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In seventy-five jaw-dropping
graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge,
and happiness are on the rise….
Such is the Amazon blurb on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment
Now. You think I would disagree; let’s
see.
Who can complain about a longer and healthier life, safety
and peace, more food and shelter than almost any of your contemporaries and
certainly more than those who came before you?
Yes, who can complain?
Peace and material comfort beyond compare. Better health care too.
Of course, one must subtract the violence inflicted on you
by your keeper, and life couldn’t be better.
Unless, of course, you are after meaning in life. And liberty.
Is this lion happy? Enjoying
a meaningful life?
John Vervaeke made an interesting comment about Pinker’s
work (I think during this
conversation, but I am not sure). Something
along the lines: the most ironic thing about Pinker’s book is the fact that he
had to write it. If life was really so
wonderful, why would we need to be convinced?
Conclusion
Wouldn’t the lion consider this his gulag?
Photo source: Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
"If life was really so wonderful, why would we need to be convinced?"
ReplyDeleteI think there's an interesting case to be made, and I think I heard it first from EvKL, that it is during periods of increasing prosperity or increasing concessions by the ruling elite that see the most revolutionary activity.
Prior to both the Soviet and French revolutions there was a period of the monarchy trying to acquiesce to the demands of the people. When they did, it unleashed a tidal wave that in each case led to the death of the monarchy.
Paris was one of the wealthier places in France and yet it was here that the revolution began.
I agree with your point of course. I'd rather have dangerous freedom than peaceful slavery.
(Forgive my mixing of metaphors): I think it is because the people see that the boot has quit stomping on their throats - or not stomping as hard - and they use the release to unleash decades of frustration that the longer leash allows.
DeleteThe issue seems to me different today; the complaints are not driven by a loosening of the leash.
Maybe Pinker is having to respond to the attempts by Derrida, Marcuse and their followers to sow discontent in Western society. The revolution never came. The proletariat never rose up.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because they were generally content with their life. They wanted to keep the societal order not overthrow it.
So now media, government, entertainment, music, higher education, all the areas Cultural Marxists rule, preach about the doom of Western Christian order. They call for libertinism, transgenderism. They create ethnic and male/female strife. It is all the fault of Capitalism. It is all the fault of Christians. The answer is authoritarian, Socialist, atheist government. We need more power in the hands of a central government to give us more stuff.
All the while Capitalism is most of the way to ridding the world of material poverty. This is the point he is making, but it is only half a point. The problem in the West is lack of purpose and Spiritual well being. The very thing Pinker's philosophy results in.
The material well being of the West and the world could never be better. It is still a point that needs to be repeated over and over again because Cultural Marxists are lying to the world saying the opposite over and over again.
You have said it well.
DeleteIt is very possible that this is the reason for Pinker's focus. But without Pinker also calling out the calamitous side of the Enlightenment (French Revolution, communism, fascism, etc.) he is leaving unchallenged the very philosophy offered by Derrida and the like.
Further, as you note, Pinker seems to ignore the entire other side of the discussion: western man's discontent is more traceable to the lack of meaning (what meaning is there in life when everything is the result of random atoms smashing randomly together) than it is to the lack of material goods.
If the whole point is material wealth, we really are a despicable people to complain about our lack of liberty and humanity. I guess that makes us deplorable.
Well, true, it's not necessarily a bad idea to give the corpse of economic socialism a good whack every now and then. It has an unpleasant habit of rising up and shambling around occasionally, as is the case with all bad ideas.
DeleteBut there is such a thing as drawing attention away from the real problem. Today's most common and dangerous variant of civilizational vandal has thrown away Das Kapital's convolutions and embraced the earlier Marx - "if I can't have the world I want, I'll see this one burn". Material privation is no longer the sticking point. They're aiming lower, as you pointed out.
It's even rather funny to see some of the leftist Old Guard, who tend to be very un-woke, look at what their movement has become and scratch their heads, wondering: "if this is what it takes to destroy capitalism, is it worth it?"
But of course most of them will do whatever it takes in the end. They never had much hope of building a better society; destroying the bourgeois one was always what mattered.
"if I can't have the world I want, I'll see this one burn" was recently expressed by one of Bernie Sander's field managers, who basically said that if Sanders did not receive the nomination of the Democratic convention, then Milwaukee (and other cities) would burn.
DeleteEnvy is a destroyer and is rampant among socialist thought, even though many adherents will not admit it. What they observe is that someone else has more than they do and, rather than working toward gaining more themselves, they attempt to ruin what the richer party has. It doesn't matter whether they gain anything by the destruction as long as "equality" is achieved.
One of the main differences between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism promotes equality of opportunity, whereas socialism promotes equality of outcome. In a society where individual people are allowed opportunity to enrich themselves, the society in general becomes more prosperous. Under socialism, those who are successful must be hobbled because others are poor. The scales must be balanced, which is achieved by taking away from the rich and giving to the poor, thus enforcing equality of poverty and ruination on everyone. That is, except for those who have seized the reins of power and are getting fabulously wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
"Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?"--Proverbs 27:4, KJV
One thing which really amazes me is the complete inability of the general public to learn that socialism will not work. With all the previous examples that history has shown us, the underlying message is that "it's different this time." Why this is true, they can't explain, but all of them believe it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being well off and knowing your family is comfortable. The trouble comes when we let the State provide for us and interfere with our decisions. We become well kept house slaves.
ReplyDeleteThomas Sowell once said something along the lines of "200 years of slavery and Jim Crow could not break the back of the black family; but welfare did."
Nothing feels so good as knowing you earned what you have and that you followed God's will as you earned it. The SJWs think they are building a "heaven on earth" but they are really making this earth ever more hellish.
Amen.
DeletePaul VanderKlay says something like: when you try to bring heaven down to earth, you bring hell up with it.
This has been our history since at least the French Revolution.