[ExI] Death follows European contact (Mirco Romanato)

[Tara Maya]

For what it's worth, my own research on original sources, conducted before I read his book, supports Pinker's argument.

I'm a historian, and my research was on changes in European demographics and family structure over a thousand year period. The shift in violence was noticeable in those records. The decline in war and crime is paralleled by a rise in gentler child-rearing practices as well, though it's hard to say which was cause and which was effect, or if both occurred in response to some third factor.

Even Foucault, postmodernist poster boy, noted quite frankly in his book Discipline and Punish that the rise of the modern prison came because ordinary people could no longer stand to watch public torture. Foucault didn't resort to statistics or even logic, so to him the fact that the ideal form of justice changed from torture for days as a festival of public ridicule to trying to awaken the inner conscience of criminals was a terrible step towards totalitarianism. His argument (it's quite possible I've misunderstood, since he strove at all costs to avoid clarity of argument) was that the modern system wanted to change your thinking not just your behavior, so it was worse, even if you were tortured.

Frankly, I think this is factually wrong. Did the religious fanatics of the middle ages not want to convert as much as torture? Trying to change the mind was not what was new, only the reluctance to use brute force to change it.

Anyway, yes, I'm a fan of Pinker's book.

Tara Maya


On Apr 13, 2014, at 10:14 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> One scathing commentator:
> 
> >…This optimistic theme coincides with the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
> laureate's ongoing wars on at least four continents (Asia, Africa,
> Europe, and South America) and the US military's spread to more than
> eight hundred bases worldwide…
>  
>  
> When people write silliness like this, it is evidence they didn’t read Pinker’s book, or if so, didn’t get it.  Perhaps this commentator read only the introduction or the cover flaps or even someone else’s commentary on the book and immediately took to promoting their own favorite ideology.
>  
> Right or wrong, Pinker’s book brings up some really important questions, and sheds light on Keith Henson’s favorite topic, evolutionary psychology.  Do we have sufficient critical mass to create a Better Angels discussion group?  Or shall we just post it all here?  How many Better Angel fans have we?  Keith?  Rafal?  Others?
>  
> spike
>  
>  
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Tara Maya
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