Steven Pinker on Noam Chomsky & Sam Harris

TIMESTAMPS: Irina Li

0:00:00 Introduction
0:00:57 What is the Left?
0:02:05 Does Pinker identify with the Left?
0:03:12 When does the Left go too far?
0:05:40 How is the contemporary American Right even worse?
0:07:15 Does Pinker see the rise of the campus Left as becoming more extreme in the past few years?
0:08:31 Increase in social and residential segregation
0:09:52 Do universities follow a propaganda model?
0:10:41 Why are certain disciplines more ideological?
0:11:32 Does the Right pose a greater threat right now?
0:13:42 A market economy in reality vs. libertarian fantasy
0:15:13 How does the identity politics undermine Pinker’s categorization as in-group vs. out-group?
0:15:51 How the idea of a global civilization of transnational organizations is utopian.
0:17:17 Definition of the Enlightenment and its values
0:18:49 What is Pinker’s view of progress?
0:21:45 Does Pinker agree that technological progress is tied to ideological progress?
0:22:44 Does technological progress match to ideological progress in the West?
0:25:08 Is universal human rights a Western concept?
0:21:14 Is the genesis of the Enlightenment uniquely European phenomenon?
0:26:27 Do we run the risk of decaffeinating the Enlightenment into the core essence of human beings that seeks freedom?
0:27:25 Would Pinker attribute the polygenesis of the Enlightenment ideas as a reflection of our human nature?
0:29:36 Is it something that’s beyond humanism?
0:31:50 Are human beings players in the game where the rules are beyond them?
0:34:17 Is there another option to the Enlightenment values?
0:37:05 Pinker’s thoughts on Sam Harris’ “The Moral Landscape”
0:37:53 Is a view of progress compatible with Post-Modernism?
0:39:11 Are some cultures better than others?
0:40:27 The price that enlightened societies paid for their progress
0:43:02 Were those evils contributing factors for the success of enlightened societies?
0:44:43 Is Jordan Peterson causing harm to the Enlightenment project? Thoughts on Noam Chomsky
0:47:48 Thoughts on the redefinition of words
0:52:51 Has any organization ever imposed a certain word, which people had to use?

The conversation is between Curt Jaimungal, Peter Glinos, and Steven Pinker.

[arthurtfm]

This is how an interviewer should ask questions to an expert: short, to the point. No life stories or long-winded forewords. The audience is interested in the expert and the expert has probably much more to say than the interviewer. Congratulations!

[iorr]

I guess you can call it "radical left" relative to how far right we have move in the last 40 years.
Universal healthcare is only radical for the insurance company and big pharma,
More strident environmental laws is only radical for polluters.
What is radical is privatisation of the basic needs for a society to function.

[danieldonaldson]

so Pinker would like to say that libertarianism is the consequence of a campus left that rejects markets out of hand. This is unsupportable. No credible left oriented campus groups are demanding 5 Year Plans, annihilation of markets, or anything else. At the margins this may exist, but to make it emblematic of the left is dishonest. And Libertarianism did not arrive on campus as a reactive product; it’s an ideological construction that has been in play since the 40’s at least, Ayn Rand passim. But this is a quasi-mainstream view, economic extreme radicalism and naïveté that holds comfortable sway not just in the Republican Party, but more important among their funders and controllers, such as the Koch Foundation, Coors Foundation, etc etc. I agree with Pinker that the deciding factor around libertarianism is its detachment from historical and economic reality, and it shouldn’t demand any of our attention. The fact that it does is much more the function of the distortion of astroturfing, and there is not more reason to debate the ideas of libertarianism than there is to debate core tenets of evolutionary theory. It’s reasonable to do so, but only if some novel approach or idea is the reason, Simply to babysitting the people who insist on the primacy of discredited, unsupported fantasies, is the same as bringing Lamarck back into the debate on fundamental organic biochemistry. The fact that they are accorded this space, and that Pinker cannot merely dismiss them, and panders to them, and tries to blame the left for them is indicative of the weakness of his position in this area.

[taochiapet]

it's the "extreme 'middle'" that's the problem. this documentary is fundamentally at odds with reality.

[MariosR]

Chomsky and other scientists accused him of cherry picking data in order to prove his point but he believes that it's their ideology (in this case chomsky's) that lead them to that. He insists that his data are correct even though the scientific community strongly opposed them. It seems like he can't face the accusastions head on or he is the one with an ideology bias. Anyway intresting convo.

[garethstanden]

Great to listen to to Steven as usual. I did fall for the click bait naming of Harris, Chomsky & Peterson though. I think he covers all 3 in under two minutes.

[juzetok]

Don’t agree with him politically, but what a nice fellow, and, as always, what nice hair!

[TenderBug]

This is absolutely a hidden gem can't believe I missed this interview. Thanks guys for making this happen.

[insanisstultitia]

Do not blame Universities for your own faults and dissolution of the utopian society your world view wished it to be. Coming from academia and business world, University is a melting pot of ideas and unvarnished history of events. You are free to accept history, research and debate at your will. Plain and simple. The notion that Universities are left or right or what ever factories is total ignorant of academia as a whole.

[NegatingSilence]

"I have an eclectic mix" - It's just all the totally reasonable opinions that most of the population has. But because of how things are now, it's somehow weird to think those things.

[uforagain]

ask your interviewees to audio record at the site and you will get much better results.

[whatthef]

Good job on an interesting interview. Its too bad that the sound quality on Pinker's side was so poor.

[robstorms]

If you had the guest record his audio on his end ( directly, not through the chat), then sent you the file, and you substituted it for his chat audio, he would not sound like he was at the bottom of the ocean and be so fatiguing to listen to.

[ApexEater]

Pinker strawmans Chomsky and dismisses him as anarchist here. To say that societies with a "state" are less violent is a gross oversimplification similar to handing capitalism a victory for the advances of modern society as if products and markets only rise out of rigid proprietary hierarchies. Pinker is the stereotypical enlightened centrist that is often parodied. He chooses to ignore the bottom up movements that allow any forms of democracy to exist in the first place, so his loathing of "socialism" makes him an obvious hypocrite. This type of obsequious thought circle is what allows moral people to compromise their values under duress or other powerful influences in hierarchical structures which in turn is what allows disparities and atrocities to manifest in the first place. The Pinkers of the world are what Chomsky warns about. "Manufacturing Consent"

[johnfarley]

Why didn't you ask Pinker about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein?

[hrmIwonder]

"Unless you're a totalitarian language despot"... I believe the established term is grammar nazi.

[MarrsAttax]

The guy with the beard sounds like Text-To-Speech

[dariasA]

Was a nice chance for asking him about his relationship with Epstein

[carlosstafford]

Excellent interview, manner, content and tone. Haven’t listened to Pinker much but enjoyed thoroughly his measured stance and viewpoints

[scottnagel]

PInker is a class act. He is not only brilliant and a great writer, he refrains from personal attacks on his critics, even when they deserve it. He is an all around nice guy.