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".