Book review

Authority and the Individual
by Bertrand Russell, 1949, Unwin Brothers Limited

It took me a long time to finish owing to heavy schoolwork. I have spoken about this book before with a high degree of appreciation, and now I think I should be about to tell some more and conclude.

I was wondering who the writer was, thereby I found a brief biography about him from the Wikipedia. You may click on it and have a look about Russell, and then you may have the same feeling as I do - I did not realize that he was a big man during his life. He was made a Nobel Lauerate in Literature in 1950, and his philosophies brought an influence to intellectuality that should not be overlooked.

(Nobel prize winners are chosen year by year. Other than people who are living in the age, a question is whether people in the future generation will remember or realize the people. Like me, I would have never known Russell if I did not check from Wiki. Additionally the case may be even worse - it is a doubt that how many people know the winners in this year.)

To recall the content of the book, I assume it was the transcript of "The Reith Lecture" for 1948-49 delivered by him. I wrote about this book before, as this was very inspiring for me.

Lately many crises are reported. Many of them are about the conflicts between the authorities, and between the government and the people. Russell discussed much about the possible reasons for these, which are mostly about the nature of human. He gave some suggestions, which I think they were somehow too ideal to be worked out, particularly when this is a more perplexed era.

This is my opinion only, and I think he is a great thinker as many of his ideas are still applicable after over 50 years till now. To me one of his provoking thoughts in this book was about the concept of a state. He said,

'"The State" is an abstraction; it does not feel pleasure or pain, it has no hopes or fears, and what we think of its purposes are really the purposes of individuals who direct it.'

(B. Russell, 1949)

Think about the current governments, they are usually very strong despite an apparent democracy. Politics and democracy is somewhat a game for a minor group of people. These people know the rules very well, and thus they can usually keep the power in hands. To this, I want to quote from Russell again.

'When we think concretely, not abstractly, we find, in place of "the State," certain people who have more power than falls to the share of most men. And so glorification of "the State" turns out to be, in fact, glorification of a governing minority.'

(B. Russell, 1949)

There are countless ideas which I think I pretty much agree with. I wish I could state them all here, but this is not a good idea as it has to do with the copyright. Things about public duty, society structures, and arts, science and practises in this book are very useful for my own thinking.

I wish I would do some more readings about this interesting topic. Personally I think the interests of the society and the individuals are usually contradicting. To obtain a peaceful state, they both have to consider and compromise. It has never been an easy thing to do, otherwise we have already had peace on Earth.

The power of the government is increasing in recent decades. Democracy does not grant common people more power than before. Sometimes policies or decisions made by the leaders are not very much comprehended by the public. This involves the political atmosphere, the public discussion, some surveys that do not usually reflect the reality, and the media influence. For instance, the War in Afghanistan was due to the absolute Taliban and the terrorist group Al Qaeda. This may be understood by the September 11 tragedy. Then there is the War on Iraq, which some dominating powers insisted there were mass destructive weapons. No evidence has been shown until this moment, and the war has been claimed to be "War on Terrorism". These are all said by the leaders. Somehow I don't quite understand how these happened.

As a small molecule of this society, I do not have any influences to the governmental diplomatic policies. Most of the time we only know what the government is going to do from the media, whereas the media does not often provide a complete picture. Studying and working journalism provides an alternative overview to the news media. Journalists does not often provide objective news to the audience. Facts are out there, and what influences people is the interpretation. If we choose to read a newspaper over a period of time, we will perhaps follow the standpoint of the newspaper finally. Having said that there is no right or wrong to hold any point of views, I do not want to accept anything without a careful or thoughtful consideration.

Sometimes the government provides some statistics to show they have public support for their discisions. The pro-government news organizations publish reports with similar results with the government; whilst the opposing news publications put a similar survey with an opposite result on their publication. I doubt the truthfulness of surveys, statistics and reports. It is known that the result can be varied through different criteria or procedure of surveying. Same as journalists writing a piece of news in an angle they want their audience to acquire and receive the messages behind, the result of a report can be produced as something the researchers want. Where does the truth lie in? It is getting harder to find out when the information age has blossomed the most ever.

Democracy delivers a chance for us to choose among options, but we do not know well enough about each option. There has never been a "best" choice. We will never be able to attain the "best" level. Here I do not mean we have to find the best, but I question whether we should do something to make it better when it worsens. Probably there are too many constraints to be removed.

I start to believe that a government is like a man that it becomes arrogant and overlooks the others when it comes to be too strong. I do not agree that a government always claims what they are doing is what their people truly want to do, as I consider this as too assertive. I read an article from the Guardian Unlimited today. Inside, Alberto Fernandez was quoted when he spoke in a programme produced by the Al Jazeera, which I think worthwhile to share:

"It is difficult for any politician in whatever administration to admit mistakes, because people in the east as well as the west don't like to admit they have made mistakes or are wrong," he replied. "This is the mentality of the people, the mentality of power, authority, autocratic thinking. This is reality."

(Jonathan Steele, 2006)

As I wrote long before, I do not completely agree that we can always explain everything by saying "This is reality".

Anti-war

I am very annoyed after reading the newspaper the Australian today about the 600,000 deaths of the Iraqis in the War on Iraq. (Sam Knight and James Hider, 2006, Retrieved from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20567647,00.html)

This is what the greatest U.S. President George W. Bush said,

"I do know that a lot of innocent people have died and that troubles me, and it grieves me. And I applaud the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence."

Originally I post this to somewhere, but I could not stand it and feel I have to share with everyone.

One of the reasons I find it very disgusting is that I did a study about the media coverage of the War in Iraq. When there are 600,000 Iraqi deaths, the CNN reported the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq with the title "U.S. deaths in Iraq, war on terror surpass 9/11 toll" (CNN, 2006, Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/03/death.toll/)

The lead of the article said this was "another somber benchmark". One may then question how many U.S. military deaths there are - around 3,000. The truth of Iraqi deaths five times more than the U.S. is too ghastly to look at. I cannot understand how somber the U.S. deaths are when they are the invaders. They are shouting to the innocent sufferers that they are the victims. I would say it is pathetic.

Perhaps I am too extreme for this, as this is definitely my personal opinion.

The second reason is what Mr. Bush said, and for this I am going to repeat what I have put somewhere.

[Start] Mr. Bush knew a lot of innocent Iraqi dead, but he continued his invasion by saying this is the holy war against terror. He is just a president of a country, but not the judge of the world. I think the death really troubles him because wars always create hostility, and what he has done is bringing more hatred against the Americans. I disdain his speech.

The second statement is even more disgusting. Mr. Bush applauded the Iraqis for their courage in the face of violence. I doubt if he knew what he was saying. It is the United States that brought the hardships to most Iraqis. The Iraqis have no choice to do regardless of having or not the courage.

Since 2003, the Iraqis have been suffering from the war in Iraq, terrorist attacks and conflicts. The fall of Hussein Saddam does not bring them the improvement of living. In the beginning of the war, Iraq was accused of keeping or development mass destructive weapons and having contact with terrorist groups. Three years later, no distinctive clue is found to prove both charges.

Three years before, Iraq might be a conservative or backward country, but at least it was stable and safe notwithstanding the harsh political atmosphere. Three years later, it is destroyed by violence. War is always the fastest tool to devastate everything - properties, relationships, health, wealth, mentality and so on. It is the worst measure to punish a country.

A tragedy.

A lot of documentaries have revealed the ambition of the invaders - the interest of the oil and coal resources; a mass condemnation has been against the war; countless reports and programmes have shown the deaths and unfair treatments of the innocence.

Where is the conscience? Is it still the same as the original belief? Is it exactly what people want?

It is too obvious that the conflicts will never end. It is a sadness. [End]

At the end of September, I was doing an essay about the global coverage of the War on Terrorism and its impact. During the research, I found an article concerning the reporting of Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news organization, and the CNN (Chris Suellentrop, 2003, Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/id/2081057). It was entitled "Al Jazeera, IT’S JUST AS FAIR AS CNN" and what it moved me is at the end of the article, the writer asked a question -

"Why must we return to the lie when it's time for peace?"

Russia

Recently, the most famous Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down, thereafter it arose public concern about the freedom of speech in Russia. Here is an article I read from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1891506,00.html

One of the most fearful facts that the article pointed out was she is already the 13th journalist killed since Vladimir Putin came to power.

"No one believes he personally ordered her execution - but there won't be many tears shed inside the Kremlin."

I do not have much information about the condition in Russia, and I think most people are like me. Inside Russia, the broadcast is said to be under the control of the governmnet. Thus it is said to be patriotic and becomes a promotional tool of the government. To me it sounds like something happened only during the war-time or in an autocratic country, and in fact the Kremlin is autocratic in my impression.

Despite an apparent democratic system and a capitalist country, Russia is not benefited by them. People are still under a strict control, as well as suffer from poverty and starvation. Seemingly there is no big difference after the transformation from the Soviet Union. For instance, some of the rich were arrested and their property was ceded to the government without an evident conviction. Maybe there was, but it was very mysterious in the eyes of the public.

Apparently the Kremlin remains a strong power internationally, but I don't quite understand the reason. I don't know clearly about how people's living there is like, and I think it is not very good. However there seems to be no way to know how the outsiders can help the country.

Sometimes I think it may be better after the end of Putin's term, yet the problem is when Putin will leave the office. To me he is like a head of an elite secret police who could not accept any opposition.

Anyway. It is very sad to see that journalists in Russia are predicted to be more prone to self-censorship. I cannot imagine how they could survive under the pressure and how they write something they may not mean to or may not even agree with. They don't have a choice, and this is the pity. Meanwhile the public is affected as well. If the newspapers, according to the Guardian, is the last place to speak out own opinion and publish the truth, the lost will belong to the public.

People are free to think, but based on what they receive, it is doubtful whether people can realize the real world. Not only in Russia, but in many places like the US, media is always condemned to be subjective, unfair and unbalanced. If opinion of people in the US is already affected by the poor quality of journalism and media in spite of a so-called open-minded nation, one is hard to expect what the people in Russia can think.

The leaders are elected by people, but what's wrong in the whole thing (I don't know how I can call it) when various problems and issues are found? Just because it can never be perfect?

Somehow it is a misery.