Russell and the Boer War: from Imperialist to Anti-imperialist

Abstract

cA"rticles RUSSELL AND THE BOER WAR: FROM IMPERIALIST TO ANTI-IMPERIALIST DAVID BLITZ Philosophy and Honors Program / Central Connecticut State U. New Britain, CT 06050, USA BLITZ@MAIL.CCSU.EDU· B ertrand Russell's philosophy of war and peace, like other aspects of his philosophy, underwent an evolution during the course of his long life, though his commitment to peace and his opposition to war, like his commitment to logic and his distaste for mysticism, was strongly held once it had been established.l How Russell's commitment to peace became established is the subject of this paper.2 For Russell was not always an opponent of war: at the outbreak of the Boer (or South African) War in 1899, Russell, then twenty-seven years of age, was a defender of British imperialism. But by the end of that war, Russell had abandoned this view and had shifted to an anti-imperialist and pro-peace stance which would characterize the rest of his life. My claim for this paper is the following: contrary to published views on the subject-both by Russell himself and one of his most able political biographersI Nonetheless, Russell's philosophy ofwar and peace, like his philosophy oflogic and mysticism, was not a simple one, since he took into account not only general principles, but also concrete circumstances. Although Russell's position was a basically pacifist one after the debate with Louis Couturat that is analyzed in this paper, he nonetheless was a supporter of the Second World War once it had broken out. Similarly, though his commitment to an analytic approach informed by logic was characteristic of all of his later work, he nonetheless had moments, such as the 190I experience discussed below, which he termed "mystical". 2. The editorial assistance of Kenneth Blackwell and the archival assistance of Carl Spadoni of the McMaster Archives were essential to the writing ofthis paper. russell: the Journal of Bemand Russell Studies McMaster Universicy Press n.s. 19 (winter 1999-2.000): 117-42. ISSN 0036-01631 118 DAVID BLITZ Russell's move away from liberal imperialism was neither the result of what has been referred to as his 1901 "conversion experience", nor a product oflater reflections on his part. Rather, it occurred in the course of Russell's debate with the French logician Louis Couturat during the year 1900. Not only was Russell unable to refute Couturat's pacifist arguments; but by his silence and lack of reply he acknowledged that Couturat had refuted Russell's own best efforts at defending imperialism and the rule of the most powerful. THE 1901 CONVERSION EXPERIENCE I will begin with a quotation from Russell's Autobiography, dealing with the well known 190I "conversion experience") On 10 February, having returned to the home of Alfred North Whitehead and his wife after attending a reading ofGilbert Murray's new translation ofa Greek play, Russell found Mrs. Whitehead in great pain, suffering from severe angina or a heart attack. Overwhelmed by her suffering, Russell went through what has been described as his "conversion experience": Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath me, and I found myself in quite another region. Within five minutes I went through some such reflections as the following: the loneliness of the human soul is unendurable; nothing can penetrate it except the highest intensity ofthe sort oflove that religious teachers have preached; whatever does not spring from this motive is harmful, or at best useless; itfollows that war is wrong, that a public school education is abominable , that the use of force is to be deprecated, and that in human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that. (Auto., I: 146; emphasis added) 3 Some commentators have situated the essence of the conversion experience in Russell's childhood loss ofhis parents, as Andrew Brink does in his Bertrand Russell: the Psychobiography ofa Moralist (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities P., 1989). Victor Lowe in his chapter on Russell in AlftedNorth Whitehead: the Man and His WOrk, Vol. I: 1861-1910 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1985) cited the psychoanalytic views of Dr. and Mrs. Bennett Simon, who argued that Russell...