­ly cer­tain of any­thing.” Let’s not feel absolute­ly cer­tain that there is noth­ing we can be absolute­ly cer­tain of.

    “Do not use pow­er to sup­press opin­ions you think per­ni­cious.” This should be post­ed on woke col­lege cam­pus­es and above the desks of those cen­sor­ing social media and YouTube, includ­ing those who went after Alex Jones and those at the erst­while Twit­ter who banned Don­ald Trump.

    “Do not feel envi­ous of the hap­pi­ness of those who live in a fool’s par­adise…” Do not feel envi­ous, peri­od. Appeals to envy (aka “social jus­tice”) and rights (often “human” rights) are the moti­va­tion­al tools in activists’ polit­i­cal tool kits. Let’s blunt the use­ful­ness of those tools.

    “Do not fear to be eccen­tric in opin­ion.” Amen. Left­wing social pressure–exerted through media, uni­ver­si­ties, and “entertainment”–is per­ni­cious. If we want democ­ra­cy, there is no room for manip­u­loc­ra­cy or tech­noc­ra­cy or any oth­er form of elite oli­garchy.

    “Nev­er try to dis­cour­age think­ing.” Encour­age ques­tion­ing of what­ev­er goes by the name of democ­ra­cy, human­ism, sec­u­lar­ism, and lib­er­al­ism. This is the route to becom­ing free.

  • gwr says:

    “I woke up this morn­ing and I got myself a beer!”
    D Schultz, writ­ten like some­one with an enor­mous chip on their shoul­der. But hold onto those thoughts, you will need to reap­ply them short­ly.
    Fear of intel­lec­tu­als gross­ly over­states their influ­ence in our soci­ety. We saw that last week, once again prov­ing H.L. Menck­en cor­rect. Bet­ter to wor­ry about the eco­nom­ic elite, they are the ones who are wreck­ing every­thing.

  • D Schultz says:

    “We saw that last week…”

    The urge to dele­git­imize any con­ser­v­a­tive run­ning for the White House is per­haps the great­est of con­tem­po­rary psy­cho­log­i­cal abnor­mal­i­ties. Con­ser­vatism is the future now… and those accus­tomed to feel­ing supe­ri­or will just have to adjust.

    Yes, we should wor­ry about the eco­nom­ic elite… e.g., Tar­get using its eco­nom­ic might to impose Pride on the rest of us… while small busi­ness own­ers, florists and bak­ers, aren’t allowed to use their busi­ness­es to fur­ther their polit­i­cal inter­ests.

    I wor­ry about the infor­ma­tion elite too, those with ready access to tens of thou­sands of lis­ten­ers. Just lis­tened to a CBS report on Pres­i­dent Trump’s plan to fire gen­er­als respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing wok­e­ness over pre­pared­ness to fight a war. The “jour­nal­ists” indulged in hypoth­e­siz­ing and vague ref­er­ences to “uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty.” They act­ed as though they had no idea what Mr. Trump could pos­si­bly mean by the term “woke.” What hap­pened to jour­nal­ists who ask ques­tions, find out answers, deal in facts?

  • S. Landau says:

    Amaz­ing read­ing this list, — I read this list I see the spir­it of lib­er­al­ism dead in the main­stream media and demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty elite.

    The first 3 were ignored and our gov­ern­ment did the exact oppo­site dur­ing the last 4 years.
    ________________________________

    1: Do not feel absolute­ly cer­tain of any­thing. (99% Safe and Effec­tive, Stops Trans­mis­sion, You won’t die)

    2: Do not think it worth­while to pro­duce belief by con­ceal­ing evi­dence, for the evi­dence is sure to come to light. (Let’s keep the clin­i­cal tri­al data secret for 75 years),

    3: Nev­er try to dis­cour­age think­ing, for you are sure to suc­ceed. — Don’t think for your­self.

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