“What could be more fundamental to our sense of meaning and purpose than a conception of whether the strivings of the human race over long stretches of time have left us better or worse off? How, in particular, are we to make sense of modernity—of the erosion of family, tribe, tradition, and religion by the forces of individualism, cosmopolitanism, reason, and science?”
“What could be more fundamental to our sense of meaning and purpose than a conception of whether the strivings of the human race over long stretches of time have left us better or worse off? How, in particular, are we to make sense of modernity—of the erosion of family, tribe, tradition, and religion by the forces of individualism, cosmopolitanism, reason, and science?”
Steven Pinker
“Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.”
Steven Pinker“There is no society ever discovered in the remotest corner of the world that has not had something that we would consider the arts. Visual arts - decoration of surfaces and bodies - appears to be a human universal.”
Steven Pinker“Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.”
Steven Pinker“The decline of violence isn't a steady inclined plane from an original state of maximal and universal bloodshed. Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.”
Steven Pinker“Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.”
Steven Pinker“Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point.”
Steven Pinker“The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally.”
Steven Pinker“The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer.”
Steven Pinker“America had, for one thing, lived in anarchy for - until much more recently than Europe. We had the Wild West, where the cliche of the cowboy movies was the nearest sheriff is 90 miles away, and so you had to pack a gun and defend yourself.”
Steven Pinker“Though knowledge itself increasingly ignores boundaries between fields, professors are apt to organize their pedagogy around the methods and history of their academic subculture rather than some coherent topic in the world.”
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