Horowitz made Schoenman out to be something of a psycho actually; hiding on the coattails of a rapidly becoming senile Russell, who was begging Joan Baez for bucks before he shitcanned Schoenman.
Yours,
Eric
James Farmelant wrote:
>
> On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 03:20:02 +0000 Jim heartfield
> <jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >
>
> >Well, I won't defend myself, because, as I said, having written the
> >piece too quickly, I left the adjectives to do the work.
> >
> >We must be referring to different Lukes' texts - mine is a short essay
> >by him published in a very slim volume (yours is obviously a
> >collection). The Russell I'm referring to was published in 1938 (Power
> >-
> >A New Social Analysis) and is very much written as a third way between
> >Marxism and neo-classical economics (not that that is in itself an
> >argument against him).
> >
> >Was Russell a fraud? A loveable one perhaps. In later life he
> >campaigned
> >against the bomb and the Vietnam War (organising a war crimes tribunal
> >with his secretary, Ralph Schoenman - what happened to him?), but
> >early
> >after the second world war he recommended a pre-emptive nuclear strike
> >against the then un-nuclear soviets.
>
> As far as I know, Schoenman is still around and is still I think
> active in Trotskyist politics. I think his last major political
> intervention
> was the organizing of demos in support of Poland's Solidarity
> during the 1980s. It is said that Russell after having made full
> use of Schoenman's organizational skills and his talents for
> fundraising for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, dumped
> him around 1968 or 1969. On the other hand Schoenman seems
> to have made profiatable use of his period of association with
> Russell.
>
> >
> >Russell's pacifism was sometimes said to involve an immediate
> >armistice
> >on the basis of Britain's colonial Empire.
>
> Russell's pacifism of that period was at best only mildly
> anti-imperialist.
> Decades later during the Vietnam War, Russell adopted a much more
> militantly anti-imperialist position.
>
> > He did go to prison for his
> >pacifist agitation several times (the first time he was allowed under
> >prison rules of the time to have a servant, being a gentleman who
> >could
> >not be expected to dress himself, but I've never been able to find out
> >whether one was recruited from the prison population, or specially
> >imprisoned to fill the position).
>
> I am not sure what the answer is to that question. But according
> to his Autobiography, he found prison on the whole rather agreeable.
> While there, he wrote his _Introduction to Mathematical Philosohy_,
> as well as _The Principles of Mathematics_ and he began his
> _Analysis of Mind_. Russell also reported that upon his arrival
> to prison, the warder came to take particulars about himself. The
> warder asked him his religion to which he replied, agnostic.
> Russell reports that the warder remarked: "Well, there are many
> religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God." Russell
> reports that remark kept him cheerful for a whole week. He also
> reports that while in prison he read Lytton Strachey's _Eminent
> Victorians_. He laughed out loud upon reading one passage which
> prompted the warder to remind him that prison was a place of
> punishment, something that Russell seemed to have difficulty
> keeping in mind.
>
> >
> >The great tragedy of his life was the destruction of his axiomatic
> >system of mathematics by the persisting problem of the paradox of the
> >classes (a version of the Cretan liar paradox, in fact). It 'put an
> >end
> >to the logical honeymoon I was enjoying. I communicated the misfortune
> >to Whitehead, who failed to console me by quoting "never glad
> >confident
> >morning again".' In his Autobiography, Russell adds 'I did not attempt
> >to work, but the summers of 1903 and 1904 remain in my mind as a
> >period
> >of complete intellectual deadlock,' adding 'it seemed that the rest of
> >my life might be consumed looking at that blank sheet of paper'.
> >(p151)
>
> The attempt to resolve the paradoxes of set theory led him to
> formulate his theory of types. His work in logic during this period
> also led him to formulate his theory of descriptions which provided
> the logical basis for analytic philosophy. We should all have
> tragedies like that.
>
> >
> >So yes I probably was being harsh on the grand old man of English
> >philosophy.
> >--
>
> If we could all be frauds the way Russell was.
>
> Jim Farmelant
>
> >Jim heartfield
> >
>
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