Hmm...that's not a review of the book, it's a hit piece by someone with a personal axe to grind because of a previous article.
An example:
The ultimate import of his graphs is to demonstrate some kind of inexorable and progressive historical law (although he doesn't admit as much).
Where to begin with something as inane as this? The reviewer makes up a silly interpretation of what Pinker has provided, claims without any evidence that this is what Pinker really means, because he obviously knows better, and then faults Pinker for this silly interpretation. Hmm..
He goes on:
In Pinker's history, it seems as though there are no real contingencies - no prospect that the battle of Britain might had been lost, no prospect that the cold war might have turned into nuclear catastrophe, and for the future, no real sense of a potential calamity produced by climate change or a trigger-happy Kim Jong-Un (or his U.S. counterpart, for that matter). This is an almost providential view of history.
Again, the reviewer completely misses the point: we have always had potential calamities. But the real calamities have decreased dramatically, and life has improved so incredibly that it is not even funny. This really hit me when I was on a tour at the Neue Palais in Potsdam, a palace/guest house built by Frederick the Great to impress his neighbors. This palace has a bunch of apartments for royal guests. Even the poorest households in Western countries today live better. Much better.
We. Are. Living. Like. Kings.
No: better than kings of even a few centuries ago.
How is that not an almost providential view of history?
In about every conceivable way?
"Providential" means that there is some divine guidance or care, so it is (a) about the cause of what happened and (b) that this cause is somehow divine in nature.
Saying that "real calamities have decreased dramatically" is not saying anything about causes, it is simply making an empirical observation about the world. Which could certainly be wrong, but even then it is not saying anything about divine causes.
Of course, Pinker does say something about causes, but these are about as far away from "divine intervention or guidance" as possible. In fact, it is about as secular as you can get.
Of course, you may be of an opinion that such a "lucky streak" so to say is so highly improbable that it must be divine intervention, but that is purely you, because it isn't luck and it isn't divine intervention. The entire argument is that we have found something that works really well, empirically.
Unless of course you change the definition of "almost" to be "the exact opposite of".
Yeah, I took that to be the import of the 'almost'. Harrison is noting the irony that Pinker is is much more of a panglossian than many people who actually do believe in divine providence.
"Though I am skittish about any notion of historical inevitability, cosmic forces or mystical arcs of justice, some kinds of social change really do seem to be carried along by an inexorable tectonic force."
Given how much easier it is to destroy things than to build them, that things have gotten so much better over such a long period of time would seem to indicate that there is some causal force at work and that it isn't merely a string of incredibly good luck.
How could anybody digesting Pinker's message come to that conclusion? His whole message is that we got here primarily because we embraced reason and science and that we can get to an even better place as long as we continue to embrace reason and science.
Right, that is the view that is being labeled almost providential. There's a quote from the book that I posted in another comment that pretty clearly exemplifies the 'almost' providential nature of Pinker's view of history:
"Though I am skittish about any notion of historical inevitability, cosmic forces or mystical arcs of justice, some kinds of social change really do seem to be carried along by an inexorable tectonic force."
True. What's funny is that if you ask people how their individual circumstances are, they overwhelmingly answer "good and improving". But then you ask them about the state of the world and they answer "horrible and getting worse".
And of course politicians have also been at it for some time. See Adam Curtis's excellent The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.
Comments
Hmm...that's not a review of the book, it's a hit piece by someone with a personal axe to grind because of a previous article.
An example:
The ultimate import of his graphs is to demonstrate some kind of inexorable and progressive historical law (although he doesn't admit as much).
Where to begin with something as inane as this? The reviewer makes up a silly interpretation of what Pinker has provided, claims without any evidence that this is what Pinker really means, because he obviously knows better, and then faults Pinker for this silly interpretation. Hmm..
He goes on:
In Pinker's history, it seems as though there are no real contingencies - no prospect that the battle of Britain might had been lost, no prospect that the cold war might have turned into nuclear catastrophe, and for the future, no real sense of a potential calamity produced by climate change or a trigger-happy Kim Jong-Un (or his U.S. counterpart, for that matter). This is an almost providential view of history.
Again, the reviewer completely misses the point: we have always had potential calamities. But the real calamities have decreased dramatically, and life has improved so incredibly that it is not even funny. This really hit me when I was on a tour at the Neue Palais in Potsdam, a palace/guest house built by Frederick the Great to impress his neighbors. This palace has a bunch of apartments for royal guests. Even the poorest households in Western countries today live better. Much better.
We. Are. Living. Like. Kings.
No: better than kings of even a few centuries ago.
So yeah, Pinker is right.
How is that not an almost providential view of history? I don't see how the charge is misplaced.
In about every conceivable way?
"Providential" means that there is some divine guidance or care, so it is (a) about the cause of what happened and (b) that this cause is somehow divine in nature.
Saying that "real calamities have decreased dramatically" is not saying anything about causes, it is simply making an empirical observation about the world. Which could certainly be wrong, but even then it is not saying anything about divine causes.
Of course, Pinker does say something about causes, but these are about as far away from "divine intervention or guidance" as possible. In fact, it is about as secular as you can get.
Of course, you may be of an opinion that such a "lucky streak" so to say is so highly improbable that it must be divine intervention, but that is purely you, because it isn't luck and it isn't divine intervention. The entire argument is that we have found something that works really well, empirically.
Unless of course you change the definition of "almost" to be "the exact opposite of".
Yeah, I took that to be the import of the 'almost'. Harrison is noting the irony that Pinker is is much more of a panglossian than many people who actually do believe in divine providence.
"Though I am skittish about any notion of historical inevitability, cosmic forces or mystical arcs of justice, some kinds of social change really do seem to be carried along by an inexorable tectonic force."
Given how much easier it is to destroy things than to build them, that things have gotten so much better over such a long period of time would seem to indicate that there is some causal force at work and that it isn't merely a string of incredibly good luck.
Sure, maybe. I didn't say that an 'almost providential' view of history is necessarily wrong, just that Pinker does indeed seem to hold such a view.
How could anybody digesting Pinker's message come to that conclusion? His whole message is that we got here primarily because we embraced reason and science and that we can get to an even better place as long as we continue to embrace reason and science.
Right, that is the view that is being labeled almost providential. There's a quote from the book that I posted in another comment that pretty clearly exemplifies the 'almost' providential nature of Pinker's view of history:
"Though I am skittish about any notion of historical inevitability, cosmic forces or mystical arcs of justice, some kinds of social change really do seem to be carried along by an inexorable tectonic force."
The problem with good news is that most people's political positions are built on a narrative that everything is terrible.
True. What's funny is that if you ask people how their individual circumstances are, they overwhelmingly answer "good and improving". But then you ask them about the state of the world and they answer "horrible and getting worse".
And of course politicians have also been at it for some time. See Adam Curtis's excellent The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.
https://archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares-AdamCurtis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares