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From https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-new-book-feeble-sermon https://www.newstatesman.com/

From 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... which mainly refutes Pinker's defence of The Enlightenment, also: "Are the millions incarcerated in the vast American prison system and the millions more who live under parole included in the calculus that says human freedom is increasing? If we are to congratulate ourselves on being less cruel to animals, how much weight should be given to the uncounted numbers that suffer in factory farming and hideous medical experiments – neither of which were practised on any comparable scale in the past? "

prepend 9y ago
I have had a few conversations that seem similar to me. To refute global, long term stats, a specific, short term negative is brought up. Pinker isn’t making the point that there is no injustice. Or that there is no violence. Just that there is less injustice and less violence. Significantly less than previously in history. To answer your question, yes. Yes, the prisons of the US are included. It seems odd to me to refute wide scale increasing demographic statistics with narrative examples.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- thinkingemote 9y ago
  "a specific, short term negative is brought up." The GP was explicitly requesting a specific negative. I wouldn't find that odd. Gray's article doesn't give any detailed statistics in response but questions it broadly by asking good questions. Another question he has asked is whether, given that the number of military deaths in war has dropped, whether the number of casualties has too, or if it also counts civilians affected, made homeless, forced to migrate away from home, had their lives ruined. Or whether the changing nature of warfare is any less violent (e.g. proxy wars in far away countries). Personally, I find them interesting, not odd, questions to ask. I'm less convinced about Grays critique of Pinker's views on the Enlightenment (e.g. paraphrasing.. many of the founders of the Enlightenment were explicit racists and eugenicists - their rationality has more in common with Maoism). I think that the Enlightenment has changed in meaning over the years.
  - prepend 9y ago
    I don’t think GP was requesting that. They said “you just have to cite one broad metric in which humanity has worsened over the past decades.” So looking for a broad metric, not an example of something that is worse now (prison system).
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Pinker isn’t making the point that there is no injustice. Or that there is no violence. Just that there is less injustice and less violence. Significantly less than previously in history. Which is just a hazy and lazy estimation. Which we then takes to mean we're in some ever-progressing path. Meanwhile the 20th century saw some of the biggest horrors, worse than the "middle ages".
  - maroonblazer 9y ago
    I'm not sure that's true when you compare them but I'd need to go back to the data. His larger point is that taking the larger arc of history into account, the world is on the whole less horrible than it once was. He doesn't claim we can't or won't regress.
  - prepend 9y ago
    Actually Pinker spends a lot of words on this. Even with the 20th century genocides the trend is down. And actually genocide was extremely common in absolute and relative terms that make the 20th century pale (Mongols, Roman genocide of Gauls). This is what I found interesting as my understanding was the general consensus that 20th century was bad but the data shows otherwise. Genocide occurred frequently, it just wasn’t reported on and wasn’t thought of as bad. Pinker goes into quite a bit how violent primitive tribes were in genocide. These examples weren’t large in absolute terms as the tribes were small, but relative were huge as they were close to 100%. Also covers the violence in pre-history with violence rates of 30% from fossil record (not sure if this is the right term for 100k human ancestor remains as I don’t think they are fossils).

prepend 9y ago

I have had a few conversations that seem similar to me. To refute global, long term stats, a specific, short term negative is brought up. Pinker isn’t making the point that there is no injustice. Or that there is no violence. Just that there is less injustice and less violence. Significantly less than previously in history. To answer your question, yes. Yes, the prisons of the US are included. It seems odd to me to refute wide scale increasing demographic statistics with narrative examples.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
thinkingemote 9y ago
"a specific, short term negative is brought up." The GP was explicitly requesting a specific negative. I wouldn't find that odd. Gray's article doesn't give any detailed statistics in response but questions it broadly by asking good questions. Another question he has asked is whether, given that the number of military deaths in war has dropped, whether the number of casualties has too, or if it also counts civilians affected, made homeless, forced to migrate away from home, had their lives ruined. Or whether the changing nature of warfare is any less violent (e.g. proxy wars in far away countries). Personally, I find them interesting, not odd, questions to ask. I'm less convinced about Grays critique of Pinker's views on the Enlightenment (e.g. paraphrasing.. many of the founders of the Enlightenment were explicit racists and eugenicists - their rationality has more in common with Maoism). I think that the Enlightenment has changed in meaning over the years.
- prepend 9y ago
  I don’t think GP was requesting that. They said “you just have to cite one broad metric in which humanity has worsened over the past decades.” So looking for a broad metric, not an example of something that is worse now (prison system).
coldtea 9y ago
>Pinker isn’t making the point that there is no injustice. Or that there is no violence. Just that there is less injustice and less violence. Significantly less than previously in history. Which is just a hazy and lazy estimation. Which we then takes to mean we're in some ever-progressing path. Meanwhile the 20th century saw some of the biggest horrors, worse than the "middle ages".
- maroonblazer 9y ago
  I'm not sure that's true when you compare them but I'd need to go back to the data. His larger point is that taking the larger arc of history into account, the world is on the whole less horrible than it once was. He doesn't claim we can't or won't regress.
- prepend 9y ago
  Actually Pinker spends a lot of words on this. Even with the 20th century genocides the trend is down. And actually genocide was extremely common in absolute and relative terms that make the 20th century pale (Mongols, Roman genocide of Gauls). This is what I found interesting as my understanding was the general consensus that 20th century was bad but the data shows otherwise. Genocide occurred frequently, it just wasn’t reported on and wasn’t thought of as bad. Pinker goes into quite a bit how violent primitive tribes were in genocide. These examples weren’t large in absolute terms as the tribes were small, but relative were huge as they were close to 100%. Also covers the violence in pre-history with violence rates of 30% from fossil record (not sure if this is the right term for 100k human ancestor remains as I don’t think they are fossils).