Books in Review

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 3, 1944-1969 (Simon and Schuster,$8.95). This autobiography began with a bang, and has, alas, ended with a whimper that is often more silly than sad. That the author of Principia Mathematica should end up sponsoring one of the most amusing kangaroo courts this side of Alice in Wonderland is almost beyond belief; and yet that is how the present volume ends, a sad punctuation to the life of a once great philosopher. Like Russell’s life, the autobiography begins, in the first volume, with great promise, and gradually pales from that point onward. The present volume is essentially a collection of letters, usually letters of protest, to the World’s Great Men. Some of the letters are interesting, most are dull. We learn, for example, that Russell’s famous remark about dropping a nuclear bomb on the Soviet Union was made in passing. Russell cannot understand why a remark so casually made should arouse such excitement among his critics. It has been noted by one of those critics that only Bertie Russell could have made such a remark so casually, in passing. Indeed, only Bertie Russell could have written this book. He is the last of the great Whig aristocrats, and every page he has ever written, every statement he has ever made related to politics, is saturated with the spirit of Whiggism. One of my favorite illustrations in the book is a cartoon published in the London Evening Standard at the time of Russell’s incarceration for taking part in a ban-the-bomb protest in 1961. The cartoon depicts Russell and three exceedingly stupid convicts being confronted by a policeman after an unsuccessful attempt to break out of jail. “Who’s the brains behind this?” asks the cop. The answer, Russell would have us believe, is Russell. He protests against those who accuse him of senility, arguing that he has never felt better in his life. For my part I would like to think that he is not the brains behind the final portion of his life, for if he is, he has made an awful botch of it. P. P. witonski

The Making of a Counter Culture, by Theodore Roszak (Doubleday, $7.95). The first two chapters attempt to explain why there’s a New Left, the following eight consist mainly of essays on essays by flaky types like Marcuse with a pitch at the end for magic as the solution to all social evils. Honest. Magic. So wait for the paperback. And when you get it, tear out the last eight chapters and keep the first two, not because they’ll tell you anything sensible but because they offer a fascinating look at another kinky academic mind. Roszak loves the kids. The movement, he says, stands for individual freedom, the New Left battling the dragons of the Technocracy, those damned managerial elitists, all marching in lockstep to the tune played by the nameless leaders of that shadowy conspiracy, the Military-Industrial Complex, the current leftist equivalent of the Elders of Zion. And to an academic, an extension of the age-old conflict between pure professors and conspiring administrators. Roszak recognizes that the New Leftists want to overthrow society. And he approves. He approves so heartily, in fact, that one wants to suggest that he resign his professorial sinecure, take off his shoes, put on the love beads, and make the street scene. But he can’t do that. The kids, he tells us, need the guidance of “mature minds.” Translated, this means that Professor Roszak will continue to pick up that check, continue to sit on his duff in that comfortable faculty office, and continue to encourage kids to rip down the institution that shelters him. Come the revolution, everyone will be purged. Especially those administrators. Everyone, of course, but silly academic abstractionist revolutionaries. Without college professors, after all, how would the kids get indoctrinated?

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The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 3, 1944-1969 (Simon and Schuster,$8.95). This autobiography began with a bang, and has, alas, ended with a whimper that is often more silly than sad. That the author of Principia Mathematica should end up sponsoring one of the most amusing kangaroo courts this side of Alice in Wonderland is almost beyond belief; and yet that is how the present volume ends, a sad punctuation to the life of a once great philosopher. Like Russell’s life, the autobiography begins, in the first volume, with great promise, and gradually pales from that point onward. The present volume is essentially a collection of letters, usually letters of protest, to the World’s Great Men. Some of the letters are interesting, most are dull. We learn, for example, that Russell’s famous remark about dropping a nuclear bomb on the Soviet Union was made in passing. Russell cannot understand why a remark so casually made should arouse such excitement among his critics. It has been noted by one of those critics that only Bertie Russell could have made such a remark so casually, in passing. Indeed, only Bertie Russell could have written this book. He is the last of the great Whig aristocrats, and every page he has ever written, every statement he has ever made related to politics, is saturated with the spirit of Whiggism. One of my favorite illustrations in the book is a cartoon published in the London Evening Standard at the time of Russell’s incarceration for taking part in a ban-the-bomb protest in 1961. The cartoon depicts Russell and three exceedingly stupid convicts being confronted by a policeman after an unsuccessful attempt to break out of jail. “Who’s the brains behind this?” asks the cop. The answer, Russell would have us believe, is Russell. He protests against those who accuse him of senility, arguing that he has never felt better in his life. For my part I would like to think that he is not the brains behind the final portion of his life, for if he is, he has made an awful botch of it. P. P. witonski

The Making of a Counter Culture, by Theodore Roszak (Doubleday, $7.95). The first two chapters attempt to explain why there’s a New Left, the following eight consist mainly of essays on essays by flaky types like Marcuse with a pitch at the end for magic as the solution to all social evils. Honest. Magic. So wait for the paperback. And when you get it, tear out the last eight chapters and keep the first two, not because they’ll tell you anything sensible but because they offer a fascinating look at another kinky academic mind. Roszak loves the kids. The movement, he says, stands for individual freedom, the New Left battling the dragons of the Technocracy, those damned managerial elitists, all marching in lockstep to the tune played by the nameless leaders of that shadowy conspiracy, the Military-Industrial Complex, the current leftist equivalent of the Elders of Zion. And to an academic, an extension of the age-old conflict between pure professors and conspiring administrators. Roszak recognizes that the New Leftists want to overthrow society. And he approves. He approves so heartily, in fact, that one wants to suggest that he resign his professorial sinecure, take off his shoes, put on the love beads, and make the street scene. But he can’t do that. The kids, he tells us, need the guidance of “mature minds.” Translated, this means that Professor Roszak will continue to pick up that check, continue to sit on his duff in that comfortable faculty office, and continue to encourage kids to rip down the institution that shelters him. Come the revolution, everyone will be purged. Especially those administrators. Everyone, of course, but silly academic abstractionist revolutionaries. Without college professors, after all, how would the kids get indoctrinated?