I read a lot of depressing non-fiction books, so it is nice to read one that actually presents some of what is going well in the world, even if it is tempered with a fair amount of caution. Pinker presents a powerhouse of a book, with carefully nuanced arguments, tons of data, and extensive references to back it all up. As I like to do, I read several of the one star reviews of this book before writing my own, and I found that even with the most wordy of them, they presented no real solid refutations of the general ideas presented in this book. It was all complaining about Pinker not giving enough credit to one ideology or another, or giving to much. One reviewer said he hid the weaknesses of his data, which is ironic and utterly untrue, since he consistently discussed the weaknesses of any particular data set, and was very careful to explain how things could be over-interpreted, and what kinds of conclusions could not be drawn, even if they were tempting.
One point Pinker made that stood out for me was "the pacification of the past", in which textbooks, museums, and I would argue, many people including many I know, pretend that the past was not as violent as it actually was. There is a tendency for many people to romanticize the past, and conjure up mythical portrayals of various older civilizations and societies. I see the same mentality around issues of racism, feminism, animal welfare, and many other subjects dear to progressive hearts. This book managed to give me a tiny bit more hope for humanity overall, not that I'm thinking it's going to be a rose garden. Just less bad than my usual pessimistic view. We are still fucking the environment, and I really don't think we'll deal with climate change until the consequences are deadly for very large numbers of people.
So, yay?

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