Some abbreviated passages from Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why
Violence Has Declined:
Today the Enlightenment is
mentioned with a sneer. “Critical theorists” on the left blame it for the disasters
of the 20th century; theoconservatives in the Vatican and the
American intellectual right long to replace its tolerant secularism with the
alleged moral clarity of medieval Catholicism. …This colossal amnesia and
ingratitude is possible because of the natural whitewashing of history that we
saw in chapter 1, in which the reality behind the atrocities of yesteryear is consigned
to the memory hole and is remembered only in bland idioms and icons. If the
opening of this chapter has been graphic (the history of torture), it is only
to remind you of the realities of the era that the Enlightenment put to an end.
Human sacrifice died out…one
possibility is that the combination of a
literate elite, the rudiments of historical scholarship, and contacts with
neighboring societies gives people the means to figure out that the
bloodthirsty-god hypothesis is incorrect. …Another possibility is that a more
affluent and predictable life erodes people’s fatalism and elevates their
valuation of other people’s lives.
Ah, the importance of accurate history…which might help
those “christians” railing against islam as the sole proprietor of terror with
their amnesia.
A predictable life, perhaps one where you know where your next meal is coming from and know that you won't be killed from a traffic stop, erodes fatalism and encourages sympathy
and ergo, the decline of violence.
What kind of history are you remembering?
What kinds of policies are you supporting?
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