Fascinating old video clip.
Question: For those of us who reject Marx, can you offer any positive philosophy to help us toward a more hopeful future?
Russell: Well as to that, you see, I think one of the troubles of the world has been the habit of dogmatically believing something or other, and I think all of these matters are full of doubt. The rational man will not be too sure that he is right. I think that we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. Not even mine! No, I think we should accept our philosophies with a measure of doubt.
What I do think is this: that if a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feeling. Now, Marx is not inspired by kindly feeling. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proleteriat. What he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois. And it was because of that negative element, because of that hate element, that his philosophy produced disaster. A philosophy that is to do good must be inspired by kindly feeling, not by unkindly feeling.
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