If you had to make a list of ideal dinner guests, you'd just have to include this endlessly fascinating couple. Marvellous talk, thank you for uploading.
45:07 i strongly disagree all vegans/vegetarians i know would cite the gruesome conditions in which animals are kept as cause for their eating habits only very few had ever heard of peter singer. of course it´s anecdotal but i´d bet if you question vegans/vegetarians on a global scale on what made them change their ways the answer would not be peter singer.
Lloyd deMause is a psychohistorian with a very reasonable thesis (to my mind). He writes: "The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused... Historians have concentrated so much on the noisy sand-box of history, with its fantastic castles and magnificent battles, that they have generally ignored what is going on in the homes around the playground. And where historians usually look to the sandbox battles of yesterday for the causes of those of today, we instead ask how each generation of parents and children creates those issues which are later acted out in the arena of public life." If you look at Harvard's Center for the Developing Child, the science shows the impact of experience during critical periods of development. For millennia, it has been our ignorance of biology (of what is actually true about development, equality, the biological basis for learning and neuromotor readiness, the effects of global neglect, PTSD, etc.) that has allowed us to make egregious errors in the past. As we continue to invent instruments of measure (like fMRI's, sequencing the genome, etc.) we are better able to bring our behavior into harmony with actual reality --instead of superstition; cognitive biases or heuristics, cultural conditioning/doxa; and so on. The impact of Dr. Maria Montessori's work should also not be underestimated (regardless of the fact that it not well known in the mainstream) as it fundamentally challenged the prevailing view of childhood, especially by removing all punishments and rewards --and providing environments that are a precise match and support for the physiological and neurological requisites at each moment of the child's development. Her philosophic views are similar to Spiral Dynamics (that as humanity moves forward through time, we have been building upon previous understanding- and accumulating greater skill sets to draw upon for the purposes of problem solving and accurately responding to reality -both individually and as a species) and that for the world to continue to progress, we must become aware of maturational needs of the human organism beginning at birth (and before) leading to the healthy expression and actualization of each individual's full potential --affecting communities and nations as well. I believe that in the future, people will wonder why it took us so long to realize that we cannot raise children in ways that are in direct conflict with human biology --and still expect healthy and optimal outcomes. www.psychohistory.com/htm/p1x22.htm developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/multimedia/interactive_features/biodevelopmental-framework/ faculty.virginia.edu/ASLillard/PDFs/Lillard%20(2012).pdf
I would like some data on the question of whether hunter-gatherers were as violent as Dr. Pinker suggests. Studies of people living on the margins of capitalism today are not the same thing as studies of true hunter-gatherer societies.
Very good stuff. My only issue would be that he has not made any connection between moral progress and other kinds of progress like technological, social and economic. For example, it is obviously easier to have a discussion about the rights and wrongs of slavery when slaves are no longer suitable for the economy that one is trying to build. That is obviously the difference between ancient Greece and the USA. The same idea could be applied to the declining British Empire at the end of WW2 and the empire at its height a century earlier. I think issues like these need to be added to the equation along side reason, novels, and empathy.
I like very much Stephen Pinker, but there is a problem in his theory of violence: the abolition of slavery was not due to the values of Enlightenment, but to Capitalism. How people will buy stuff if they do not get wage?
I wonder what he would have said about abortion, in the context of "settled" moral issues. It is obviously not settled in the U.S.; does he think it might ever be?
Injustices justified with false pretences become unjustifiable once those false pretences are falsified.
If you had to make a list of ideal dinner guests, you'd just have to include this endlessly fascinating couple. Marvellous talk, thank you for uploading.
45:07 i strongly disagree all vegans/vegetarians i know would cite the gruesome conditions in which animals are kept as cause for their eating habits only very few had ever heard of peter singer. of course it´s anecdotal but i´d bet if you question vegans/vegetarians on a global scale on what made them change their ways the answer would not be peter singer.
I loved it. Thank you!
Lloyd deMause is a psychohistorian with a very reasonable thesis (to my mind). He writes: "The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused...
Historians have concentrated so much on the noisy sand-box of history, with its fantastic castles and magnificent battles, that they have generally ignored what is going on in the homes around the playground. And where historians usually look to the sandbox battles of yesterday for the causes of those of today, we instead ask how each generation of parents and children creates those issues which are later acted out in the arena of public life."
If you look at Harvard's Center for the Developing Child, the science shows the impact of experience during critical periods of development.
For millennia, it has been our ignorance of biology (of what is actually true about development, equality, the biological basis for learning and neuromotor readiness, the effects of global neglect, PTSD, etc.) that has allowed us to make egregious errors in the past. As we continue to invent instruments of measure (like fMRI's, sequencing the genome, etc.) we are better able to bring our behavior into harmony with actual reality --instead of superstition; cognitive biases or heuristics, cultural conditioning/doxa; and so on.
The impact of Dr. Maria Montessori's work should also not be underestimated (regardless of the fact that it not well known in the mainstream) as it fundamentally challenged the prevailing view of childhood, especially by removing all punishments and rewards --and providing environments that are a precise match and support for the physiological and neurological requisites at each moment of the child's development.
Her philosophic views are similar to Spiral Dynamics (that as humanity moves forward through time, we have been building upon previous understanding- and accumulating greater skill sets to draw upon for the purposes of problem solving and accurately responding to reality -both individually and as a species) and that for the world to continue to progress, we must become aware of maturational needs of the human organism beginning at birth (and before) leading to the healthy expression and actualization of each individual's full potential --affecting communities and nations as well.
I believe that in the future, people will wonder why it took us so long to realize that we cannot raise children in ways that are in direct conflict with human biology --and still expect healthy and optimal outcomes.
www.psychohistory.com/htm/p1x22.htm
developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/multimedia/interactive_features/biodevelopmental-framework/
faculty.virginia.edu/ASLillard/PDFs/Lillard%20(2012).pdf
The way he corrects her about her accidental misquoting of Plato/Socrates is so adorable.
I would like some data on the question of whether hunter-gatherers were as violent as Dr. Pinker suggests. Studies of people living on the margins of capitalism today are not the same thing as studies of true hunter-gatherer societies.
40:35 argument for reason leading moral progress
96% of people are led by the Heart (Mythos). 4% are led by Head (Reason). The 96% are the living past, the 4% are the living future of humanity.
Very good stuff. My only issue would be that he has not made any connection between moral progress and other kinds of progress like technological, social and economic. For example, it is obviously easier to have a discussion about the rights and wrongs of slavery when slaves are no longer suitable for the economy that one is trying to build. That is obviously the difference between ancient Greece and the USA. The same idea could be applied to the declining British Empire at the end of WW2 and the empire at its height a century earlier. I think issues like these need to be added to the equation along side reason, novels, and empathy.
I like very much Stephen Pinker, but there is a problem in his theory of violence: the abolition of slavery was not due to the values of Enlightenment, but to Capitalism. How people will buy stuff if they do not get wage?
I wonder what he would have said about abortion, in the context of "settled" moral issues. It is obviously not settled in the U.S.; does he think it might ever be?
Pinker = genius
I wonder, does he think morality is subjective or objective?