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Steven Pinker on Taboos, Political Correctness, and Dissent

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Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

FIRE President Greg Lukianoff interviews Harvard psychology professor and bestselling author Steven Pinker about his books, the crucial role dissent plays in keeping society sane, the special importance of free speech on campus, and the origins of political correctness. Professor Pinker, a member of FIRE’s Board of Advisors, is the author of The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of our Nature, and The Stuff of Thought.

Read more at http://fir.ee/O22F9R.

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Produced by Ted Balaker. Interview by Greg Lukianoff. Camera by Darby Duffin and Kyle Laffey. Music by audionautix.com.

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50 thoughts on “Steven Pinker on Taboos, Political Correctness, and Dissent”

  2. Here's a story you might like that demonstrates the titanic hypocrisy of this piece.. Pinker is Jewish. An evolutionary psychologist named Kevin B MacDonald in Cali wrote a series of books that argued that Jews practice a 'group evolutionary strategy' to gain an advantage over gentiles and that many important movements like Psycholanalysis, the New York Intellectuals, and the Frankfurt School have been "Jewish intellectual movements" that have aimed to weaken gentile societies, while documenting the foundations of political correctness (yep, the Jews started political correctness, read Culture of Critique). MacDonald eloquently argued it and it is scholarly. When Pinker found out, he went berserk, throwing out statements that weren't based on MacDonald's work and jumping to conclusions, without having even read the books or papers. One scientist in Australia, Frank Salter, who reviewed the work said later that Pinker apologize for being unprofessional. Yet here is Pinker talking about political correctness and that campuses more or less restrict freedom of speech and thought. (Oh, and that stuff about evil Christians killing Jews because of blood in Matza that Pinker mentions is not really the whole story, as Jews victimized gentiles through usury on a breathtaking scale, so the history of antisemitism is largely ethnic competition, not some distilled irrational Christian hatred of Jews).

  3. What speech does he think he's being prevented from making? This is all so vague and wishy-washy. The witch hunts, the antisemitism he cites are from the pre-PC era when folks could say whatever they liked about minorities and the disenfranchised.

  5. Everyone writing here is in spasms of agreement, but I can prove no one really agrees with Steven Pinker. No one at all. And I can do it with five words:

    Pinker: "A situation where no one actually believes something, but everyone believes everyone else believes it, therefore no one is willing to [tell the truth]."

    Me: Blacks are equal to whites.

    Now, tell some truth, you truth telling fearless intellectual, you. Anybody willing?

    Didn't think so.

  6. Is that filmed at LMU? Sorry, I got distracted, and I have to admit that this might be the first time I ever agreed with Steven Pinker. We have to learn to face opposition, because in life, that's what happens on a daily basis!

  7. “It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct, he is bound eventually to be right.”
    ― George F. Kennan

  11. If humans were a blank slate it would have a lot of problems from practical standpoint. For example if every time every single human had to learn even the simple things. It would be terrible too survive in nature. It would take too much time. Therefore we have natural emotions and fears that are encoded in us by many generations. For example fear of spiders, snakes etc. And emAndotions guide us for the most part and shape our personality.

  12. "Pluralistic ignorance" and "collective delusion" are extremely relevant concepts since they pretty much characterize and explain a significant portion of 21st century US political dynamics. The rise and spread of "hands up, don't shoot" as a political slogan even though the phrase was never actually uttered but rather, was concocted by false witnesses, is just one example of a plethora of modern collective delusions. And finding out the truth of the matter had zero influence on "the believers".

    People believe what they want (or think they need) to believe, not what is true vs. false.

  15. I agree with him when he says you can know someone well by their traits, but I wish he would explain this more, and go on also to elaborate  about how to help people with different traits get along together.

  17. Political correctness is American born idea which have now spread to Europe. Basically it's targeting free speech demonizing all opposite opinions. That's why it's against democracy principals.

  21. His final point, that you'd think liberals ("Progressives," he says) would be glad that things are better now — less racism, less violence, less sexism — but NO!! Instead, they often just get mad when told this truth. I think it's because so many liberals live to whine and complain, to fear-monger, to race-bait, to stir up emotions (Al Sharpton), and so on. In a "better" world, these people would have lost much of their reason for being. Thus anger at the truth.

  35. look how easy it is for some outsider to talk about "free speech" bashing, say, a group's intelligence! In one particular case, when a scientific racist, after freely publishing books and various papers, tried to again talk about a certain group's IQ, how low it is and how should universities shouldn't take them! Pinker tries to tell us that words don't matter, they don't kill you, but a clear example that refute his silly take might politics, well, words actually could end the human race if politicians weren't careful of what to say!

    Steven Pinker is good writer, he has many positive sides, unfortunately, he's also delusional on many aspects of societies, groups and individuals. It's OK for a scientific racist to label a group as lazies since the very same guy label Jews as smart, no worries for him in that case! Let there be hate speeches everywhere and let all groups collide and revolt against each other! Mr Steven Pinker, the old, expired worlds have gone! Upgrade yourself and try to catch up!

  39. I usually like Pinker, but his terrorism argument at 5:22, mentioning incidence counts while avoiding mentioning population totals and incidence rates, is a case-study in how one lies with statistics. But worse than that, his numbers have been outdated since the Orlando attack on June 12th, 2016, five months before Pinker gave this speech. He's dead wrong on the facts, as well propagandistic in the method. https://apholt.com/2016/01/11/right-wing-extremism-vs-islamic-extremism-in-the-united-states-a-look-at-the-numbers/

  40. If this video never came out, I'd never know what it never said.
    You will find answers if you look for them. You will assume answers if you put research aside.

  41. yes, just like stock market syndrome when every stockholder says' i don't want to cause a crash but the next guy will sell and i'll lose out so i have to' whilst 'the other guy' is saying the same thing about him-a self fulfilling prophecy. so the press, the professor, artists are all self interested powers businesses of their own who fear getting sued or losing business so they go along regardless of whether they agree.

  42. yes pc simultaneously assumes race and gender have zero factor in determining potential and that 'women do things differently than men' and see no inconsistency in true orwellian form where contradictory ideas exist side by side-double think

  45. I think one of the reasons people get angry when their told the worlds getting better is because theirs only a few groups who have got better, while the others wallow in self inflicted hell holes.
    so they leave their hell holes and come to successful countries to drag them down to their level to relieve their sense of inadequacy.

  46. THE FAER OF NOT BEING A CONFORMIST, AS DR. MILGRAM PROVED IN THE SIXTIES, REVEALS HOW COWARDICE AND IGNORANCE MATTERS MORE TO SOME , THAN COURAGE AND UNDERSTANDING TRUTH, IS HOW WE GET THOSE MASS DELUSIONS WHICH RESULT IN NAZI GERMANY, STALIN COMMUNIST RUSSIA AND MAO COMMUNIST CHINA, AND EVERY FORM OF SOCIALIST TYRANNY, FOR EVERY FORM OF SOCIALISM IS A FORM OF FEUDALIST TYRANNY

  47. I have to wonder if it could be at all possible that Pinker was not aware of the super tusker that he had let loose in the room with this stream. And he always ends up behaving so nicely, never straying beyond the perimeter and always standing with such perfect posture. Impressive!

  50. The brain is a nurtured/environmental construct? This guy was certainly born more intelligent than me. Of that I have no doubt

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