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[If Bertrand Russell’s concept of a good man seems absurd by today’s standards, it should be kept in mind that this passage from his 1926 essay ‘The Harm that Good Men Do’ was written at a time when teetotalism was a powerful political movement and the word “puritan” hadn’t yet become completely archaic. Prohibition (of the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages) in the United States, after all, was in force from 1920 to 1933.]

We all know what we mean by a ‘good’ man. The ideally good man does not drink or smoke, avoids bad language, converses in the presence of men only exactly as he would if there were ladies present, attends church regularly, and holds the correct opinions on all subjects. He has a wholesome horror of wrongdoing, and realises that it is our painful duty to castigate Sin. He has a still greater horror of wrong thinking, and considers it the business of the authorities to safeguard the young against those who question the wisdom of the views generally accepted by middle-aged successful citizens. Apart from his professional duties, at which he is assiduous, he spends much time in good works: he may encourage patriotism and military training; he may promote industry, sobriety and virtue among wage-earners and their children by seeing to it that failures in these respects receive due punishment; he may be a trustee of a university and prevent an ill-judged respect for learning from allowing the employment of professors with subversive ideas. Above all, of course, his ‘morals,’ in the narrow sense, must be irreproachable.

It may be doubted whether a ‘good’ man, in the above sense, does, on the average, any more good than a ‘bad’ man. I mean by a ‘bad’ man the contrary of what we have been describing. A ‘bad’ man is one who is known to smoke and to drink occasionally, and even to say a bad word when someone treads on his toe. His conversation is not always such as could be printed, and he sometimes spends fine Sundays out-of-doors instead of at church. Some of his opinions are subversive; for instance, he may think that if you desire peace you should prepare for peace, not for war. Towards wrongdoing he takes a scientific attitude, such as he would take towards his motorcar if it misbehaved; he argues that sermons and prison will no more cure vice than mend a broken tyre. In the matter of wrong the harm that good men do thinking he is even more perverse. He maintains that what is called ‘wrong thinking’ is simply thinking, and what is called ‘right thinking’ is repeating words like a parrot; this gives him a sympathy with all sorts of undesirable cranks. His activities outside his working hours may consist merely in enjoyment, or, worse still, in stirring up discontent with preventable evils which do not interfere with the comfort of the men in power. And it is even possible that in the matter of ‘morals’ he may not conceal his lapses as carefully as a truly virtuous man would do, defending himself by the perverse contention that it is better to be honest than to pretend to set a good example. A man who fails in any or several of these respects will be thought ill of by the average respectable citizen, and will not be allowed to hold any position conferring authority, such as that of a judge, a magistrate, or a schoolmaster. Such positions are open only to ‘good’ men.

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