A Reaction to Pinker

An article in the NYT recently focused on psychology professor Steven Pinker and was illuminating in content and attitude.

The author, Brooks, writes:

"In part, but not totally. Pinker’s philosophical lens prevents him from seeing where the real problems lie. He calls himself an Enlightenment man, but he’s really a scientific rationalist. He puts tremendous emphasis on the value of individual reason. The key to progress is information — making ourselves better informed. The key sin in the world is a result either of entropy, the randomness that is built into any system, or faith — dogma clouding reason.

For example, we’re all aware of the gloomy statistics around wage stagnation and income inequality, but Pinker contends that we should not be nostalgic for the economy of the 1950s, when jobs were plentiful and unions strong. A third of American children lived in poverty. Sixty percent of seniors had incomes below $1,000 a year. Only half the population had any savings in the bank at all.

Between 1979 and 2014, meanwhile, the percentage of poor Americans dropped to 20 percent from 24 percent. The percentage of lower-middle-class Americans dropped to 17 from 24. The percentage of Americans who were upper middle class (earning $100,000 to $350,000) shot upward to 30 percent from 13 percent."

So far, so good. Now the really interesting part. The writer continues:

"The big problem with his rationalistic worldview is that while he charts the way individuals have benefited over the centuries, he spends barely any time on the quality of the relationships between individuals.

That is to say, Pinker doesn’t spend much time on the decline of social trust, the breakdown of family life, the polarization of national life, the spread of tribal mentalities, the rise of narcissism, the decline of social capital, the rising alienation from institutions or the decline of citizenship and neighborliness. It’s simply impossible to tell any good-news story when looking at the data from these moral, social and emotional spheres."

Those are big, proud aims.
While it might be true we tend to measure those things we can quantify, it is also true that such areas are the only areas that can be meaningfully compared. How do we define "social trust?" How should we place it in the social contentment pie chart? Is "social trust" now better or worse than in 1860? Can you add "social trust" in Kansas to "social trust" in Chicago? Is it more important than "polarization?" Should "driving distance to work" be included? How about "weather."

Life is disordered. We all have priorities. The great promise of the Enlightenment was that human liberty, ingenuity and energy would result in progress.
What if that is untrue?