A journal kept by Albert Einstein throughout his travels in the Far East, recently published by Princeton University Press, reveals xenophobic and racist attitudes that stand in stark contrast to the physicist’s legacy as a humanitarian and outspoken proponent of civil rights.
This is the first time that the diary, written from late 1922 to early 1923 and not intended for publication, has been published in English. In the journal, Einstein records his observations about politics, philosophy, science and art.
But he also remarks on the people he meets, often using derogatory language to do so. His travel logs are particularly harsh on the Chinese. He says their children "are spiritless and look obtuse.”
“It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races,” he continues. “For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”
These revelations are particularly shocking coming from the man who once described racism as "a disease of white people." While Einstein is most widely known for his achievements in science, historians have also noted his active engagement with civil rights politics in the United States. Additionally, he spoke out against Nazi fascism in his native Germany while advocating for his fellow European Jews.
Ze’ev Rosenkranz, senior editor and assistant director of the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology, edited and translated “The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein.” He told NBC News on Wednesday that bringing this research to light can contextualize several other instances in Einstein’s life that could be considered to exist within the same thread of intolerance and intellectual elitism.
>Jew >openly liberal >secretly racist what else is new?
Gavin Morgan
>Unlike the Chinese he met, Einstein perceived the Japanese more positively, describing them as “unostentatious, decent, altogether very appealing.” “Pure souls as nowhere else among people. One has to love and admire this country,” he wrote, but Rosenkranz emphasized that the physicist, at the same time, concluded, asking rhetorically, the “intellectual needs of this nation seem to be weaker than their artistic ones – natural disposition?”
he has a point, because actually the japanese often hate intellectuals, saying they are sissy and argumentative, and prefer a "go for broke" or "do or die" attitude to pedantic opinions. it's pretty much samurai culture.
Landon Lee
Socialist aswell, was Einstein unironically Jewish NazBol?
Anthony Evans
Wtf I hate relativity now!
Landon Reed
#why is ukrainian jew cimunity so bothered with Einstein?
friendly reminder that eintein stole the work of Henri Poincaré, is a genius yes but of stealing youtube.com/watch?v=6bxn1AGlq7k
Justin Walker
unironic question: why can we call french people arrogant snobs or the dutch greedy and loud without anyone batting an eyelid but as soon as you get outside of the west its called xenophobia?
Brody James
for what the Jew fought for and pounced
Dominic Rivera
French and Dutch are sissy wh*te races.
Try dat shit wit me and imma split your wig, wh*te faggot
He became a posterboy for being a zionist. He stole his works from German scientists, plagiarized, hardly used proper citation in his papers and gained popularity for being politically and socially active.
>disliking a particular culture >"racism" >xenophoby >"racism"
Luke Turner
I don't think his racial views were at all out of the ordinary for his time and generation.
Liam Moore
He liked the Japs though.
Joseph Carter
me on the right
Jackson Clark
>It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races, That doesn't even sound racist. So what, it would be if white supplanted all other races, if indians supplanted all other races... So what.
Luis Edwards
Wow, another "humanist" legend got debunked. First it was Mother Theresa who was laundering money for dictators and dirty businessmen, then racist and strict follower of caste system Gandhi, now Einstein.
Isaiah King
They weren’t but people naturally expected more from Einstein.
Kayden Long
It's literally fucking nothing.
How are people actually getting worked up by this?
You also have to remember how shitty and poor China was back then, his reaction was 100% natural. Even vistors to China now often experience massive cultural shock and today at least there aren't dying infants in the filthy street and hookers literally everywhere, bandits randomly executing people for fun, etc.
This is literally fucking nothing. Any one of us visiting China today would have the same reaction and virtually every traveler to China at the time did, read most books written by visitors to China and they're very much the same story.
Lincoln Wilson
> >>ne pas parler le français
>2018 >ei räägi eesti keelt
Asher Hughes
>any year >slavs needing an excuse to be drunk
Joseph Morris
Nope,i live in another timezone bro
Jaxon Green
And Lincoln have slaves
Dylan Edwards
What do you call the Chinese translation of Dark Souls? NO SOULS!
