The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
Steven PinkerRead
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of individual autonomy and the legitimacy of personal desires and needs.
Steven Pinker highlights that individual rights are based on the belief that people understand their own wants and needs. He warns that if these desires were viewed as mere constructs or could be manipulated, it could lead to justifications for terrible acts against individuals, undermining the very fabric of personal rights and freedoms.
Themes
Individual RightsAutonomyWantsNeedsFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a human rights conference discussing the importance of autonomy.
More from Steven Pinker
All quotes →If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
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We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
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The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
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Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
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Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.
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