Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
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Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
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Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#2>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict.
Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#3>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
I assume you're referring to Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which has faced a number of criticisms, including his analysis of the data and what - in his mind - constitutes "violence".
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#4>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
I assume you're referring to Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which has faced a number of criticisms, including his analysis of the data and what - in his mind - constitutes "violence".
If we avoided reading books simply because they have criticisms, we'd never read anything.
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#5>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
There is def. some truth to this. The idea of, "End of Days" is one that continues to be recycled. There's always some sort of catastrophe around every corner. And this is true. But, I also need to wake up, and water the plants. (If you wanna be all Zen about it!)
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#6>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
Read it, not very convincing.
Pinker overestimates hunter-gatherer violence and underestimates non-direct violence in present times (such as US covert violence).
A lot of these criticisms are available online.
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#7>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
I assume you're referring to Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which has faced a number of criticisms, including his analysis of the data and what - in his mind - constitutes "violence".
If you could summarize or link to those critiques, I would be interested.
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume you're referring to Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which has faced a number of criticisms, including his analysis of the data and what - in his mind - constitutes "violence".
If you could summarize or link to those critiques, I would be interested.
Wikipedia has some here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Natur...
Not the OP, but I enjoyed it, and think people should read or listen to it even though it contains some inaccuracies.
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#9>His words bear extraordinary prescience today, as we face a swelling tide of political unrest, ethnic violence, and global conflict. Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
I haven't read Pinker's book, but I've read Tolstoy recently.
Tolstoy doesn't present any data or historical evidence, just shares his deep intuitive wisdom.
He predicted the rise of communism and the world wars, but also inspired Ghandi and Martin Luther King and many others... .
And at times it's really scary how much similarity there exists between the popular ideas back then (which he discusses) and the ideas of today. The almost fanatic belief in human superiority over nature, the power of Reason, the scientific method, the powerful religious groups, the armies, the police, the banks..
One would think that after 2 world wars and countless experimentation with social order and extreme technological advancement, we would have evolved to a higher level of thinking.
But no, there are some principles which stay the same. We still eat, we still drink, we still hate, we still love.
Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume you're referring to Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, which has faced a number of criticisms, including his analysis of the data and what - in his mind - constitutes "violence".
If you could summarize or link to those critiques, I would be interested.
That wikipedia page is good.
I also think expanded notions of violence are appropriate, though excluded from Pinker's analysis. For example, if a rich country COULD provide equal, high-quality health care to all its citizens, but doesn't because the health care industry (hospitals, insurers, physician groups, pharma) lobbies against such outcomes, and excess morbidity and mortality result, that is a kind of violence, though one that Pinker is not interested in.
Or North Korea (or to a lesser extent China), which maintains relatively low levels of violence, but is simultaneously committing abuses against its population.
The idea that fewer people (or a smaller proportion of people) are smashing their neighbor's head in with a rock doesn't necessarily constitute absolute "progress" to me (though it would be a nice development... provided it was true... which it might not be).