Opinion: Einstein unplugged: speaking truth about power
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People are talking about the anti-religion comments and sour attitude toward the Chosen People expressed in Albert Einstein’s letter to his pal Goodchild, but I think the most interesting phrase is in in a throwaway clause:
And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power.
Einstein produced plenty of random thoughts on the passing scene, most of which strike me more for their banality than anything else. Whether he did or did not believe in Goddess doesn’t seem to me probative of much — and like Manley Pointer, I been believing in nothing ever since I was born. In fact, I’m pretty sure appealing to authority to support your disbelief defeats the whole purpose of being a rationalist.
But there’s one aspect of Einstein’s non-scientific punditry that has always been catnip to me: his abiding, total and frequently repeated hatred of patriotism and the use of force. You can always depend on Albert E. for good anti-bullyism, and his Actonian formulation here is the clearest expression of that philosophy I’ve seen. What sets it off from sermon-on-the-mount piety is that it doesn’t pretend to any great moral position; force and power are bad not because they’re wicked but because they’re stupid and unhealthy.