Steven Pinker Quotes About Genocide

• When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. Any claim that the mind has an innate organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be incorrect but as a thought it is immoral to think.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, War, Thinking

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.14, Penguin

• But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.

  Steven Pinker

  Meaningful, Struggle, Believe

  "Q&A: Steven Pinker of 'Blank Slate'". Interview with Steve Sailer, www.upi.com. October 30, 2002.

• As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide.

  Steven Pinker

  Long, Groups, World

• 'Capitalism' is a dirty word for many intellectuals, but there are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war.

  Steven Pinker

  War, Dirty, Numbers

• For one thing, before the 20th century, there were plenty of genocides. We tend to forget about them, partly because they weren't as well documented and partly because, until recently, people didn't care. We used euphemisms like 'sackings' and 'sieges' instead of calling them 'genocides.'

  Steven Pinker

  People, Calling, Care

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