LIVING IN THE ATOMIC AGE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 629, 20 July 1951, Page 26

LIVING IN THE ATOMIC AGE

cc AX. A ANY people at the present day allow themselves a mood of gloom which, to my mind, is not justifiable," said Bertrand Russell in a foreword to six talks which he recently gave in the BBC Home Service. "It is true that there are present difficulties and impending dangers, but the difficulties are endurable, and I believe the dangers to be surmountable. I wish in these broadcasts to make an entirely truthful estimate of all the causes of gloom, but nevertheless to hold that there has never in the past history of man been better ground for cheerfulness than there is at present." Recordings of these talks, Living in an Atomic Age, have now been received by the NZBS, and they will be broadcast from all YA and YZ stations on Sundays at 8.45 p.m., and on Wednesdays at 9.15 p.m., starting on Sunday; July 29. Lord Russell said in his foreword that with every day that passed there was better hope that a third world war would be averted; before long the West would be so strong as to be obviously invincible. The time was therefore at hand when we need no longer be hypnotised by the Eastern terror, but could allow ourselves to think of the happier possibilities that modern skill had created. If we were to think and feel rightly in the new world of science and machines, we must learn to fix our thoughts rather on man than on this or that section of the human race. Unification, political and economic, had been made more possible and necessary by modern technique. There was no longer any need for poverty-scarcity was due to human folly. But if there was to be abundance throughout the world we must learn to regard other people in a

friendly manner, not as rivals or enemies. "T do. not think that our relations with our fellow men can be satisfactory while our relations with ourselves are full of pain and uncertainty and self-disgust," Lord Russell continued. "Harmony with other men is Only possible as a reflection of harmony within. Harmony within reflects a _ freely creative existence, an existence in which men’s feelings are expansive rather than restrictive, in which they are concerned more with what they hope they may

achieve than with what they fear they may find themselves doing." Lord Russell believes that irrational fear is "the chief cause of hatred between man and man, and between one group of men and another. I see in my mind’s eye a company of fearless and happy human beings, feeling kindly towards others because they are fearless and happy, and able to overcome obstacles which to men of a different outlook would be insuperable. I see a company of such human beings rapidly winning others to their way of life, and making the world aware that the old psychology of sin’. and restriction and hatred and competition is unsuited to the modern world, in which, if it persists, it will prove far more disastrous than at any earlier period. ..

"The world in which we are living is at a crisis. Hope and fear alike will bring about their own realisation. If fear continues to predominate, the end can only be disaster. But if men can learn to hope, not only in their conscious thoughts, but in their deepest feelings, their hope will be justified. Human skill has reached a point where the human race can be happy if it chooses to be so. What we suffer, we suffer owing to our folly. But if we can open our hearts and minds to hope, the world can quickly become a world full of joy."