This year’s selection by Foreign Policy magazine has but one Canadian, Steven Pinker at number 48 (not that anybody outside Canada knows he’s Canadian). Here’s a piece by him:
A History of (Non)Violence
Why humans are becoming more peaceful.
Reviews of his recent book on the theme, The Better Angels of Our Nature, are listed at his website; I’m not convinced things are quite as rosy as he pictures, what with nuclear war somewhere always a possibility. The book is included at number 5 in the (rather trendy) list here:
The Global Thinkers’ Book Club
Want to think like the world’s best minds? Start by reading like them. The FP Global Thinkers’ 20 most recommended titles.
Why trendy? Well, look which Canadian’s, er, work is on it:
12. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
(2007)
By Naomi Klein…
There’s also this by Canadian Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail:
7. Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History Is Reshaping Our World (2010)
The fact that Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant aren’t mentioned, yet their work is consistantly referred to by such media giants as The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Der Spiegel, The Daily Telegragh, (to name just a few) and, in many cases in a non-derogatory manner, speaks to the quality(?) of this list. “Ethical Oil” is already a phrase that carries an assumed meaning with it.
It’s worth remembering that Foreign Policy magazine was where Amory Lovins first published in 1975(?) his energy manifesto The Soft Energy Path. Thus giving the Greens their energy policy for the future and the reason why the sky is filled with bird killers.
If this is what this mag is publishing these days then it’s just more evidence that this rag is nothing more than three decades of drivel.
interesting links – some thoughts:
The common theme running through all these revelations of the global thinkers is that commerce/finance has far more impact on cultural and international affairs than politics – politics just follows the money.
I see many writings on global migration, population shift and its social/economic impacts – how come when Mark Steyn writes about these things he’s branded a hate monger instead of a global thinker?
“Why humans are becoming more peaceful.”
I see no indication of this. We haven’t engaged in big wars between the supper powers of today,but we fight dozens of proxy wars all over the planet at any given time.
And,in our civilized Countries, violence and the possibility of revolution bubble just beneath the surface.
People are less responsible for their actions than ever before,cities are home to ghettos in which violence is commonplace,yet we are to believe that man is less violent than ever in history?
I don’t get it. Maybe my education is lacking.
Once again,I’ll wait for this tome to appear in the bargain bin for 99 cents.
More peaceful, my a$$! Any slave can live in peace. Taking freedoms, through any means, is violence.
Quote from link ‘Here’s a piece by him’ that I thought that fits POTUS Obama to a T.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association defines narcissistic personality disorder as “a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.” The trio of symptoms at narcissism’s core — grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy — fits tyrants to a T.
Those of you who may be interested in Professor Pinker’s actual
argument may be interested in his 2011 Edge Master Class talk
on A History of Violence, which was featured as the third item
of our Some Stuff You Might Like ~ 2011-11-02 edition.
Pinker continues the Chomskyian tradition of sullying linguistics with politics.
Oh,Pinker compares the state of violence pre-State,5000 years back,with the development of governments.
Quite interesting,I’m about 25 minutes in his 11/2 hour presentation,and he makes some very good points.
One surprise is the old saw that the 20th century is the most violent in history. It’s not even close.
This is a good example of why a person (ME) should read more than just the headline and a few quotes.
I’m glad you’re finding that interesting, DMorris. Perhaps you
can see why I noted his argument when I first stumbled across
it. It doesn’t necessarily obviate other arguments, it obviates
bad rhetoric. There’s also some good questions at the end.
sixty years of relative peace, not seen since the Roman Pax Romana, does not make the human race lovey dovey. Its a fluke.
Oh well we will see the reality of thew human condition soon enough.
It’s not sixty years of relative peace, Dream,
it’s 6,000 years of declining relative violence.
I’ll “one-up” Vίtruvius and send you to this site to actually see videos of Pinker’s lectures.
http://www.ted.com/search?q=Pinker
Thanks, Louise, I have not seen some of those talks (yet).
Note that Dr. Pinker’s Edge talk & video are not at TED.
I would submit there has not been a decline in violence. Only a change in how it manifests itself. The phrase, “any slave can live in peace”, is not without meaning.
It’s just as violent in consequence to control men by, so-called, peaceful means as it is by violent means.
Control is violence, by whatever means…the consequence is the end of free will, the end of the individual. More true today than it ever has been…
I’m going out on a limb here but I’m guessing Foreign Policy is code for Global Government. Kind of like Nobel’s “Peace” Prize, pure satire, eh.
Nothing by Iggy made the list?
Not sure why people are piling on Pinker. It’s an interesting statistical analysis based on examining human remains throughout history, and then estimating the likelyhood of unnatural death (i.e. murder) on a per-capita basis.
Sure the 20th century (communisim in particular) caused unprecedented numbers of deaths, but there were a lot more people in the world.
He’s also surprisingly even-handed in assessing the potiential impacts of climate change.
Well the incidence of violence in solitary confinement wings of maximum security prisons is also very low but I would still rather take my chances out here.
Klein’s Shock Doctrine at No.12?
That would be the book arguing that free markets need war like the one in Iraq and that Milton Friedman is primarily responsible.
Yet, funny enough the book never gets around to mentioning that Friedman opposed the war.
Oh well, I’m sure the great minds at Foreign Policy don’t mind the odd contradiction or two.
I haven’t seen Vίtruvius’ Steven Pinker talks yet, although I’ll try to take in some of them. (BTW Vίtruvius might possibly be gratified to know that I woke up last night – honestly I did, no exaggeration – thinking “how do they make different cheeses, um, different? I mean, it’s all milk, right?… oh, I know where I can find out…” Yes, I’m a very poor sleeper.)
But here’s the great Daniels/Dalrymple reviewing Pinker’s The Language Instinct.
The only book of Pinker’s that I own is The Blank Slate and I thought it was an objective treatment of the nature/nurture debate regarding human nature. People are becoming less violent as can be seen when one analyzes homicide statistics over just the last few centuries. In primitive tribal societies the primary cause of death is interpersonal violence and about 1/3 or more of young males die in this manner. The fact that we’ve got a homicide rate that is on the same order as very rare diseases is quite significant.
People are becoming less violent as can be seen when one analyzes homicide statistics over just the last few centuries.
No, just more cowed by the state. Can’t even shoot a burglar, anymore.
I was having this very conversation with someone today. Having not read Dr. Pinker nor viewed his video, I don’t know his arguments. But, I very much doubt -people- have changed at all in the last 5000 years. Its not long enough.
Weapons however have changed dramatically. Not just weapons of war, but -personal- weapons. Sam Colt probably did more to cut the murder rate world wide than anyone before or since. That’s what you call a disruptive technology, it changes the world.
Communications have also changed dramatically. We have had at least three major communications revolutions in the last 100 years. Telegraph (and by extension telephone), radio (and by extension TV) and lately the Internet. The communications strategies that worked in WWII (read, The Big Lie) are crashing and burning today, not because we are smarter but because an airbrush painter in Saskatchewan can reach a world-wide audience of thousands, -cheaply-.
Finally, production has changed. Things that only kings could own two hundred years ago are in every house in the West now. Important things like refrigeration and flush toilets. The coming tech revolution will see production move to all-custom all the time, as one-off pieces become easier and cheaper to get than mass produced. Then even Third World dirt poor people will get basic stuff, instead of nothing.
That’s why I doubt people have changed. We are the same African predator monkeys we have always been, but everything else is different. Because of that, we act different.
Black Mamba, thanks for the link. I learned that, according to Pinker and like-minded lefties, Bushisms are indicative of intelligence equal to or greater than that of the standard English speaker.
That is like a Who’s Who of who to avoid.
(apologies to #31)
Phantom: WRT personal weapons as peacemakers.. I highly recommend you read this book by this guy if you’ve not already – that is if you like old school sci-fi.
Vitruvius is correct. A look back through English records reveals interpersonal violence declining in society since the Middle Ages even during the time firearms and in particular small concealable firearms became available making killing theorectically easier. ie: Guns the English Experience Joyce Malcom, PhD.
Pinker ignores the nuclear deterrent as the causation of a long period of pacifism between super powers and their proxies -like a warmist ignoring the sun as a cause of climate warming. These sheltered academics live in a self-congratulatory echo chamber – no wonder they don’t walk among the soiled masses, they might actually learn some self-evident truths. But theory is their realm. Theory is the intellectual’s fantasy.
When you write, Occam, that “Pinker ignores the nuclear deterrent”,
are you referring to this comment of his in the question and answers
following his 2011 Edge Master Class talk?
Since 1962, but probably growing before that, there has been a “nuclear taboo…
Yeah, the USSR had a “nuclear taboo”, China had a “nuclear taboo”. What nonsense.
And where are the countries, other than the U. S. of A, that “challenged” the USSR?
When Professor Pinker refers to the “nuclear taboo”, Fiddle, he
is referring to the fact that none of the nuclear armed countries,
including the ex-USSR, has used those weapons except for the
pair of cases at the end of World War II. That is not nonsense.
…none of the nuclear armed countries, including the ex-USSR, has used those weapons…
Of course they didn’t, there was a deterrent. The very reason for all the proxy wars.
Pinker twists the facts to suit his theory.
The deterrent was The Nuclear Taboo, Fiddle. As Professor Pinker
notes, in actual battlefield calculations nuclear weapons are not a live
option; paradoxically, they are so militarily useless that they haven’t
really affected balance of power considerations. No, Fiddle, it is you
who is twisting Professor Pinker’s argument to suit your ideology,
which is of the sort discussed by Professor Pinker in his response to
Stewart Brand’s question in his 2011 Edge Master Class talk:
The deterrent caused the violence to break out as proxy wars. 58,000+ Americans dead in Viet Nam. Over a million North Vietnamese. Plus all the other proxy wars.
Those deaths, and many more, would have happened in North America absent the deterrent.
Pinker is an idiot saying nuclear weapons are militarily useless. It’s the same as saying having a gun for protection is tactically useless because it’s never been used.
As Kate asks us to “take our extended debates
to private email”, and as you publish no email
address, Fiddle, I’ll now leave you to yourself.
I wasn’t debating, I was pointing out Pinker’s pseudo-intellectual idiocies. We are fortunate wiser people than he have been in charge of the tactics of the military.
There is an excellent article on Steven Pinker, by Carl
Zimmer, now available via today’s Arts & Letters Daily:
Human Nature’s Pathologist.