Curated Resource ( ? )
The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior: Bertrand Russell’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech – Brain Pickings
Curated:
18/11/2016 from
www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/21/bertrand-russell-nobel-prize-acceptance-speech/
my notes ( ? )
Man differs from other animals... he has some desires which are... infinite, can never be fully gratified... Russell points to four such infinite desires — acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power...
However much you may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you...
eclipsed by an even stronger one — our propensity for rivalry... in turn upstaged by human narcissism ... doubly poignant in the context of today’s social media
But the most potent of the four impulses, Russell argues, is the love of power... greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates... Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.
However much you may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is a dream which will always elude you...
eclipsed by an even stronger one — our propensity for rivalry... in turn upstaged by human narcissism ... doubly poignant in the context of today’s social media
But the most potent of the four impulses, Russell argues, is the love of power... greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates... Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.
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The above notes were curated from the full post www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/21/bertrand-russell-nobel-prize-acceptance-speech/.Related reading
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