Up@dawn 2.0

Friday, September 21, 2012

A reply to Machiavelli & Hobbes

I re-tweeted skeptic Michael Shermer yesterday:
If you haven't read Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature you should. It is one of the most important social science books ever written.

Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined says we’re trending, as a species, in exactly the opposite direction from that indicated by human nature pessimists like Machiavelli and Hobbes. He makes a great case. Maybe someone would like to read and report on it, to the class, for midterm or final?

In any case, let's stop getting down on our bad selves so much. It's getting better, really! 

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