Battleship Potemkin blog
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Commentary on current events, never lacking in fury and possibly even signifying something.
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QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN EINSTEIN, Part One Posted September 5, 2021
Having finally gotten around to reading Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein—essays culled from three volumes previously published in Europe, the most recent having been from 1954, a year before the great scientist’s death—I have paused about halfway through the book. I will issue additional installments of this article once I’ve finished absorbing the work, and notating segments I wish to quote and comment upon. All components of what we might imagine as a new version of “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung,” the famous Little Red Book brandished as an ideological weapon during China’s “Cultural Revolution.” All that follows is excerpted from the edition published in hardcover by Bonanza Books, a division of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, NY. I won’t bother with page number citations. Einstein’s words will be within quotation marks below, and my commentary and any necessary introduction to a quotation in italics. An ellipse ( . . . ) indicates my own editing out of some verbiage. “The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. “This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor. ( . . . ) Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism—how passionately I hate them! How vile and despicable seems war to me! ( . . . ) My opinion of the human race is high enough that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the peoples not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.” (first published 1931) I wish I had encountered these thoughts on so-called Patriotism before I “locked down” the text for my forthcoming memoir! And it is true to this day that what passes for education in this country reinforces the notion of “American Exceptionalism,” which I label “the American Disease” in my own book. “I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experiencer in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.” (first published 1934) By “the eternity of life,” here Einstein means the history of life on our planet over billions of years and how it has evolved through Nature’s workings, juxtaposed against the superstitious-religious notion of “eternal life” after the death of the individual physical being. “What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it make any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.” (first published 1934) Interesting that the Nazis were just coming into total control of Germany around the time of these remarks. Among other aspects, their ideology embraced nihilism—the notion that life is, indeed, meaningless, so one should be free to act without restraint to satisfy one’s own perceived needs regardless of consequences for others—and practically worshipped death. If there was a meaning to life, for Nazi Germany, it was that absolute unquestioning obedience to the state was all that mattered. “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.” (first published 1934) Whether Chairman Einstein was aware of it or not, this is a truly Buddhist precept! [From an open letter to the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, published in the journal Science, December 1950] “Dear Fellow-Scientists: The problem of how man should act if his government prescribes actions or society expects an attitude which his own conscience considers wrong is indeed an old one. It is easy to say that the individual cannot be held responsible for acts carried out under irresistible compulsion, because the individual is fully dependent upon the society in which he is living and therefore must accept its rules. But the very formulation of this idea makes it obvious to what extent such a concept contradicts our sense of justice. “External compulsion can, to a certain extent, reduce but never cancel the responsibility of the individual. In the Nuremberg trials this idea was considered to be self-evident.” The victors of World War II, led by the United States, indeed sat in judgment of German war criminals at Nuremberg, sending a number of them to the gallows. And yet the United States would go on to commit numerous war crimes of its own in the ensuing decades, and hold itself not subject to trial by any authority on Earth (or in Heaven!). The “American Disease” in action once again. “The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while. ( . . . ) Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency. ( . . . ) Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” (first published 1953) About the current political atmosphere in the USA, I can only say: Stupidity, exemplified by resistance to safety measures during a deadly virus pandemic, has never been so organized, encouraged and consistently getting worse. Rush Limbaugh is no more, but his legions of “ditto-heads” march on. “There is ( . . . ) one ( . . . ) human right which is infrequently mentioned but which seems to be destined to become very important: this is the right, or the duty, of the individual to abstain from cooperating in activities which he considers wrong or pernicious. The first place in this respect must be given to the refusal of military service. ( . . . ) The Nuremberg Trial of the German war criminals was tacitly based on the recognition of the principle: criminal actions cannot be excused if committed on government orders; conscience supersedes the authority of the law of the state.” (first published 1954) This is a theme Einstein touches on frequently in these essays and lectures. And of course it is the essence of my own experience in the US Army during the war waged utterly unjustifiably against the people of Vietnam, the subject of my own forthcoming MEMOIR. In future installments of this series on Einstein’s Ideas and Opinions, we will see how the famous thinker came to be reviled as a “One-Worlder” because he called for an international force that could actually stop aggression in its tracks. END Updated September 5, 2021
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Previous two blog articles, available on Past articles page:
Previous two blog articles, available on Past articles page:
- Analysis of the U.S. Debacle in Afghanistan
- Life in these United (?) States: Curiouser and Curiouser
*** SPECIAL NOTICE!! ***
Courage to Resist podcast featuring little ol' me! Courage to Resist, in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure Project of Veterans For Peace, has compiled a collection of oral histories of GI resistance to the American War in Vietnam. My contribution to this was edited down to 28 minutes and, for whatever reason, the stories of my most militant acts were excised. The full story will appear in my written memoir when I'm able to publish it. For now, here is the link to the audio and a transcript via Courage to Resist:
https://couragetoresist.org/podcast-greg-laxer/
Courage to Resist podcast featuring little ol' me! Courage to Resist, in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure Project of Veterans For Peace, has compiled a collection of oral histories of GI resistance to the American War in Vietnam. My contribution to this was edited down to 28 minutes and, for whatever reason, the stories of my most militant acts were excised. The full story will appear in my written memoir when I'm able to publish it. For now, here is the link to the audio and a transcript via Courage to Resist:
https://couragetoresist.org/podcast-greg-laxer/
My current writing projects
I will be publishing the memoir of my resistance to the American War in Vietnam from within the ranks of the active-duty US military this year, if things go smoothly. TAKE THIS WAR AND SHOVE IT! A Most Unwilling Soldier 1967-1971 consists of some 115,000 words of text, including nine (!) appendixes, excerpts from official government documents, and photos.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, GO TO "MEMOIR" PAGE (click HERE)
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In the meantime, I am having fun writing my first novel. It is a savage satire of the Music Industry, with which I have had some personal experience. Its title is classified (Top Secret!) for the time being.
I will be publishing the memoir of my resistance to the American War in Vietnam from within the ranks of the active-duty US military this year, if things go smoothly. TAKE THIS WAR AND SHOVE IT! A Most Unwilling Soldier 1967-1971 consists of some 115,000 words of text, including nine (!) appendixes, excerpts from official government documents, and photos.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, GO TO "MEMOIR" PAGE (click HERE)
_________________________________________________________________
In the meantime, I am having fun writing my first novel. It is a savage satire of the Music Industry, with which I have had some personal experience. Its title is classified (Top Secret!) for the time being.
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NOTICE: Unless otherwise indicated, owner of this site is the sole author and owner of all material posted (with exception of public domain graphics). Permission is granted to share contents of this site elsewhere on the Internet or by other means of reproduction provided original author (Gregory Laxer) is credited. Please include a link to this website as a courtesy. If only excerpts are shared, original context must be accurately conveyed and, again, credited to original author. Please include a link to this website. EXCEPTION: Selections from my as yet unpublished memoir (see Memoir Page of this site) may not be reproduced elsewhere without express permission of the author.
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS NOTICE: Unless otherwise indicated, owner of this site is the sole author and owner of all material posted (with exception of public domain graphics). Permission is granted to share contents of this site elsewhere on the Internet or by other means of reproduction provided original author (Gregory Laxer) is credited. Please include a link to this website as a courtesy. If only excerpts are shared, original context must be accurately conveyed and, again, credited to original author. Please include a link to this website. EXCEPTION: Selections from my as yet unpublished memoir (see Memoir Page of this site) may not be reproduced elsewhere without express permission of the author.
DISCLAIMER: The author/owner of this website is not responsible for or necessarily in agreement with ideas expressed on other websites to which links are provided, nor does he endorse products that may be advertised on this site by the website service provider.
