[nwah1]

Pinker is a liberal, in almost any sense you could come up with, either by present standards, or the standards of twenty years ago.

I don't want to seem harsh, but unfortunately it seems warranted. Perhaps you have a poor familiarity with his work, and with the landscape of political thought, and intellectual culture in general.

Or perhaps you are the type of increasingly common individual that this piece is concerned about... an overly tribalistic individual for whom empirical reality conforms to politics.

[afpx]

Feel free to present your argument, which I welcome. I could be wrong and often am.

However, as an Anthropology major at a top tier university during the 90s, I can say for a fact that Pinker challenged convention (at my university, at least) and pushed the humanities toward a view that a person’s attributes were more the result of biology than social conditions. He also pushed against the prevailing postmodernist and relativist perspectives, among other things. And, although I haven’t read some of his recent work, nor kept up with his public views, I don’t see how you can say that “The better angels” is liberal, given that it promotes markets and a policing forms of strong government.

Unfortunately, lots of internet content pre-2000, including discussion forums, has disappeared. So, I’m struggling to link to evidence of discussions happening at that time.

By the way, your comment is pretty much ad-hominem, and normally I wouldn’t respond to you. But, because your type of behavior is the actual topic of conversation, I figured it was worth it. I find it amusing that you believe me a liberal ...

[nwah1]

>Feel free to present your argument, which I welcome.

Sure. You could define a liberal in a number of ways. One possible definition is someone who is "center-left", generally votes for democrats, supports public provisioning of education, healthcare, welfare, and so forth.

Pinker posted regularly on Twitter during the elections, generally supporting Hillary Clinton and opposing Trump.

https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/793455008939401216

In a larger context of liberalism, as opposed to fascism or socialism, again he comes out as a liberal with fairly consistent support for individual rights, in both economic and political realms, although regularly modified by a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis... as is typical of liberals going back to Bentham and JS Mill.

None of what you said about human nature is at odds with his political, economic, and social identification as a liberal. It would've been unusual to find anyone of any era, including the present era, who fully denies the concept of a human nature.

Are there any traits that distinguish humans from anything else? If so, there is a human nature.

>I find it amusing that you believe me a liberal ...

I assumed that you were a member of the radical left, and not a liberal. Anthropology, as a discipline, currently has an overwhelming bias towards this leaning, moreso than nearly any other discipline.

[wastewaste]

You answered to a strawman argument, supporting it even. But its a loosing game for you, because you submit to a dogmatized interpretation that is easy to refute saying nothing would be as black and white as implied by the argument. Parent pretty much implied media presented someone as a strawman, you concord that someone was exemplary for the reduction of an idea, seemingly with the intent to discuss it further, while the parent pretty much suggested to be tired of the discussion.

And you weasel out of the discussion when you suddenly shift to put human nature as a whole into question, just to then shift the goal post to an indefinite plurality of 'humans'.

[ghostbrainalpha]

This is cut and paste from Quora about why Liberals hate Pinker.

>>Pinker has committed an unspeakable sin, at least by Progressive Liberal standards. He believes the Man is born with certain built in modes of operation, particularly mental operation. Call them instincts if you must. In sure Man has a nature. Human Nature.

>>Progressive Liberals and those even further left are committed to the proposition that all of our so-called nature is learned, and that humans are infinitely plastic. Ergo, we can construct a new kind of human who works for the common good, is never "selfish" and never regards the work of his own hands as his property.

>>Naughty Steven. He believes that humans are basic selfish in the sense of being rationally selfish. That will never, never do. Naughty Steven. Shame!