Max Bell School of Public Policy
Watch bestselling author and experimental psychologist Steven Pinker in conversation with Max Bell Professor Jennifer Welsh on global affairs. This event took place in New York City on May 16, 2019.
Steven Pinker conducts research on language and cognition and is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, as well as the author of ten books. He addresses some of the key elements in his latest work, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, in which he makes the case for the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue humanity’s progress.
Pinker was joined in conversation by international relations scholar Jennifer Welsh. Welsh carved out a reputation as a prominent thinker on the history and practice of humanitarian intervention during her years as a professor at the University of Oxford. She joined McGill in 2019, where she holds a joint appointment between the Department of Political Science and the new Max Bell School of Public Policy, and serves as director of the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies.
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McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy is committed to the research, teaching, public outreach, and practical advocacy of sound public policy, with each of these four dimensions grounded in a solid understanding of the overall policy process, not merely as it is described in theory but as it exists in the real world, with all its imperfections and limitations.
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Institutions are great if they work as planned, or at least 80-90% of what they are supposed to do and BE… most institutions, and increasingly more with oppressive technologies, the institutions are used for limiting of freedoms and to have more and more control of the population. Tis is specially true in non western countries, for example there is a Ministry of Commerce which is supposed to help the small business or new ideas etc… and it is mostly a safeguard for the people already established in any business, the Ministry does get close once you become successful, but mostly to threaten you to fall in line and make sure you pay THEM the taxes, but if you go there as you are just starting out, they basically ignore you and give you the run around until you stop going. This is the same with all similar institutions, commissions, etc.
She says Mexico and other countries like Honduras are incredibly violent… then Pinker adds that in the USA around 40-50 THOUSAND people are killed in homicides each year… is that not just as violent as the other countries??