Pinker's case for optimism assumes only that which is measurable is real. It does not take into acct trends showing declining faith in democratic institutions, it's leaders and, it needs to be noted, birthrates. He's also mistaken abt reasons for progress.https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/962011654346043394 …
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The Enlightenment Project was almost lost at least three times in the 20th century: WWI, WWII and the Cold War. What saved it wasn't a faith in secularism and science but the United States - a country that in contrast to Europe was an amalgam of Enlightenment and Puritanism.
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Left to secularism and science, Communism and/or Fascism would have had the upper hand. Ultimately it took a country with the capacity for faith in it's culture and way of life - which was religious as much as civic - that saved the Enlightenment.
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To the extent Pinker insists on putting his faith in narrow minded materialism, he ensures the 21st century will succumb to the forces which almost overtook the Enlightenment in the 20th century. https://twitter.com/Pseudoplotinus/status/962028925193830400 …
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Are you kidding me? We had Beethoven in the 18th century. Now we have Taylor Swift. OK we have penicillin now. Big deal. I’d take my chances and go back to Beethoven. I rest my case.
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Countless, eh?
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Hey, you have 280 characters now, instead of being a snarky asshole, name some. (And I don't disagree, just...)
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Also, "countless" and "many" aren't synonyms, if we're being snarky.
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Except the litany of current negative trajectories occurring that void relevance of what you observe. I know you think you're doing a service by being contrary, showing "progress" in a climate of disappear. But all you're really doing is preserving a destructive normative society
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Peter, Thank you for your observation. I have read more than four books by Dr. Professor Steven Pinker. But I just ordered your book to read from Amazon. I think we are headed for universal catastrophe, because we are not implementing rational ideas from the Enlightenment.
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"Enlightenment" principles are a bit vague, but I understand what is meant. Adaptation today is an issue of understanding the complex "systems" relationship between the species and the habitat. A new kind of scientific vocabulary is required.
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True, but doesn't mean people can't expect more, when the baseline isn't great. Progress is just slower than many of us want. We don't get to live to be 1000 years old, so advancements that are possible today, but won't be realized for hundreds of years frustrate people.
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I agree! But sometimes people wreck what they have in the hope of return to a mythical better past, when the reality is that it wasn’t better. We are a naturally nostalgic species.
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Very true. As the say "the right is nostalgic for a past that never was and the left is hoping for a future that never will be".
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the worst
@wsj (i have been reading4decades) op ever, totally ignoring: 1 causal chains, 2 greatest contemp. historians, e.g.,@EHESS_fr Francois Furet&@DeirdreMcClosk, 3 the#SciRev reasonable periodisation by@harari_yuval@emanuelefelice2 -
Seems to just take every good thing that's happened in 200 years and go 'The Enlightenment did it'. Barely counts as historical analysis at all.
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French Revolution also produced Terror, the Vendee, dictatorship & 20 years of war. Millions died. It later inspired the far greater terror after the Russian Revolution. It may have been a good thing regardless. But this is not some simple historical fable, good guys vs bad guys
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True in a way. But the one came from the other. The heritage is complex and potentially dangerous, it needs careful picking apart. Pinker seems to want to promote a simplistic good=Enlightenment narrative. That's not history.
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