Read my posts again, what you are accusing me of is utterly missing - I'm insulted, however I will not be making any threats to those ignorant of history.
My stating Russell flirted with eugenics need not be apologised for. Are you saying I am wrong, and that Russell did not show an interest?
Given the current toxic 'quick to judge' forum behaviour on the internet, it is almost certain a latter-day Russell would not have been allowed to continue his work and thoughts in public, as your mischaracterisation of my post shows.
Are you saying I am wrong, and that Russell did not show an interest?
I am saying you essentially accused him of racism without any evidence, then quickly obfuscated when called on it, followed by a prolonged attempt to divert the "toxicity" you initiated to a more general internet malaise of which you are apparently the victim now.
1922 Lecture - Birth Control News - ...the one real remedy is birth control, that is getting the people of the world to limit themselves to those numbers which they can keep upon their own soil... I do not see how we can hope permanently to be strong enough to keep the coloured races out; sooner or later they are bound to overflow...
1929 Book - Marriage and Morals - ...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.
If you want obfuscation, look to Russell. In 1964, in a letter Russell was asked, "Do you still consider the Negroes an inferior race, as you did when you wrote Marriage and Morals?"
Russell - I never held Negroes to be inherently inferior. The statement in Marriage and Morals refers to environmental conditioning. I have had it withdrawn from subsequent editions because it is clearly ambiguous.
Ambiguous?
I have not obfuscated or 'basically' called Russell a racist, I said he entertained racist ideas in an otherwise admiral lifetime. Let's agree on the distinction between a racist action, and racism en masse. When Russell aligned himself with eugenics, this is now rightly seen as a racist action, but it does not make him wholesale racist. I did not call him racist, it is not what I said, and it is not what I think. As if this needs pointing out. Bertrand Russell was not significantly more racist for the time, less so than Lincoln for example, but he entertained a racist concept, that of eugenics. And the eugenics movement was run and lauded by particularly odious racists.
As I previously wrote, such a position is understandable given context in history. Eugenics was a widely known and popular concept throughout Europe in the early part of the 20th century, particularly gaining traction after The Great War, and especially amongst what are commonly described as intellectuals.
I am indebted to Bertrand Russell, he saved my life. Afterwards I made a conscious move to spend a significant amount of contiguous time reading his essays and letters. They contained a myriad of delights that still bring me great pleasure and hope, but I also learned something about how great people can be wrong, why, what they do about it.
Now this is an excellent and informative post as to your position, but it really shouldn't have taken so much to draw out your meaning and justification.
>shouldn't have taken so much to draw out your meaning and justification
No, I explained for those that needed it explaining. Some posts were clearly unaware of Russell's eugenic past, even though they falsely accused me of unfounded remarks. It's not advisable to attack people on subjects one is unfamiliar with, it tends to make the attacker look ignorant.
Read my posts again, what you are accusing me of is utterly missing - I'm insulted, however I will not be making any threats to those ignorant of history.