Welcome back to Filosophy Fridays for your Saturday mornings.Today's Daily Quota is one of the lesser known essays from heavyweight philosopher Bertrand Russell.
It is titled The Einstein-Russell Manifesto.
Russell lived a long, interesting and contrarian life. As a young, middle-class intellectual, he naturally had his opinion on the outbreak of the First World War. He became an active pacifist - supporting Chamberlain in his appeasement of Hitler until hindsight reared its ugly head from the rear.
Whatever the case, he became known as the futurist philosopher of two things - agnosticism and pacifism. In July of 1955, at the onset of atomic weapon mass production, he crossed paths with Albert Einstein. As a major contributor to the Manhattan Project, Einstein had largely regretted his input in the creation of atomic weaponry, and so they had drafted an open letter to world leaders with the intention of persuading them to disarm before it was too late.
The contents of this joint publication are contained below. This combination of authors had resulted in a piece which was surprisingly short, unsurprisingly pragmatic and ultimately fell on deaf ears.
It's surprising that this piece is so unknown, given the authors and their cultural presence. Whatever the case, it's a great snippet of Western culture.
Definitely one to keep in the back of your mind when the water-cooler conversation inevitably turns to nuclear proliferation. I'm prepared, are you?
READ IT HERE
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