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Post by samaritan on Feb 23, 2018 19:28:41 GMT
Unenlightened thinking: Steven Pinker’s embarrassing new book is a feeble sermon for rattled liberals: www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/02/unenlightened-thinking-steven-pinker-s-embarrassing-new-book-feeble-sermonExponents of scientism in the past have used it to promote Fabian socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Nazism and more interventionist varieties of liberalism. In doing so, they were invoking the authority of science to legitimise the values of their time and place. Deploying his cod-scientific formula to bolster market liberalism, Pinker does the same. Other reviews have been to similar effect but no-one does it better than John Gray.
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Post by timoneill on Mar 2, 2018 3:10:19 GMT
Other reviews have been to similar effect but no-one does it better than John Gray. Peter Harrison makes many of the same kind of points: www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2018/02/20/4806696.htmI suspect I may have to read Pinker's book to write an analysis of his twisting of history. As a "liberal" myself, I am in two minds about this "everything is getting better" stuff, but my issue is with Pinker's cartoonish pseudo history in support of this idea.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Apr 7, 2018 10:26:57 GMT
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