Bertrand Russell: The Impact of Science on Society

Russell also made it clear the importance of not allowing the public to know how their convictions were generated.

clipped from seeingthroughthefog.com The importance of education, especially of the very young was well emphasized by Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) in his book ‘The Impact of Science on Society‘ It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fichte laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished. Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so