A poem about Bertrand Russell
By Bianca Manu, 2023In 2023 writer Bianca Manu researched the life and works of Bertrand Russell. This was for a project exploring statues and memorials in Camden. There is a bust of Bertrand Russell in Red Lion Square, London. She wrote the poem below, with accompanying numbered notes, in response to what she found out.
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In 2023 writer Bianca Manu researched the life and works of Bertrand Russell. This was for a project exploring statues and memorials in Camden. There is a bust of Bertrand Russell in Red Lion Square, London. She wrote the poem below, with accompanying numbered notes, in response to what she found out.
Bertrand Russell by Bianca Manu
In defence of reason, Bertrand Russell was resolute.
Using theory as ammunition, logic won him repute.
On the intellectual battlefield, wisdom was his shield.
He argued against nuclear war, (10)
With pacifist fervour. (11)
Wanting to understand reality, (12)
Using Maths as an analogy. (13)
The father of analytic philosophy. (14)
Committed to explaining the human experience,
He accepted there was no certainty (15)
Travelling shaped his political position, (16)
The proposed road to freedom was anti-capitalism, (17)
Outspoken for his socialist activism
An anti-imperialist championing democracy
Co-founder of Beacon Hill School (18)
An educational experiment with liberal rule.
Notes for the poem
In the poem above, Bianca has added numbers to the end of some of the lines. These correspond to the notes below.
10. He was strongly against nuclear weapons and became the president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958.
11. Bertrand Russell objected to the First World War and spoke publicly about his disapproval of the conscription. It angered the British Government, which relied on the public to support the war effort. A fervent pacifist, he was imprisoned for vocalising his objections. However, by World War Two, Russell eventually shifted his pacifist position to support British defence. While he had ‘changing beliefs, [he held] unchanging hopes’. He was strongly against nuclear weapons and became the president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958. See Robinson, Dave, and Judy Groves. 2015. Introducing Bertrand Russell: A Graphic Guide, 2nd edn (Basingstoke, England: Icon Books) pg98 – 102; Manufacturing Intellect. 2020. “A Conversation with Bertrand Russell (1952)” (Youtube) [accessed 8 November 2023] 01.40 / 30.56.
12. Russell acknowledges how science and theology shaped the world. Still, he was more invested in the ideas that lead to the shape of the world: ‘to understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers’. Russell, Bertrand. 1978. History of Western Philosophy (St Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin), pg3.
13. By questioning what mathematics was based on, it led him to search for what was unrefutably real in the world, what universally and undeniably exists, and how it can be a baseline for everyone to agree on.
14. He was revered as an influential philosopher, logical atomist, and public intellectual of the early 20th century. Principia Mathematica (1910) was Russell’s first great work on the foundations of Mathematics; he was convinced that ‘mathematics had to be a perfect system of guaranteed truths about the world’ and he dedicated almost a decade to proving his theory with his collaborator, Alfred North Whitehead. Robinson, pg22; pg32.
15. ‘nobody should be certain of anything; if you're certain, you’re certainly wrong because nothing deserves certainty’. [accessed 7 November 2023] 10.13 / 13.06.
16. Russell travelled widely to countries including America, Russia (Robinson, p116) and China (Robinson, p118).
17. Russell believed that "the abolition of private ownership of land and capital is a necessary step toward any world in which the nations are to live at peace with one another", The Proposed Road to Freedom, https://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/ProposedRdFree/chap-6.html
18. Russell supported his second wife, Dora, a feminist and educational libertarian to open the Beacon Hill School in Sussex Downs. It was an educational experiment where children were encouraged to question and reject traditional society. Democracy was championed at the school by Dora Russell, who believed it would ‘educate boys and girls to grow up into harmonious adults at peace with themselves and others and so able to work creatively as individuals and, by mutual help, in the community at large’. Dora Russell, The Tamarisk Tree , Vol.2 : My School and the Years of War (London: Virago, 1980), p.211.
