Lord Russell vs King Charles III

 

 

The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes
muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age,
surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.

Bertrand Russell, ‘On the Notion of Cause’ Inaugural Address to the Aristotelian Society’s thirty-fourth session (1913) p. 1

  "The idea that there is a sacred trust between mankind and our Creator, under which we accept a duty of stewardship for the earth, has been an important feature of most religious and spiritual thought throughout the ages. Even those whose beliefs have not included the existence of a Creator have, nevertheless, adopted a similar position on moral and ethical grounds. It is only recently that this guiding principle has become smothered by almost impenetrable layers of scientific rationalism. I believe that if we are to achieve genuinely sustainable development we will first have to rediscover, or re-acknowledge a sense of the sacred in our dealings with the natural world, and with each other. If literally nothing is held sacred anymore - because it is considered synonymous with superstition or in some other way "irrational" - what is there to prevent us treating our entire world as some "great laboratory of life" with potentially disastrous long term consequences?" 

Part of the problem is the prevailing approach that seeks to reduce the natural world including ourselves to the level of nothing more than a mechanical process. For whilst the natural theologians of the 18th and 19th centuries like Thomas Morgan referred to the perfect unity, order, wisdom and design of the natural world, scientists like Bertrand Russell rejected this idea as rubbish. 'I think the universe' he wrote 'is all spots and jumps without unity and without continuity, without coherence or orderliness. Sir Julian Huxley wrote in "Creation a Modern Synthesis" - that modern science must rule out special creation or divine guidance.' But why? 

(Prince Charles of England , Reith Lecture, 2000 )

 

"There are, at the present day, two different views as to what is meant by the word “democracy.” West of the Iron Curtain it is generally taken as implying that ultimate power is in the hands of the majority of the adult population. East of the Iron Curtain it means military dictatorship by a certain small minority of people who have chosen to call themselves “democrats.” This difference of meaning, if it could be viewed from a merely linguistic point of view, would be quite interesting, but, unfortunately, it is bound up with the whole tension which is threatening the world with another Great War.

Differences in the meanings of words are, of course, common. Italians who wish to address me politely call me “The Egregious Sir Russell,” which, to English ears, seems unduly accurate. Originally the words “orgy” and “theory” meant the same thing, namely “divine intoxication,” which, when Bacchus was the Divinity, was not very sharply distinguished from ordinary intoxication. But fortunately these linguistic curiosities did not lead to an armed conflict.

It must be said that the present Russian use of the word democracy diverges widely from previous usage, and is merely designed to conceal Russian failure to carry out the provisions of Yalta and Potsdam. There were to be democratic governments in what are known as the “satellite states,” and the Russians decided that they would establish dictatorships and call them democracies. This simple device, being backed by the largest army in the world, proved to be regrettably successful."

Russell (dEMOCRACY 1953)