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Interesting take on the new Pinker's opus by John Gray: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-n
by valeg 9y ago
Interesting take on the new Pinker's opus by John Gray: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-new-book-feeble-sermon https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlight...
>To think of this book as any kind of scholarly exercise is a category mistake. The purpose of Pinker’s laborious work is to reassure liberals that they are on “the right side of history”.
>Judged as a contribution to thought, Enlightenment Now is embarrassingly feeble. With its primitive scientism and manga-style history of ideas, the book is a parody of Enlightenment thinking at its crudest. A more intellectually inquiring author would have conveyed something of the Enlightenment’s richness and diversity. Yet even if Pinker was capable of providing it, intellectual inquiry is not what his anxious flock demands. Only an anodyne, mythical Enlightenment can give them what they crave, which is relief from painful doubt.
- taeric 9y agoIf you are trying to signal to an out crowd that Pinker is misguided, ill informed, or otherwise wrong, provide evidence. If you are signaling to a crowd that they are right to ignore him for reasons they know, this is how you do it. With a broad grin and no effort to actually engage. :( That is, this seems to be setting up a battle of "elites" where the call to action is to loudly decry Pinker without having to read him. Is there more to this story than this? Was this just a particularly bad quote?
- chickenfries 9y agoHe's trying to "signal" that he wants you to read the article that he linked, and to entice you into doing so he has picked a few quotes that sum up the author's point of view. If you disagree, perhaps you should click and find out if the article is any good...
- taeric 9y agoApologies, my criticism was at the linked article. The quoted part was particularly bad. To the point that it really detracted from any point and only seems to exist for the signaling aspect.
- GeorgeTirebiter 9y agoI don't mean to be overly picky about Gray's response, but proper English is: "Yet even if Pinker were capable...". (I am not aware of this being a British-ism.) When an author, none less, writes incorrectly -- it makes me question his basic thesis.
- kemiller 9y agoThat rule is all but forgotten in American English, sadly.
- dredmorbius 9y agoGray is not American.
- GeorgeTirebiter 9y agoI knew that Gray was not American. I do not know British English, so I don't know whether Brits speak that way. I pointed this out. Do you know the answer?
- dredmorbius 9y agoI'd expect your suggested form to be used, by an educated Brit or American.
- wavegeek 9y agoMany would argue that using these forms to denote subjunctive mood is archaic, like words like "thou". Certainly this is not a clear mistake.
- GeorgeTirebiter 9y agoI suppose at schools that don't teach English well, those 'many' could argue anything that's not correct as being correct. I was taught in Catholic school, and there we learned that other schools had lower standards. Shall we lower our standards so we all speak more grunt-like? Is this where we are headed? "But it's quite useful (and aesthetically pleasing, at least to us), and careful users of English should do their part to preserve it." http://grammarist.com/grammar/subjunctive-mood/ http://grammarist.com/grammar/subjunctive-mood/
- tim333 9y agoGray is a bit of a misery really. From the Wikipedia page on him: >Gray sees volition, and hence morality, as an illusion, and portrays humanity as a ravenous species engaged in wiping out other forms of life. I can't say I agree with him on not scholarly, embarrassingly feeble, primitive and the like.