Are These Moral Codes Out of Date? [1951]

On 19 May 1951 Russell informed Edith Finch (who had just embarked on a three-week visit to the United States) that he had “spent the morning dictating an article about American views on sex … a good book, but horrifying”. The fruit of Russell’s rewarding but evidently excruciating labour was a review of The Folklore of Sex (Ellis 1951), which appeared three days later in the Evening Standard, London, 22 May 1951, p. 9 (B&R C51.20). Russell mentioned his forthcoming article in a letter to the Crawshay-Williamses, which also referred to 72 (and the recent infidelities of his son and daughter-in-law): “I have told America what I think of MacArthur, and the Evening Standard what I think of sex in America, and John what I think of sex in 41 Queen’s Rd.” (20 May 1951, ra rec. acq. 501e). As Russell’s appraisal of the book and the letter to his future wife both made plain, he was as appalled as ever by what he regarded as the stunted moral condition of the United States. Especially harmful in his view—which he had stated almost thirty years previously (e.g. Russell 1923c)—was the discrepancy between strict social conventions and the prurience of popular culture. In this regard he was at one with the author Albert Ellis (1913–2007), whose new survey of American attitudes also posited a damaging conflict between taboos and desires. Guided in Russell’s estimation by a “wise and enlightened” (508: 19) outlook, Ellis examined American attitudes as revealed by content analysis of the mass media from a single day, 1 January 1950—not only newspapers and magazines, but also popular fiction, radio, television, film and theatre.