Episode · Conversations with Tyler · 2016-11-02
Tyler Cowen & Steven Pinker: books mentioned on Conversations with Tyler (Nov 2016)
Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence (Live at Mason)
Steven Pinker has spent an entire academic career thinking deeply about language, cognition, and human nature. Driving it all, he says, is an Enlightenment belief that the world is intelligible, science can progress, and through rational inquiry we can better understand ourselves.
Tyler Cowen discussed 1984 by George Orwell. Steven Pinker discussed The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.. Also mentioned: The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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1984
1984 by George Orwell is a classic dystopian novel depicting a totalitarian regime characterized by extreme surveillance, historical denial, and psychological manipulation.
Discussed“you know in George Orwell's 1984 the party bands all are regular verbs”
Where to get it
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The Elements of Style
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.
Discussed“and in fact as I point out in the sense of style uh the two most famous style guides in the English language namely Orwells politics in the English language and drunken whites the elements of Style”
Where to get it
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The Blank Slate
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker is a widely read nonfiction book that challenges the traditional sociological doctrine that the human mind is entirely shaped by culture and environment at birth, arguing instead for a nuanced view of innate human nature and genetics.
Discussed“it seems like it's an entire book about how really smart people are really wrong about something”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (6) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“but I I uh in my my style manual the sense of style I um recommend hanging on to them”
“i've documented the decline historical declines of violence”
“you open up any style manual and it uh one of the first bits of advice is uh don't use the passive that's too crude academics overuse the passive”
“the book better angels of our nature will be available afterwards”
“in a process that I actually wrote about in terms of the uh quite spectacular declines in rates of violence he speculated might have been helped Along by a genetic change”
“that um that a lot of dimensions of human well-being when Quantified as I try to do in the better angs of our nature uh turn out to be going in a good direction”