“And in any case the feast of war is not a good thing, however unavoidable it may sometimes be.” Lecture 4
In the first chapter, Bertrand Russell talked about happiness during war. He said it was becuase without war, life would be boring. After reading the quote that I stated, it reminded me of this part. The last part when he said it is sometimes good, I think he was taking about the happiness you can get from it. The first part of the paragraph where I took the quote from, says war brings harmony to the people. This is hinting the thing he said in the first chapter. Even though the main idea of the fourth lecture is about working together, he did talk about it during war.
Yancey Ko
In this quote Russell is speaking about how in the modern age there is a disconnect between people because there aren’t many things for people to get together behind; in turn he says that a war is just the sort of thing that causes people to come together for a set purpose. Russell isn’t advocating for war here, but rather is just saying that there is something about a war that can bring people together because it gives people a common goal just like in previous ages survival of the community provided a common goal. This relates to what he is speaking about in lecture 1 because there he is saying that in previous ages people had this instinct to fight and hunt that they used in order to ensure survival; however, in the modern age it is not longer necessary to fight for survival but this instinct never went away so it manifests itself in the form of wars.
Elviris Rodriguez