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Breathtakingly mindless for 2/5 of the book, blowhard the whole way through.

Sometimes a good joke is more revealing than 800 pages of blowhardness. Pinker gives himself away with this quote by George Carlin on page 622: I think motivation is overrated. You show me some lazy prick who's lying around all day watching game shows and stroking his penis, and I'll show you someone who's not causing any fucking trouble!...

...I hope I am not the only one who thinks it is not necessarily a good thing to be reduced to lazy pricks watching game shows and stroking our penises...

Anybody with a modicum of a background in anthropology, history, sociology and economics should be laughimg themselves silly (if it weren't so disturbing how much influence Pinker has)...

Pinker proposes 5 ways that have reduced violence and can continue to do so: the Leviathan, Gentle Commerce, Feminization, The Expanding Circle, and the Escalation of Reason. The final 3 I have no argument against. But I have issues with the first 2. The state gets a monopoly on violence and capitalism is caricatured as gentle.

But there have been moments when violence spiked and recently, so Pinker has to explain it. Pinker conveniently blames Marxism (and leftism in general is caricatured the whole way through) as the singularly destructive ideology of modern times (without acknowledging the dangers of his own classical liberal ideology) and throws in 'a few other individuals' to the mix as the responsibles for the genocides of the 20th century, and the increase in violence in 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Fascism is acknowledged only as the twin of dialectial Marxism. Classical liberalism gets the nod as the ideology that reduces violence (of course Pinker would never admit that classical liberalism is even an ideology though). There is no comprehensive study of how fascism and communism came to be. It is really lazy stretch to say that fascism was just a few flukes of individual psychology, and not give credence to the idea that both fascism and communism came about from the specific conditions of a social system in crisis. Neither is it mentioned that big business actually financed and promoted fascism in Italy and Germany. That would complicate things too much.

So, nothing about communism coming into being as a reaction to capitalism... it is simply assumed that capitalism has been an overwhelmingly positive contribution to the world, since 'violence has declined since its advent, minus a few inconvenient peaks of violent wars and genocides' which, as I have already said, he attributes to Marxism and a few accidentally placed crazy individuals. Nothing either about theory, philosophy, economics, anthropology, activism owing anything at all to Marx's ideas. Marx isn't even worth the time of day to Pinker, except as an explanation for violence. This should raise the question, really can any intellectual who tries to analyze the history of modern times be taken seriously if they haven't taken the left seriously? how can you call yourself an intellectual if you just shrug off the whole left side of the policial spectrum as ideological nonsense?

So leftism gets all the blame for the bad stuff, but the increased rights that accompanied the 20th century are not attributed at all to leftist ideas or practice. They are accounted for as simply natural by-products of classical liberalism (ie. capitalism). The Expanding Circle of Empathy, the Escalation of Reason and the Feminization of society have nothing at all to do with leftist ideals. Class struggles never happened. Activists weren't leftists, they were classical liberals. These rights eventually became 'common sense'. If there any battles they were set forth by non-violent classical liberals, and always as peacefully as possible.

There are plenty of examples of serious breaches of truth here. According to Pinker, Martin Luther King apparently rejected Marx completely. Something patently false: 'King disagreed with Marxist materialism, but he found certain elements of Marxism's economic critiques of capitalism quite insightful' (I May Not Get There With You: the True Martin Luther King, Eric Michael Dyson). In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find any successful activist who doesn't find certain elements of Marxism insightful. But none of that is mentioned here because Pinker is not at an activist, he is status quo, out of touch with reality, pure and simple.

It is also fairly embarrassing for Pinker to not acknowledge how far from anything even remotely leftist or Marxist several so-called communist and their undoubtely genocidal regimes were. Something akin to blaming Jesus for the Crusades. It is not said that it is a far more convincing argument that Stalinist Russia and Maoist China were actually STATE-CAPITALIST regimes. And indeed ideological twins of fascism, but not at all in the sense that Pinker argues. But if he tried to go there, his simplistic view of everthing would implode.

Most people who rave against communism base their assumptions on secondary sources. It is clear that Pinker hasn't understood Marx (or even remotely leftist politics). As a fairly well-read leftist, it is obvious to me that there hasn't been a communist state to this day, as much as the leaders of those states have claimed to be. Neither is it mentioned how many different interpretaions of communism there are. He lumps the left all together. But if Pinker were to do so honestly, it would be quite a stretch to suggest that leftism is not about equality, freedom and the destruction of totalitarianism, oppression and alienation. In fact, you would think leftism was fascism the way Pinker describes it. Pinker comes across as a reactionary anti-communist suffering from the Red Scare, still inhabiting the frigid mental landscape of the Cold War.

But hey, when you are an authority in Harvard, sweeping caricatures and generalizations are allowed. There’s more. According to Pinker, dialectics are simply mysticism and a justification for violent struggle. Class struggle is of course also blown off as mystical dialectical hogwash. Well, that is some feat blowing off dialectics, considering how many of the greatest philosophical works in world in the last 2 centuries have had to deal with the idea of dialectics (because of its intellectual force), but the eminent Steven Pinker waves it off with his magic wand and without anything at all to back it up.

He also blows off 'intellectuals' in general because 'they are attracted to extreme ideas'. But he wholly contradicts himself when he proposes the superior intellectual value of classical liberalism. Which of course isn't extreme, it is just the obvious rational choice that doesn't even need to be intellectually defended. How arrogant can you get?

It's also fairly wacky when he argues that 'intelligent people overwhelmingly tend to be liberals'. Based on IQ test scores and surveys of people with high scores he concludes that the smartest people are liberals and the other lesser ones are leftists and conservatives. But what about the smartest of the smart (the intellectuals) being attracted to extremes? This should leave you wondering if these arguments are for real? Apparently so.

I am not familiar enough with the statistics that Pinker inundates us with to know if 'violence' has actually dropped or not consistently, progressively and continuously throughout history. But our propaganda alarm bells should sound when anyone makes a statement like that. According to Pinker, it is obvious that primitive tribes were the most violent humans ever. I have read some fairly convincing arguments otherwise, but I think it is likely the differences in opinion are going to come in the very definition of violence. The definition of violence by Pinker is dictionary strict, and very limited. Humans sometimes have to fight to survive. Pinker doesn't substantiate any difference in self defense and aggression, justice is mocked, freedom is not even covered. But when class struggle is just vain ideology to him, what can you expect?

Neither does he take on the prison industrial complex, although he does acknowledge the importance of caging up of the maximum amount of people that are considered most likely to fight back and apparently thinks it a necessary evil if there are 'a few too many' (as deterrence). Apathy or depression is not even mentioned. But of course if you look it up in a dictionary, violence isn't any of those things.

Since only 100,000 have been killed in Iraq(a disputed low-flying number) and there were at least 1,5 million in Vietnam, apparently US foreign policy is getting way more compassionate. Of course nothing is even mentioned of thinly-covered up US intervention all over the world (like in Latin America). An ignorance easily corrected by leafing through books like 'Killing Hope' by William Blum (on the ongoing American holocaust). A book Chomsky says is 'far and away the best book on the subject'. But the book has leftist leanings, and is therefore intellectually irrelevant to a religiously loyal status quoer.

Democracy is hailed as a reducer of violence, and justifiably so. However he also has an extremely limited idea of democracy. There is a crisis of democracy right now because of a lack of participation (the Manufacturing of Consent and Public Opinion) and fast-growing awareness of it. What about acknowledging the advent of a type of coercion that creates ignorance, apathy and depression? This is not considered as an element of violence of course. It would even appear to be a positive thing, if it can reduce those violence stats and keep us wanking. Even if certain types of coercion cannot be defined as violence, why not acknowledge it for what it is?


As said, Pinker targets ideology as a main cause of violence. When ideologies clash it often creates even more violence. Obviously. But it would seem Pinker is unaware of the current ideology’s potential for violence (and many have argued quite well that it is the main present cause of violence today). Currently the ideology of capitalism is being questioned by a large variety of people (because of its weaknesses). If and when that increases there may just be an increase in violence again, and not only from the Leviathan state that Pinker raves so much about.

Of course Pinker would blame the new ideology if that happened, instead of the old one and all its weaknesses that brought it to the conflict. This is ironic because he does spend some time criticizing conservative ideology for its inability to adapt to progressive change. I argue that Pinker betrays exactly that attribute despite his humanist claims. Liberals and conservatives are the only two electable parties (because neither is so different from the other and neither is at all threatening to the current status quo). But for Pinker to have his moral authority he should also be arguing that if capitalism doesn't work well enough or starts to create bigger problems than it solves (ie. environmental destruction and huge gaps in wealth and debt), it is the one that may actually PROPAGATE violence. But then again we might just sit around watching game shows and stroking our penises. If Pinker is right, that would be ideal.

Perhaps this can be avoided if the old ideology adapts peaceably. But neither should anyone who analyzes history or anthropology honestly assume that the current ideology is forever. Of course capitalism hasn’t always been there, has only been there for a tiny amount of history, but Pinker sidesteps that. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The thing is that a large amount of us aren’t convinced it ain’t broke.

But perhaps Pinker’s main point is that we are less likely to adapt violently no matter what the change. Perhaps so, but denying or misunderstanding certain causes of violence (gross inequality and oppression which lead to new ideologies) will not help the matter. The so-called mystical class struggle and violence around the time of Karl Marx and the following century were actually consequences of the inability of capitalism to adapt to its structural weaknesses. If there were enough reforms the violence caused may not have been necessary, or rather it could have convinced the masses it wasn't necessary to challenge the system.

However, the inflexibility and fundamentalism of classical liberalism would seem to have actually CAUSED the majority of violent conflicts. One doesn't have to be a Marxist to see that the capitalist system did not adapt appropriately (or peacefully) to the class awareness (or if you prefer inequality awareness) that was developing. Pinker calls 'class awareness' ideology though. A more peaceful adaptation did not come until after World War 2 (with Keynesianism) IN REACTION to THE CLASS AWARENESS. But this has been progressively taken apart since around 1980. The fear of class war retribution has diminished. With the recent austerity measures only being the latest in a series of measures to increase the wealth of the rich at the expense of the middle class and poor.

But that doesn't mean that a self-defense type of violence will not develop in the near future if the current system doesn't adapt appropriately (rising homelesseness or unemployment could escalate things). The fact that violence actually went down during the 30s Great Depresssion is almost gleefully mentioned by Pinker though. So there really isn't a guarantee that violence will increase. In fact, it would seem that the elite powers are getting impetus from implementing their austerity measures because of Pinkeresuqe ideas of how non-violent we have become.


Anyhow, if Pinker is right and the world is better off being wankers than trouble-makers, then our intellectuals should be the best wankers. And so for that reason a wanker cannot read trouble-making literature, or leftist perspectives, one cannot at least acknowledge their intellectual validity and consider them. Pinker doesn't acknowledge these debates because he is pushing his own ideology, or rather absurdly and falsely pushing the idea of the 'end of ideology' (which is actually a thinly-veiled support for the current neoliberal utopian ideal). One that is as unsustainable and unrealistic as any utopia or ideology. Keep wanking.

The book was long and tiresome in many parts, but also very rewarding in the sense that it is an incredibly revealing look at how corrupt and anti-intellectual academics can be. Pinker is arrogant, puffed-up, self-promoting and irresponsible in his ideologizing (ironic isn’t it?) here. In Pinker's mind, it would seem he has earned the right to step right out of his specialty of psychology and linguistics and make sweeping generalizations in anthropology, history, sociology and economics.