Thread by @Gurdur

Now we get to strand b/ of criticism of Steven Pinker's "Enlightenment Now". That is, "Inequality! [& often then] Therefore Pinker is a racist, sexist, transphobe scumbag who should be scorned".
As @salonium pointed out, most of that criticism is easy to dismiss. And yet...

Here are @salonium's own words (in quillette.com/2018/03/11/ste…) on dismissing some such criticisms; and let's face it, she's right. Except, arrghh whoops, this means an entire system of "#humanism" values being adopted *as well as* techno yada, and things really aren't that simple.

As @salonium herself points out, that vague values bundle includes #liberalism. And that's OK... except liberalism (& objective science) are under attack, & except Pinker simply unconsciously assumes far too much, as we shall see. But first, @salonium on some critics:

Now I agree w/ @salonium, except I think she's being too charitable here. Some have very vested interests in denying progress has happened, in denying science can have objectivity, because *they actively seek to delegitimize any such efforts*, for the sake of revolution now! yada

Inequality! And we get onto very murky ground indeed, because some science hints that (political, wealth) inequality *is biologically built into the human condition*, except that's no reason at all NOT to actively counter against it. Illness is also built in, we act against that.

Let's be really blunt, Pinker could have saved himself a lot of trouble by actively pointing out in how liberalism + techno alleviates inequality. He could have used the example of phone-banking via cell-phones in Tanzania overcoming immense geographical hardships, etc. etc.

But it seems Pinker is often unused to thinking about life from the wrong side of the tracks. Or maybe he could have used the example of the web being used to alleviate poverty, to give access to advanced medical knowledge, etc. etc.. So a bit of a fail on his part there.

Then we get really deep into inequality, and it gets srsly hairy. Because, as @PatrickDeneen points out in firstthings.com/article/2018/0…, all is not what it seems, *even for a constant of human life since way before Solon and Spartacus*. We really don't understand inequality well.

There are group experiments that strongly suggest *inequality is built in to exchanges between humans*, probably because unconscious biological hierarchical effects. That needs constant counter-acting, as Solon pointed out in 594 B.C.

There are also those who think they see biologically based inequality between human groups; they ignore huge swathes of evidence to claim the science backs them up on that, and many of them actively promote or want such inequality.

Pinker is definitely in favor of evening out the playing field, of increasing equality of opportunity. Yet even here he can misstep; the problem is, you have to be relatively well-off to *feel* like a citizen of the world. From @salonium again, & here the criticism is justified:

So much for that; Pinker really doesn't go into inequality deep enough, nor into alleviating it enough. As @salonium says, his optimism is for humanity as a whole; but that (unnecessarily) leaves him open to much criticism.
Onto strand c/, values! Thread:

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