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The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom. This is hi
by chippy 9y ago
The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom.
This is his response to Pinker: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev... "A new orthodoxy, led by Pinker, holds that war and violence in the developed world are declining. The stats are misleading, argues Gray – and the idea of moral progress is wishful thinking and plain wrong"
One example: Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal democracy of the world. Something that was once thought to have been made illegal everywhere was made legal (waterboarding) but not in a backward dictatorship, but in the vanguard of progress and liberty - the USA. Now, Obama made it illegal again (mostly), so that shows that you have to fight to keep your progressions. Progress does not occur automatically, and once achieved, it doesn't stay, Gray argues. I think Gray also argues that wars are mostly many and small proxy wars that occur all the time instead of larger grander affairs.
I think his current ideas on Freedom area also similar. We assume that western democracies are the best ever and getting more freer, but there are examples of a decline in freedoms, in a decline in enlightenment values etc. In a previous book, Gray even highlights that the Enlightenment itself was flawed (with leading figures being overtly racist to say the least) and that we shouldn't put a halo around it by default - rather that there is nuance, and that it's a fragile thing. He also points that whilst the Enlightenment and Freedom is an old idea, ISIS and Islamic terrorism is actually a modern thing. Modern != Progress.
He encourages us to assume that progress is fragile, is not automatically improving and that we need to be active in defending our freedoms, our progress and the things we take for granted.
- olivermarks 9y agoI watched the video of Pinker & Gates, and I confess my prejudice was 'two comfortably rich elitists pushing a centralized globalization agenda'. I'll read the book but with a large pinch of salt...
- rpedela 9y agoHis books are an expanded version of his TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence/up-next https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_viole...
- bhuga 9y agoWhat is "centralized globalization?" The top google result for this term is a paper talking about the Vatican; results quickly seem to become less relevant (for example, talking about "globalization, centralization, ...").
- olivermarks 9y agoThink Davos cliques and The Fourth Industrial Revolution' by Schwab et al https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944835148?ref_=pe_870760_150889320 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944835148?ref_=pe_870760_15088932... My comment was not necessarily a criticism, more an observation....
- bryanlarsen 9y ago"He encourages us to assume that progress is fragile, is not automatically improving and that we need to be active in defending our freedoms, our progress and the things we take for granted." But would Pinker or Bill Gates disagree with that statement? I don't think so. Bill Gates is devoting his fortune to doing so, and is doing so very effectively. And even if Pinker is wrong, I believe his message is much more likely to get people to defend freedoms and advance progress than Gray's would be: it's much easier to act if you believe that your actions will be effective.
- chippy 9y agoYes, I don't think that view was expressed in Gray's article about Pinker. But I imagine that there could be an implication that "if the data shows the world is improving, it always will do, progress happens one way and is always going up" which Gray takes issue to. Why act if everything is getting better anyhow?
- rpedela 9y agoWhy act like the world isn't getting better if it actually is?
- sooheon 9y agoIt is getting better for some people by some measures, and worse for others by other measures. What Pinker and Gates are attempting to impose is a tyranny of faux rationality--"an 800 pg book with sources up the wazoo say that the world is getting better, all these whiny poor folk must just be delusional".
- rpedela 9y ago> What Pinker and Gates are attempting to impose is a tyranny of faux rationality--"an 800 pg book with sources up the wazoo say that the world is getting better, all these whiny poor folk must just be delusional". That is a pretty extreme reading of what Pinker and Gates are saying. I don't think they are saying that at all.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- iamcasen 9y agoThank you. I couldn't help but feel like Pinker is peddling feel-good nonsense to sell books, and give people hope to cling to. Progress or betterment is entirely subjective, and when considering the human condition, relies on too many variables to even count. Of course, the variables the Pinker focuses on have gotten better overall. The way I see it is a chaotic scatterplot that is trending slightly upwards towards "better." There are many local minima and maxima however, and I presume those ebbs and flows of prosperity and poverty can last 60 years at a time.
- sooheon 9y agoIt's telling that one of the richest, most well off men on Earth is helping to peddle this narrative. It behooves those in positions of power and wealth to hoodwink the masses into being satisfied with their given stations. Research and statistics say the world is a better place than ever, put down your protest signs.
- marnett 9y agoBingo.
- dang 9y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
- zeofig 9y agoDownvoting this because it made me feel UNEASY /s
- dang 9y agoCould you please not post unsubstantive rants to HN? Even if you're right, it's a quality-lowering comment genre. There's no point worth making here that can't be made thoughtfully, as indeed other users have been doing in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 9y ago
- shubhamjain 9y ago> Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal democracy of the world. Isn't this cherry-picking data? I don't see how the extent of torture could be said to be a valid measure of progress unless happening on a massive scale. Besides, on a global scale, I would not be too wrong in saying that torture has declined. During the investigation of 1993 Bombay blasts, the police didn't balk at interrogating and torturing even the suspect's relatives[1] who didn't have any role in the act. The probability of this happening again has certainly declined. Picking a narrow trend doesn't refute the global one that the world is getting better in every aspect. [1]: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-convict-s-journal-alleges-police-brutality-in-1993-blast-probe-1068831 http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-convict-s-journal-alle...
- chimprich 9y ago> One example: Torture was recently brought back in the leading liberal democracy of the world. True, but a) highly controversially b) condemned by much of the rest of the world c) only allowed outside US territory and d) claimed to be legal only due to the allegations that it was carried out on people falling outside the protections of the Geneva Convention. Compare to much of history, where torture was widespread, uncontroversial, and legally sanctioned. I don't think Pinker's thesis that overall violence is decreasing dramatically can be disproved by counter-examples, any more than climate change can be doubted due to occasional colder days. For a solid rebuttal to Pinker I'd want to see disagreement with his extensive statistics, and I don't see much of that in Gray's article.
- cvsh 9y agoIt'd be one thing if the use of torture was increasing over time across our society, or all societies. But using "torture was recently brought back" as a data point to rebut an overall statistical decline makes no sense. It's like saying "Apple's stock price fell today, therefore people are wrong to say the economy is improving".
- zackmorris 9y agoYa this resonates with me more. We are seeing the rolling back under the current US presidential administration of so many things we thought were done deals. Things like Bears Ears National Monument getting turned over to private corporations for uranium mining. And a thousand more issues just like that, of weighing the value of the priceless against the profitable. Or misdirection in the cause of various forms of human suffering away from the very people and institutions that caused it. I think what a lot of people (especially modern day conservatives) don't realize is that this stuff requires never-ending vigilance. The natural tendency of human progress is towards authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and the eventual complete exploitation of people and resources. Where some people today see a spoiled youth glued to their smartphones and spending all of their money on flatscreen TVs, I see a generation disenfranchised with literally no say in any aspect of their regulatory system. No say over how much money they make, no recourse when multinational corporate monopolies charge them excessively for education, health, even things as basic as untainted food. Earning a fraction of the income their parents had when adjusted for inflation. So no, this is nothing even remotely close to the future we're capable of. We're just comfortable enough to miss the injustices being carried out against us and the planet, often in our own names.
- kiliantics 9y agoThanks, that's a great link. There was some other research posted to HN recently on the claims about violent deaths too: http://www.mn.uio.no/math/english/research/projects/focustat/the-focustat-blog%21/krigogfred.html http://www.mn.uio.no/math/english/research/projects/focustat... I think it's easy for the likes of HN readers, most probably sitting in their comfortable western strongholds to feel like we are bringing progress in the world with our fancy tech. I believe the reality feels very different to a lot of people in a lot of other places - where things as basic as even food or clean water might still be hard to come by - and it's kind of insulting for fussy old rich men living in comparative luxury to be telling these people otherwise.
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- mar77i 9y agoNone of the examples I got to read in this article are in any logical contradiction with the original enlightenment. It is shown that Locke didn't originally fully understand his own new school of thought - maybe because it's naive to think you fully understand a new idea when you're having it? It was attempted that 20th century atrocities happened as a direct result of enlightenment thinking. I honestly grew tired of reading this very quickly. The sum of all words these philosophers said is not enlightenment. Reason means you don't frigging trust every frigging word of what people say, even if they said "don't trust every word of what people say". How is that not obvious? What is John Gray's message here? I get he is trying to challenge Pinker's seemingly optimistic views, but I don't get what is the pattern he tries to convey by throwing all that sand into the gears of Pinker's progression thing? Are we seriously giving up on seeing patterns here and insist in our mental image of the world as a white noise tv screen?
- peter303 9y agoPeople talked optimistically about the end of war in the early 20th century when it looked like war had gone the way of the dodo. The last major international conflict was a century earlier when the Powers deposed the second rise of Napoleon. There were a number of internal civil wars in the meantime mainly dealing with the transition from monoarchy to republics and the consolidation of related city states intomcountries. The early 20th century had much progress in industrialisation, invention and global trade. Then WWI happened, following soon by WWII, partly based on a poor resolution of WWI. Then a 45 year Cold War with several close nuclear wars. Thats why I am skeptical the concept of world war is really over.