[highfreq]

Pinker wrote an interesting and thought provoking book. Certainly he is trying to make a point, and is a bit selective in the data and how he presents it. But this critique is not so much about the substance of the book, or any data that contradicts Pinker's thesis. It is more a blur of relativism and fancy language. I think it is interesting that physical violence has on many measures and timescales been declining, which the critic doesn't seem to refute. Instead he makes a very odd attack on Pinker for not writing a different history of different meanings of violence. I mean you could make this same critique about anything anyone has ever written, but that would be mere sophistry.

I seriously question if this isn't a parody of modern academic criticism.