Buy a signed copy of Steven Pinker's book: livetalksla.square.site/product/rationalitypinker/458 And you can buy a signed copy of Niall Ferguson's book here: livetalksla.square.site/product/niallferguson/434

A hundred thousand thank you's to Ted. A voice in the wilderness during these difficult pandemic times, it's so good to hear him.

Listening to Steven Pinker is like a hot cup of chicken soup for the brain. Wonderful conversation.

This is why I always come back to Pinker (and Niall)

Out of all the authors I have in my library, I never expected I would find these two doing an interview.

😊 Thank you so much!

I am proud to say that I got the phone case question correct. I am not proud to say it took me 3-4 minutes of circling my apartment before I got it.

Appreciate the way SP responds and explains ideas and facts. Good questions from Niall!

A great discussion!

I like Better Angels and Enlightenment Now but my favorite content from Pinker is the purely psychological stuff so this book will be a nice addition to my library.

I'll answer that Niall. Yes, Pinker is a major figure in the history of ideas and he absolutely belongs on a roll of honor of intellectuals pushing forward humanity in a positive and empowering way.

Great talk.

I've read all of Steven's books and most of Niall's books. As always, it's a pleasure to see you two in conversation. I'd love to see Professor Pinker focus on what we need to focus on in this world if we wish to tackle specific, probable existential threats. Some of these challenges, a circular economy, ultra-high-tech warfare, the sixth extinction (biodiversity), and climate will require a well-educated, well-loved, well-fed, healthy, rational, and secure world. Many people today can't help but intuit that we may not be able to take for granted the time it may take to incrementally achieve more significant progress (in education and healthcare particularly) under the current socio-economic scheme. The Game, as it is, may not be built to last. What kind of rational actors do we want to be?

New Zealand is woke af btw.

It's cheaper to buy stuff than to steal it. I love this concept. It's very true in my life and I suspect in most people's lives. Very profound. We should teach the Ten Commandments: thou shall not steal!

"There's nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come"

Pinker makes me laugh at times, which is extremely rare for a high achieving intellectual.

A very interesting discussion on rationality, by two authors whom I greatly admire. Yet it seemed to me but they missed an equally critical aspect of human life,, that of means and ends. As if ethics in a human society of equals might become redundant if everyone somehow became rational ?

@davecorley5514

2 жыл бұрын

Or, that people being human, make mistakes in logic. Or, that, as in language, logic contains contradictions. I’m a retired engineer and highly value reason and logic, but not to the extent that it’s used to fully govern societies. Can anyone who has observed humanity as a whole or individuals make a reasoned argument for utopia? More and Erasmus attempted that. They argued that it was possible with a kingdom of heaven in mind. This last point is lost on most modern interpretations. Without objective ethical truths that reside outside the minds of men, utopia cannot exist. So, “What is truth?” My own answer is that ultimate ethical truths cannot be fully known to humans - kind of a second law of thermodynamics of ethics. Credit Carnot and Clausius for this “law”. Fat chance for any of us to ever know all of those truths objectively in this world. The quote above is from Pontus Pilate speaking to Jesus. Then Pilate turned away without waiting for an answer. Now that’s ethical irony.

Pinker is what Schopenhauer termed a "shallow-pated rationalist". I find it truly incredible how such a highly educated individual could be so wilfully ignorant of some of the most fundamental ongoing debates within philosophy.

It would be interesting to know what Pinker thinks about knowledge vs. beliefs, and how it relates to rational thinking. At first hand, knowledge would seem to be very much necessary to reach rational decisions. However, we need to ask on what basis we differentiate between knowledge and beliefs? Knowledge is taken for granted as it first appears to us as being factual or something we know as evident. This might be true, but only for a very small part of our "knowledge". In fact, most of what we know and consider as being true is not based on first hand experience. It is a broad set of facts or information that we accept as true on the basis of what other people, experts, media, institutions or other sources indicate as such. Our knowledge is thus derived from the level of trust we give to these sources and not on our own ability to make that conclusion. The facts we can personally credit as being true can only come from what is in front of us right now (context), what we are able to do practically (learned skills), what we have experimented ourselves through direct personal experience, or are able to replicate (I may have missed something.) For everything else, we can only rely on second-hand information from sources we trust. So most of our knowledge is in fact beliefs based on that trust. Illustration: I can't measure myself the distance between Tokyo and LA (I wouldn't even know how to go about it), so I rely on skilled people, scientists, etc. to do the job and provide me with an acceptable accurate number, which I'll take as a solid fact (knowledge). I will apply the same approach to what I read in a newspaper, learn at school, or read in a history book. However, based on own personal experience or the level of trust I give to these sources, I will also grade the information they provide me as being more or less reliable. It can be based on my opinion of the newspaper (reputation), or personal experience that, when it comes to a subject I know quite well, I realize more often than not that journalists know very little about what they write. So if I really want to know where the truth lies (be it for personal interest or as a habit), I will have to search myself the primary source of what's reported in the newspaper (eg, "Major advance in cancer treatment" should be based on a scientific publication that will provide me with much more granularity, including a fact base that could be quite far from the title of the newspaper article.) For events, I may confirm the information by seeing what other newspaper report about the same story. Same thing for school, as I gradually understand that there's broad spectrum in curriculum from very simple (primary school) to very complex (PhD). As the breadth of my "knowledge" goes very much beyond my ability to experience or replicate any of it, it can only be considered as a set of beliefs. This is not intended to be pejorative or imply that what we call knowledge is relative (though at the frontier of scientific knowledge there are more questions than established truth), but leads to the conclusion that in order to ensure that my beliefs are somewhat as close as possible to the truth, I do need to apply rational thinking when it comes to selecting which will be the sources I will derive my knowledge from.

Scientific Method explained using Monty Python, worth watching.

Believing "everything happens for a reason" has survival value - it teaches you to examine your experiences and situation for whatever benefits it might hold. You're still ignoring the hard problem of consciousness instead of even explaining it. Why do you find this argument convincing, if you're supposed to be so rational?

I trust the recommendation of the book and that on the topic it is well written, however, I am still unclear why it is declared to be irrational to distrust a novel invasive biotechnogy advocated by authorities that have clearly demonstrated their willingness to lie and indeed completely reverse their postions on the same and also related matters. Why when the decline of benefit from said novel technogy is such that further treatments with it, possibly every year or even twice a year, is now also advocated and this even for persons who have natural immunity that has been conceded to be more effective than the impact of the treatment and which advocating authorities are trying to mandate being subject to the novel technogical treatment regardless of natural immunity can the regime view be labelled as being the rational one given the forseeable but denied costs and mistakes of many decisions they have made so far?

@gazlives

2 жыл бұрын

being in the states clouds the thinking as the 'regime' is so corrupt and a rational person would not believe anything they say without double checking with outside sources. for the jab the outside sources are plenty in the scientific community and should lead one to the rational decision to take the jab 'if' you are in a particular group. it obviously is an ethical question whether a non risk group should take the jab for the benefit of the community rather than his or her personal benefit. in the states these subsets of questions are diluted or obscured. again the states is peculiarly and extraordinarily corrupt in the western world when it comes to these matters because everything has become political and it's now baked into the system.

@spiritualpolitics8205

2 жыл бұрын

You enunciate a commonsense intelligence that takes a scalpel to Pinker's dumber, more dogmatic side. The same may be argued about climate change and Pinker's inability to countenance just how poor/stupid is so much of the warming side of the argument (cheap apocalypticism etc.) that even if the warmists are correct, they do not sound very intelligent to intelligent people, whereas dissidents like Bjorn Lomborg sound far more moderate and reasonable. To be fair I haven't read all Pinker's books but had some email exchanges with him on this subject. He seems inclined to believe experts without our needing a far better persuasion of the public by how we know their computer models are not just artifacts of confirmation bias. Ditto covid. Sam Harris is the same way, all the way an institutionalist who does not see the mind-warping dishonesty of Fauci and the complete collapse of trust in their logical gaps and flaws and lies as crucial. Similarly both Pinker and Harris have spoken or written about how the hard right, not the hard left, is the current major threat, and prior to Biden's election Pinker argued Biden would moderate the hard left.

@7788Sambaboy

2 жыл бұрын

@@spiritualpolitics8205 ...it appears you have no argument, simply a point of view, a bias, a fear and you doubt anyone who doesn't have the same anxiety about the world. "mind warping dishonesty of Fauci" clearly shows you have no understanding, no data, no logic or reason...you are simply afraid and pretending to "know"

@spiritualpolitics8205

2 жыл бұрын

@@7788Sambaboy I mean insofar as Fauci is now known to: a) have lied about funding the creation of covid via gain-of-function research; b) said one thing in his private emails about the uselessness of masks and another thing in public, as well as priorly questioning their utility before flipping; c) spread endless covid hysteria while refusing to evaluate the true risks of lockdowns; d) never given a firm directive or statement to reopen schools in a more timely fashion, despite their near-zero risk level for either contagion or rapid spread; e) refused to challenge hysterical practices like outdoor masking or double masking or masking children as young as 2; f) plays up every new variant as doomsday despite the likelihood per basic virology that viruses tend to get less lethal over time.

@7788Sambaboy

2 жыл бұрын

@@spiritualpolitics8205 [ "is now known"...known by whom? Hannity, MTG, Bobby the mechanic where you get your car fixed, Alex Jones, Rudy G., ... You might want to take a break from Fox and Newsmax. Funny, you use the word "hysteria" and "hysterical" projecting yours on others.

Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy were the better angels of Capt. Kirk

The " premise" of plants being healthy is ridiculously wrong. Tomatos are good - Belladonna not so much.

@ThiloBauer

2 жыл бұрын

Just listen and learn: Logic isn't about the truth value of the premises or the conclusion. It's about the rules, so to say, how the truth values of the premises correspond with the truth value of the conclusion. Example: Premise 1: "The earth is made out of cheese" (false. But this is irrelevant logically! Just suppose it is true!). Premise 2: "Everything made out of cheese isn't a planet." (also false. But: irrelevant.) Conclusion: Earth isn't a planet. YES, everything is factually false, but also this is logically conclusive! IF Premises 1 and 2 are true (THEY DON'T HAVE TO!), THEN the conclusion must be (i. e. is logically) true, too! This seems to be counterintuitive, but "logic" has nothing to do with truth/correspondence with facts. It only deals with the question "does it follow?" = "Is the transition from the premises (supposed they are true) to the conclusion - conclusive! If 1. A (whatever A means/whatever it is factually true or false) is supposed to be true, and 2. If A, then B (again, logic doesn't care about A, B, "if A then B" and the truth value of these three claims) is supposed to be true - then B MUST BE LOGICALLY TRUE - which doesn't mean it is factually true. Only this INFERENCE is correct. No matter what A, B, "if A, then B" mean/if A or B or "if A, then B" are true or false. Put in absolutely anything for A and B - you'll get a correct conclusion: If Socrates is a man, and if all men are mortal, then: Socrates is mortal. Everything is true, the infererence is conclusive. If Socrates is a woman (just suppose, it is true) and If all women are men (AAAAAAA, stupid, but JUST SUPPOSE IT IS TRUE), then it follows: Yes, Socrates is a man. So you can deduce a true sentence from false premises. Again: This is not relevant. To be (logically) conclusive is not about the content or the factual truth value of the involved sentences, but only about their (supposed) logical value and the question: "supposed the premises are true - does it follow that the conclusion is true, too?"

@lawjef

2 жыл бұрын

@@ThiloBauer since you are the only person not to realize this, let me point out the obvious: telling someone to listen and learn puts up their walls and makes you appear to be a clueless bully. See, I just did it to you and it wasn't fun was it...

@ThiloBauer

2 жыл бұрын

? Just trying to help and educate. Not every teacher is a bully. Now sit down, otherwise you'll get an "F".

10:34 ... affirming the consequent is the fallacy. Denying it is valid... it's what good scientists do... they try to falsify or deny the consequent. If A then B, ~B, so ~A.

er, New Zealand. One of the most locked down countries during COVID? The country that protested the LEAST against these lockdowns.

Come back to good fellas Mr Pinker

This man is the closest thing that the human race has to an “Oracle”. He should be lauded and cherished.

French revolutionary humanism proved less rational than American revolutionary theism. Iain McGilchrist would say that rationality (left brain consciousness) can be a useful rather than a destructive tool only when it is subservient to the big-picture, open-ended right brain consciousness. At one point Pinker infers that only good outcomes are rational, which is circular reasoning.

@Razorblade510

2 жыл бұрын

Excellent points

@spiritualpolitics8205

2 жыл бұрын

Very well said and excellent food for thought! Never put this so well! Bret Weinstein exemplifies the pole of which you speak.

am I the only one who is struggling with that phone/case calculation? 😀 how in the world the Answer is 5?

@raymondlancaster3355

2 жыл бұрын

5 + 100 = 105 (cost of phone) so that 105 + 5 = 110 There you have it.

@donaldedward4951

2 жыл бұрын

The case is $5.00; the phone is $100 more than the case or $105.00. Together that makes $110.00 Let C be the Case and P be the Phone then C=$5. P=$100 +$5; P +C= $100+$5 +$5; P +C = $110

@RobertJohnFreeman

2 жыл бұрын

x + (x + 100) = 110

"someone who claims to be rational, isn't necessarily..."

Anybody who saw a humongous booster rocket fly off the pad at the Cosmodrome understood that segments of the Soviet Union were very rational.

@MooMooManist

2 жыл бұрын

All the smart, rational people in the Soviet Union went into math, physics, engineering, chess, etc - in order to avoid the irrational minefield that was soviet communism.

Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies and sprites so his fictional character was fairly rational, but he himself, not completely

Afraid my comment is going to be taken the wrong way, but here goes: does anyone feel creeped out by Steven Pinker and other people that make similar arguments? What I mean by this is that I respect and "believe" that he's intelligent and that he's worked hard to think his argument through clearly....but I wouldn't trust his decision making for a second if he was my friend, close colleague or family member. There's an affect of emotionlessness and it's hard for me to feel any sense of empathy in him. (I can imagine a scenario where he is trying to explain his book "Better Angels" to a group of homeless people, trying to convince them that they should feel grateful for living in such an historically peaceful and prosperous time.) Now, while leaning too deeply into an emotional sense of empathy can certainly lead to irrational decision making, it also clearly is part of the long tradition, depicted in many cultures, of what is called "wisdom." Obviously, I don't know Pinker personally, so what I'm talking about here is the affect. I'm not trying to insult him as a person because I don't know. But I think that modern culture is suffering from a lack of empathy that is at least as problematic as the lack of rationality that is being talked about here.

@teepee431

2 жыл бұрын

Right on.

@chuchaichu

2 жыл бұрын

Are you sure that he lacks empathy? One of the problems in modern world is that there seems to be a stereotype of how empathy should look like, thanks to Hollywood and media. It is very easy to perform empathy nowadays, I don’t trust ppl whose empathy looks too typical.

@ahartify

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, when people make claims for the soverignty of the rational I always like to know what their private lives are like or what they might be like to live with. They might be highly irrational and irritating, I suspect.

@stevewiencek1354

2 жыл бұрын

@@chuchaichu In answer to your question, "No, I'm not sure he lacks empathy." I put that in my original comment. This is a video interview and I certainly wouldn't use it to make a final judgement on a man's true character. My concern though is that, here and in other interviews/debates I've seen with Pinker, I've never heard him say anything about empathy or humility. Decisions made "rationally" but with no access to or even discussion about inner emotional states strikes me as out of balance. Rationality is a tool...a very, very useful tool....but it's only one of many tools humans have to perceive the world and choose how to live in it. (i.e. empathy, humility, sense of humor, intuition, wonder, creative experimentation, etc.)

@disct1597

2 жыл бұрын

@@chuchaichu you always know when there is real empathy vs pretend empathy regardless of the person projecting this type of emotion!

I hope Steve Pinker listens to himself answer Niall Ferguson's historical question on why collective rationality has ended in dystopia? The answer Pinker gives that Soviet Union was not really a true example of collective rationality is like Marxist saying Soviet Union was not really Marxist.

@erc9468

2 жыл бұрын

I think that Pinker would say that they irrationally threw out religion and replaced it with something worse. But I find that answer uncompelling. It seems that the results of selecting an arbitrary moral code supposedly based on rationality is worse than selecting one based on religion. Perhaps at the societal level, purely rationalistic moral codes produce worse results. That seems to be the historical record.

@TheShootist

2 жыл бұрын

ussr wasn't marxist. there is nothing in marxism that calls for the murder of 50 millions of its citizens. ussr was dystopic totalitarianism.

@erc9468

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheShootist It was motivated by Marxism. Marxism doesn't call for mass extermination and totalitarianism. But in an attempt to get to the Marxist utopia, you wind up with both.

@russellsharpe288

2 жыл бұрын

@@erc9468 Indeed. Marxism analyses the rule of law as a mere bourgeois facade masking the power relations underneath, and therefore seeks to do away with it. Having done so, no-one should be surprised when the most violent, ruthless and cruel are the ones who end up on top. The less naive Marxists know this very well. Orwell: “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution, one makes a revolution in order to establish the dictatorship”.

@7788Sambaboy

2 жыл бұрын

can you support your assertion that the Soviet Union WAS a true example of collective rationality when the intellectuals and leaders were imprisoned and murdered. to believe it was or to believe the Soviet Union fully carried out Marxist philosophy requires that one "Believes" it because they want to. This was a softball question from Ferguson...he knows it the same as Pinker and almost all historians

Kamikaze was perhaps more to the society, rather than the culture, much less to the religion

@oremfrien

2 жыл бұрын

The thing, though, is that Ferguson misses Pinker’s argument here. Pinker is discussing rational efficiency, where people would choose to die so that other airmen had a much better chance at living. The Kamikaze Raids were a desperate use of Japanese airmen as missiles and entire squadrons were chosen for this.

@oremfrien

2 жыл бұрын

@@markv785 That seems highly unlikely. We have significanr numbers of the final letters that Kamikaze pilots wrote to their families and practically all of them extol the virtues of the Japanese Empire. The perception that you may have that these airmen affirmatively wanted to die to escape Japan is not grounded in the historical record.

@naoakiooishi6823

2 жыл бұрын

@@oremfrien I now realize that every Japanese people were convinced to doom, to follow the same path with the foregoing young airmen, especially if the Allies started to land on the main island of Japan. I know what happened to the civillians in Okinawa or Saipan.

@oremfrien

2 жыл бұрын

@@naoakiooishi6823 There were heavy civilian casualties on Saipan and Okinawa, but in both cases, this was spurred on from the fact that civilian areas were used by Japanese forces as human shields to fire on US Marines. US forces attempted to minimize these casualties. For example, on Saipan, the U.S. erected a civilian prisoner encampment designed to attract Japanese civilians and remove them from the combat theatre on 23 June 1944 that soon had more than 1,000 inmates. Additionally, many of the deaths were a direct result of Japanese Imperial military calls for mass suicide, claiming that the Americans would do horrible things to them. While I am not claiming that the Americans were perfect (the Katsuyama Killing Incident makes this obvious), most of the fear that the Japanese had of a potential US occupation, the fear that stirred the Kamikaze operations, was stoked by Japanese Imperial propaganda and Bushido/Shintoist military beliefs.

@naoakiooishi6823

2 жыл бұрын

@@oremfrien That Hideki Tojo`s government propaganda completely dehumanizing the Americans and British was the worst yet very effectively impregnated into the servicemen as well as the general people`s mind, resulting in treating the POWs as non-humans, for example killing many of them and triggered cases of mass suicide of many civillians because people firmly believed once they were captured by the enemy they all will be executed. These views had been strengthened wile discussing in the isolated language in the Echo chamber. They were doomed. In my opinion that was the biggest charge Tojo deserved to be hanged

Niall is a very bright guy. Also a bit of a hunk really.

@billkeon880

2 жыл бұрын

Possibly…but he’s also wrong about atheism and the 20th century analysis. Pinker really sets him straight nicely as Hitchens would have done

Pinker is crudely pragmatic in that long tradition of American pragmatists. He seems to have a fetishistic faith in the power of the rational. But what, exactly, is the irrational? What is the rational? What is logic? We can only be logical or rational about something we know about. The unknown is a different matter. Does Pinker know everything? Is he a totally rational being? I suspect not.

47.56

Why does Stephen has this tacky background? There's no way his house is that bad. So so weird.

@strnbrg59

2 жыл бұрын

It looks to me like the view from the Berkeley, CA, hills down over San Francisco Bay.

@michaelo.1320

2 жыл бұрын

@@aaronclarke7732 what does that even mean. why does a lecture require a green screen. and why does he have to use it for normal conversations.

@elingrome5853

2 жыл бұрын

The sex dungeon was the last free room in the house...

@jesperburns

2 жыл бұрын

@@michaelo.1320 Green screen? This is a standard function of Microsoft Teams and probably others. It's just to hide pictures of your children that you may have hanging in the background.

@michaelo.1320

2 жыл бұрын

@@jesperburns somebody else called it that in response to me, they deleted their comment. I initially just called it a background. I know what it is.

I’m amazed that these 2 brilliant minds are swatting away conspiracy theories without trying to address any of the supposed evidence for these theories. Truth can often be stranger than fiction (ie. the ability to fly 100s of passengers at a time across the world).

@staninjapan07

2 жыл бұрын

It is very common indeed for "respectable" figures to feel the need to do so. It is a difficult line to walk, to say one one hand that such people are obviously very smart and an asset to society (and on the whole these two must be), and on the other hand to bemoan their obvious failure to acknowledge the obvious. One can only be honest, though. The "respectable" images they have garnered for themselves will only function to protect them from the criticism of right-thinking people for so long. At some point, as has happened with spokes-persons for Covid 19 policies over the last two years, the majority of people will awaken from the dream of "If you do not believe the respectable few, you are a lunatic", and start to speak honestly among themselves about how silly this all is..... one can only hope.

Steven Pinker started off being wrong about neural networks, and he has kept it up ever since.

Call me old-fashioned -- say I'm over the hill, but I see a strong connection between rationality, responsibility and morality. Did you know that people first started to appreciate education and understanding way back during the Enlightenment? Here are three quotes from a revolutionary fighter named Ethan Allen: “Such people as can be prevailed upon to believe, that their reason is depraved, may easily be led by the nose, and duped into superstition at the pleasure of those in whom they confide, and there remain from generation to generation: for when they throw by the law of reason the only one which God gave them to direct them in their speculations and duty, they are exposed to ignorant or insidious teachers, and also to their own irregular passions, and to the folly and enthusiasm of those about them, which nothing but reason can prevent or restrain: nor is it a rational supposition that the commonality of mankind would ever have mistrusted that their reason was depraved, had they not been told so...but for depraved creatures to receive and give credit to a depraved doctrine, started and taught by depraved creatures, is the greatest weakness and folly imaginable, and comes nearer a proof of the doctrine of total depravity, than any arguments which have been advanced in support of it.” “Undoubtedly it is our duty, and for our best good, that we occupy and improve the faculties, with which our creator has endowed us, but so far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice. Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth: and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy; but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly.” “The representation of a God, who (as we are told by certain divines) from all eternity elected an inconsiderable part of mankind to eternal life, and reprobated the rest to eternal damnation ...is a selfish and inferior notion of a God void of justice, goodness, and truth, ...which, if admitted to be true, overturns all religion, ...resolving the whole into the sovereign disposal of a tyrannical and unjust being, which is offensive to reason and common sense, and subversive of moral rectitude in general.” for more quotes visit paradigmparadigm.com

I would argue rationality isn't restricted to homo sapiens

@7788Sambaboy

2 жыл бұрын

"argue" it, or just state it as a youtube comment? Not sure what you are arguing or suggesting...might be interesting to...no, write your paper and make a you tube video...

@stephenadams2397

2 жыл бұрын

@@7788Sambaboy I would also argue some homo sapiens are irrational

@7788Sambaboy

2 жыл бұрын

@@stephenadams2397 "most" people...we all are quite irrational at times. and interested in your thought about other animals...might have to define (redefine) "rational"

@stephenadams2397

2 жыл бұрын

@@7788Sambaboy Clearly

Steve needs some purple shampoo.

Vapid.

The host is extremely boring.

Ferguson is great but Pinker is a Muppet imo

@michaelo.1320

2 жыл бұрын

what does that mean

@tonymadden9021

2 жыл бұрын

You’re not rational

@martynfenton3814

2 жыл бұрын

@@tonymadden9021 ?? How is one's personal opinion not rational. Maybe you are not logical or don't want other people s views?

@jessicastrat9376

2 жыл бұрын

@@martynfenton3814 😂 your edited your reply, and it still doesn’t make sense

@fraserbailey6347

2 жыл бұрын

I wouldn't say he was a 'muppet'. Not in the grand scheme of things or relative to most other academics. But he is certainly not as significant as he considers himself to be.

All this way of thinking is very macho in a drily Anglo-Saxon kind of way. There is no consideration here of aesthetic, spiritual or affective categories.