Laughs

Steven Pinker is a psychologist from Harvard who has written extensively on the foundations of morality. Recently he published an article in the New York Times Magazine titled "The Moral Instinct". Commenting on the article, Peter Suderman from The American Scene writes:

After several thousand words of genuinely curious, thoughtful investigation into the idea that humans may have some innate moral sense, he closes with the thought that what’s really important is… implementing a carbon tax."

Suderman continues,

"Can we not simply investigate human nature without drifting into the territory of contemporary politics? Is all science journalism for the next decade doomed to this fate?"

I have a sense that this is a widespread problem - at the bottom, I think it is the inability to make clear distinctions. We should be able to make distinctions in terms and ideas. These things are necessary for any meaningful conversation. The modern mind lumps everything together. I'm not sure whether it's laziness or has a deeper intellectual source, but I suspect it's a combination of both. It's easier to assume that every problem is related or basically the same. It is thus easier to conclude that the source of these related problems is the same: it's the Republicans, the Democrats, this idea, or that President that ruins the world. If we could just get rid of the advocates of the free market, everything would be better! etc., ad infinitum.

It seems to me that it's never that simple.