Finished reading Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker.
>page 166 – "Human life has become more precious, while glory, honor, preeminence, manliness, heroism, and other symptoms of excess testosterone have been downgraded.”
>page 169 – “Their norms for everyday conduct shifted from a macho culture of honor, in which affronts had to be answered with violence, to a gentlemanly culture of dignity, in which status was won by displays of propriety and self-control.”
>page 220 – “Today, women make up a majority of university students.”
>page 225 – “the values of Western countries have been getting steadily more liberal (which, as we will see, is one of the reasons those men are so angry)”
>page 235 – “Better-educated girls grow up to have fewer babies, and so are less likely to beget youth bulges with their surfeit of troublemaking young men.”
>page 252 – “As a feminist-era husband”
>page 297 – “There is no law of complex systems that says that intelligent agents must turn into ruthless conquistadors. Indeed, we know of one highly advanced form of intelligence that evolved without this defect. They’re called women.”
Insults men and praises women. How isn't this sexism against men? Argues that manliness is backwards, but multiple times he refers to great scientists as conquerors of famine and disease.
>page 247 – “only the callous would deny that the conquest of disease, hunger, and illiteracy are stupendous achievements”
Is it autism?
Reading this book feels like I'm tripping through cognitive dissonance. What other books can give me this feel?
