I only read a couple of bits of the article Phil, but I do recall reading
some of the literature from Britain around moral panics which included
convincing arguments that (in Britain of the 80s) ordinary social violence
has been in a secular decline for a century or two. I know that here in
Melbourne not only does the crime rate continue to decline, but it declines
in the face of a continual rise in what counts as crime not to mention
perception of crime rising due to ever more comprehensive penetration of
the mass media into people's consciousness.
I mean, obviously I don't blame 'left anthropologists' - I blame the
capitalist media and neo-con politicians.
What was the issue with this guy's article?
Andy
At 09:16 AM 30/03/2007 +1000, you wrote:
>Steven Pinker writes a piece claiming the "leftist anthropologists'
>celebration of the noble savage" was mistaken and that we are
>becoming a much less violent species. Whilst referring to interesting
>data, and more "interesting" explanations, Pinker hedges toward
>celebrating our current peaceful state...rather a worry.
>
>Phil
>
>http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge206.html#pinker
>
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Andy Blunden. The Subject - http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/the-subject.htm
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