Bertrand Russell on Bernard Shaw - 1

[edwardstroud]

Superb insight into Shaw: “by means of wit he concealed the fact that he was silly...” 😆

[tadimaggio]

As a lifelong (qualified) Shavian, I would urge anyone who wants a balanced portrait of the man to separate their study of him into two sections: pre-1914 and post-1914. (Shaw was fifty-eight in 1914; he lived to be ninety-four, dying in 1950). The Great War shattered Shaw's faith (as it did that of so much of humanity) in the purposefulness of human existence; with him, as with so many, the postwar world sent him on a search for forces that could somehow redeem the gargantuan death and destruction of 1914-1918. ("God-hunger" -- a subject Shaw had written about at length in his plays, and which can lead people either to the gates of Heaven, or to perdition, our flawed race being what it is.) As we all know, three false creeds soon arose that promised to put humanity on a road to a glorious future: Communism, Fascism, and Nazism. (I separate Fascism from Nazism because, even though all forms of Fascism are contemptuous of the value of human life, and have the death rolls to prove it, only Nazism took that nihilism to the level of outright genocide.) I don't blame Russell for his disgust with Shaw's cruel words to that poor woman, because I share it. (Hard as it is to believe, this isn't even the worst Shaw quotation from that period.) I prefer to believe that the pre-1914 man was the real Shaw, while the later admirer of Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini was the survivor of a catastrophic accident that left him with some of his faculties impaired. The best illustration that I know of of the way in which a human life can be cut in two in this manner was Emile Verhoeven, a Belgian humanist and pacifist, who found himself transformed by the savage German invasion of his homeland in 1914 into a raging jingoist and xenophobe. He completed an autobiography during the war, and took note of the degree to which he was now a changed man. He concluded the book: "Since it seems to me that, in my current state of mind, my humanity has been appreciably diminished, I dedicate this book, with regret, to the man I used to be."

[peterplotts]

I understand that I am related to Russell through my mother. His assessment of Shaw and his report of his conversation with Lenin have significantly increased my estimation of Russell. I might even acknowledge that we are related now.

[trevormillar]

Russell wad once asked why he took an instant dislike to Lenin. He replied,
"Because it saved time."

[denisred]

Bertrand Russell would be right at the top of my 'all time dinner party' guest list. A brilliant and fascinating mind while twinned with a beautiful heart. What a wonderful, wonderful man he was.

[holliswilliams]

It's interesting that Shaw was almost regarded as the equivalent of Shakespeare for his time but has now become somewhat forgotten. Even in England the name Ibsen or Bertolt Brecht would likely get much more of a reaction.

[luisaugustobonilha]

Shaw was perhaps someone quite psychologically disturbed. Radical socialism and vegetarianism were a way of "compensating" for what inwardly he actually felt for people, an expression of narcissism and sadism.

[rorke]

Russell shows himself to be unideological and pure compared to the marxist/soviet apologist hacks of his age. Absolutely absurd that Call of Duty has Shaw quotes but not Russell on war.

[andreapandypetrapan]

My grandmother on my father's side was a prominent figure in the theatrical life of progressive "left-wing" Welwyn Garden City in the 1920s and 30s.

She was no ones fool; a school teacher of martinet strictness, razer sharp critic of folly, vanity, and immaturity of thought or feeling. She loved Shaw, especially his Prefaces and writing on Wagner.

It's never entirely clear whether GBS's off hand provocations and cranky fads were merely a continuation of theatre by other means (a playwriter crafting his own persona for effect), or genuine and thus genuinely contemptible and risible.

However, the author of Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Caesar and Cleopatra.and The Perfect Wagnerite can never properly be off the shelves of great writers and great public intellectuals.

It might indeed be thought a piece of childlike naivety to expect writers (especially male writers) to be both brilliant and cuttingly insightful and revolutionary, yet also charming and morally impeccable. That is indeed pure fantasy. Musicians get away with much worse - Stravinsky was an impeccably well-dressed sarcastic bitch. Wagner a left-wing radical humanist yet a totalitarian megalomaniac. Brahms a cold and mocking romantic. Dvorak an utterly unworldly though very endearing child of nature. Bruckner thought he regularly communed with god. Beethoven an insufferable prig and prone to childish self-pity. Ravel obviously suffered from OCD. Etc, etc, etc

Love andrea

[EurotekkCa]

It is about Freda Utley, she wrote many great books about WWII and her tragic experience

[owenmcgee]

This was really good. Russell was certainly a sharp & perceptive guy.

[jesusisking]

Many of the past Philosophers, Psychiatrists, Psychologists were men who had interests in Life, Thoughts, Behaviours, Repetitions and Outcomes....yet almost all had very difficult beginnings which formed a basis of negativity as their starting point, hoping to find the positive through study....most never found it....leaving future students of their teachings to repeat the negative narrative without understanding that all studies and viewpoints should be viewed with doubt through kindly feelings rather than believing Tutors dogmatic certainties.

[jeffryphillipsburns]

Well, that’s a disturbing story. The more I think about it, though, the more in character it seems for Shaw, I’m sorry to say. Russell is certainly right to call Shaw’s views about medicine silly. I would say the same about Shaw’s about orthography, although these were more innocuous, if nevertheless indefensible and absurd. Shaw was still a great playwright, if not quite as great as he imagined himself to be, and his “Joan of Arc” is superb.

[davidkennedy]

This is a withering assessment by Russell and I have no doubt Shaw had his idiosyncrasies and faults: I have read the four volumes of Michael Holroyd's biography. In some ways he was a product of his times - his support of eugenics, for example.

I agree with much of what @tadimaggio says. For me, Shaw is the greatest playwright in English since Shakespeare: his dramatic output is staggeringly ambitious. Shaw's plays are lastingly popular and delightful; he was brilliant at stagecraft, dialogue and dramatising ideas and conflicting viewpoints. He is the greatest satirist since Swift, the best music critic ever, one of the best theatre critics and a pamphleteer par excellence. His prose is scintillating, scarcely ever bettered. Just read one of the beautiful prefaces to his plays or 'The Intelligent Women's Guide to Socialism'. No wonder the Nobel Committee spoke of his work being 'infused with a singular poetic beauty'.

I was introduced to his plays at 15 in a secondary school in Scotland. I have read more of his plays and prefaces since then. Seeing one of his plays performed is a joy. I feel blessed indeed at having discovered Shaw.

[trajan]

In the end Shaw's artistic achievement outweighs his disgusting character. We don't have to live with the man, but Russell was right never to speak to him again. Many great artissts were miserable human beings.

[gibbogle]

Shaw and his wife were great supporters of T E Lawrence, and helped him create the myth of the Saviour of the Arabs. Having just read Richard Aldington's book on Lawrence (who had a very odd antipathy to women), I'm convinced that Lawrence was a fraud and Shaw was a very poor judge of human nature.

[dipankar-goutamchakraborty]

We are forgetting -- occasionally, specific experience is capable of clouding a man's judgement. Let us remember what John Stuart Mill said: "I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two genders, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another". A person can not be judged in one frame. So, we are no Freud that in one second we can judge a Shaw or likes. Scientific (rational) approach of analysis of an event or an utterance can't stop at its face-value (the apparent worth or implication of something). Had Sigmund Freud been in place of Russell, discussion would have continued, I guess; he would not have jumped into conclusion. By the way in the same breath, too much honesty got some impeccable link with a bit of cruelty. Somebody said "our society is interwoven in very fine threads of immorality. But, already Shaw said: “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”

[trevormillar]

Shaw died in 1950, he was sawing off a tree branch and sitting the wrong side of the cut. His kast words were, " Oh bollocks!"

[ricardocima]

There's a similar story about Brecht.

[talmadge]

G. B. Shaws plays are today largely forgotten. I have to say I never saw half the point of what he wrote except to rile the establishment of his day. Something that Ibsen did with far superior panache. The social comments they contained which were at the time considered sharp and challenging were really not well constructed. Anyone (like me) who suffered the tedium of "The Apple Cart" or "Major Barbara" will perhaps agree with me. As for his so called comedies... The man had no sense of humour. The only claim to immortality he has (and OMG he would hate it) is that his play "Pygmalion" was the basis for "My Fair Lady".