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Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden
Psychology, Medicine, Science, Politics, Oppression, Integrity, Philosophy, Jews -- For those who like their news and truths frank and sharp

Steven Pinker fails to prove that humanity gets less and less violent

I call an 800-page book massive. And I’m not going to read all those pages because wherever I turned in it to browse, I found debilitating mistakes.

The book The Better Angels of Our Nature; the decline of violence in history and its causes appeared in 2011 but I stumbled upon it now.

On Amazon, 1,039 customer reviews gave it 4.4 out of 5 stars. And that’s not all. Bill Gates called it (2017) “The most inspiring book I’ve ever read.” (Computers killed book reading so maybe it’s the only book he ever read and he secretly hates books?) The New York Times called it “supremely important.” And the Wall Street Journal called it “masterly” while Slate branded it “a monumental achievement.” The Washington Post opined: “well argued” (sic) and Time said: “highly persuasive.” However, Science recommends it diplomatically for “Everyone with an interest in language.”

I don’t know if there is a definite explanation for this but often, when people are brilliant at languages (including reporters), they’re absolutely lousy at math. And those brilliant at math, are many times absolutely lousy at languages. (I’m not particularly good or bad at whichever so I can spot someone doing a lousy job at either.) And here we have a language guy who’s going to prove a historic trend based on statistics? Even statisticians easily mess up with statistics. How could he do this? Well, he couldn’t.

Let me give you several examples.

* * *

Early on in the book, he discusses the Hebrew Bible. At least, that’s what the subheading says. Of course, I looked there — surprised. Well, no worry, he didn’t study the Torah. He looked at an English-Christian translation and commentary without admitting that. Almost a sin in his trade, no?

He goes through the Biblical pages and soon gets at the murder of Abel by Cain. At a human population of 4, that a percentage of murderers of 25. So, from there, mankind was only going to improve.

Why didn’t he start at the Big Bang, then? Then the whole Universe was violent. See how we have shaped up since? Most of space is boringly empty and calm. But he wanted to show how people have shaped up so he had to start later.

He discusses the Flood. Escaped him that all of humanity died there except for 8-9 people. I guess that he doesn’t hold G^d or Noah accountable. But just after that, he does hold G^d responsible for destroying Sodom. Did he miss that the Flood killed 99.999999% of humanity and Cain 25%?

Terrible what people in Sodom almost did to the guests. We’ve come a long way. But, no word on the horror that Lot offers his two daughters.

Abraham almost slaughtered his son. (This is so central to the author that a gravure of it is on my cover, portraying Isaac as a nude disempowered boy of about 13 years old, while the Rabbis teach he was 37.) He is not sharing a Jewish view on how that is not gruesome. Like that Abraham already told his son (he was a Prophet) that G^d would provide the animal (and He did). And that Abram forced G^d to intervene and provide.

I hope you understand that was enough for me.

* * *

His bias is clear for everyone with an open mind. He cherry-picks (the cardinal sin of statistics) the early bad stuff, ignores the revolutionary good stuff and no doubt later says: look, we have improved.

I could easily argue the exact opposite.

Life in paradise was more than nice. Look how we’ve fallen.

Yes, Cain killed his brother but it wasn’t murder. He didn’t even know that there was such a thing as death. It was involuntary manslaughter, not murder. But better still, he repented. When in history did all of people who caused the death of others repent?

And in ten generations thereafter, not one murder or war. In what epoch did we do better than that? Ten generations of humanity were also all pure vegetarians. When did we ever again reach that level?

Yes, the Flood was terrible. But G^d promises to never do that again (by water). That doesn’t count? (But we’d better stop climate change because that can wipe us all out. Worse than a nuclear war.)

Yes, Sodom was an unhappy place. But Abraham argued with G^d, defended the evilest people around. He showed that one is to challenge G^d on bad degrees, not ‘accept’ them. When was the last time you saw the leader of a nation turn activist?

In fact, ‘proving’ the Old Testament violent doesn’t go against popular opinion at all. It’s been the position of Christians ever since they started competing with the Jews that they have the religion of love and the Torah is dominated by a violent G^d — Heaven forbid.

***

Next, I found something about tall men. I’m 6″5′ / 197 cm so that speaks to me. He says there that the distribution of height in men (about 150-200 cm) is ‘less than five-fold.’ In fact, it is not less than 500% but about 14%: 175+/-25 cm. I can do this math by heart. (25 divided by 175=1/7=14%.) Now, 14% is less than 500%, that’s right, but still, not even remotely close.

***

Genocide. He juggles the figures and it’s on the decline. But hidden by the statistics is timing. The Turks slaughtered Armenians by the sword, just as the Rwandan genocide was done in 3 weeks. The Nazis machine-gunned a million Jews and gassed millions more. Took them years. Pol Pot murdered millions of his own people — is in the book but the Great Chinese Famine, perpetrated by the Chinese government, killed 36-45 million but is missing.

Every second a person dies of hunger. Right now, more than 1 billion people suffer from malnutrition. This means that 1 in every 6 people on Earth doesn’t get enough food to live a healthy life. This year, 36 million of them will die of starvation! This scandal exists for at least half a century, but the world is fine with it. That is violence. Absent from the book.

No mention of ISIS with its beheadings, sadistic murders, and sex slaves.

Refugees? From 2000–2005, an estimated 440,000 people per year fled Africa, most of them to Europe. Not mentioned. (Syrians would only start after the book was published.) He’s ignoring violence outside of the US,

But also in the USA. Tens of millions without any healthcare! Overlooked.

***

And so, here is the opposite cherry-picking (the cardinal sin of statistics). He ignores late bad stuff, highlights the revolutionary good stuff and then says: look, we have improved.

David Hackett Fischer, in his book Historians’ Fallacies; Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (1970), put this very mistake under Part II Explanation, Chapter IV, Fallacies of Generalization, The fallacy of statistical special pleading (p. 110-113). I just was reading that, thinking that people would surely not make such a mistake and then, one hour later, I read Pinker.

The supposed heroism of his book is that it goes against how we feel about ourselves. Violence now, seems worse than ever. So, he proudly goes against popular belief. That is nice.

But Judaism also goes against popular belief. It teaches that every generation is at a lesser moral level than the previous one. That’s also hard to accept. But there is a lot to say for that.

Yes, we finally have rights (he celebrates that broadly) for the oppressed. But there was a time that obligations on the powerful to spare the weak worked enough. Obligating everyone creates responsible giving people; giving everyone rights stimulates self-centeredness. The fact that societies needed to introduce rights was a downfall.

And now we’re at it. Claiming people are getting so much better is very bad for humility. And arrogance is so high among intellectuals that this book is not only faulty — it is harmful.

***

My conclusion from life is that there are two trends. Harvey Jackins called them brilliantly: the Upward Trend and the Downward Trend. And they operate all the time. Sometimes, one is more in view. At other times, the other more catches the eye.

To say, we’ve so shaped up feels nice. But the truth is much more mixed.

Yes, democracy is stronger than ever. Internet.

But, China and Russia are giant dictatorships, hungry for power. Very scary.

In fact, end 2019, the Chinese government, after first messing up causing a pandemic, very nicely ended the local epidemic. Stay in the house or we shoot you, for many is a very valid argument to stay home. Democracies, where everyone does as they please, are a killing field now. Countries where most people are religious to some degree and so understand duty (India, Israel) do a much better job than the ‘enlightened’ (Europe).

So, no, I’m not going to read the book. And I’m not going to believe half of it. How all these smart people applauded it (see above)? Wishful thinking.

About the Author
MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. * His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1
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