Ray Monk and the Politics of Bertrand Russell

Abstract

82 Reviews RAY MONK AND THE POLITICS OF BERTRAND RUSSELL Peter Stone Political Science / Stanford U. Stanford, ca, usa 94305–6044 peter.stone@stanford.edu n his epic two-volume biography of Bertrand Russell,1 Ray Monk discusses IRussell’s politics extensively. And throughout his discussion, he does little to hide his own views on the subject. Monk’s opinion of Russell’s politics is basically that of Russell’s most famous student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. This should not come as a surprise, given that Monk also wrote an epic (and much more sympathetic) biography of Wittgenstein2 before tackling Russell. Wittgenstein (a man no more inclined to pull punches than Monk) once famously remarked that Russell’s books should be bound in two colours—“those dealing with math1 Bertrand Russell: the Spirit of Solitude and Bertrand Russell: the Ghost of Madness. 2 Ludwig Wittgenstein: the Duty of Genius (New York: Free P., 1990). Reviews 83 ematical logic in red—and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue—and no one should be allowed to read them” (Monk, 2: 278). From the start of the second volume, Monk echoes this sentiment. In the preface, he writes that “as I have worked on this volume, two thoughts have dominated my reactions” to Russell. “The first is just how bad most of his writing on political, social, and moral questions is” (2: xii).3 Monk’s entire treatment of Russell’s political side unerringly follows the path laid out in this remark. Monk may be harsh in his assessment of Russell’s politics, but is he wrong? In certain critical respects, I shall argue that he is. Monk makes criticisms of many sorts—indeed, he has few good things to say about Russell’s forays into politics at all—but a pattern underlies them all. Monk consistently evades direct engagement with Russell’s actual views on politics, preferring instead to attack them in less intellectually courageous ways. In this review, I shall offer some examples of this behaviour in the second volume of Monk’s biography of Russell. I shall then briefly speculate about the reasons why Monk would choose to engage Russell in this manner. In the process of doing so, I shall highlight the valid part of Monk’s critique, and suggest why Monk might have overextended the valid part in ways that do Russell an injustice. This approach clearly accentuates the negative things I have to say about Monk. This is justified, however, for two reasons. First, I think that overall Monk’s criticisms of the political Russell are unfair. Second, understanding why Monk makes so many unfair criticisms provides a key to seeing what Monk does right and where he goes wrong. I wish to be up front about my criticisms of Monk. I share many, though not all, of Russell’s political convictions, and so in defending Russell against Monk I am defending the entire radical tradition into which Russell falls.4 It may seem hypersensitive of me to treat Monk’s attack on Russell’s politics as an attack on the Left. However, the nature of Monk’s attack justifies this interpretation . I have said that Monk chooses not to engage Russell’s politics directly; this is a time-honoured practice many critics of left-wing arguments adopt. If you attack someone’s arguments directly, you have to show why they are wrong. 3 Monk’s second thought is “how emotionally maimed Russell was” (Monk, 2: xii). I leave discussion of this topic to others. 4 This assumes that Russell is properly classified as a left-wing or radical political thinker. Some, notably Phillip Ironside, would classify Russell as a liberal, in such a way as to play down Russell’s more radical commitments (his guild socialism and anti-imperialism, for example). See Ironside’s The Social and Political Thought of Bertrand Russell: the Development of an Aristocratic Liberalism (New York: Cambridge U. P., 1996). Since Monk does not seem to embrace this argument, I do not believe a full response is necessary here. For a critique of Ironside, see Charles R. Pigden’s review in Australasian Journal of...