Privilege and Radical Love

Bertrand Russell wrote in 1929 that a professional man would lose his position for living in "open sin," yet added in a wry footnote: "unless he happens to teach at one of the older universities and be closely related to a peer who has been a cabinet minister". In this glancing acknowledgement of his own (extreme) privilege, Russell puts his finger on one of the most important aspects of his life and work. He was in a position to live, and love, radically without facing most of the consequences that would face someone of a lower social class, or someone less firmly ensconced in the academic establishment, than himself. In this talk Carrie Jenkins will discuss some of the multiple interlocking relationships between privilege, power, and love, drawing on Russell's life and Jenkins’ own as case studies.