The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker. It took me almost 3 weeks to finish this 800 page mammoth and most important book of this century. To reiterate Pinker's cautious disclaimer that his theory (a fact rather) is based on history and it's not a prediction for future. Pinker makes that crystal clear with humility.
"As a scientist, I must be skeptical of any mystical force or cosmic destiny that carries us ever upward. Declines of violence are a product of social, cultural, and material conditions. If the conditions persist, violence will remain low or decline even further; if they don't it won't.
I will not try to make predictions; nor will I offer advice to politicians, police chiefs, or peacemakers, which given my qualifications would be a form of malpractice. What I will try to do is identify the broad forces that have pushed violence downward."
I have to confess that having read so many good reviews, I had no intention to read this huge book until I heard about the chapter on animals rights and decline of cruelty to animals. After finishing that chapter, I felt relieved and got an immense boast of optimism.
"When it came to the treatment of animals, modern philosophy got off to a bad start. Descartes wrote that animals were clockwork, so there was no one home to feel pain or pleasure. What sound to us like cries of distress were merely the output of of a noisemaker, like a waring buzzer on a machine. Descartes knew that the nervous system of animals and humans were similar, so from our perspective it's odd that he could grant consciousness to humans while denying it to animals." (In 2009, Max replied to Descartes's cognitive dissonance)
Reading these pages was worse than watching a Quentin Tarantino movie marathon. I felt miserable, depressed and almost puked. It's very hard keep that dose of optimism high given how weird a creatures we are. But yet... that spark which Hume mentioned centuries ago might helps us keep moving forward.. I hope..
"It seems a happiness in the present theory, that it enters not into that vulgar dispute concerning the degrees of benevolence or self-love, which prevail in human nature; a dispute which is never likely to have any issue, both because men, who have taken part, are not easily convinced, and because the phenomena, which can be produced on either side, are so dispersed, so uncertain, and subject to so many interpretations, that it is scarcely possible accurately to compare them, or draw from them any determinate inference or conclusion. It is sufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely, without the greatest absurdity cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent. Let these generous sentiments be supposed ever so weak; let them be insufficient to move even a hand or finger of our body, they must still direct the determinations of our mind, and where everything else is equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous."
- David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
"As a scientist, I must be skeptical of any mystical force or cosmic destiny that carries us ever upward. Declines of violence are a product of social, cultural, and material conditions. If the conditions persist, violence will remain low or decline even further; if they don't it won't.
I will not try to make predictions; nor will I offer advice to politicians, police chiefs, or peacemakers, which given my qualifications would be a form of malpractice. What I will try to do is identify the broad forces that have pushed violence downward."
I have to confess that having read so many good reviews, I had no intention to read this huge book until I heard about the chapter on animals rights and decline of cruelty to animals. After finishing that chapter, I felt relieved and got an immense boast of optimism.
"When it came to the treatment of animals, modern philosophy got off to a bad start. Descartes wrote that animals were clockwork, so there was no one home to feel pain or pleasure. What sound to us like cries of distress were merely the output of of a noisemaker, like a waring buzzer on a machine. Descartes knew that the nervous system of animals and humans were similar, so from our perspective it's odd that he could grant consciousness to humans while denying it to animals." (In 2009, Max replied to Descartes's cognitive dissonance)
Reading these pages was worse than watching a Quentin Tarantino movie marathon. I felt miserable, depressed and almost puked. It's very hard keep that dose of optimism high given how weird a creatures we are. But yet... that spark which Hume mentioned centuries ago might helps us keep moving forward.. I hope..
"It seems a happiness in the present theory, that it enters not into that vulgar dispute concerning the degrees of benevolence or self-love, which prevail in human nature; a dispute which is never likely to have any issue, both because men, who have taken part, are not easily convinced, and because the phenomena, which can be produced on either side, are so dispersed, so uncertain, and subject to so many interpretations, that it is scarcely possible accurately to compare them, or draw from them any determinate inference or conclusion. It is sufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely, without the greatest absurdity cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent. Let these generous sentiments be supposed ever so weak; let them be insufficient to move even a hand or finger of our body, they must still direct the determinations of our mind, and where everything else is equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous."
- David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
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