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Among the Intellectualoids
What, Me Worry?
Steven Pinker says the modern world is a remarkably peaceful place.
For years Steven Pinker has been shooting his mouth off about how peaceful the world is. It almost made you want to clobber him. Preferably with his new 832-page book. Pinker’s latest tome, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, posits that no matter how dreadful the evening news, no matter how many security guards, house alarms, pit bulls, and conceal and carry laws we need for protection, our chances of a violent, excruciating death are much less today than in Days of Yore.
I guess it makes sense, though. I mean, what wasn’t worse in the Olden Days? If you listen to my Dad, every walk to school was like the Trail of Tears. Or think about health care. In the 19th century if you got a paper cut you were as good as dead. The wound would fester and the next thing you know your parents would be renting out your upstairs room to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Then there was food safety. Actually, there wasn’t food safety. That was the problem. Meat was so rancid even the maggots turned up their noses. Men drank beer because it was purer than water, which wasn’t fit for consumption. That was their excuse anyway.
Generally speaking, people were more rude, smelly and disgusting. If you think people are repulsive now, spitting on the sidewalk, wearing their trousers around their knees, toting around bags of dog poop, centuries ago they were 100 times more disgusting. Only they didn’t know it because our wives weren’t there to tell them so.
But it is violence that Pinker is most interested in. His thesis is that, unlike in Times Past, our chances of meeting a horrible, bloody end are virtually nil. We are certainly more squeamish about cruel and inhuman punishment than were our sicko ancestors. Take this account of the execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, convicted of treason in 1326:
Immediately after the trial, Despenser was dragged behind four horses to his place of execution, where a great fire was lit. He was stripped naked, and Biblical verses denouncing arrogance and evil were written on his skin. He was then hanged from a gallows 50 ft high, but cut down before he could choke to death. Despenser was then tied to a ladder, and — in full view of the crowd — had his genitals sliced off and burned (in his still-conscious sight) then his entrails slowly pulled out, and, finally, his heart cut out and thrown into the fire… Just before he died, it is recorded that he let out a “ghastly inhuman howl,” much to the delight and merriment of the spectators. Finally, his corpse was beheaded, his body cut into four pieces, and his head mounted on the gates of London.
Today, we squirm just reading this. Unless you are a sicko.
PINKER CREDITS THE Enlightenment and the rise of the Modern State for the decline in violence. That is, once the State stopped roasting, flaying, and castrating its citizens. Along with the rise of the State came an interest in international trade. The smart guys decided it was more fun to make piles of money selling surplus goods to foreigners than raping and pillaging their villages, though that was fun too.
This didn’t happen overnight. Even America’s founding fathers were extremely violent and scary people. Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton over a few flippant remarks Hamilton made about Burr’s haircut or something. The hotheaded Andrew Jackson was riddled with more holes than a wheel of deli Swiss. In those days, politicians would settle scores not by threatening namby pamby legislative maneuvers, but with live rounds of ammo. Imagine C-Span’s ratings if Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell settled their political differences like real 18th century gentlemen.
But what of the popular notion that the 20th century with its world wars, holocausts, genocides, civil wars, proxy wars, post-colonial wars, Marxist guerilla wars, drugs wars, cultural revolutions, great leaps forward, uprisings, purges, forced starvations, terrorist attacks, etc., was the bloodiest century ever? Hogwash, says Pinker. What matters is not the number of individuals massacred, but the percentage (of the population). Spoken like a true intellectual.
Some may find it curious that Pinker has decided to make this argument now, with the memories of 9/11 still fresh, with the U.S. locked in a death struggle with Islamic Jihad, with Europe awash in riots, and drug wars raging in cities across the Americas. I suspect Pinker could easily have made the counter argument: that the world is a much less peaceful place today.
But then we already knew that.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (38) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Christopher Orlet
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Timothy L. Pennell| 10.6.11 @ 7:08AM
You left out the part about how he hasn't left his Upper West Side Apartment in 30 Years, and that he has the same meal delivered, 3 times a Day. A Peanut Butter and Tuna Sandwich, with half of the Crust cut off, a bag of the Salt and Vinegar Chips, and a Diet Sarsaparilla, opened, with one of those Tropical Drink Umbrellas, in it.
I feel safer, knowing that he doesn't live in my neighborhood.
Am I the only one who's thinking: Amber Alert, when I look at this Idiot's picture?
Seek| 10.7.11 @ 6:52PM
No ad hominem caricature here, right?
Dr. Pinker is perhaps the world's leading specialist in evoltuionary psychiatry and cognition. And if he's been locked in a apartment anywhere, it's been in Cambridge, Mass.; he taught at MIT during 1982-2003 and at Harvard since.
God, I hate the stupidity of Red State radicals. They make thinking conservatives look like fools every time.
Rob Schapiro| 10.6.11 @ 7:09AM
Sorry Christopher, you're wrong. People are as vicious and cruel today as they ever were. What puts a veneer of civility on human nature is the law and strong punishment for breaking the law. In places where the law breaks down people exhibit unspeakable cruelty to each other including genital cutting and worse. The only thing which has changed in 10,000 years is the degree of sophistication we humans employ in killing each other.
Mike D.| 10.6.11 @ 7:53AM
The problem with history is that the one or two generations that follow a large scale teachable moment such as WW2 learn from it and the generations after them slowly forget it and have to relive it againt to relearn it. The only thing that has outlawed WW3 is nuclear weapons, but the atrocities continue on a smaller basis and man's killer nature has not been abated in any way, shape or form.
Brother John| 10.6.11 @ 7:43AM
I don't know if the intellectualoid is right or if he is wrong, if Mr Orlet's criticism is well-founded or someone just looking to enjoy the sound of his own head rattling.
But, there must be a point somewhere in this 832 page book, at least with regard to Western civilization, for where else would we get the strong sense of entitlements we now have, that it is our birthright to enjoy long lives free from stress, mindless, backbreaking toil, and lengthy retirements? To the extent that we do face random, senseless violence outside our most dangerous cities, it is largely related to the fact that we cheerfully import uncivilized poverty from the rest of the world and have largely failed to civilize our own less-friendly elements.
Mike Hawk| 10.6.11 @ 8:18AM
Who in Hades is Pinker. Never heard of him. If he lives in NYC, I don't care anyway.
Moe Blotz| 10.6.11 @ 9:20AM
Maybe he is a poofter?
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 9:31AM
He has GREAT hair! Just like William Katt in Carrie.
Drunken Sailor| 10.6.11 @ 11:13AM
Just another babbling Harvard professor
Old Soldier| 10.6.11 @ 8:23AM
I agree with Pinker - we are far less violent than people used to be. 9/11? Riots in Europe? Jihad? What's the death total? Here is the U.S. maybe 10,000 in a nation of 300,00,000. Big deal.
I firmly believe that widespread gun ownership has made the world less violent. Vikings could enjoy their raping and pillaging with relatively few casualties with swords and axes. Viking raids would have ended real quick if they were facing rifles and shotguns - even from their intended rape victims.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 9:30AM
On the other hand, if the Vikings had been met by villagers with swords and axes, the Vikings as experience warriors would have simply swept the villagers away like the Mexican bandits in The Magnificant Seven or the Japanese bandits in Seven Samurai, and gone on pillaging, raping, and burning with impunity.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 9:33AM
Experienced, not experience.
Magnificent, not Magnificant.
JimH| 10.6.11 @ 1:02PM
One of the reasons guns were banned in Japan was that the rulers recognized the threat to the Samurai of having weapons widely available that did not require years of training to use or manufacture. The peasant class was prohibited from having weapons of any kind.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 9:25AM
First of all, much prosecution in the days that are cited in the comment was perpetrated by the church, not the government.
But putting that aside, government has become "enlightened" because the past two hundred and fifty years have been the Age of Revolution, when it has become obvious that if the people get tired enough of government, they'll just kill the leaders and the elite and replace them with a new system. So government, until the 20th Century, has been afraid of the governed. Lately, it appears that the rise of the Welfare State has addicted the people to bread and circuses and the government, as the possessor of the Big Tit, no longer fears overthrow. That's why President Obama and his ilk can get away with the things they're getting away with.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 9:26AM
Persecution, not prosecution.
Moe Blotz| 10.6.11 @ 10:13AM
Teat,not tit.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 10:22AM
"Tit" is a vernacular term and acceptable, except to the extent that it's a bit vulgar.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 10:25AM
"Teat, not tit," not "teat,not tit."
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 10:26AM
LOL
Moe Blotz| 10.6.11 @ 11:43AM
Tit is what juveniles ogle.
Curly| 10.6.11 @ 11:44AM
Nyuk,nyuk,nyuk.
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 11:45AM
There you have it.
John Navratil| 10.6.11 @ 2:58PM
Sounds like a snack. Cheez-tit, Corn-tit, Tater-tit!
-- George Carlin
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 3:46PM
You forgot "sugar tit."
Petronius| 10.6.11 @ 10:17AM
If Steven Pinker were assaulted, he could throw his book at the perp, since he can't have a sidearm in NYC. And he couldn't be farther off base regarding violence in the world as he obviously hasn't heard about that dungheap harpy, Roseann Barr planning another french revolution. And the pond life she champions is already in the streets, where they will remain until winter sets in as there are no rednecks left in the cities to shave their heads and take their pants from them in public view. Even so, when the end does come for all the unwashed, that sordid lot will not meet the gory end of Edward II's paramours. Simply telling them the world doesn't owe them a living should cause mass suicides. Then Steven Pinker can write another book titled The Pity Papers. Would any self respecting tree be caught dead in it?
Bill| 10.6.11 @ 11:49AM
I guess Pinker hasn't yet noticed the scores of millions dead from atheistic revolutions all over the world and the religious murders as well, over the past 100 years or so.
But yes, it's a lot less likely these days that when you offend a woman with some off-color remark, she's less likely than in the past to give you a slap in the face, and you are a bit less likely to get your snoot punched if you act obnoxiously down at the corner tavern or push somebody on the street.
Pelligrino| 10.6.11 @ 12:32PM
Hm. I don't know. If one does business travel and needs to pull off the road or highway at odd hours for a bit of quick sustenance at a 7-11, well. Who hasn't entered a Stop 'n Go place like that at 11:45 p.m. and wondered "Will this be the night that some deranged thug with a gun will come looking for cash register loot?"
I think Mr. Pinker needs to travel more. He needs to see the number of gas stations and convenience stores, hotels and motels too that ONLY do night windows.
Franco| 10.6.11 @ 1:01PM
I think y'all are mising whatever point Mr. Orlet was trying to make about whatever Mr. Pinker was trying to say.
If Pinker is making the point that on the whole today's world is relatively less violent, then I say he has a point, even if I don't necessarily agree. The diference is the kind of violence and the ability to survive it. Public health? Check. Antiboitics? Check. Anathestics? Government sponsored drawing-and-quartering for the moral encouragement of the populace and the amusement of the children? (Not in the West, at least).
Human beings were filth a thousand years ago and they continue to be today. But there are more protections from being soiled available.
Nick| 10.6.11 @ 6:21PM
Franco,
"But there are more protections from being soiled available."
Then you, and Pinker, must not have ever heard of Kermit Gosnell. This sick, disgusting abortionist kept the body parts of dismembered unborn babies (fetus in Latin) in jars. Read about this depraved individual here:
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/0.....-abortion/
Pinker is the same moron who believes mothers can commit infanticide up to two years after birth. This man has lost the ability to think rationally. Interestingly enough, you can't get this article from the New York Slimes' website. How Stalin-esque. But, you can read it here:
http://www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/pinker.html
I also dismiss Pinker's "less violent" assertions with the barbarity of the drug war being waged in Mexico. We are regressing, not progressing, as humanity continually rejects God and His Natural Law.
Occam's Tool| 10.6.11 @ 9:41PM
From my third year of medical school, neurosurgery rotation:
"Hi, William (not my name), thought you might want to look at this---that's why I had them wake you up."
Me, still somewhat sleepy: "Ok, Dr. C, thanks for the educational experience. What exactly am I looking at?"
"Well, I knew you were interested in psychiatry, so I thought this one would interest you, like I said. This is what happens when someone tries to blow his head off with a gun and fails to kill himself.
"Now, I have most of this toweled off, of course, but you'll note the brain, here...the interesting thing being that our fellow will be in a vegetative state, and we will be feeding him, hydrating him, changing diapers, and of course rotating him to avoid bedsores---possibly for years.
"There may be some frontal lobe available to comprehend this, but his speech centers are gone, and he missed the medulla and pons, so his breathing and other vegetative capabilities can be maintained, and whatever he feels he will be unable to communicate.
"Something to tell your suicidal patients...there are things much worse than death."
Try working in a trauma center, a nursing home, a VA hospital. Violence and pain are all around us---we just manage to ignore it a little better until we are the ones in the crosshairs. Pinker is full of garbage---he has not been seriously ill or injured. Yet.
Bill| 10.7.11 @ 9:55AM
That's why the 12-gauge in the mouth is better than the .357 Magnum pointed at the temple.
People flinch.
Margie| 10.6.11 @ 5:24PM
Did Michael Bolton get some plastic surgery?
Sorry. Hee.
e track from saq| 10.6.11 @ 7:03PM
Funny,I've read two Pinker books,something about
language,but for the life of me what a waste of time.Back in the day it was live and let live,
but now for Mr Pink and that sorry crowd I say live and let die.Screw what he thinks,it's most likely garbage.
Occam's Tool| 10.6.11 @ 9:29PM
Pinker is the idiot who states that the rules of language do not matter, while writing perfect sentences. He would deny the quality of his education to our offspring (not that he learned much, but at least he had the opprtunity to).
The 20th was the bloodiest Century of all. Pinker is a fool.
POST American| 10.6.11 @ 11:04PM
"PEACE is the absense of ALLLL dissent."
-H G Wells
Globalist/ EUGENIST
"PEACE is the absense of ALLLLL dissent."
-V I Lenin
Soviet founder/ Globalist/ EUGENIST
"PEACE is the absense of ALLLLL dissent."
-Joseph Stalin
Soviet Leader/ Globalist/ EUGENIST
AS that FUKISHIMA fallout, hundreds
of times more intense than Chernobyl,
bathes North America
AS 50 MILLION (--and climbing) unborn
have been exterminated in this country
alone
AS, even as we write, small farmers are
being massacred in Honduras, Africa and
around the world to bring in the first phase
of UN carbon sinks
KEY neuro-linguistic programming guru
Pincker is in 'good' company-------------
Bill| 10.7.11 @ 9:56AM
Wells, Lenin, and Stalin all said the same thing?
Did they know about each other?
POST American| 10.7.11 @ 11:44PM
ALAN WATT online will fill you in
on ALLLLL of it.