Albert Einstein... and George Bernard Shaw greatly admired each other... For Shaw, Einstein was the great destroyer of the notion of scientific infallibility. Shaw believed the theory of relativity to be a powerful antidote to the backward-looking fundamentalist doctrines of the 20th century. The most dangerous of these doctrines after World War I was Hitlers Aryan philosophy. We ought to have declared war on Germany, Shaw once remarked, the moment Mr Hitlers police stole Einsteins violin. [sourced from the NYTimes March 14th 1991]. Below is a film clip of excerpts of a speech made by Shaw at the Savoy Hotel in London on October 28th 1930 at a public dinner in Einsteins honour, sponsored by a committee to help needy Jews in Eastern Europe. Note his comment on Napoleon, It would perhaps have been better for the human race if he had never been born... [@0:48] followed by the quip: Napoleon and other great men of his height... [@1:08]. Was Shaw obliquely referring to Adolf Hitler, whose party had captured second place with 107 seats in the Reichstag a month earlier, in the September 1930 election? youtube/watch?v=1TIt0ITM_RM
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 15:54:23 +0000
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