5 ms·

A lot of people, including Pinker, seem to make too much of the connection between Good Ideas about philosophy and politics, and the resulting benefits to human

A lot of people, including Pinker, seem to make too much of the connection between Good Ideas about philosophy and politics, and the resulting benefits to humanity. On the one hand, sure, good ideas lead to benefits. But good ideas aren't scarce and probably never have been. Anyone who spends some time surfing the internet will find dozens of good ideas that would probably lead to dramatic improvements in human welfare. The limiting factor is the political willingness to try out new ideas. What's special about the Enlightenment era is not that the ideas were good, but that the political systems were willing and able to implement the ideas. Our current political system can't or won't contemplate even small changes to the Way It's Done. And this intolerance to new ideas is not just an unfortunate misrepresentation of the Will of the People: most people really don't like new ideas about politics and will often scream at you for suggesting them.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago
> What's special about the Enlightenment era is not that the ideas were good, but that the political systems were willing and able to implement the ideas. I'm not sure that's true. It seems to me more that the people were grabbing on to some Enlightenment ideas, and were willing to implement them over the dead bodies (sometimes literally) of the political system.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >It seems to me more that the people were grabbing on to some Enlightenment ideas, and were willing to implement them over the dead bodies (sometimes literally) of the political system. What makes this seem true to you?
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    The times those ideas were implemented were often revolutions. Certainly the American and French Revolutions, but also the revolutions of 1848. One could argue that England didn't have that, and still wound up with Enlightenment ideas changing their political system. That's true (though the American Revolution was certainly an impact on England). But for almost everywhere else, it seems that there was at least one revolution along the way.
nabla9 9y ago
>but that the political systems were willing and able to implement the ideas. Our current political system can't or won't contemplate even small changes to the Way It's Done. Enlightenment was long political struggle to push ideas forward. Voltaire was imprisoned. The actual social change when it happened included blood and death. If you want to find contemporary analogies, maybe people in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia have may have same level of difficulty when trying to push new ideas into reality. Europe was similar mix of theocracy and aristocratic rule back then. Today's liberal democracies allow easier transformations without spilling so much blood. Intolerance to new ideas is several orders of magnitude smaller than it was during the enlightenment. It's easy to lose the sense of proportion and exaggerate today's difficulties.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

> What's special about the Enlightenment era is not that the ideas were good, but that the political systems were willing and able to implement the ideas. I'm not sure that's true. It seems to me more that the people were grabbing on to some Enlightenment ideas, and were willing to implement them over the dead bodies (sometimes literally) of the political system.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>It seems to me more that the people were grabbing on to some Enlightenment ideas, and were willing to implement them over the dead bodies (sometimes literally) of the political system. What makes this seem true to you?
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  The times those ideas were implemented were often revolutions. Certainly the American and French Revolutions, but also the revolutions of 1848. One could argue that England didn't have that, and still wound up with Enlightenment ideas changing their political system. That's true (though the American Revolution was certainly an impact on England). But for almost everywhere else, it seems that there was at least one revolution along the way.

nabla9 9y ago

>but that the political systems were willing and able to implement the ideas. Our current political system can't or won't contemplate even small changes to the Way It's Done. Enlightenment was long political struggle to push ideas forward. Voltaire was imprisoned. The actual social change when it happened included blood and death. If you want to find contemporary analogies, maybe people in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia have may have same level of difficulty when trying to push new ideas into reality. Europe was similar mix of theocracy and aristocratic rule back then. Today's liberal democracies allow easier transformations without spilling so much blood. Intolerance to new ideas is several orders of magnitude smaller than it was during the enlightenment. It's easy to lose the sense of proportion and exaggerate today's difficulties.