Sunday, April 29, 2007
Dumb Albert
This morning while walking to the store, I saw a truly dumb bumper sticker.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
The sticker had Albert Einstein's face behind the quote. A bit of googling verifies that AE did in fact say it.
The quote comes from a 1955 letter discussing the Cold War. In larger context:
But our responsibility is particularly great, for circumstances have temporarily placed the United States in so powerful a position that our influence on current events is of very great significance. In the face of so heavy a responsibility, the temptation to abuse one's power is great and potentially very dangerous.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war. We must all do our share, that we may be equal to the task of peace.
Einstein was, of course, a standard Gandhian pacifist and socialist, though definitely not a Marxist. And his abhorrence for war is completely understandable, just as McCain's abhorrence for torture.
The basic problem is that Einstein was a theorist, not an experimentalist. Within the realms of physics, he held a fine contempt for empirical knowledge; his job was to imagine new ideas and check them for internal consistency. Learning how nature actually works was not his department. But in discussing human nature, he wasn't even a good theorist.
Consider: "The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war." This isn't a theory, because it doesn't specify a connection between faith and prevention. You can't grab any part of this sentence and try to test it.
Is he advising that we pray for the conversion of our enemies? I severely doubt it, since he was some kind of deist but not a Christian. If not by prayer, then how in the world would "faith, courage and resolution" cause Osama and Ahmedinejad to calm down and become Gandhians themselves?
No, this is just a set of words assembled into a sentence. It sounds nice but it has no meaning, let alone any concrete value. At the risk of repeating myself, every rational observer of human nature in the last 5000 years has known that preparing for war is the best way to prevent war. It doesn't always work, but "faith, courage and resolution" never works. ¶ 9:15 PM
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
The sticker had Albert Einstein's face behind the quote. A bit of googling verifies that AE did in fact say it.
The quote comes from a 1955 letter discussing the Cold War. In larger context:
But our responsibility is particularly great, for circumstances have temporarily placed the United States in so powerful a position that our influence on current events is of very great significance. In the face of so heavy a responsibility, the temptation to abuse one's power is great and potentially very dangerous.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war. We must all do our share, that we may be equal to the task of peace.
Einstein was, of course, a standard Gandhian pacifist and socialist, though definitely not a Marxist. And his abhorrence for war is completely understandable, just as McCain's abhorrence for torture.
The basic problem is that Einstein was a theorist, not an experimentalist. Within the realms of physics, he held a fine contempt for empirical knowledge; his job was to imagine new ideas and check them for internal consistency. Learning how nature actually works was not his department. But in discussing human nature, he wasn't even a good theorist.
Consider: "The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war." This isn't a theory, because it doesn't specify a connection between faith and prevention. You can't grab any part of this sentence and try to test it.
Is he advising that we pray for the conversion of our enemies? I severely doubt it, since he was some kind of deist but not a Christian. If not by prayer, then how in the world would "faith, courage and resolution" cause Osama and Ahmedinejad to calm down and become Gandhians themselves?
No, this is just a set of words assembled into a sentence. It sounds nice but it has no meaning, let alone any concrete value. At the risk of repeating myself, every rational observer of human nature in the last 5000 years has known that preparing for war is the best way to prevent war. It doesn't always work, but "faith, courage and resolution" never works. ¶ 9:15 PM
