バートランド・ラッセル「現代は受け身の時代」
* 原著: Mortals and Others; Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935, vol.1
* 出典：牧野力(編)『ラッセル思想辞典』所収
以下は、牧野力氏の要旨訳（ただし字句を少し修正）に原文を追加したものです。ただし、要旨訳の順序は原文の順序と一部異なっています。
現代社会では専門家がますます重視され、普通の人は過去に日常生活の各分野で自分が発揮した事柄について受身の立場に立たされている。
昔、健康なスポーツとして自らサッカー（football）をやったものだが、今日、プロ選手を見物するように変わった。・・・。缶詰は料理を無用化し、また、昔農民は天気の予測に通じ自分自身で用を足したが、現代人は新聞や放送（の天気予報）に依存する。 現代人は自主的な見解を持とうとせず、権威者に従えば安心だと考える。この受身の習慣は権力者にとって好都合であるが、権威を崇拝するのは有害である。・・・
児童心理学をかじった母親は、母性本能だけの昔の母親には思いも寄らない問題を解決するために、子供と児童心理学の本との間を右往左往する（いったりきたりする）。
過度の受身姿勢を直すのは教育上の重要な課題であり、子供には手のこんだ遊具を与えず、自分で積極的に作ったり調べたりする癖をつけなければならない。 知識を伝授するだけが教師の役割ではない（のである）。
( One of the unforeseen and unintended results of the increasing importance of experts in the modern world is that, in a great many departments of life, the ordinary man has become passive where he used to be active. Time was when almost every youth played football ; the game was recommended as healthful exercise and a school of manly fortitude as regards small hurts. Nowadays, football is like the theatre: a spectacle provided by specialists for the delectation of the multitude.
A similar change has occurred in a vast number of other directions. Motor cars have destroyed the habit of walking, the radio has killed the art of conversation, preparations in tins and bottles have almost obviated the necessity of cooking. ...)
The old-fashioned farmer was weather-wise, whereas the modern man, if he wishes to form an opinion as to what the weather is going to be, reads the official weather forecast. I have sometimes had the impression that he cannot even tell whether it is wet or fine at the moment without the help of his newspaper. Certainly it is from his newspaper that he derives his opinions on politics and the state of the world and the need of a return to the rugged virtues of a former age. On most matters he does not trouble to have opinions at all, since he is convinced that they can safely be left to those whose special study or experience entitles them to speak with authority....
In some directions this respect for authority is good, while in others it is harmful and even ludicrous. The mother who has acquired a taste for child psychology is continually having to run from her child to her textbook and back again, to solve problems of which more instinctive mothers were not even aware. ...
To avoid too much passivity is an educational problem. It demands, in play, the absence of elaborate apparatus and no undue respect for exceptional skill; in work, encouragement of active investigation rather than mere listening to knowledge imparted by means of lectures. Unfortunately the authorities like passivity because it is convenient.
