“Bad things can happen quickly, but good things aren't built in a day, and as they unfold, they will be out of sync with the news cycle.”
Steven Pinker · Enlightenment Now, 2018
quolira
quolira.com
As the world has gotten more rational, it has gotten less cruel.
About this quote
Meaning
Pinker is suggesting that rationality and cruelty are in direct tension with each other, and that as societies have developed more rigorous ways of thinking, evaluating evidence, and applying reason to moral questions, they have tended to pull back from practices that were once common and accepted. The idea is that clear-headed thinking makes it harder to sustain the dehumanization and motivated reasoning that cruelty depends on.
Context
This line appears in Pinker's 2011 book examining the historical decline of violence. Throughout the book, he explores the forces he believes have driven this decline, including the spread of literacy, the growth of trade, the expansion of government, and the gradual broadening of the circle of people we consider worthy of moral concern. He connects the rise of rational inquiry during the Enlightenment era to shifts in how societies treated outsiders, criminals, animals, and vulnerable groups.
About the author
Steven Pinker is a Harvard professor and one of the most prominent public intellectuals working in cognitive science and psychology. His research has long focused on how the mind processes language and how human nature shapes behavior and culture. In his books for general readers, he frequently argues that Enlightenment principles, including reason, science, and humanism, have been the main engines of moral and material progress. He is a clear and often provocative writer who takes a data-driven approach to large questions about human history and values.
Up next
“We will never have a perfect world, and it would be dangerous to seek one. But there is no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing.”
Steven Pinker · Enlightenment Now, 2018
“Intellectuals hate progress. Intellectuals who call themselves progressive really hate progress.”
Steven Pinker · Enlightenment Now, 2018
“The world has made spectacular progress in every single measure of human well-being. Here is a second shocker: almost no one knows about it.”
Steven Pinker · Enlightenment Now, 2018
“Progress is not utopia, but the gradual improvement of human flourishing through reason, science, and humanism.”
Steven Pinker · Enlightenment Now, 2018
“Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue, to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.”
Socrates · attributed
“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”
Socrates · attributed
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.”
Socrates · attributed
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Socrates · Plato, Phaedo
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.”
Socrates · Plato, Apology
“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Socrates · attributed
“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”
Socrates · attributed
