Sunday, March 14, 1999
Salt Lake City Tribune
Einstein Not Only a Scientist, But Also a Man of Strong Conviction
BY AMITABH PAL
Today is the 120th birthday of Albert Einstein, probably the best-known scientist ever. What's less well known is that Einstein was actively engaged in trying to make the world a more just, peaceful and humane place.
FOR KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICEBorn in Germany, Einstein personally suffered the consequences of extreme nationalism, since he had to leave Germany due to the rise of Hitler. He became a passionate foe of nationalism and a strong advocate of the belief that conflicts between nations could be stopped only by the formation of a single world government.
"Nationalism is an infantile disease," Einstein once remarked. "It is the measles of mankind."
To defeat Nazi Germany, Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 encouraging the development of an atomic bomb. His letter was an impetus for the Manhattan Project that constructed the atomic bomb. "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing the atom bomb, I would not have supported its construction," he told Newsweek magazine in 1947.
For almost all of his life, Einstein opposed war. "To my mind, to kill in a war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder," he said. In another instance, he remarked, "If even 2 percent of those called up [to serve] declare that they will not serve, and simultaneously demand that all international conflicts be settled in a peaceful manner, governments would be powerless."
Soon after the end of World War II, Einstein signed a declaration along with German author Thomas Mann and a dozen other famous Americans decrying the United Nations as inadequate and calling for a world government.
In articles in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, Einstein proposed that the then-dominant military powers -- Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States -- get together to form a world government. "Do I fear the tyranny of a world government?" Einstein asked. "Of course I do. But I fear still more the coming of another war or wars."
And despite his role in developing atomic weapons, he vigorously opposed their use.
In 1950, Einstein went on national television in response to President Truman's announcement that a hydrogen bomb had been constructed. If the bomb was a success, "annihilation of all life on earth will have been brought within the range of what is technically possible," he warned.
Einstein was not hesitant to express himself on issues such as McCarthyism and race relations in the United States. He drew parallels between racism against African Americans and the anti-Semitism that he had experienced, calling both "part of the continuing story of man's inhumanity."
Einstein was a strong critic of capitalism and was not averse to describing himself as a socialist. In fact, he stated in a 1949 essay titled "Why Socialism?" in the inaugural issue of the socialist Monthly Review magazine that the only way to get rid of present-day social evils was through the "establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals."
Not surprisingly, his views made him unpopular in some quarters both in his country of origin, Germany, and in his adoptive nation, the United States. When Einstein applied for a visa in 1932 to work at Princeton University, some conservatives asked the State Department to refuse him the visa. During the McCarthy era, certain conservatives demanded that he be stripped of his U.S. citizenship.
But Einstein continued to fight for his vision of a better world till almost his final day. The last letter that Einstein wrote was one week before his death, on April 11, 1955. It was addressed to British philosopher Bertrand Russell and was part of a joint appeal to end the nuclear arms race.
Einstein was more than perhaps the most brilliant scientist of all times. He was also passionately concerned about improving the lot of his fellow human beings. He was, in every sense of the phrase, a role model.
Amitabh Pal is the editor of the Progressive Media Project in Madison, Wis.