Monday, March 19, 2018

Steven Pinker and the Enlightenment


Seven years ago, Steven Pinker produced the The Better Angels of Our Nature. Somewhere in the book's 800 pages, the Harvard professor cited the Genesis story of Adam and Eve as if it were history, as if Cain killed twenty-five per cent of the world population when he murdered Abel. On this biblical tale he based the claim that violence in the world has decreased. No war ever killed that percentage of the population. Therefore the world is getting better.

The title of his next equally weighty tome bears the exhortation, Enlightenment Now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress. The publicity blurb tells us that presented data demonstrates that wonderful things are happening throughout the word "because of the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science." 

Pinker seems unaware that the so-called Enlightenment of the 18th century led directly to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Influenced by reason and science, thousands were dragged to the guillotine in Paris, tens of thousands more across France. Yet others were shot, drowned, or  burned to death in their homes and churches. The revolutionaries reasoned that science would end social evil, that it would cleanse society and create to a Republic of Virtue. In that spasm of unreason, the terrorists performed rituals to the Goddess of Reason.

Is that the temple in which Harvard Professor Steven Pinker worships?

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Ontario's sell-off of people's power


Merrill Denison wrote the biography of Adam Beck, founder of Ontario Hydro, titled The People’s Power.

The monument to Sir Adam Beck looks out on the intersection of Queen Street West and University Avenue, downtown Toronto.

Ontario Premier Elizabeth Wynne has sold off to private interests 53 per cent of Ontario Hydro.

I suggest a sequel book titled The People’s Loss of Power.

I suggest 53 per cent of the monument be shrouded in purple.