What right has he to speak about things which concern us alone
September 18, 2016 12:54 AM   Subscribe

A large part of our attitude toward things is conditioned by opinions and emotions which we unconsciously absorb as children from our environment. In other words, it is tradition—besides inherited aptitudes and qualities—which makes us what we are. We but rarely reflect how relatively small as compared with the powerful influence of tradition is the influence of our conscious thought upon our conduct and convictions.
Albert Einstein, 1946
posted by infini (15 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
inherited aptitudes and qualities...

is a terrifying idea.
posted by vapidave at 1:43 AM on September 18, 2016


Especially when taken out of context like that, yes.

Read the whole thing.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:08 AM on September 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


Actually, if you read Einstein's other public writings, he was explicitly a Marxist as well as socialist, not merely a democrat. When he asserts this structural, environmental attribution in the first sentence and also the idea that everyone's conscious thought is embedded under prevailing social conditions (like the story of Aristotle), these are precisely two of strains from the theoretical/philosophical issues that Marx had already tried to grapple with in Capital Volume I. Einstein doesn't give any references to these claims and premises that he uses, but he must have gotten ideas from others around him, as well the philosophy he studied—and thus what's interesting here is to examine him as a theoretical scientist and philosopher making this sort of argument in the 1940s, publicly. Imagine for instance if people of Einstein's era countered him with "Well, our economists have evidence that Marx was wrong, therefore your philosophy has no basis". Contrast Einstein's synthesis of progressive concepts with today's mainstream culture, which loves to distinguish the left between "too left" and "liberals", and claim only one is valid. Even today there's much scientific skepticism about the kind of proto-sociology that Einstein describes above. Something to think about.
posted by polymodus at 2:38 AM on September 18, 2016 [9 favorites]


For example here's a quote of him discussing what would seem to be an issue about a very different domain, yet you can see the conceptual parallels in his argument:

I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historical and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.

(I'd copied this down but Google should easily find the source of this quote.)
posted by polymodus at 2:48 AM on September 18, 2016


What a beautiful essay. Einstein speaks quite eloquently about racism. I love that he recognizes the role "tradition" plays in our biases and bigotry. And the fact that we so rarely take time to reflect on our inherited opinions and values.

I also loved this great observation --
In the United States everyone feels assured of his worth as an individual. No one humbles himself before another person or class. Even the great difference in wealth, the superior power of a few, cannot undermine this healthy self-confidence and natural respect for the dignity of one's fellow-man. .


I read that and thought, YES! well.... if you are white ... And then he follows with: There is, however, a somber point in the social outlook of Americans. Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of white skins.

Good lord, Einstein wrote this 70 years ago and we still have so very far to go in erasing these attitudes and "traditions." It's pathetic. Oh America! Will we ever overcome the tyranny of the long suffering, fragile, needy, permanently adolescent male clinging to his "heritage" of white supremacy?

Just this weekend I was in Rapid City SD for work. I was telling the group about the statues of US Presidents on every corner of the downtown area. I pointed out John Adams and George HW Bush, and a guy asked me -- "Where's Jeff Davis?!" I thought my head would explode. I had to hold my breath and count to 10 and use every ounce of self control I possess to resist saying to him -- "Jefferson Davis was a vile, cruel, traitorous bastard who deserved to hang for his crimes against humanity and the Union. But let me show you where Obama's statue will be placed next summer!"
posted by pjsky at 6:32 AM on September 18, 2016 [13 favorites]


We must try to recognize what in our accepted tradition is damaging to our fate and dignity—and shape our lives accordingly.


SOOOOO MANY THINGS this is true of. SO. MANY. THINGS.
posted by lalochezia at 8:42 AM on September 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Einstein's another one of those people that makes me second guess the conviction there's not really such a thing as genius. What else do you call a mind that works so perfectly like that? His behaviors may have occasionally come into odds with his principles, but the guy could think so damn clearly! Beautiful ideas.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:09 AM on September 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Einstein's another one of those people that makes me second guess the conviction there's not really such a thing as genius.

Off-topic, but if you want to thoroughly destroy the conviction that there's not really such a thing as genius, check out John von Neumann. Insane.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:43 PM on September 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


People of all colors, and in fact all things, toast up equally well in a nuclear blast. What geniuses they were, to not see how this will likely end, even with all the amazing math skills, they couldn't do the math on this. So nice to know they weren't racist, and were happy Americans, happy to lecture on human rights.
posted by Oyéah at 1:14 PM on September 18, 2016


People of all colors, and in fact all things, toast up equally well in a nuclear blast. What geniuses they were, to not see how this will likely end, even with all the amazing math skills, they couldn't do the math on this. So nice to know they weren't racist, and were happy Americans, happy to lecture on human rights.

This seems like an extraordinarily unfair interpretation of Einstein's relationship with nuclear weapons before and after the fact.
posted by atoxyl at 1:22 PM on September 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


He did sign the famous letter to Roosevelt which persuaded the president to initiate the Manhattan Project, but he admitted - just after the war, a couple years even before the success of the first Soviet nuclear test - that he was driven by fear that Germany was already working on such a weapon and that he wished he had done nothing. And he was an anti-nuclear, anti-Cold War activist for the rest of his life.
posted by atoxyl at 1:30 PM on September 18, 2016 [12 favorites]


Einstein, pictured here just after getting off his Harley (E=MC2-amundo. Aaaaaaay! *thumbs up*), is repeating things that have been said before in a number of ways.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.” – Herodotus

Etc.

I think basic wisdom is the apprehension of reality and seeing the interaction of our intellect with it.
Intellect is the degree to which we can perceive and reflect this reality.
Genius seems to be the submission to, or the ability for a greater degree of submission to, reality. (Over all other influences)

Rereading some Bruce Lee - "Tradition is the root of racism - many people are still bound by tradition...they seldom use their mind to find out the truth and seldom express sincerely their real feeling. The simple truth is these opinions... are traditions, which are nothing more than a formula laid down by elder's experiences. As we progress and (circumstances) change, it is necessary to reform this formula." Errors in a non-superseded formula are things like racism, etc.

These things are constants. There is the basic sort of intellect that seeks to get along in "the world" and simply reiterates what they see and hear that they may "prosper."

And there are greater intellects that earnestly inquire into the true nature of reality and their place in it.

And then there are the geniuses who say the things that are true for all time.

Einstein had a very Eastern (Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu) influenced philosophy. Often geniuses don't require knowledge of other geniuses conclusions to come to the same conclusion. Which, I suppose, is what makes them geniuses.
Lot of pictures of him with his left hand in the vitarka gesture.
http://www.nysun.com/arts/geniuses-and-the-men-hidden-inside-them/76795/


"But until this goal is reached there is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause." - is basically - Lao Tzu's "what is a good man but a bad man's teacher"

So racism is, in that sense (and to quote another physicist) - "not only not right, it is not even wrong."
That sort of monkey-think (Sun Wukong) intellect that creates atomic bombs from eternal wisdom.

The interesting bit is Einstein lived in an age where you could see how technology (and monkey-think) could destroy humanity (and thus far not literally, but we've certainly eroded it).
Lao Tzu, Buddha, etc. didn't live in an age where delusional thinking could literally physically end life on earth. More easily and quickly anyway.

And I think that's where his perspective on racism comes from. Not just the "this is a bad formula" intellectual understanding, but the transcendent - thinking you're better because you know and they don't only reinforces the illusion of separateness and ego, therefore understand that we are one and we ALL gotta deal with racism as part and parcel of the enemy that is delusional thought:

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe … We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive." – Albert Einstein
posted by Smedleyman at 10:29 AM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


I wish he and so many other well meaning people weren't so keen to point out you should care about people who aren't close to you, too, because somehow in the contemporary world, that's come to be interpreted as the idea it's somehow more virtuous to care for people at some distance removed from your own social milieu when, to me, the real challenge is to care about those further removed without letting your attention get distracted and becoming indifferent or negligent to the well-being of the people closest to you in the bargain. All people count the same, whether they're close or far. The call to extend your compassion to those farthest from you shouldn't be construed as a call to be less caring to those closest to you, but often that's where the best liberal impulses lead people in practice and that's where we get stereotypes about champagne liberals and self-sabotaging, crusading do-gooders with no common sense.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:19 PM on September 19, 2016


what
posted by Sys Rq at 3:06 PM on September 19, 2016


I mean, I know there's a tendency that has to be fought to focus care only on those closest to you. And in particular, when American society was in a more uniformly culturally conservative mode, as Einstein was making these remarks, it needed exactly that much emphasis and probably more. But I've known some who are terrible at compassion for the people right in front of them, but make great gestures toward helping people farther away--culturally, socially, geographically, take your pick--even sometimes to the detriment of their roles in caring for and supporting those closest by, who may have even cared for and supported them in times of vulnerability (like infancy, say).

I don't think Einstein ever meant to imply any conflict: one can and should extend care, is what he's arguing--not reallocate it, from the near to the far focus, as if there were only so much care to go around.

There's evidence the capacity to care might be a finite resource, practically speaking, but even so, there's more than enough to go around.

But you know, maybe a person who'd devote years to supporting and promoting humanitarian causes and social justice wouldn't notice the hypocritical irony in dumping their own (not perfect, but never abusive) aging parent in a substandard, negligently abusive elderly care facility, say. That kind of thing.

The challenge Einstein's setting is to learn to care and care more about the suffering of people you don't know, too, not instead, but it seems to me, it might read the other way now. I might be beanplating it, or being too cynical, but that's what I meant.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:20 PM on September 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


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