The decline of violenceSteven Pinker
Bea
This might be old news to many of you, but I just discovered it and am
so excited I want to share, I hope it's okay:
so excited I want to share, I hope it's okay:
Bea
oops, hit a wrong key and my post went off before it was finished,
sorry :-S
here is a talk by Steven Pinker that I thought was great:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/163
and here is an excerpt from an interview, that I also thought was
pretty good:
------------------
the evolutionist: I've always thought the standard social science
model presents a surprisingly pessimistic view of human nature -- that
people are entirely malleable and at the mercy of the rest of society
-- compared to the evolutionary psychology view in which people are
born high-spec, specialised problem-solvers just waiting to spring
into action.
Pinker: It's pessimistic in the sense that it's fatalistic, even
though it's touted as the alternative to the fatalistic view that
everything's determined by our genes. It's fatalistic because it says
that the first few years of life set the course for the person's
entire existence, which I think is false. I personally find the
alternative comforting: the first few years don't put you on trolley
tracks that you travel the rest of your life. The child-moulding
theory has also led, ironically, to a perverse view of child rearing.
Judith Rich Harris is coming out with a book called The Nurture
Assumption which argues that parents don't influence the long-term
fates of their children; peers do. The reaction she often gets is, "So
are you saying it doesn't matter how I treat my child?" She points out
that this is like someone learning that you can't change the
personality of your spouse and asking, "So are you saying that it
doesn't matter how you treat my spouse?" People seem to think that the
only reason to be nice to children is that it will mold their
character as adults in the future -- as opposed to the common-sense
idea that you should be nice to people because it makes life better
for them in the present. Child rearing has become a technological
matter of which practices grow the best children, as opposed to a
human relationship in which the happiness of the child (during
childhood) is determined by how the child is treated. She has a
wonderful quote: "We may not control our children's tomorrows, but we
surely control their todays, and we have the capacity to make them
very, very miserable."
(the whole thing is here:)
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/darwin/evolutionist/pinker.htm
----------------
Bea
sorry :-S
here is a talk by Steven Pinker that I thought was great:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/163
and here is an excerpt from an interview, that I also thought was
pretty good:
------------------
the evolutionist: I've always thought the standard social science
model presents a surprisingly pessimistic view of human nature -- that
people are entirely malleable and at the mercy of the rest of society
-- compared to the evolutionary psychology view in which people are
born high-spec, specialised problem-solvers just waiting to spring
into action.
Pinker: It's pessimistic in the sense that it's fatalistic, even
though it's touted as the alternative to the fatalistic view that
everything's determined by our genes. It's fatalistic because it says
that the first few years of life set the course for the person's
entire existence, which I think is false. I personally find the
alternative comforting: the first few years don't put you on trolley
tracks that you travel the rest of your life. The child-moulding
theory has also led, ironically, to a perverse view of child rearing.
Judith Rich Harris is coming out with a book called The Nurture
Assumption which argues that parents don't influence the long-term
fates of their children; peers do. The reaction she often gets is, "So
are you saying it doesn't matter how I treat my child?" She points out
that this is like someone learning that you can't change the
personality of your spouse and asking, "So are you saying that it
doesn't matter how you treat my spouse?" People seem to think that the
only reason to be nice to children is that it will mold their
character as adults in the future -- as opposed to the common-sense
idea that you should be nice to people because it makes life better
for them in the present. Child rearing has become a technological
matter of which practices grow the best children, as opposed to a
human relationship in which the happiness of the child (during
childhood) is determined by how the child is treated. She has a
wonderful quote: "We may not control our children's tomorrows, but we
surely control their todays, and we have the capacity to make them
very, very miserable."
(the whole thing is here:)
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/darwin/evolutionist/pinker.htm
----------------
Bea
--- In [email protected], "Bea" <bmantovani@...> wrote:
>
> This might be old news to many of you, but I just discovered it and am
> so excited I want to share, I hope it's okay:
>
Sandra Dodd
-=-People seem to think that the
only reason to be nice to children is that it will mold their
character as adults in the future -- as opposed to the common-sense
idea that you should be nice to people because it makes life better
for them in the present. -=-
Another reason for one to be nice to another. It makes one nicer.
Being a nice person has value in and of itself regardless of the
effect on others.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
only reason to be nice to children is that it will mold their
character as adults in the future -- as opposed to the common-sense
idea that you should be nice to people because it makes life better
for them in the present. -=-
Another reason for one to be nice to another. It makes one nicer.
Being a nice person has value in and of itself regardless of the
effect on others.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]