I'm very pleased today to be talking to
Dr. Steven Pinker from Harvard University
He's the Johnstone family professor in the Department of Psychology there and has taught additionally at Stanford and MIT
He's an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition psycho linguistics and social relations
Dr. Pinker grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard
He's won numerous prizes for his research his teaching and his nine books
Including the language instinct how the mind works
The blank slate the better angels of our nature and the sense of style
he's an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist a
humanist of the year a
recipient of nine honorary doctorates and one of foreign policies world taught
100 public intellectuals and times
100 most influential people in the world today
He's chair of the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary
And writes frequently for the New York Times The Guardian and other publications
Enlightenment now, the case for reason science humanism and progress, was his tenth and best-selling book
published in February 2018
and It's very nice, by the way
to have the opportunity to speak with you again, and thanks very much for making the time
Thank You Jordan
PETERSON: So, can I ask you it's been about a year since we talked last I guess I'd like to ask you
First of all, personally, what's this year been like for you? You've become a much more controversial figure
I would say than
would really be predicted but
you've always seemed to me to be a
solid reliable
interesting
mainstream scientists not someone who would attract a tremendous amount of critical
Attention and yet you've become well oddly enough
associated with the intellectual dark web what ever that happens to be and so much of what you're doing is
controversial and so, what's that being like and what's your life be like over the last while
Yeah, you wouldn't think that a defensive reason science humanism and progress would be
incendiary and I'm hardly a flame thrower and.. and as you note
I have put forward some pretty controversial ideas in the past such as that.. uh.. men and women aren't indistinguishable
and that we all Harbor some unsavory motives like
Revenge and dominance but saying the world has gotten better turns out to be a radical
inflammatory hypothesis there... uh...
there are there's first of all just sheer incredulity because the you of the world that you get from
Journalism is so different from the view of the world when you get from data because journalism reports everything that goes wrong
It doesn't report things that go right, and so if they're more things that go right every year. There's just no way of
Learning about it if you know the world from the papers and so there's just sheer disbelief. I'm talking about there are
intellectual factions that are committed to the idea that the world has never been worse than it is now and
data on human progress undermines
Some of their their foundational beliefs and then so that does attract
some some opposition people think of it as a defense of
neoliberal capitalism or a defense of the opposite, secular humanism
Traditional liberalism and so does get some people exorcised
Basically anyone if you're a social critic if your reputation comes on saying what's going wrong about the current society.
then
You're kind of committed to the idea that things have gotten gotten worse and the idea that things are
Not as bad as they used to be not as bad as they could be is an insult to that
those core beliefs
Yeah, well, it's it's a surprising thing because well and so so let's let's talk about that a little bit
I mean, here's some of the things I know,
I think I know and
Maybe you could describe some of the things, you know
And like I started learning that the world
had been improving when I worked for a UN committee about five years ago now and started looking at the
data on
Ecology and sustainable economic development and that's like there's some bad ecological news
I think that what we're doing to the oceans is
Fundamentally unforgivable and and foolish beyond belief, but there's some ecological news. That's of
Surprising positivity like there is a paper published in Nature not so long ago
Stating for example that an area twice the size of the US has greened in the last
15 years think it was last 15 or 20 years that actually happened to be as a consequence of increased carbon dioxide because
Plants can keep their pores closed if there's more carbon dioxide and so they can live in more
semi-arid areas and
There's more forests in the northern hemisphere than there were a hundred years ago and more forests in India and China
Than there were 30 years ago. And then this has gone along with it massively improved stan... standard of living
The child mortality rate in Africa is now the same as it was in Europe in 1952, which is a
statistic that I just regard is
absolutely miraculous, the
African economies are growing, sub-saharan African economies seem to be growing faster at the moment if the stats are reliable then
economies anywhere else in the world
Partly because the Africans are getting connected electronically and have access to reasonable information into something
Approximating let's say stable currency
alternatives, um...
There... there's people are the rate of poverty is diminishing at an amazing rate
Right, we have poverty
Considering it at a dollar ninety a day between 2000 and 2012 and I've read criticisms of that saying well
that was an arbitrary number, but if you look at
$3.80 a day
You see the same
Decline if you look at $7.60 a day
You see the same decline not as precipitous and even the UN not known I would say for its optimistic
Prognostications estimates that at this rate by the year 2030 there won't be anyone in the world
Who's living below the current poverty level? So...
so there are some positive statistics so
What... what... what... what would you like to add to that?
Oh yes, and those are all of those those numbers are reported in graphs in enlightenment now, but also what else?
Illiteracy is declining
rates of uh... of uh...
Violent crime including violence against women and children are declining, child labor is declining
Death and warfare is declining how people have more leisure time. They have more access to
small luxuries like ear and
Reporting on plane fare, so it's funny that that all of these
Examples of human progress which one would think indicate the attempt to make the world a better place? It's not just do-gooding
It's not romantic. It's not utopian. We really can improve the world if we set our minds to do it should-should around so much anger
Partly because they people are so unused to thinking that things have gotten better, but they confuse it with
Certain kinds of magical thinking such as...
that things.. that this must mean that there is a force in the universe that that
Carries us ever upward that just makes progress happen by itself, which is the exact opposite to reality the universe
Not only doesn't care about us. But as a number of features that are constantly pushing back at us like like like entropy like
like pathogens
Entropies a bad one
Entry entropy is is the is the root of all human suffering
So here this doesn't care about us
I've read to other things that are peculiar that are so interesting and well, okay, so first of all, um,
It's pretty hard on the Marxists. I would say because
Even though there is inequality and inequality is a problem
first of all, it doesn't look like
Inequality can be placed at the feet of capitalism. It seems to me to be a far more intractable problem than that
second it's clear that the poor are getting richer despite the fact of inequality and third and this is hard on the
environmentalists I think is that it turns out that if you
Get people's income up to about five thousand dollars a year in terms of gross domestic product
They actually start to care about the environment
Which I suppose is because they're not worried about dying
Instantly that day or that week and so we seem to be in this perverse
situation for a pessimist where
We could make people
wealthy and
in in a positive manner and
We could make the world a better place simultaneously and that does seem to be very hard on
ideologue whose
ideology is predicated on a
Fundamental pessimism where you get the other people like the biologists do this sometimes and say well, yeah, we're purchasing all this short-term
prosperity
you know for these billions of people but at the cost of some medium to long term
eventual precipitous, you know
apocalyptic collapse and it's very difficult to formulate an argument against that kind of idea because
Well, you never know when some yeah, I think this is one of the thing tell him takes you to task for doesn't he?
Yes, I even though I actually have pretty extensive
coverage of the tail risks both in the better angels of our nature and in enlightenment now
and and indeed we do we cannot take
incremental improvement as itself an indication that the
Risk of catastrophe is at an acceptable level it may not be uh...
It's very hard to estimate what the risk of it
catastrophe is but there are certainly some that we that we ought to take very seriously
You're on the other hand the fact that you mentioned
uh...
Are often resisted by people in the green movement
I'm just going to lean down and pick up my earbud which rolled across the floor
Ah, but if anything it should give hope and succor to the environmental movement because it shows that
it is not true that we have to choose between
Economic growth which people do not want to give up and protecting the environment
That we can have both and indeed. There are some ways in which they go together the
nations that have done the most to clean up their
environment in the last ten years are the wealthiest nations because they can afford it if you're dirt-poor as you mentioned the your first
Priority is putting food on the table and a roof over your head and the you know
The fate of the white rhinoceros is pretty pretty low on your list of priorities
And you might be willing to put up with some smog in order to have electricity
It's really awful to do (without) electricity. And I know having visited cities like Mumbai which are horribly polluted
And and they are awful, but it would be much worse to not have any electricity
Well on the other hand when you get more prosperous, then you willing to spring for the cleaner energy
and you can afford the clean your energy and as you mentioned your
values tend to climb a hierarchy and more
long term
Future concerns loom larger in your value system so it's an odd
Assumption that both the hard right and the hard green have in common
Which is that if we want to protect the environment we have to sacrifice
Prosperity go back to a simpler more peasant
Style of life the hard greens say well that we've got to give up modernity give up capitalism
go back to what are you living off the land the
Hard right says well, I don't want to do that. No one wants to do that
So to hell with the environment if the reality is that if both policy and technology are deployed intelligence
they ought to be then we can afford to protect the environment without going backwards and foregoing all of the
benefits of modernity, right
I was I was shocked when I started to learn about this the fact that there was so much good both
economic and ecological news
with the economic news, perhaps being somewhat better than the
Ecological news and it doesn't mean that we can sit back and relax in the environment will clean itself up
all by itself
Quite the contrary we know why the environment got better
combination of policy like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act in the United States in 1970 and
Technology, like catalytic converters and scrubbers and and clean energy so it doesn't happen by itself
The fact that it happened is one of the great
Fallacies in people's understanding of progress if they equate the existence of progress with progress happening
all by itself as a as if it was some force of the universe, which is
Contrary to reality the other you mentioned that the existence of human progress is
a blow to
doctrinaire Marxist which is certainly true because he has seen the spectacular economic growth of India and China when they liberalized their
economies and the
disasters of say North Korea with a beautiful
Control group South Korea same geography same resources. Same culture. Same language same history
What differentiates them is their political system and South Korea is a much better place to live. It's not only freer, but it is also
enormously more prosperous
Do debates level XI check on the 19th of April and I've been preparing for that, you know
And I thought what I might do to begin with this list
There's a graph that I think human progress dot org put out
It might be Matt Ridley's graphed or maybe hands. Is it hands Rosling?
Rosalyn it maybe it's Martin Merriam to be is the proprietor if you're right
But it's what they call the most miraculous most important graph in the world and shows this
unbelievable
Acceleration if you prosperity basically kicking in exponentially around 1895
and yes a little bit earlier, but this is a combination of data sources including the
Late historical constant angle Madison who began a Madison project trying to retrospect respectively estimate
GDP per capita in eras where they did not collect those data at a time, but using historical data. Yes
It is astonishing and I've got to say when I first saw that curve when I was working on better angels of our nature
I was stunned. I mean this is the original hockey stick. Yes
Till the Industrial Revolution and then then it shoots up exponentially wait
so, you know, I look at that and I think well look I mean
What's the issue here
We still have inequality but you can't put it at the feet of capitalism because it seems to be a much more fundamental
Mechanism will ease poverty. Certainly. Yes. Yes
well, and even inequality, I mean that there seems to be this proclivity towards the unequal distribution of
phenomena, not just
monetary phenomena, but I mean if you look at virtually every
domain of human
Endeavor that's associated with creativity you get a preeto distribution of productivity, you know
I mean a small number of masked ball players
Shoot the my vast majority of the hoops and a small number of record
recording artists record the
majority of the hits a small number of planets have most of the mass and like there is this I
Mean, I'm not trying to make a case that inequality
Isn't a problem
I'm trying to make a case that it's a way
Deeper problem than the Marxists presume and then you have the other problem that well the poor keep getting richer
I mean half the world is middle class now and obesity is a bigger problem than starvation. And so
When I'm talking I can't I'm really having a hard time
Trying to understand what the Marxists have left as a doctrine. It's like yeah
Problem you guys were identifying seems to not exist anymore
yes, so part of it is that their foil is a kind of
playing around Ian
Objectivism in which you have a pure
untrammeled
unconstrained market capitalism with no regulation and no
social safety yet
now one of the discoveries that I made which was almost as surprising as the
Hockey stick graph of prosperity the fact that in the 20th century
Every developed country every rich country
I went on a screen of social spending and so that from a baseline about
1.5 percent of GDP redistributed to children and the poor and the elderly and the sick now the
Median oacd between redistributes about 22% of its prosperity
And all which countries are in a band from about 20% of GDP to about 30% of GDP
I have the United States is at the low end
Actually Canada to my surprise our home and native land is actually a bit lower than the United States. I don't
Even know Canada it would appear to have a more generous welfare state than the United States
and in fact
The United States would be even higher if you added all of the socialism that is done through employers like retirement and health insurance
which in other countries is done through the government, but even if we just looked at government redistribution
It just does not exist a wealthy country without a an extensive social safety net
Here's the theory you tell me what you think about this. So I've been trying to
Let's say steel man, the
Positions of the left. I don't mean the radical left
I mean the moderate left because I believe that the dialogue between the moderate left in the moderate right is what keeps our
ship
stabilized essentially and for this reason so imagine
People have to group together
Cooperative cooperatively and competitively to solve difficult problems because we have difficult prob. That's entropy
Let's say and and the assault of the natural world. So we have to group together when we do that
We create hierarchies and we do that in large part. We hope by
elevating those who the most competent at solving the problems to the higher positions in the hierarchies now that can be
contaminated by power and tyranny and crookedness and poor selection and all of that poor measurement but fundamentally if your
Hierarchy is functional the more competent people rise to the top. No
that
produces the advantage of solving the problem
But it produces the disadvantage of making a lot of people stack up at the bottom of that
hierarchy because that's what tends to happen because of the Credo distribution and and the
Built-in proclivity for inequality. So the answer to that seems to be well
we produce the hierarchies we accept the inequality, but then we attend with some degree of
clarity of vision and care to those who are
dispossessed by the necessity of the hierarchies and your claim seems to be from what you just said is that that's
essentially what we've been doing in civilized democracies for the last hundred years and that that seems to be
roughly working
Well it is. Yes, that's right. Now whether or not the hierarchies are
optimal in the sense that we're better off with the hierarchy because
of just what will happen in a
distributed market economy it you may have winner-take-all situations where the
the most entertaining story the most efficient
Car the best washing machine in a global market will push out a lot of the competitors and so you get that creative
distribution whether or not it's
Anyone would have designed it if they were to plan the entire society
Might even be beside the point as long as you don't have central planning and distribution
it might naturally result if it is not explicitly a
host which which some of our policies do
As you mentioned it's a little bit like the like environmental
Progress that far from being in opposition to economic growth. It's often economic growth that
lets people become more
munificent or generous
There are a number of reasons why every wealthy country has a social safety net and why as countries get richer
like Brazil and India and China, they turn their attention to
more social welfare
The the the European and North American societies did it in the 20th century and the developing world is following suit partly
It's because some of the investment in some of the redistribution is investment. It's a public good
It's really good
If the entire population is educated or everyone including the people who are hiring them
And so some of it is just investment in
One take on the Marxist position because funny thing is is that you know
You lived in Montreal. I lived in Montreal
Montreal is a
relatively
flat city in some sense in terms of its economic distribution like there are no pockets of
terrifying poverty at least on the island and it's a very safe place and and so it's
Socially rich in some sense. Like I always felt wealthy when I lived in Montreal even though I was living on a
hd's
Stipend which was very in the area the area we used to call the Stephen get home. Yeah, the sound luxury condominiums
What was so lovely about Montreal was that it was safe
It was beautiful and it had an unbelievably vibrant public culture. Yes
there was all a consequence of the fact that
people
Generally speaking were well enough off. And so, you know, if you contrast that with a country like Brazil
Where a tiny minority of people have all the wealth? Well, they're stuck with the problem of living in gilded prisons
They have to move their children around in helicopters. And like I think one of the things that people realize as
he's become richer is that it's better to calculate your wealth on a
broader level to include more people within the purview of what
Constitutes wealth for you because it's so nice to be in a city. That's
thriving and and
healthy and and and not crime ridden and resentful and and those need to be factored in there's elements of
individual wealth
That's right. And there is a
Debate among the social scientists as to whether it is inequality that drives these other social goods such as low crime
such as
Investment such as education or whether it's prosperity
It's not so easy to tell them apart because in general poorer countries like South Africa and Brazil have sky-high
Inequality countries like Norway and Sweden and Switzerland, which have less inequality are also pretty rich
And it isn't so easy to see which one is driving it because as societies get richer as we've discussed
they tend to redistribute partly out of
investing in a public good
such as
Will a crime such as having an educated populace is just a really good thing hardly
It is literally insurance and the euphemism social safety net
That is something that captures to you
if you fall actors the idea that even when people are well-off they worry that they're there but for a fortune goai that
You got to be nice to people on the way up because you might need them on the way down. And so putting a
bottom floor on how poor you can be makes everyone feel a little more secure that if the worst thing happened they will not be
Destitute. Yes. Well, so that's a second thing
It's not that uncommon for people who are in the top 10% say of the economic distribution
Or even in the top 1%
to suffer a substantial
reversal of fortune at some point in their life and it's a very rare person a very very rare person who isn't at
Economic danger of economic disadvantage at some point in their life for some reason
Well, certainly people move in and out the top decile top 10% of the income distribution
Although this argument fool or social spending would be to indemnify people against the worst outcome
I don't think that many people in the top tenth or to say nothing of the top 1% will ever go on welfare
but still a lot of people in the middle class can imagine it and they don't want to think that they'll be out on the
streets
their job or fans of us suddenly suffer a big, you know medical expense and the third reason after
investment and insurance is just a compassion or empathy we see in the
history of the West after the Industrial Revolution you get a literature of
of compassion or war you you have
The little MatchGirl you have magnesia table and know about wrong being in prison for stealing a bit of bread to say this
sister you have the
The Joads bearing grandpa on the side of route 66 in
Grapes of Wrath and so people are also moved by fear fellow-feeling with their
with their computers their fellow-citizens
that's another reason why the people who are criticizing your
Informed optimism are irritated because you know, if your fundamental political doctrine insists that
well
Everything your primary identity is your group whatever that happens to be and the primary
Motivating factor for the function of your group is raw naked power
Played out within that group against all other groups the introduction of something like the notion of an implicit
compassion for the downtrodden
Seems to like wreak havoc with the purity of that ideological position
But like I've never met anyone in my life, and I know one a large number of extraordinarily
successful
economically successful people
I've never met anyone in my life who walks down the street and sees it down and out alcoholic
Who's clearly suffering terribly as a consequence of dwelling on the street?
um
what would you say celebrate the
Justice of the universe in elevating them above that person who's suffering
I mean, I think well
Go ahead. I mean we do know from from social psychology that there is a
tendency to
To to blame the victim to believe that you know in a just world. So I think those are two
motives that we have compassion for everyone but also feeling that that those who are
badly off must have done something to
To deserve it
We do see this of course in the app service that you and I usually attention because of course the attention I think
It's also modulated by
by some degree of ethnic solidarity
There's been noted that some of the generous welfare states of europe have least historically
occurred in countries that are ethnically more homogeneous
I certainly racially more homogeneous than the United States which tends to be a somewhat stingy. ER now
this is not a if there is some elasticity into what we call beautifully categorized as our group and
one of the great achievements of any kind of nation-building is to
Is to instill a feeling well, we're all Canadians or we're all Swiss or a lot
We're all Iraqi something that is actually not happened in Iraq, which is a big problem
If you unless you have that fictional family in a fictional clan
Nation, then people tend not to cooperate
including you in ways of
providing social welfare for the worst half
It's a ridiculously interesting point I would say because one of the things that you really see in Canada, for example
And our Prime Minister is a real devotee of this idea is that there really is? No Canadian culture?
There's no central Canadian ethos. And what we have is a plurality of
Multicultural microcosms and that that's actually all for the best. No, I guess the Canadian mosaic as opposed to the melting pot isn't
Right. All right, the Prime Minister's father Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Famously tried to forge kind of Canadian identity that spanned
English the Anglophone and francophone
Communities hardly exemplified in himself because he was a dashing charismatic figure was distinctively Canadian
He just wagered. He wasn't French. He was an American. He had the Rose in his lapel. He wore a cape
He was perfectly bilingual. He was debonair and witty and charming. We all felt at the time
I remember this I remember trudeaumania
We all felt now
That is a comedian
that's something to aspire to and he did with his policies and with his symbolism or
Jack I'd of Canadian consciousness above and beyond the
mosaic of the Lebanese Canadians and the Italian Canadian Jewish Canadians and so on well in
Sufficient what would you call it success to at least keep the country together, which was something quite remarkable
I mean, well he had to have one point he had to declare martial law to do it. Yes. I dream the October crisis when?
separatist terrorists kidnapped
A Trade Commissioner anda and I a government minister
Look it looks like there's a there's a contradiction
maybe you could tell me what you think about this in the in a certain element of leftist doctrine because
assuming that
Multiculturalism is can be reasonably viewed as part of the leftist doctrine
If it is the case that people are more likely to be
Generous to those that they see in some sense as their in-group
Then what it suggests is that you need to take the the mosaic of
your culture the
African Canadians and the European Canadians and the Asian Canadians the same in the US and
have them
maintain their
their culture and their traditions
But also to embed them
inside a broader game
that constitutes the national identity that unites them all despite their differences and it
Seems like given what you just described that unless you can
forge that
trash
Ethnic or trans racial identity that you motivate people to be less
Generous in their social policies. So look that that is true. Now I consider this to be one of the
key ideas of
Coming out of the Enlightenment
Opposed by the counter enlightenment of the 19th century by the romantics
I mean the nationalists that be that a
state a
Group of people under the jurisdiction of a government but held together
Basically by a social contract by agreement that we're all in this together
there are many public goods W better we share public costs that we can suffer a government that
allows us to
Get along by serving in our interests is way of improving our welfare
it's a very given conception of a nation and the blood and soil nationalism of a
19th century continuing well into the 20th, but what makes us a nation is that we're all
We're all white. We all speak me I come from love
Same ancestry and that the successful nations are often ones that manage to forge. The somewhat artificial identity is
Fascinating because then ok, then then we got two arguments here for that for that
Let's say artificial or conceptual nation-building
process one is that
maybe you can allow people in their different ethnic and racial groups to maintain key elements of their identity and
And and feel comfortable doing so but also embed them in a broader game like a game voluntary played and laid out
But if exactly are the same token
Given your logic that's also the most effective antidote to the kind of nationalism. That is
identitarian that also seems to be in the resurgence and
You see this. I really see this as having been done extraordinarily
effectively in the United States now, they had the advantage of the examples of England and France, but that the American
experiment was an experiment in conceptual
Nation-building. It's like here's a creative principles that we can all agree on despite our differences and to the degree that we
decide that we will agree on these principles then were the same enough we can cooperate we don't need to revert to
Nationalism or or very much in in the Declaration of Independence. That was made crystal clear that to pursue
life liberty and pursuit of happiness
Governments are formed with the consent of the governed to allow people to to flourish to prosper
Nothing in the Declaration said anything about in European big white in Protestant Union in Christian
It was really a social contract
I setup from first principles, which of course made some pretty big problems with of course. We are the African citizens
it took quite a while to work that out and there were tensions in the 20th century with ways of immigration from
Ireland from Eastern Europe from
Jews from Italians and there were of course tensions between the
Italians and Irish
But by the standards of human history, they got worked out pretty well
I've been capitalizing on a feature of our psychology, which is that even though we do have an in-group favoritism
We do have tribalism what counts as a tribe is pretty
Elastic it is not by skin color
We form coalition's that cut across skin color and a successful
country is one that
capitalizes on that elasticity form a virtual tribe
which is simply every citizen of the country and that ultimately every citizen in larger units including the
humanity including
All the world a lot of this depends blow on undermining certain features of human nature such as kin solidarity
It has been noted that in cultures that have a lot of cousin marriage where you're related to
People in your clan. It's rather hard to do nation building there like in Lincoln High Rock
For example people don't have a sense of superordinate
Loyalty to a coalition about their blood relatives and they are Titan Titan blood relatives by a cousin marriage
But it's also played itself out of his the United States and there's a wonderful
Snatch of dialog the end of the first Godfather movie when Michael Corleone II
Enlists after Pearl Harbor and as brother Sonny says, what did you go to college to get stupid your country ate your blood
You're gonna die out. You can be a SAP who dies for strangers
And that is a perfect
encapsulation of the difference between traditional
tribalism and
the
Mentality that we need for successful right? Sounds like it's you know, it sounds like one of the ways to
combat
right-wing identitarian ISM that the new emergence of right-wing identitarian ISM is to make that conceptual distinction between
national identity that's predicated on blood and soil
Let's say kinship direct kinship or or even secondary kinship and these these more abstract
conceptions now it seems to me so just don't just you may know this or you may not but
been Shapiro's new book is number one on the New York Times bestseller list and
I read Ben's book a while back and I think it shares some features
with your book and it's shares some features with my book and I would say the features it shares with my book is that I
stress the importance of the
judeo-christian
stories as part of that conceptual substructure that unites a civilization and
Then it has features in common with your book because it's also a pro
enlightenment
manifesto
Celebrating the achievements. Let's say of the Greeks and the rationalists moving forward from there
Like Shapiro sees our culture s and this is something that I agree with I would say as a marriage between that
judeo-christian tradition and that
emergent enlightenment you're
You're and it's taught me if I'm wrong, but your emphasis. So let's say that we're playing this
abstract conceptual game that unites us as a people independent of our ethnicity and our race and
there are principles that
Constitute the game rules for that agreement and you see those as
primarily
Deriving from the Enlightenment and and and starting then
Well not I mean there's nothing new Under the Sun and certainly someone waiting Vijaya T has had
precursors in the the the Renaissance and in ancient Greece
But that set of ideas that came together that it needed of course further elaboration. I think that that's much more of a
basis of human progress than the judeo-christian tradition again any every
every intellectual movement who draws from pre-existing ideas, and so there was some
cherry-picking from from the
Judeo-christian tradition, but it certainly did not depend on belief in Jesus Christ
Our Savior did not depend on a one God as opposed to many God's really depended on
Human well-being life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's something you can believe in regardless of your theological commitments
So what what do you think? So here? Here's the
Question I have about that. Is that like it seemed to me so that the
people who formulated the Declaration of Independence, for example
accept it as self-evident that human beings were intrinsically valuable and the locus of
sovereignty insofar as they were the citizens who would determine the course of the nation and
There's some recognition there as far as I'm concerned of
Intrinsic value
Outside of a rational argument, you know it as a as a as an a priori
presupposition we accept these truths as self-evident
right and and and the the the most fundamental truth of that is that it's something like in my
View it's something like the strange
metaphysical
equivalence of man before God the fact that we all have intrinsic
Value and that's where I see the Enlightenment being
irreducibly
Embedded inside this underlying structure and that's that's different than the idea of progress, which is something that that you're
Focusing on and that I think is more
Attributable to the development. Let's say of science and technology, but it still seems to me that
The Enlightenment had to have an under structure that enabled it to emerge for those
self-evident truths to be
Accepted universally as self-evident and well exactly
I agree that there that those aren't scientific ideas
And this is these the set of ideas that I draw together under the rubric of humanism. It's not clear that
that the
Self-evident right to life liberty. The pursuit of happiness is particularly judeo-christian
I think I don't think you could find that in US Scripture and in fact in the Jewish tradition
God chose the Jews who were the chosen people so the idea of universal. Yeah
Human Worth and well-being. It's not a particularly Jewish notion. Ali is a particularly Christian notion
You've got to it's only you you have to accept Jesus in order to
escape
Eternal damnation, none of that's in the Declaration what self-evident is things that are almost prerequisite to even considering?
What ought to go into a country or or anything else namely you've got to be alive rather than dead
You've got to be able to
Express opinions in order to even have that conversation. So you've got freedom happiness as we know from from
evolutionary considerations
It's basically the set of motives that kept our ancestors alive and allowed us to come into existence in the first place
combating of a grinder of entropy
So I think that the foundation of that enlightenment we there's not particularly judeo-christian
But more existential it just comes from what are the actual?
prerequisites to being a
incarnate reasoning of creature ok, so
I'm gonna press you on two
elements of that and I'm not
Disagreeing with you by the way, because I'm not convinced. I'm right
it's just that these this is how things have laid themselves out for me and my thinking I mean
One of the things that's very interesting about the book of Genesis. Is that it?
insists that
Human beings are made in the image of God and that that gives them a bit
Intrinsic value and that they're made in the image of God
regardless of whether they're male or female and
Then I know the Jews emerge as the chosen people
In the Old Testament, but there's also a strong
idea
powerful
conceptual idea in the Old Testament that emerges that
The people of Israel the true Israelites are those who wrestled with God?
This was like an it's like an it's like an existential adventure. It's partly based on blood
it's partly based on ethnicity, but there's a conceptual idea to there that there's the
struggle for ethical endeavor
let's say and the struggle for for for the discovery of the meaning of existence is
actually what marks out the truth follower of God and then as
Judaism
Transforms itself at least in some part into Christianity
what I see happening is that
you you get the idea that that
identity with God that existed in Genesis that that intrinsic value
starts to become more humanized that really
manifests itself sort of fully in the Renaissance that that the religious figures start to become more individual and that the idea that each
Individual does in fact have a divine worth
that that keeps the state at bay is
Part of what allows for the conception that people are deserving of the chance
independently of their ethnicity and the race and their creed and their sexuality
to do such things as pursue life liberty and happiness and I see cuz otherwise I can't see I
can't see
Where the ideas would have? Otherwise he merged?
during pointed
but it's um
You know partly the enlightened came about as a reaction to see what happens if you ground
even worth in religious doctrines such as the European Wars of Religion Parker
unprecedented carnage and together with the burning of heretics
If you're going back to to have scriptures particularly in the in the Hebrew Bible
God commands the Israelites to engage in one genocide after another
There is no
Prohibition against slavery, there's no prohibition against rape. There's no prohibition against grisly
Forms of torture for victimless crimes like I like working on the Sabbath
I don't I don't think is very easy to come up come up with a notion of universal
even rights from either scripture or Christianity
I think the reason that it happened to me in the Enlightenment
who knows why anything happened to the exact moment did it did hardly it was a realization of the
Internecine carnage from the Wars of Religion but also it's when you when you start to peel away
Scripture and dogma and doctrine what you're left with is our common humanity namely
The there's no way that I can insist that only my interests are special and you're not because I'm me and you're not
And and I hope for you to take take me seriously seriously engage in any kind of discourse with diverse
other people what we
are forced to
To fall back on is what we have in common namely. We are on both sentient
We are both rational the ability to suffer. We have the ability to flourish
I made it the same stuff as you. I can't claim that that you don't suffer
That would be a ludicrous
Proposition and that's what gives you the notion of
universal human rights and as government as a derivative means of
pursuing those rights as opposed to say
Divinely ordained
It's so hard like this because it depends to some degree on your time frame and also on
Whether you take the broad picture or you constant the details to some degree because
mm-hmm, like I mean, I've got no objection to any of the
descriptions of the horrors of
Religious tribalism that you just laid out. I mean I would place that
more in the domain of tribalism than in the domain of religion because I think the tribalist tendency is the
warlike tendency that
the movie
Although the most severely punished heretics are often those within the tribe
Those are the ones would be really what a burn at. The strength is an example
so it's not it is I think there's tribal so I think there's also a kind of
Puritanical
Emphasis on the pure essence that anyone who contaminates the body politic must be
expelled
Well, you see that with taboo violations in absolutely tribal system wealth or terian ISM
the
challenging a
Legitimate Authority is itself inherently
evil, it's not the idea that
Criticizing the leader is essential to the health of a nation
Which is constitutive our idea of democracy in freedom of speech you have the ability to make fun of the president. Yes
The moral obligation to and we're obligation to it Madison, that's a deeply unintuitive
feeling that the natural human tendency is to we know this from the work of people like a rich waiter and John height and
I know this is that less measure stay
Attacking the king is a a mortal sin that reject the height
Hierarchies or themselves often moralized that's a natural human idea
That was I guess isn't it's a deconstructed or or reject it
I joined the Enlightenment including the rationale for government laid out in the Declaration
CP it's a funny thing because
what I see happening is that over the thousands of years of of
religious thinking let's say that that went on in the West is that
What emerged in this was the idea that there was something?
akin to
deity that characterized human beings and that stated very early on in the religious tradition and in a very surprising way partly because it's
Distributed between men and women equally and it seems to be partly a creative function in that human beings
partake in the co-creation of existence and partly an ethical function in that we're called upon to
Act courageously in truthfully and and that's that's that's the core ID. I think that's expressed in Genesis
and it's it's a it's a really
sophisticated
And demanding idea and then I see it
Like the mustard seed that that's part of the parable in them in the New Testament
It's this tiny idea that takes root and against incredible odds
manifests itself across the centuries until what we get is an
increasing
realization of the universality of humanity and that that constitutes part of the core of the Enlightenment and you know
you made arguments about religious sectarianism and and also the and and
and religious like tribal warfare, but the funny thing is is that I would say that the critics of
your defense of the
Western enlightenment project
might point to the same
details in some sense and to say well
Look at the consequences of
Enlightenment thinking there's being endless warfare since the Enlightenment. There's been a tremendous
generation of destructive technology
the the negatives
Which you can point to case by case and piece by piece
arguably outweigh the positives
I mean
I certainly don't believe that but people could make that case and so it's not so difficulty when you're when you try to take a
long view of history
to decide
What?
Which part of the melody you focus on like is it deep?
Yeah me or is it the details that that that seem to work against those themes?
Yes, why of course talk about the trajectory?
historical trajectory of warfare in some detail in the better angels of our nature with with something of a very I were praising the
chapter on keys
And it's certainly not true that Wars increased after the event quite contrary
I if you look at the percentage of years that the great powers they were at war with each other
it actually goes goes down starting in the
7th 17th century
Great power wars don't even occur anymore. We haven't had one for
65 years, but be it is what happened was that that in the centuries after the
18th century there were two trends that we're in opposite directions
Which is that Wars actually got shorter and less frequent are the ones that did occur got deadlier. That is
countries got more efficient at killing more people in a shorter amount of time partly because of
weaponry but also just because of social organization being able to can script large numbers of
Young men and then send them to the battlefield as cannon fodder
Until and a lot of that was driven actually by counter Enlightenment ideologies of nationalism
which mention both both world wars and
Starting in 1945 for the first time Wars became less frequent
Shorter and less deadly. And so the first time in I think in human history, you have a systematic move away from
occurred after 1945 with the formation of the United Nations with a kind of
unprecedented
Universalism the kind of global consciousness including all races all religions
Still not of course universally accepted and even as an aspiration about that's something that's pretty new in human history
It did not occur during the time of thee and European enlightenment in the 18th century
but I think it was the the
consolidation of
Enlightenment ideals including the formation of the United Nations which was a call for by by a manual countenance essay a perpetual
Peace which of course did not happen
about it
but we've enjoyed it students and crucially for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the United Nations now the
Sustainable development goals you have people coming together
nations coming together some of them not from a
judeo-christian tradition by date by any means but who can't agree on things like well, it's really better if
People live there afraid I of disease. It's better if eighties I don't don't die in their first year of life
It's better if kids go to school. It's better if we don't go to war
It's better if we have a clean environment all these things that we have in common because we're human beings. Mmm
on the
lack of the utility of unnecessary suffering
Something like that and maybe the even the lack of the utility of unnecessary
Malevolence, that's something you don't need to be
Oh, yeah, you need to do to endorse thatis be a humanist have the ability to to suffer or or to flourish
So, okay. So let me switch this a bit if you don't mind
and I'd like to speak a bit more personally if you would, um
What's the consequence for you?
Over the last year of this
increasing public
Exposure and also controversy and what do you think just out of curiosity about being associated with this?
loose
IDW you know, which is that no one really joined, but just be merged out of the blue
I mean, I think that's all the people in it in some sense. You're the most surprising
member because
Bob well, yes. Yeah, you may be the prototype
All right. Yeah, and yeah and I am
More providing it just comes from being
you know just
not I'm not having drunk the kool-aid of a
political correctness
identitarian ISM social justice warfare
lokhnath as long as you're not
part of that tribe as long as you haven't signed up to and
associated with this this of course whimsical humorous entity copy it
Right, right social you need to find it's a joke because of course there is a dark web, right?
Because it's a ridiculous Club, I mean I've been trying to figure out what
characterizes the people who've been
loosely aggregated in that
association, you know, and I think that
a certain
Fortunate independence is part of it. You know that almost everyone in that group has their own
Means of support I mean, you're a university professor obviously and that could be taken from you
but I mean you have nine books and many of them are bestsellers and like you you have the means to
Keep yourself operating as an independent being
without being
dependent on any
necessary
External bureaucracy and I have and I also have tenure which means that I'm a little harder to fire than most people in those jobs
So that gives me a certain I used to be cynical about
Ten years. It's
A unique cynic you are of University Professors, but there isn't part of the initial rationale
Giving you some and degree of intellectual independence. I'm really coming to appreciate
Ten years like the Canadian Senate it's useless except when it's absolutely necessary
Hey, yeah
Yeah
I think it's really and
politically
of course the people in this I mean there is no there's as you said there's no such thing as an
intellectual dark whether accepts the kind of joke, but the people who are
Connected to it. I did have a certain amount of
unwillingness to
To kowtow will bow down to some of the pioneers that have become
Orthodox on many college campuses and in some of being
elite
Media this politically the people who've been connected to it. Are are are pretty diverse. They're very diverse
They're there
There's there's almost the complete range except for the absence of people who are politically, correct
the other thing that's fair interesting about the group two other things I would say is that
They've been very effective
users of social media and
also
They don't think that their audience is stupid
you know, yes, I think that's I think that is that is a
True and it's one of the keys to effective teaching to effective communication
one of the
first bits of advice I got when I made the
crossover from academia to popular writing from an editor at a university press you told me the mistake that academics often make when they
Try to reach a broad audience as they talk down. They assume that their audience is not as ladies
They are so the key is assume that your audience is your intellectual here
But they happen not to know some stuff that you know
well
I offer that also as writing advice in my books the sense of style but you're a but you're also right that this
the independent minded
people that we've been talking about
try not to use
Insults and put downs not as a means of argument not even so much
their audience thinks stupider, but rather being evil if you don't agree with me, and you are a
reprehensible
That's definitely a mistake
With within the bounds of that group, let's say I think it's a brand mistake. Let's say whenever that happens
so well, and of course it's apples if that defines the kind of
Political
politically correct social justice warfare that these people are reacting to
namely that the
The the mode of argument that I think we're all trying to move to
Distance ourselves from is that if you don't agree with me and you are a moral crap, right, right, and so, okay
So now what's been the personal consequences for you? Like you've been at the center of a fair bit of controversy?
Yeah
I mean, it's very difficult to have a series of best-selling books for example in speaking tours and so forth without
being
controversial in some way because it probably indicates that you're saying anything of any real novelty or importance but
What how has it affected you and and has it been a net positive or a net negative and then how are people reacting?
To you. Oh
it's unquestionably a net positive and at least so far I have
Certainly escaped. They
Kind of beat the outrage logs that we know can be
Aroused by advancing
Ever heterodox opinions. I have gotten you know, some anger I have I was
Subject of a rather bizarre incident where a panel that I was on
Called the political correctness
Like Donald Trump where some of mine
my remarks were
Spliced in the video it was then
cited by the
By all right in neo-nazis which went to a kind of denunciation on the Left
Fortunately in my case, I can't complain because the New York Times stepped into my defense. Jesse single wrote an op-ed
With my photo adorning it saying how social media making a stupid and using the attack on me as evidence with
Pathology, so social media, so I came out of that
Unscathed on the other hand, I do live in in some degree of fear
But the mob could turn on me at any at any moment. It was a wonderful
essay by Eddie by Neil Ferguson
Expressing a similar fear he said well, my wife is made of a braver stuff than I tells me not to worry
She's made her stuff than almost a pulse in the world. So I don't suppose the joke, of course his wife being I understand. Sorry
bravest people on the planet
But that was a sly little bit of humor for those who know his personal situation and a reminder that people have withstood
Much fiercer attacks than in you must have to worry about
Right, right, right and how are people responding to you in public like when you're out in public?
I mean you're you're a rather striking figure you're easy to recognize
What happens when you when you go out?
Or how do its form to you? Oh, it's a it's
Positive I have nothing to complain about people people recognize me and I expect after this
What we're doing now airs that I'll be recognized
Even more because I know that you have quite a diverse
following
but in
also in person as we know people tend to MIT often mitigate the kind of animosity that is easy to express in
we when you're anonymous in claiming the
shield of
Social media removing the people are a much more civil face-to-face. I have gotten you know a lot of
Warmth I've gotten to my surprise a number of people writing to me saying that I've been good for their mental health
My core let us say even though technically maybe flanked you. I'm a psychologist unlike you I'm not a clinical psychologist
I have no confidence whatsoever
intriguing
Xiety depression psychological problems but for them and I even have to explain to people and asked me what I do for a living I
Didn't I tend to avoid saying I'm a psychologist even though that's what my degree is a great
The people assume that I'm a clinical psychologist
Which I'm not so I sometimes say have a cognitive scientist cuz no one has any idea what that mean
You know, I think you'd be good for my mental health. Well, that's what some people for the first time in my life
I said I kind of learned that credential but some people write and they say I just I'm so
Dejected and discouraged and downtrodden by reading the news that when I come across
The data being presented that humanity has been improving. It actually is is good for my mental health. I don't feel as despairing or
for my children for myself for the future
You're also it's more than that it's not it's not only that you're saying it's
Deeper than that for a couple of reasons. I mean first of all
you're a credible source and like
Naive optimism is worse than cynical pessimism, I think
Because it's too fragile
it's too we damaged but your
Optimism isn't naive it's it's data based and it's well researched
and so you can go in there as a pessimist like as a powerful pessimist and you can think oh, oh
Well, look at that look at that and and look at that and and it's not just one or two things
It's enough things
So that starts to be a story and you think oh well
Maybe we're not going to hell in a handbasket quite as fast as we thought we were and then not necessarily. Yeah
well
at least not necessarily yes well and that starts something but then there's a there's a an
implicit message there too, which is
Perhaps the Enlightenment message itself, which is that. Well, not only are things getting better
but human beings are the sorts of creatures that could make things better if they chose to and
that's that's a
Radical message I think I mean one of the things I've noticed about what people respond positively to
in my lectures is my
insistence to them that they could be
They may not be but they could be
Powerful forces for good and powerful beyond really in some ways beyond the limits of their imagination
Is that human beings?
unbounded
Rationally, even from an Enlightenment perspective independent of the metaphysics is that we do have the capacity to address
incredibly complicated problems and with good will and
caution and a certain degree of intelligence we can actually
Make them better and I think that that's a deeply
positive message especially for young people who'd be raised on nothing but a steady diet of
disenfranchisement and like nihilistic pessimism about the future
Indeed and and it has been a source of tension in my own
intellectual autobiography because and I
know that I'm not an optimist about the human condition by but by ideology or by background fact
I wrote a book called the blank slate on the modern denial of human nature
we're not blank slates that we are equipped by evolution with that not a lot of motives some of which are not not so
doesn't smell so conducive to human well-being like tribalism like
authoritarianism like my greed like cognitive illusions like self exception, but that what what
shifted my worldview
it's really coming across data that came is as much of a
Surprise to me as to anyone showing that violence is going down and it is fun
How did prosperity is gone up and then have tried to resolve that attention? How could me as a species both?
burn each other alive and
engage in in rate the discrimination and genocide
I mean the other hand somehow managed to power this improvement and I think it comes from the fact that we have more
Cognitively and psychologically complex. We have a number of ugly motives
But we also have some modicum of empathy we have self-control
We have cognitive
Processes that allow us to reason we have language that allows us to share our ideas
and if we manage to channel those with the right institutions with a commitment to free speech to
democracy to science to empirical testing
Then we can mobilize the better angels of our nature as Abraham and and kind of eke out
Its of improvement despite our worst selves. I think it's quite comical that you used a religious seller
Analogy title. I mean because I think part of the case that you're making
and I would say this is a narrative case to some degree is that
Despite the depth of human depravity
Which is definitely something that you did discuss in the blank slate
Although not as intensely as some people have that good
so to speak has the capacity to triumph over evil and and sorrow
Despite the depths of both of those and that that is also an unbelievably
optimistic message because I don't believe that you can be a credible voice for
opt ISM and and and
What would you say?
Someone who celebrates the human spirit
Unless you're very cognizant of its Darris because otherwise you're just not informed, you know
right enemy
That's right, and you have to I think
Value the hard-won human institutions and norms that don't actually necessarily
Come naturally to us
Like the rule of law like like free speech like empirical
facing arguments on a caracal data things that are have to be
Inculcated every generation. We're not doing such a good job with
Generation, I sometimes think but it's because of these
these games that we've invented that bring out our our better side that we have been able to overcome our our
Inner demons are darker angels. I wonder sometimes - I wonder what you think about this
I mean, you know when I grew up and when you grew up
You know from the end of World War two until let's say 1989
there were real reasons for apocalyptic thinking and in my estimation, you know, they
the
massive buildup of the thermo nuclear arsenal and the
constant tension and testing between
especially the Soviets and and the Western bloc
They at the times when we came so close to nuclear annihilation, I think
for several generations
And then also in the 60s the discovery of human beings as a as let's say a planet
Transforming force on an ecological level. I think there were real reasons for people to be
terrified into a kind of apocalyptic
pessimism and I kind of wonder sometimes if one of the things that you're not battling against is
What would you say is is the revelation that that period of time in some sense is over
Is that that particularly pound lips god-willing?
has been
Reduced substantially in probability and we can now start to think about the future in a positive way again
But man, it was 45 years
You know and not counting World War 2 which I think we probably shouldn't count. It was 45 years where everyone was
Well being being taught that if they put themselves under their desks as elementary school
Yes, I was gonna protect them from an atomic blast. And so
Coming out of that
Now, that's true. I think 1989 truly was momentous
It was the the end of the Cold War and the worst threats of nuclear exchange
It also led to a decline in the number of proxy wars in Asia and Africa and South America
Which people don't appreciate look at the horrific wars that are taking place now such as in Yemen and Syria
and you might think that were in a
Unprecedented area of warfare, but this is nothing compared to the seventies and eighties were Africa was in flames. They were
The word that man killed far more people than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Syria
combined
There were threats like I mean the Yom Kippur War in 1973
Richard Nixon raised the level of nuclear
alert something that has not happened since
these really were perilous times is it's quite apart from
The Cold War Iran and Iraq are their version world war one which threatened to choke the flow of oil out of Persian Gulf
bringing the world economy to a halt and then
so the people forget how
How awful these 60 seventies and eighties were in terms of right?
It was also the fact that well in Africa and in South America, I would say in particular
Those proxy wars also
being also ideological Wars
Absolutely
Stifled economic development both in South America and in Africa and one of the reasons that we've seen this unparalleled
Improvement in economic conditions. Let's say
Well, it's obvious in China because of their market reforms but in Africa is at least in part because there aren't there
isn't a coterie of
insane Soviet dictators
dictating economic policy to African leaders
that's absolutely encounter productive and pathological and so just by removing that source of
Trouble much less adding anything new and good just by getting that source of trouble the Africans have been able to
free themselves from the worst excesses of the most foolish
Economic theories of the 20th century and I are really is it started to manifest itself in the 2000s?
that was part of it and there is each effect is the others so that
Poverty makes civil war more likely and vice versa because war is system called development in Reverse
And that nothing is worse for an economy. Then if schools are being blown up and people pulled out of their offices and shot and
Institutions destroyed as quickly as they can be built markets
transportation networks
but also if countries are poor and then it's true that Marxist economic ideas make countries poor and it becomes
more attractive to join militias and should
Rebel rebel groups because the government isn't doing anything for you and quite a lot of young men who have nothing better to do
With their time their loyalty is commanded by the incompetent government
And then of course
Both superpowers would under the insurgency movements that opposed
whichever governments the
The other superpower was supporting so we're an amplifying the problem which consequence will find the problem
Yes, people forget when people will talk about what a terrible state the world is in now they often forget
how awful the Cold War was for the
Great right rate witches. Okay. So let let me close with this if you would we've had a good conversation
What what didn't what are you working on at the moment that's occupying you that you have hopes for and
What are your general hopes, let's say for the next three or four years. I mean your career is
Ascendant in a manner that is true very few people and you have a tremendous global impact
I would say All Things Considered and one that as far as I'm concerned is
Overwhelmingly to the good
What's next for you? And and what would you like to see happen in the future for you over the over the next few years?
Well for the world
I would certainly like to see a push back against authoritarian populism and a momentum going back to the forces of
Humanism
cosmopolitanism of globalism
acqua see
against the
identity rien politics primarily of the
Populist right since they are in power, but also of these begins left
but the renewal of the narrative that we
If we think about what we all have in common as human beings and if we apply our brain power
overcoming our
Cognitive limitations and we can solve problems
Climate change being a big one if I have my own views on climate change at all, its special imminent, you know Times editorial
It's coming out in a couple of days
They're gonna get you in trouble, uh, yes it will and I'm
Looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to seeing what you think. It's a very common problem. It is a very complicated problem, but
And I think some of the activists are making it making it more complex and worse, but I'll leave that as a little enigma
Until people check out that article. Oh boy seeking enlightenment now, okay and
academically and
academically
I've done am another studies over the years taking off from an interest in how language is used in a social context
I prefer a large part of my career. I studied language
It may be curious about well why we all just worry about what we mean so much at the time he issued bail threats
sexual commands that are kind of folded between the lines
We show a salary and you eat around the bush
That led me to the concept of
Common knowledge game theory since I know something, you know something I know you know it
You know that I know it. I know that you know that I know that you know
or not cases where we each know something who's not so sure but the other guy knows that you know, I think that suddenly I
think it's usually powerful in our
social and emotional lives and I have a I'm going to start writing a book in two years whose tentative title is
Don't go there common knowledge and the science of civility
hypocrisy of rage
Extremely interested mean one of the things that I've observed, you know is that people people have a hierarchy of values and then the
Deeper in the hierarchy the value is
embedded the more
Experiential reality is stabilized the more its united under a single goal and the more it's brought
into out of uncertainty and I think we have rules that are like
Don't disrupt
Too much of someone's map
Territory with any given utterance and so we we tend a bit to play on the periphery, you know
Like it might be too much for you to stand to be outright
objected by or
rejected by someone that you're sexually attracted to you know, because it casts light on your validity as a
Acceptable source of DNA. Let's say but to play a bit and to tease a bit
and allow you to
Accept
Carefully and
casually delivered
Playful rejection without it having to go way down into the depths of your character. It's like to me
necessary force doctrine
Yes, sorry, I've got a technical snap
Yes, I think there is there is there is a lot to that just the ego threat of being
rejected but in addition I we have we divide our social relationships into qualitatively different categories and
a
Essential relationship really is different from a friendship or a workplace relationship
It is an inescapable fact that often people are sexually attracted to each other sometimes one attracted to the other but not not vice-versa
To often indeed
There is something that is
Inherently threatening about a say a professional relationship on a friendship. Yes
the sex is kind of oh, he blurted out even though
Paradoxically any grown-up knows there's got to be sexual attraction a lot of heterosexual
relationships that are not overtly sexual
So he might know it she might know it but as long as he doesn't know that she knows that he knows that she knows
He knows it. Then you can work under the fiction that the
Relationship is 100% platonic or 100% professional?
There's something about learning it out which generates common knowledge neither side in denied. The other one knows that they know it, right
Unequivocally changes the qualitative nature of the relationship once it's as we say, it's out there. It's out there you can't take it back
Because
the explicit
statement imagine that you have implicit motivations and
many of them and as implicit motivations
they have a relatively low probability of being manifested, but when you
Formalize that implicit motivation in speech do you suppose?
you move the
Probability of enacting it up the hierarchy and therefore pose more of a threat to the other person
Is that the speech is somehow closer to action?
Then do you think so but I think it's even I think it's even deeper than that
I don't think it's just sort of an analogue shit along the scale. There is something qualitatively different about learning something out
That's for sure. I think we we subdivide our
relationships into different types
a thority
Subordinate
Equal sharing and
Community of interest
Exchange when these can take place over different
resources over money over sex over
aid and
We don't know we are very attentive to which one holds between in a given dyad, you know particular time
Each one is a different coordination game as the game theorist would put it where we both again
We're on in the same cell if we're on the same page, but if we're yet discrepant understandings
Then there can be in mild form, awkwardness
embarrassment in the
extreme case shock
The problem of dual relationships that are often talked about in
professional ethics
You know that it's very of course very difficult to have a unit dimensional relationship with someone but you're constantly
Warned, ethically not to for example
If you're a clinical psychologist not to make a friend out of your client and to say nothing about my sexual prime
Absolutely, nothing of that. Yes exactly. These sorts of things happen between professors and students
And so and I think to some degree they're inevitable
But the dual relationship problem also means that you end up playing
at least two games with different outcomes and so the aims become blurry and the degree of
Conceptual confusion also increases and no I'm not exactly sure why
Making that explicit would necessarily make it worse, but it does seem to be associated with on
What would you call unn?
an unwise complexification of the situation
absolutely, and this is that kind of
Social emotional dynamic that I will be writing about in in that don't go there exactly that paradox
Well, I'm very much looking forward to
Reading it and um, and also one of my dreams by the way, I don't know what you think about this
I think it would be fun and
I suppose this is perhaps an invitation
I think it would be fun to sit down with you and Ben Shapiro and have a talk about
Religion and the Enlightenment and and the state of the modern world
I don't know if you'd ever be interested in doing something like that
not a political discussion, you know, but uh
but uh because I think there is there is something to be thought out in a serious way between
The Enlightenment types like you and like sam Harris for example, because I would put him in the same
Well not in the same category, but in a similar. Yeah, I think we're where where there's a lot of overlap. Yeah
Yeah, and and then people like Sarah like Ben and I who are and maybe the Union and they're analysts
for example who tend to view
The historical movement towards increased
freedom and prosperity as a longer process
there's really something there that needs to be hashed out and it's really complicated and
might be fun to have a conversation about that at some point if you if
you are ever interested in if you ever have the time I
accept the invitation
I'll talk to Ben because okay. I
Think we could have a good conversation, you know and scrap it out a bit
and see if we could get somewhere because I
Really liked your books
You know
I really liked enlightenment now and I regard myself
In many ways as as a pearl enlightenment figure. I mean, I'm very scientifically minded. There are a lot of
empirical research and learned a tremendous amount from it and I certainly believe that the mastery of
Science and technology has been a major
contributor to the
furtherance of
Human wellbeing and and there's something to be said for the solidity of an objective
materialist view of the world
but there's there's an element there that seems to me to be
Troublesome that
Leads to a kind of nihilism which which interestingly enough you happened to be fighting with some of your optimism
which is quite quite nice to see
but I think there's fertile discussion there too to
reconcile
Maybe to reconcile some of the unnecessary
tension between the different streams of thought that have made Western culture and world culture for that matter the
remarkable
creation that it actually is I
Think that could be fruitful deed
Alright, well, is there anything else that you'd like to mention to people any forthcoming talks?
You have or public appearances or things you'd like to draw their attention to or are we?
Are we at the end of a fruitful discussion?
Problem is we could just keep going
so where to start I will be I'm
Often on the road. I'm often giving public public
Lectures and discussions. I have one. I'm having a public event Paul Krugman next week at Brown University
Nothing next week by the time you circulate speaking the past tense. It's my turn
But you're on my website. I have a listen about going. Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay. Well, it's pretty fun to see that there's a
public audience for this sort of discussion named who would have guessed what
Much more than anyone would have guessed just about five years ago. He admits. It's
Absolutely another reason for optimism
Let's open
very nice talking to you and thank you very much for taking the time and
good luck with your
your talks and your and your
academic endeavors and with your attempts to
help people
understand that there's
Reason to be hopeful now and perhaps even more reason to be
Hopeful in the future and about people that's a hell of a thing for someone who doesn't think there's a blank slate
Indeed. Thank you, and thanks for having me on great pleasure talking with you. Thanks very much. Okay, thank you. Let's stay in touch
Bye. Bye