Countless historians have spend generations debunking this sort of simple-minded Whig view of history but Pinker doesn't care because he writes off the humanities. https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/962011654346043394 …
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If he argues that these achievements are tenuous and historically contingent & they need to be supported and furthered by the efforts of people today, then that's fundamentally at odds with the core of Butterfield's concept of Whig history, which has frequently been misconstrued.
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I think the idea of historical contingency isn't really present when you say that there has been progress on every measure & it is due that one factor (Enlightenment thinking). That's actually more Whiggish than 19th century Whigs.
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And his description of where that progress comes from is positively Spenglerian.
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If one accepts the reduction of the idea of Whig history to oversimplification of historical causation, your point can be readily conceded. However, the rejoinder would be that this implicates you in the same phenomenon, insofar as this requires you to oversimplify 19th C. ideas.
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2/ However, to be fair, Butterfield noted that "we are all of us exultant and unrepentant Whigs." To me, his most important insight is that "The greatest menace to our civilization is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness."
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