The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
Interpretation
Power is as essential to social science as energy is to physics.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell suggests that understanding power is crucial for analyzing human behavior and social structures, similar to how energy is vital for comprehending the physical world. Just as energy drives the forces in physics, power influences relationships, social dynamics, and governance in society, making it a foundational concept for social sciences.
In practice
In a discussion about political science, one might quote this to highlight the significance of power dynamics.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Attending church does not necessarily mean living the principles taught in those meeting. You can be active in a church but inactive in its gospel.
Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understanding of her language
Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.
It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry. As long as we live here we see only the reverse side of the weaving, and very often the pattern, with its threads running wildly, doesn't seem to make sense. Some day, however, we shall understand. In looking back over the years we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the Will of God.
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