Three Passions

The Three Passions
The three passions of Bertrand Russell are over exaggerated, and makes Mr. Russell come off as pretentious. The unnecessary use of large words creates a persona for Bertrand that makes him a verbose speaker, making it hard to follow for some readers such as myself. The passion of “pity for the suffering of mankind” gives a very condescending tone off when reading; this discourages the reader. Elaborating on the passions would have been key in giving the reader and ideal grasp on how Bertrand was feeling, however he chose to write only was he believed was completely necessary.

Bertrand constantly uses big words to describe his passions. The reasons for this could be to come off as educated or upper class, but by doing this Bertrand fails to truly connect with the reader and is missing any relation a reader might have to this essay. This is due to the uncommon word use; by using such words that a reader has never heard of it makes it difficult for the reader to grasp what Bertrand is trying to say. The wording also creates a repetitive and over exaggerated tone. The greatest use of over exaggeration can be found in his dialogue for finding love, “That terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss”. Magnifying the simple fact that Bertrand did not want to be alone created a boring mood for the essay, and the repetition of hyperbole made it even worse.

Constant hyperboles to describe Bertrand’s passions as well as his actual passions made it hard to continue reading through the essay. His passion for pity came of as condescending and seemed as if he looks down upon mankind. The power to help mankind is available to Bertrand however he refuses to use it and simply chooses to easily pity mankind. This makes it harder to read along the essay because of how bothersome Bertrand’s patronizing is. Making helping mankind a passion of his life as opposed to...