tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post834489552888909398..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Is the Decline in Violence the Road to Voluntaria?Larry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-20390526141702020102011-11-22T10:57:39.550+00:002011-11-22T10:57:39.550+00:00The premise is the problem.
"If the entire c...The premise is the problem.<br /><br />"If the entire course of human history shows a progressive decline in violence, as Pinker and Payne argue, can we anticipate, as Payne argues, that we are on the evolutionary road to Voluntaria?"<br /><br />The course of human history don't show anything like that. It's particularly enlightening to consider the way Pinker evaluates the last decades of conventional conflict. WWII finished some 65 years ago (in evolutionary terms, a blink) so, the better angels are driving us to Utopia. The little problem are that thingies called Mutual Assured Destruction, Thermonuclear War, Cold War and Fourth Generation Warfare, which are the real forces behind the relative absence of major conventional wars (and just in the First World)<br /><br />And what about Communism with its brutal death toll or the miriad of terrorist movements?<br /><br />Anyway I got to confess I'm not a big fan of Pinker since I read him stating, against all known evidence, that "only differences between a bantu and a swede were cultural".J.K.noreply@blogger.com