"every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry" Bertrand Russell

Sir Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell of Kingston Russell, Viscount Amberley of Amberley and of Ardsalla (1872-1970) was a British philosopher, logician, social reformer, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and campaigner for peace (via). In 1962, aged 89, Russell received a letter from Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley of Ancoats, 6th Baronet (1896-1980), a British politician who became the leader of the British Union of Fascists, a party that was banned in 1940, the year Mosley was imprisoned (via). In this letter, Mosley tried to persuade Russell to discuss the merits of fascism. Russell replied with the following words:



Dear Sir Oswald,
Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.
I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.
Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

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photograph of Bertrand Russell by Alfred Eisenstaedt (1951) via