# Is Stephen Pinker a libertarian/conservative? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960 "2015-03-14T04:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/1 "2015-03-14T04:38:44Z")
His concept about the decline of violence seems really similar to the conservative idea of history ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Is he a conservative in the Ron Paul type sense, does he think the free market is the panacea to the world’s problems? His idea of violence declining isn’t really convincing when you consider the war in the Congo and the unrest of the Middle East. Of course there is more peace now than during WW2 and the Cold War, but it’s only been 23 years so I think it’s far too early to say we’ve entered a permanent era of world peace unfortunately. Especially since things seem to be getting worse in the Muslim world and old Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/2 "2015-03-14T06:13:41Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > His idea of violence declining isn’t really convincing when you consider the war in the Congo How do you think the current violence compares to the Congo Free State? > [@](#): > > and the unrest of the Middle East How do you think the current level of ME violence compares to the medieval ME. > [@](#): > > .we’ve entered a permanent era of world peace That’s not exactly what Pinker says… ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/3 "2015-03-14T06:41:07Z")
**Moderator Action** Since this is more opinion and speculation than factual, let’s move it to IMHO. Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/4 "2015-03-14T15:39:38Z")
Pinker gave a lengthy interview to Reason magazine a few years ago, though I can’t find it at the moment. He definitely had harsh criticism for trendy ideas among left-wing scholars, especially the “blank slate” view of human nature. ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/5 "2015-03-14T15:47:25Z")
Read [the book](http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426347436&sr=1-1&keywords=better+angels+of+our+nature). His argument is much better supported than you suggest and he’s looking at a much longer timeline than just the last 100 years. Particularly striking is his descriptions of the levels of violence in daily and public life in the past, that would be unthinkable in most of the world today. As to his politics, I certainly would not describe him in any way as libertarian or conservative. On the other hand, he’s not a traditional liberal, either—he argues vociferously against [the blank slate](http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0142003344/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8). He’s a scientist who goes where he thinks the data points. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/6 "2015-03-14T17:23:00Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Pinker gave a lengthy interview to Reason magazine a few years ago, though I can’t find it at the moment. He definitely had harsh criticism for trendy ideas among left-wing scholars, especially the “blank slate” view of human nature. Oh yeah, I don’t really agree with the blank state view, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/7 "2015-03-14T18:50:13Z")
Why don’t you ask him? His email is not that hard to find. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/8 "2015-03-14T19:14:06Z")
Dr. Pinker’s view is in many ways driven by the Enlightenment/Victorian belief in human progress and improvement, albeit nuanced by the events of the 20th Century as opposed to the conservative view which takes a more pessimistic view of human affairs. Additionally Dr. Pinker definitely in a secular humanist in terms of personal philosophy something that has put him at odds with conservative critics who have a much more pessimistic view of human nature [1]. The “End of History” theories similarly were primarily advocated by centrist liberals and internationalists not by conservatives who tend towards more realist views of foreign policy. Also considering Dr. Pinker praises the State for reducing violence he hardly is a Ron Paul libertarian either. [1] For example see this critical review: [http://www.claremont.org/article/have-a-nice-millennium/](http://www.claremont.org/article/have-a-nice-millennium/) ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/9 "2015-03-14T20:15:35Z")
He has supported the views of Christina Hoff Sommers a conservative anti-feminist. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/10 "2015-03-14T20:22:48Z")
> [@Topologist](#): > > As to his politics, I certainly would not describe him in any way as libertarian or conservative. On the other hand, he’s not a traditional liberal, either—he argues vociferously against [the blank slate](http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0142003344/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8). He’s a scientist who goes where he thinks the data points. This strikes me as pretty accurate. He’s not at all easily pigeonholed into any AMerican political category. For example, one of the big cases he makes in his book on violence is that a strong, effective state generally results in a major reduction in violence. Libertarians aren’t gonna love this idea. And [read this passage from an interview](http://freakonomics.com/2011/10/04/author-steven-pinker-answers-your-questions/): > [@](#): > > What explains the relatively high level of violence in the United States compared to other developed nations? The U.S.’s intentional homicide rate is 3-4x most other developed nations in Western Europe, Australia, Japan. Guns? Frontier history? Income inequality? -vimspot > > A Thanks! See here for a more recent lecture on the topic. You ask a good question about violence in the United States, though it’s in large part a question about the American south and west, and about African Americans—the homicide rates of northern states are not much greater than those of Europe. It isn’t just guns, because even if you subtract all the killings with firearms and count only the ones with rope, knives, lead pipes, wrenches, candlesticks, and so on, Americans still kill at a higher rate than Europeans. > > Measures of inequality certainly correlate with homicide rates across nations, provinces, and states, though the reason is not clear. One possibility is that unequal societies beget more status competition, with marginalized men vesting all their self-worth in their reputation with their peers, leading them to retaliate violently against any insult or perceived maltreatment. But unequal societies also provide less schooling, medical care, and perhaps most important, policing to their lower classes. > > My own guess is that Americans (particularly in the south and west) never really signed on to a social contract that gave government a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, as Europe did. Americans not only retain the right to bear arms but believe it is their responsibility, not the government’s, to deter harm-doers. With private citizens, flush with self-serving biases, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, body counts can pile up as trigger-happy vigilantes mete out rough justice. This may be a legacy of the long periods of anarchy in the mountainous south and frontier west, and of the historical failure of the police and courts to serve African American communities. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/11 "2015-03-14T21:10:15Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This strikes me as pretty accurate. He’s not at all easily pigeonholed into any AMerican political category. For example, one of the big cases he makes in his book on violence is that a strong, effective state generally results in a major reduction in violence. Libertarians aren’t gonna love this idea. And [read this passage from an interview](http://freakonomics.com/2011/10/04/author-steven-pinker-answers-your-questions/): OK, Pinker’s claim that “Americans commit more homicides with knives and baseball bats than Europeans, therefore that proves guns aren’t really the problem” is a terrible argument. (For what it’s worth, while Europeans don’t commit as many murders, they do commit a lot of other violent crimes including rape and robbery(. It’s quite possible for murder and other crime events to happen in clusters, such that each murder (up to some point) increases the likelihood of another murder happening. (Maybe the police force gets overtaxed so that murderers are more likely to get away with it, maybe one murder spurs revenge/retaliatory killings, maybe people become desensitized, etc.). It’s perfectly possible for the widespread availability of guns to raise the gun-related homicide rate, and then for the high gun homicide rate to increase the rate of non-gun related homicides as well. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t, but you can’t simply say 'well, a lot of murders don’t involve guns, so guns aren’t really the problem). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/12 "2015-03-14T22:22:09Z")
If only there were some [online resource](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker) we could access to help delve into such questions. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/13 "2015-03-14T22:58:59Z")
Pinker’s writings strike me as his thoughtful take on what the actual data says. If sometimes that aligns with so-called liberal or so-called conservative or libertarian beliefs that is just the way it falls. Unlike someone who is primarily of X or Y belief who chooses facts that comport with those beliefs, he believes what he sees the science as saying. Does not mean that his analysis is always correct or flawless, but it is not conclusion in search of supporting data; it is conclusion based on analysis of data. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-stephen-pinker-a-libertarian-conservative/714960/14 "2015-03-14T23:58:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If only there were some [online resource](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker) we could access to help delve into such questions. And if only you actually used the resource to delve into the question, instead of dropping a snarkbomb into the thread.