Mearsheimer versus Pinker
On the Consequences of the Enlightenment for Moral & Political Life
On 6 November (2023), the Institute of Art & Ideas in London sponsored a debate between me and Steven Pinker on the question:
Has the Enlightenment led to Moral and Political Progress?
Here are the YouTube links for the debate, which comes in two parts:
The full interview can also be found here:
https://iai.tv/video/the-enlightenment-and-its-alternatives-steven-pinker-john-mearsheimer?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=part-two
The idiot Pinker was previously crushed not only by Taleb, but also by a number of prominent historians in the book "The Darker Angels of Our Nature Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence" https://a.co/91q7CiN Must read
I don't even see why "Has the Enlightenment improved moral and political life" is even a debatable question. The Enlightenment is like a political version of the Phillips Curve: instead of trading off inflation for employment we're trading off spiritual, moral, and political cohesion for material prosperity.
The Enlightenment was built on a pre-existing, illiberal, moral order. Unfortunately, Locke's theory of a liberal, value-neutral state undermined its own foundation almost from day 1. The only reason we didn't notice right away was because the Judeo-Christian West had 1700 years of shared cultural inertia going for it. We've run that down now, and the damage from Locke's and Mill's theories is now obvious.
Enlightenment liberalism is dead. Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan and George Will are busy playing Weekend at Bernies with Western liberalism's corpse, but even that party is coming to an end soon. The only question is whether what replaces it will be a far-Left, woke totalitarianism, a right-wing ethno-state, or a secular, Franco-like dictatorship (and no, Donald Trump is not that person -- Franco's primary asset was competence.) As much as I hate to say it, given those options, my vote is for door #3.