Right, but the point that Pinker is missing that we are what we are because people fought to get us here -- the very same kind of people he dismisses. Just a n

Right, but the point that Pinker is missing that we are what we are because people fought to get us here -- the very same kind of people he dismisses. Just a nitpick: communism has certainly not been "legitimately bad" everywhere. In my country (Israel), we have practiced communism (on a local scale, in the Kibbutzim) for much longer than the USSR (over 100 years now), and it's a more extreme form of communism (makes the USSR seem like a capitalist country by comparison), and while it has certainly not been an unqualified success (especially the communal raising of children), and it is certainly crumbling now (due to powerful external and internal pressures), it has been the complete opposite of failure. It has been entirely democratic for 100 years (with problems, but not unlike in any democratic system), and one of Israel's proudest achievements. So communism was an overall great success in Israel for a century.