BOHN ARTICLE ON GOP STIRS 'FORTUNE' EDITOR
Davenport, Russell W.
Contributing to World Confusion AUTHORITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL. By Bertrand Russell. Simon and Schuster. 79 pp., ^2.00. Reviewed by HORACE S. FRIES BY COMMON CONSENT. Bertrand Russell is one of...
...In short, the need today is felt as a need for direction...
...On the whole, however, the Stedmans' book represents a worthwhile elTort to bring together a great deal of scattered information on Farmer-Labor parties...
...From the moral tone of this book alone, the reader would be shocked to know that its author was also author of the claim that we cannot know that it is bad to enjoy the infliction of cruelty (History of Western Philosophy, pp...
...In addition to the above examples...
...Ilie Stedmans conclude that "the protest vote has apiSeared under various party labels—and performed the valuable function in American political life of acting as a vehicle for the expression of discontent, and of popularizing issues at first ignored, later adopted by the various political parties...
...In it is a paper by Dewey entitled "Authority and Social Change" (reprinted in Ratner's selections...
...25, my emphasis...
...The same confusion is reflected in his unfortunate reply in The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell to Boyd Bode's criticism of his educational philosophy...
...69\, personal morality, civic morality, and world government...
...It limits his vision to the two possibilities of »anarchy and uniformitarianism, and hence limits his problems to those of compromise between the two...
...The growth of unions and the greater part played by organized labor in politics also flnderlies the shift to the cities of protest voting...
...It offers little in the way of interpretive analysis or of prediction of future developments, beyond underlining the stability of a recurrent pattern of American protest voting...
...802-3...
...Typical of his formulation of problems, as Russell himself states, is that of the relation between community control and individual impulse, which it is said, "like all those with which we are concerned, ia one of ualance...
...345 in Ratner's selections...
...2.75...
...Russell simply lacks the intellectual instruments for conceiving of a kind of order which promotes freedom and of a kind of freedom which can be prc.served and enriched in the economic corporate structure of the contemporary world...
...The idea of attaining a solution by separation I of freedom and authority] instead of by union," we are told, "misleads and thwarts endeavor whenever it is acted upon...
...The widespread adoption of this false and misleading idea is a strong contributing factor to tlie present state of world confusion" (p...
...The Democrat-Populist Fusion in 1896...
...In a chapter on party platforms, the authors compare specific demands in the platforms of Farmer-Labor parties with legislation later passed by national administrations...
...THE STEDMANS relate protest voting to the business cycle and the price level...
...In his reply, Russell refuses to attend to Bode's intellectual claims, and disgracefuUy reduces the issue to a personal matter between the two men, based on a difference in the kind of society desired by each...
...The need for liberation is as pressing now as it was earlier in the century...
...Wallace's regional support, however, was very similar to that of LaFolIette in 1924...
...But nowadays it is usually articulated as the need for escape from confusions of current thinking, and timid or tired souls tallt of return to the eternal verities...
...of his supporters coming from cities of 100,000 or larger...
...The main failing of the Stedmans' book is its weakness in causal analysis...
...Hence amidst the numerous and excellent precautions against current dangers, there is no indication as to what we can think or do to realize them...
...The fact that the Wal-' lace party was founded in a period of prosperity is another indication that it was In no sense a "grass roots" movement organized from the bottom up to express popular discontent...
...In a period which imposed tlie necessity of getting rid of the restraints and inhibitions of inherited social and moral ideas, Russell's penetrating insights and criticisms performed an indispensable function...
...The list is endless, because the confusion is deep...
...Intelligence in the Modern World, as "Science and the Future of Society...
...Perhaps if he could be persuaded to take these claims seriously enough to try to understand them, he would then see why his book...
...i4uthorifi/ Olid the Individual is clearly on the side of virtue and opposed to .sin...
...And appeal is made as a model to the kind of union they find in the cultural pattern which characterizes the two in the narrow aspect of modern life known as scientific inquiry...
...Horace 8. Fries is profesior of philosophy at Wisconsin University...
...The theoretical significance of the omission of freedom as an aim of gov•ernmcnt is of considerable interest...
...Bertrand Russell is one of the great liberating agencies of the twentieth century...
...The essay goes on to propose in deep seriousness how freedom and authority can be interrelated to provide for their mutual support...
...Three primary aims of government are cited and discussed as security, justice, and conservation...
...In the face of this demand the name of Bertrand Russell begins to take its place along with Henry Mencken, although on a different level, as one to look back to with sentimental attachment but hardly one to look to for guidance in time of chaos...
...By Murray S. Stedman, Jr., and Susan W. Stedman...
...for instance, do inadequate rainfall, recent settlement, and large numbers of foreign-born unite to "cause" a heavy protest vote...
...THE DUALISM between impulse and .irder is, indeed, reflected throughout Russell's thinking on social-individual questions...
...Authority and the Individual, cannot escape the general charge of contributing to the present state of wdrld confusion...
...Their rather mechanical tabulating of resemblances between the two does not always justify the imputation of a causal link...
...As a handbook of information on the electoral records of the many both long-lived and abortive "third parties" in our history, it is extremely useful...
...the Populists, and Bob LaFolIette, although the raison d'etre of the Wallace Progressives was clearly their foreign policy, despite a ritualistic stress on domestic issues as well...
...In spite of the many differences in particular Farmer and Labor parties, they have all usually been supported by the same groups in the same parts of the country in periods marked by roughly similar economic conditions...
...The authors point out that the major parties tend to adopt reformist programs to alleviate the widespread discontent in depression years and thus "cut the ground from under" Farmer-Labor parties by winning over their potential voters...
...They appear to have a rather simple notion of economic determinism...
...It is surely far-fetched to imply that because the Populists were opposed to strike injunctions in 1900, their stand facilitated the pa.ssage of the NorrisLaGuardia Act in 1932, or that because there is a resemblance between the Socialist party's 1900 program and many New Deal^ measures, the former influenced the latter...
...70) for the reconstruction of which he offers nothing...
...Reviewed by DiNNIS H. WRONG THIS BOOK is a well-chosen compilation of data on American Farmer and Labor parties from 1827 to 1948...
...Parties organized to promote special agricultural and labor interests within the framework of capitalism have always been more successful than the ideological Marxist parties...
...The omission of freedom of the individual s of theoretical rather than practical significance, since the entire book is an emphasis on the importance of preserving liberty in the face of centralizing Tendencies and the growing need for "order...
...the worst year of the 1892-1897 depression, and Roosevelt's New Deal in 1932 are clearly cases in point...
...The essay includes a criticism of the traditional formulation of the problem of freedom as the problem of delimiting areas and seeking a l>alance between them...
...Columbia University Press...
...too little liberty brings stag-, nation, and too much brings chaos" vp...
...It also leads to the confusion of functional power or control (which conceivably might be a co-operative self-control to promote freedom) with non-functional influence, prestige, and external coercion...
...Dennis Wrong teaches sociology at Pflncston Unlvsrsitr...
...It is hard to see why the authors should regard it as "paradoxical" that protest voting is low in depression years and consider it a contradiction of the expectations of the "economic determinist...
...An analysis of poll data indicates that union members, and even non-unionists with union members in their families, are more likely than people without union connectibns to hold definite political opinions and to be interested in the possibility of a new third party...
...It shows up in his acknowledged "duality of personal and civic morality" (p...
...Bode attempts seriously <and in my opinion, successfully) to show an intellectual shortcoming in Russell's theory of human nature which leads Russell to an intellectual difficulty in his important effort to outline a road to freedom...
...Farmer-Labor parties make the best showings at the polls in the downswing of a price cycle, but not when the absolute troUth of a depression has been reached...
...It is at the basis of the separation of social means from individual ends (p...
...diver.se factors that are statistically correlated with protest voting are often simply cited without any indication of their inter-connections or their specific bearing on political discontent...
...Other virtues discussed include racial non-prejudice, self-respect, democratization of management and industry, obedience to law <p...
...The authors classify the Wallace party as another FarmerLabor party in the tradition of the Grangers...
...This is an area in which Bertrand Russell ought to feel at home...
...190 pp...
...Before 1924 the Great Lakes region and the Far West were the main centers of protest voting, but there has been a gradual shift to urban centers following the national movement of population from rural areas to the cities...
...Voices of Radical Protest DISCONTENT AT THE POLLS...
...In the Harvard Tercentenary Pubiicatim is a volume which is also entitled Authority and the Individual...
...WHILE THESE CONCLUSIONS appear sound, they cannot fully be based on the evidence presented in the book...
...Probably few, if any, readers of The New Leader fail to have a personal feeling of obligation to the author pf Authority and the Individual tor valuable intellectual services rendered...
...The one exception to this is the strong showing in 1912 and 1920 of the Socialist party, which apparently inherited supporters of the disbanded Populists...
...Thus the great areas of Populist strength at the turn of the century were the predominantly agricultural states of Mis.souri, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Southwest, while Henry Wallace in 1948, self-styled heir of the Populists, wa.s backed most strongly in New York and Pennsylvania, with 61...
Vol. 33 • March 1950 • No. 10
