C. E. M. Joad

Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad, born in Durham on 12 August 1891, was an English philosopher, author, teacher, and broadcasting personality. He became one of the best-known public voices of philosophy in Britain during the middle decades of the twentieth century, especially through his appearances on The Brains Trust, the BBC Radio wartime discussion programme. His public career rose on clarity, confidence, and argument, then fell sharply after a 1948 scandal over an unpaid train fare. He died on 9 April 1953.

Joad was the only son of Edwin and Mary Joad, née Smith. In 1892 his father became an Inspector of Schools, and the family moved to Southampton, where Joad received a very strict Christian upbringing. He began school at five, attending Oxford Preparatory School, later called the Dragon School, until 1906, and then Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon, until 1910. That early discipline was followed by Balliol College, Oxford, where he developed as a philosopher and debater. By 1912 he was a first class sportsman and an Oxford Union debater.

At Balliol, Joad also moved through radical political ideas. He became a Syndicalist, a Guild Socialist, and then a Fabian. In 1913 he encountered George Bernard Shaw through the newly founded New Statesman, an influence that helped deepen his study of philosophy. His academic record was strong: a first in Honour Moderations in Literae Humaniores in 1912, a first in Greats in 1914, and the John Locke scholarship in mental philosophy in 1914. After Balliol he entered the civil service, joining the Board of Trade in 1914 after attending a Fabian Summer School. His aim was to bring a socialist ethos into government work.

The First World War years made Joad a controversial figure. He showed ardent pacifism in the months before the war, and, along with George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, became unpopular with many people encouraging enlistment. In May 1915 he married Mary White, and they bought a home in Westhumble, near Dorking, in Surrey. Joad evaded conscription by fleeing to Snowdonia. After the birth of three children, the marriage ended in separation in 1921. He later said the separation caused him to abandon feminism and adopt a belief in the “inferior mind” of women, a view that sat uneasily beside his public role as a teacher and moral controversialist.

In 1930 Joad left the civil service to become Head of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. The department was small, but he made full use of his teaching gifts. His books Guide to Modern Thought in 1933 and Guide to Philosophy in 1936 helped make philosophy accessible to a wide audience. In the 1930s he opposed Nazism while continuing to oppose militarism, supported pacifist groups including the No More War Movement and the Peace Pledge Union, and chaired the National Peace Council in 1937–38. He was principal speaker for the motion “that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country” in the 1933 Oxford debate known as The King and Country debate, which passed 275 to 153.

Joad’s mind was argumentative, public, and often severe. He named Shaw and H. G. Wells as his main intellectual influences, and he was strongly critical of Marxism, Behaviorism, and Psychoanalysis. He also made sharp judgments in aesthetics, objecting to Debussy, jazz and swing, Dylan Thomas, symbolism in art, and Virginia Woolf’s refusal to assign values. What keeps Joad readable on a quotes site is not comfort, but energy: he brought philosophy out of specialist rooms and into ordinary argument, where ideas had to be stated plainly, tested in public, and answered.