バートランド・ラッセル『ヒューマン・ソサエティ-倫理学から政治学へ』第2部[「情熱の葛藤」- 第2章- Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, Part II, chapter 6
* 原著:Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954* 邦訳書:バートランド・ラッセル(著),勝部真長・長谷川鑛平(共訳)『ヒューマン・ソサエティ-倫理学から政治学へ』(玉川大学出版部,1981年7月刊。268+x pp.)
『ヒューマン・ソサエティ』第2部「情熱の葛藤」- 第6章「科学技術と将来」n.7 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, part II: The Conflict of Passions, chapter 6: Scientific Technique and the Future, n7 | |||
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Every increase of skill demands, if it is to produce an increase and not a diminution of human happiness, a correlative increase of wisdom. There has been during the last hundred and fifty years an unprecedented increase of skill, and there is no sign that the pace of this increase is slackening. But there has not been even the slightest increase of wisdom. The maxims of statecraft are still those that were in vogue in the eighteenth century. The slogans by which men win elections are just as foolish as they used to be. Short-sighted greed blinds communities to their long-run interests quite as much as it ever did. Skill without wisdom is the cause of our troubles. If they are to be cured, it will be not by a mere increase of skill, but by the growth of such wisdom as the times demand. We shudder at the thought of the extermination of Man, but it is not enough to shudder. It is the imperative duty of us all in the perilous years that lie ahead to struggle to replace the old crude passions of hate and greed and envy by a new wisdom based upon the realization of our common danger, a danger created by our own folly, and curable only by a diminution of that folly. When you hate, you generate a reciprocal hate. When individuals hate each other, the harm is finite ; but when great groups of nations hate each other, the harm may be infinite and absolute. Do not fall back upon the thought that those whom you hate deserve to be hated. I do not know whether anybody deserves to be hated, but I do know that hatred of those whom we believe to be evil is not what will redeem mankind. The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lies in the hearts of individuals. It is common to wish well to oneself, but in our technically unified world, wishing well to oneself is sure to be futile unless it is combined with wishing well to others. This is an ancient doctrine, which has been preached by wise men in many ages and in many lands -- thitherto in vain. But now at last, if any of us are to survive, practical politics must learn to take account of a kind of wisdom which practical men have hitherto thought too good for this world. |