Steven Pinker: belief

Transcript context

…If you had to model in as fundamental and abstract a set of terms as possible, not relying on the names of individuals very much, why liberal enlightenment is in retreat today, what does your model look like? I think the most basic answer is that liberal enlightenment is not particularly intuitive. It doesn’t really fit our human nature in the sense of our conception of how our societies ought to be organized. What’s much more natural is tribalism, deference to authority, conformity. I think liberal enlightenment is a great idea. It’s like a lot of counterintuitive discoveries of organized rationality. It is commendable, even if not intuitive. I think there’s a natural backsliding. Unless it’s constantly propped up, people are going to say, “Well, the solution to our problem is we need a strong leader.” What is a strong leader? Once he’s a leader, he gets to say what’s what. The idea that a leader just temporarily presides and is bound by fiduciary duties laid out with checks and balances and safeguards, it’s a fabulous idea. It’s not particularly intuitive, in the same way that markets are not particularly intuitive, in the same way that science is not particularly intuitive, but they’re still good things. It’s natural to think, why do people have superstition, belief in paranormal, belief in woo-woo? Why do they not grasp certain economic fundamentals, like trade is good, it’s not zero-sum? Why is congestion pricing in Uber rational, even though people hate it? There are probably a lot of cases where people, just left to their own devices, backslide away from liberal enlightenment principles. Do you think we have stirring liberal thinkers of today who are younger than 55 years old?…

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