posted on May 30, 2019 07:15 AM by
u/completely-ineffable
87
u/titotal60 pointsat 1559208130.000000
Pinker is so frustrating. His whole point is that society has vastly
improved over time, and he even acknowledges that this is partly due to
progressive activism. And yet he spends all his time attacking
progressives who want to improve things further. Nothing weirder than
the progress-loving anti-progressive
I loved NJR's point about Pinker in the Civil Rights era:
"Sure you can't eat here, but your ancestors couldn't even vote!!!! Just relax guys c'mon!!!"
Ain't that the truth. Our Dutch neoliberal-conservative party claimed victory in gay rights. Which was something they only advocated for very late in the fight for gay rights iirc. (And even then only when there are no costs, they still can be wishy washy on earmarking money for people who suffer from HIV ).
Looked it up: Even in 1996 half the party, including the party leader voted against gay marriage. (We the dutch aren't as much a progressive leader in things as we pretend/think we are).
Progress^TM is caused by the orthogenetic force of Enlightenment humanism and the trickle-down effect of the bourgeois values, definitely not by proles and other assorted rabble.
He cancelled the end of history 15-20 years ago, in his latest book he's basically like: yeah my neocon liberal democracy thing was wrong, I failed to recognise the value of reactionary nationalism
I'm being unfair to him, he basically seems to be advocating a sort of Theresa May welfare-state-without-substance-but-with-concerning-nationalism sort of thing now
> and yet he spends all his time
I don't follow his twitter or anything, but his book at least is explicitly railing against the Trumpian movement. He makes that quite clear. I read it as a defense of progressive activism more than anything.
Have you heard of this technique called "hyperbole"? No shit he doesn't spend literally all his time attacking progressives, but he does do it an annoyingly large and steadily increasing amount.
I haven't read "enlightenment now", because I already read "better angels" and am in no mood to fork over cash for a stupider remix of that book. Reading the [Summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now), I'm calling bullshit on the idea that Pinker is only railing at Trumpists, he is clearly attacking "political correctness" and "postmodernism" and "people who are concerned about economic inequality", and his next book appears to be a full on IDW tract whining about how online progressives are mean to him.
Have you actually read it? I mean, yes, for example his defenses of capitalism could be uncharitably construed as a "complaints about progressive activism," but neither are they inconsistent with liberal progressivism. I'm not a big defender of Pinker, but I find this article pretty misleading about the actual contents and flavor of the book, which in some fairly long passages makes an extremely clear and strong case against Trumpism and defense of generally liberal progressivist values.
I mean sure he's obviously against Trumpism, but I don't need to go looking for a pdf of the book to check (of course I didn't read yet another Pinker screed what are you *talking* about) to find him ranting about liberal progressives, because there is *an article full of quotes from him ranting about liberal progressives in the link above you wigwam*
Personally I like to sneer at people who make sweeping conclusions about works they haven't read.
The quotes in the article are pretty weak. Choosing one at random:
> An axiom of progressive opinion, especially in universities, is that we continue to live in a deeply racist, sexist, and homophobic society—which would imply that progressivism is a waste of time, having accomplished nothing after decades of struggle.”
Here he seems to be roundly defending progressivism, literally arguing that it is "not a waste of time." Sure, you can spin this as "ranting about liberal progressives", but only if you are intentionally obtuse.
> Sure, you can spin this as "ranting about liberal progressives", but only if you are intentionally obtuse.
It's hardly 'spin', when the plain point of the sentence is to make an unqualified "progressive opinion" look silly and inconsistent.
Also, arguing, or weakly implying, that something is 'not a waste of time' isn't really "roundly defending" it. It's about the weakest defense of something I can imagine.
How you could read this as pro-progressives is a mystery to me. It reads more like an attempted "gotcha" but nevermind, let's look at the content of the sentence itself. An "axiom"? As with most public intellectuals throwing that word around, Pinker doesn't seem to understand what it means. That our society is unjust is not an arbitrary presupposition, it's not a presupposition at all but something that's borne out by the facts (incarceration statistics etc.).
It's not Pinker's annoying rhetoric and politics but his plain old stupidity that gets me every time.
>The quotes in the article are pretty weak.
This is just where you start to repeat your opinion as if fact, not to mention cherrypick your examples: I'm not interested and I'm not buying.
Especially from anybody who'd bother to defend Pinker...
For what it's worth, if you think Pinker doesn't rail against liberal progressives (the kind he doesn't like) you haven't read the article linked (bold move in your case) and you're not especially familiar with Pinker
I agree that he rails against a *certain kind* of liberal progressive, for example the kind that "condemns modern capitalism" without understanding or countenancing a calculus of weighing its many benefits against its alternatives, but this is not the same thing as the reductive and misleading "rails against liberal progressives"...
Well than you're just quibbling because somebody didn't pre-emptively anticipate your pedantic whining. Nobody is suggesting that he's against all liberal progressivism, or at least ideas that fall under that label. If you were to read the article, for example, you would find Robinson (who wrote the article) identifying Pinker's liberalism with that of Obama in describing its failures.
It's even funny you've got yourself tied in knots over this: the original comment didn't use the word "liberal".
I read the article, and found it sophomoric, and I'm **not** a fan of Pinker. I don't think it's "quibbling" to say that the article sweepingly misrepresents Pinker's position, in an oddly *personal* and *angry* polemic.
> you would find Robinson (who wrote the article) identifying Pinker's liberalism with that of Obama in describing its failures
Yeah, the article is all over the place. It doesn't have a clear thesis beyond a disgust at Pinker.
Oh for fucks sake you blithering child, at least try to be consistent.
You were "Quibbling" about the top comment, not the fucking article.
You never said it "sweepingly misrepresent's Pinker's position", you said the comment itself wasn't an accurate representation of Pinker as a whole, and you then used the book as your only example thereof.
For fucks sake.
No wonder you have an extensive SSC post history, I can taste the self-serving amnesia from here.
lol, after CI banned them they sent me a series of messages complaining that I was betraying my alleged liberal values by not siding with Pinker
What a nut
Then they accused me of aiding and abetting nazis by not being a Pinker liberal
>But I pointed out that the morality Pinker used at every turn to pacify evolutionary psychology was a product of Enlightenment liberalism, not evolution. Pinker now says that he is “the first to agree.” It’s too bad he couldn’t find room to agree in his 509-page book.
Oh hell, it's the origin story for *Enlightenment Now*. Thanks, Orr.
> What he doesn’t tell you is that the key experiment in this work did not measure fitness (the only thing that matters) but the single most dubious proxy for fitness known to evolutionary biology (asymmetry across left vs. right body sides). Worse, these likely meaningless measurements were made on a grand total of fifteen psychopaths, an absurdly small sample. If this is what Pinker holds up to reveal the empirical splendors of evolutionary psychology, he can hardly be surprised that biologists are less than wowed.
holy shit
An axiom of progressive opinion, especially in universities, is that
we continue to live in a deeply racist, sexist, and homophobic
society—which would imply that progressivism is a waste of time, having
accomplished nothing after decades of struggle
This is such a wonderfully dumb argument. Like, “It’s an axiom in law
enforcement that crime exists —which would imply that law enforcement is
a waste of time, having accomplished nothing after centuries of
struggle”
“An axiom of the Christian Church is that every last man, woman, and child on Earth is a miserable sinner and even after 2,000 years of Christ’s ministry, that hasn’t changed. A big waste of time, I guess.”
Statistical measures of progress aside, we’re currently in an
unprecedented period of human history where we can, and almost have (on
multiple occasions), annihilate ourselves by accident with
nuclear weapons. And, if that weren’t enough, on a course to drastically
screw over most of the human population of the planet just by not really
doing much to stop it with climate change. Even if we accept Pinker’s
argument that the mean of human existence is much better without
comment, the variance is probably going to destroy us.
Why? Because I was a young, bright-eyed college kid studying evolutionary psychology (which, for all its critics, DOES have some useful things to say - when it's not being abused, which is most of the time), and here's this really interesting, really smart dude talking about really interesting, really smart stuff. Mostly I got into his work for the ideas about language and cognition - by The Blank Slate I was halfway done with him because while he had some interesting and smart ideas some of what he had to say was obviously (even to me at that time) bullshit.
One reason [for negative reviews, Pinker thinks,] is simply
that it’s more enjoyable to take shots at the guy writing popular books
than to praise him, and he cites a study that suggests reviewers who pan
books are considered more intelligent. The book he’s working on now,
tentatively titled Don’t Go There: Common Knowledge and the Science
of Civility, Hypocrisy, Outrage, and Taboo, will attempt to unpack
the psychology behind such outsized responses.
They all want to explain before they’ve empathized, irrationally
diagnose others’ irrationality, insist that their ideology isn’t an
ideology while ours is.
Perfect description of a lot of people featured on this sub,
actually.
people in that post are just not physically capable of clicking through to the current affair website. their fingers can't do that and they have to ask OP to copy paste sections of the article for them. personally i think it's good that they're not afraid to ask for help when they need it
Agreed, and it bears mentioning that he's entirely self-aware about the way he dresses and gives precisely zero fucks.
-wistful sigh- Such a shame he doesn't play for my team...
Fair enough. It kinda targets the bad party here but I didn't take into account how it still affects others, which I really should have thought about. I'll edit it out.
This man works for one of the most “prestigious” institutions in the
world, yet insists on completely destroying that credibility by using
the terms “social justice warrior” and “virtue signalling”. You don’t
even need to go to college to be highly skilled at tossing those weasel
words around on the internet, let alone work at one.
Pinker is so frustrating. His whole point is that society has vastly improved over time, and he even acknowledges that this is partly due to progressive activism. And yet he spends all his time attacking progressives who want to improve things further. Nothing weirder than the progress-loving anti-progressive
[deleted]
This is such a wonderfully dumb argument. Like, “It’s an axiom in law enforcement that crime exists —which would imply that law enforcement is a waste of time, having accomplished nothing after centuries of struggle”
Moderately outside our wheelhouse, but I got mod permission.
Statistical measures of progress aside, we’re currently in an unprecedented period of human history where we can, and almost have (on multiple occasions), annihilate ourselves by accident with nuclear weapons. And, if that weren’t enough, on a course to drastically screw over most of the human population of the planet just by not really doing much to stop it with climate change. Even if we accept Pinker’s argument that the mean of human existence is much better without comment, the variance is probably going to destroy us.
I used to love this guy. Fuck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jKpKCMKNs&t=7s
from a second article quoted in this one:
preemptive response: On Smarm
Perfect description of a lot of people featured on this sub, actually.
I love this fucking article
The left can’t handle empiricism
https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/buquxg/the_worlds_most_annoying_man_steven_pinker_is/epg5j7y/
Stephen Pinker is pretty fucking insufferable but on the other hand at least he doesn’t dress like this
This man works for one of the most “prestigious” institutions in the world, yet insists on completely destroying that credibility by using the terms “social justice warrior” and “virtue signalling”. You don’t even need to go to college to be highly skilled at tossing those weasel words around on the internet, let alone work at one.
This man is an ass.