
The PowerPoint Philosophe: Waiting for Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment - benbreen
https://www.thenation.com/article/waiting-for-steven-pinkers-enlightenment/
======
haZard_OS
Generally speaking, I have found Pinker's writings to be excellent (even when
I have quibbles here and there). This latest book, however, seems rushed and
an attempt to ride on his own coattails.

Still, it's odd to me that so many reviews of this book apparently go beyond
simply pointing out the flaws of the book in order to take a swipe at the man.

Do I smell schadenfreude?

~~~
pron
Pinker is just a perfect example of a new breed of popular "public
intellectuals" who are lazy, boring and non-skeptical thinkers, who love to
criticise ideas they are too lazy to study and understand.

~~~
haZard_OS
To you have anything other than insults to support your view?

~~~
pron
Sure. Pretty much all of Pinker's books' reviews, written by better-educated
people who've actually bothered reading what he so gleefully critiques. Here's
a selection:

[https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/01/the-precious-
ste...](https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/01/the-precious-steven-
pinker)

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/enlightenment-...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/14/enlightenment-
now-steven-pinker-review)

[https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/john-gray-
steven...](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/john-gray-steven-
pinker-violence-review)

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/11/25/what-comes-
nat...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/11/25/what-comes-naturally-2)

Also, I had the dubious pleasure of attending one of Pinker's talks. Let's
just say that him coming off as unintelligent is an understatement. He seemed
to be both completely unfamiliar with the very subject he had written about as
well as incapable of forming any kind of interesting or novel insight about
it. He just paraphrases well-worn anti-intellectual sentiments using what
appears to the untrained ear as intellectual jargon. His audience in that
particular talk happened to be mostly university professors, all of whom did
their best not to laugh, as he was clearly the least-informed person in the
quite-large room about the very subject on which he'd written a best-selling
book!

My insults about this joke-of-an-intellectual are a much-watered-down version
of how he's perceived by people who actually know the subject matter. Of
course, these are the very people he critiques for this very reason. He can
present them as his "opponents" and thus discard their actually-informed
criticism as ideological opposition, saving him the trouble of actually
studying the material.

~~~
benbreen
I guess it's a subjective point but I think implying he's simply dumb or lazy
is being uncharitable. I've also gone to a talk by Pinker and came away from
it frustrated, but also deeply impressed. "The Language Instinct" is a
brilliant example of science popularization and he speaks quite eloquently, I
thought.

That said, I do think that the further he strays from neuroscience and
psychology, the more overconfident and shaky his claims seem to get. You could
call it the Jared Diamond fallacy, a kind of high-brow cousin of the Dunning
Kruger effect: scientists trained to be interdisciplinary who think that this
training makes them competent historians as well. It doesn't.

I've been thinking about writing a rebuttal to Pinker's main claims in this
book and _Better Angels_ but I think the job has already been done by a combo
of this review from the humanities realm (David Bell is a superb historian of
the French Enlightenment) and the issues raised by people well-versed in
statistics, like Taleb, who I personally find deeply unappealing as a thinker
but who nevertheless is clearly skilled at this sort of critique.

~~~
pron
_The Language Instinct_ is a book he wrote 25 years ago, back when he bothered
writing about stuff he actually had a clue about.

Jared Diamond, with all his faults, is head and shoulders above Pinker. He,
too, provides an overarching, overconfident narrative, but at least he more-
or-less knows what he's talking about and, most importantly, has something
interesting to say. It is not surprising that historians at least consider his
thesis something to think about, while Pinker is considered a sad joke, and is
more talked-about as a phenomenon (of the uneducated popular intellectual)
than for the inanities he spews.

~~~
igravious
With respect, I think you're dead wrong.

Pinker may be out of his depth when it comes to the bigger concepts but within
the narrow constraints of materialism the data is incontrovertible. Pointing
to a review written by Gray of Pinker's work when Gray is _explicitly_ in the
camp which opposes the Polyannas of progress is bad sportsmanship.

What you should be asking yourself is how we can synthesise a worldview that
incorporates both optimists and pessimists. I wholeheartedly agree that more
nuance is needed but I also think that Pinker has done an excellent job at
framing one side of the debate. The fact that he thinks there is only one side
of the debate only means that he has as hard a time as the rest of us taking
in the enormous sweep of human history and science.

I very much doubt you could write a decent rebuttal of either of his last two
works.

~~~
pron
It's not about pessimists vs. optimists, but about the fact that 1. Pinker has
obviously not read many of the works he criticises, and 2. he displays no
ability at self-skepticism or any other quality that makes for interesting
intellectual writing. His texts are thinly veiled propaganda (in his talks the
veil is completely gone; they are long rants against intellectuals he clearly
has not read) of the most boooooring kind. It's OK to have an opinion; it's
not OK not to seriously study what it is that you're writing about (say, the
Enlightenment), and it's not OK to write boring propaganda yet present
yourself as a profound intellectual. He is shallow, unoriginal, boring and
almost criminally unknowledgable.

~~~
igravious
> almost criminally unknowledgable

Do yourself a favour and develop a sense of proportion.

------
PeterStuer
I've found this 'things have never been better' attitude put forward by the
world's (neo-)liberal elite mostly used as an excuse to keep their heads in
the sand about serious threats to the ecosystem and the unsustainability of
their socio-economic model.

~~~
boomboomsubban
This doesn't seem to be advocating sticking your head in the sand, but to
continue using science to address the problems and stop panicking. As we've
faced serious threats for a long time, and this model has dealt with them far
better than others.

~~~
roymurdock
From the review, it sounds like our current political problems receive no
attention/treatment, and that Pinker advocates a future-dependent
technological solution (better/more nuclear power to increase clean power
generation) to a political problem we currently face (no will/incentive to
enforce taxation scheme to reduce the status quo of carbon emissions) :

> What, for instance, about climate change? Pinker is no climate-change
> denier, and admits that “the challenge is daunting.” But then he quickly
> pivots from his position that things are getting better and better to say
> that we can avoid the looming doom if only we start taxing carbon emissions,
> increase the use of nuclear power, and engage in deliberate climate
> engineering to lower global temperatures.

> He largely disregards the fact that the political will to move in any of
> these directions is wholly lacking and will remain so as long as the party
> that controls the White House and Congress refuses to admit that a problem
> even exists. When it comes to his favored technological solution, nuclear
> power, Pinker also seems determined to ignore the problem that the people
> who manage plants do not always follow their own safety procedures and
> cannot plan for every possible natural disaster (as Fukushima showed all too
> dramatically). The industry, he insists, has learned from its mistakes. But
> has it?

I haven't read the book so I can't comment on how accurate this portrayal is

~~~
boomboomsubban
Much of the current political situation arises from a lack of trust in science
and fear mongering leading to panic.

~~~
roymurdock
Really? I think it arises from simple economic incentives - not taxing
emissions makes people (politicians and employees of basically all companies)
richer than taxing emissions. Even the most educated and science worshiping
populace would be hard pressed to vote for policy that would hamper economic
growth and cost jobs/profits.

~~~
boomboomsubban
All the various rules under the EPA cost money, yet people passed it as there
was a clear need to do so. The unwarranted doubt placed on global warming
research is being used to mask the clear need.

The economic implications aren't as clear as you make them. Companies may make
less profit right away, but assuming the amount of work needed is the same,
that gap would need to be filled by innovation or manual labor.

------
shubhamjain
If you want to refute Pinker's arguments, you don't have to ramble on
exaggeration and misrepresentation of actual facts, you just have to cite one
broad metric in which humanity has worsened over the past decades.

~~~
comex
> you just have to cite one broad metric in which humanity has worsened over
> the past decades.

Within the U.S., how about economic inequality and political partisanship, to
name two?

~~~
mpweiher
But that's not "humanity", that's "within the US".

Note that Pinker's argument is global, but not total, and not strictly
monotonic.

------
twblalock
This is a much better review of Pinker's new book:
[https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2018/02/20/enlighte...](https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2018/02/20/enlightenment-
and-progress-or-why-steven-pinker-is-wrong)

------
RachelF
It is a good book, Matt Ridley's "The Rational Optimist" is better written,
and less Polyanna.

Nassim Taleb argued successfully against his previous "Better Angels"book

~~~
throwaway84742
Nassim Taleb is not really Pinker’s intellectual equal. As someone who has
read “Better Angels”, I don’t think it’s even up for debate that the world is
dramatically less violent today than it’s ever been (the main premise of the
book). To prove his point, Pinker mercilessly bludgeons the reader with hard
facts, again, again, and again, until even the most steadfast contrarian
starts to nod in agreement.

~~~
garyclarke27
Agreed Taleb is not his equal is his superior. Having read all Taleb’s books
and a few Pinker books, i have learnt far more from Taleb. Taleb hails from
the Middle East so is probably too pessimistic and cynical ( but hilarious).
Pinker hails from affluence and comfort so is too rosy. Pinker has no deep
insights he just cherry picks facts and presents them eloquently. Taleb is a
much deeper thinker so his thoughts are far more interesting to me. His
intellect is way above Pinker’s level, but not as powerful as Wittgenstein
(who Taleb admires) my favourite philosopher

~~~
jeffreyrogers
Taleb has an annoying habit of attacking the people as much as the idea he's
criticizing. If you don't agree with Taleb you're suddenly a "charlatan". And
if you don't take his hardline stance on GMOs you're a shill for Monsanto.
I've read almost everything of Taleb's by the way, but I find his inability to
accept criticism annoying. Seeing how he behaves on twitter has made me admire
him less.

~~~
garyclarke27
I agree he is arrogant over sensitive and a bit childish, so are manny other
brilliant people eg Steve Jobs. I’m not saying he’s perfect just saying that
his work is far more interesting to me than Pinker’s. It’s apparent to me that
humans have advanced dramatically in mnay ways hence I learnt nothing from
Pinker, unlike from Fooled by Randomness and Anti Fragile which influenced me
significantly (not so much Skin in the Game). Pinker glosses over tremendous
Global problems no where near being resolved.

------
hndamien
I have to say the when Elon Musk correctly schooled him on general AI threats
it certainly raised my eyebrows that maybe Pinker wasn't as clever I believed,
as the more simple among us could have appreciated the point Elon made in a
tweet.

~~~
ofrzeta
Why is it that so many people seem to call Musk by his first name in written
discourse? Smells of fanboy/girlism and certainly doesn't add to objectivity.
The point being that he can say pretty much anything he wants and gets away
with it because he's "Elon".

~~~
consz
Is that uncommon (when referring to other people)? I can't think of anyone
where I default to using only their last name.

~~~
haZard_OS
As a rule, I use a person's last name when discussing writings, research, and
general academic expression. I make an exception in Elon's case because, as
another commenter implied, the word "Musk" in English carries some unfortunate
connotations.

