[This essay was published by Bertrand Russell in 1937 in The Nation, 144. It was republished in Russell’s Unpopular Essays (1950). An online transcript of it is also here.]
The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed
by Bertrand Russell, 1937
ONE of the persistent delusions of mankind is that some sections of the human race are morally better or worse than others. This belief has many different forms, none of which has any rational basis. It is natural to think well of ourselves, and thence, if our mental processes are simple, of our sex, our class, our nation, and our age. But among writers, especially moralists, a less direct expression of self-esteem is common. They tend to think ill of their neighbors and acquaintances, and therefore to think well of the Sections of mankind to which they themselves do not belong. Lao-tse admired the “pure men of old,” who…
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