There's guilt about our treatment of native peoples in modern intellectual life, and an unwillingness to acknowledge there could be anything good about Western culture.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the tension between recognizing past injustices towards native peoples and celebrating aspects of Western culture.
In this quote, Steven Pinker highlights a conflict present in modern discourse: the guilt surrounding historical injustices faced by native peoples and a reluctance to acknowledge any positive contributions of Western culture. This duality suggests that while it's important to recognize and lament past wrongs, it is also possible to appreciate the achievements of a culture without dismissing its failings. Pinker calls for a balanced perspective that allows for both critique and appreciation.
In practice
In a lecture on cultural ethics, this quote can be used to discuss the complexity of historical narratives.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred.
Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
My soul, be satisfied with flowers, with fruit, with weeds even; but gather them in the one garden you may call your own.
And what I would say now is, yes, if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stupid, but it is not unconstitutional. A lot of stuff that's stupid is not unconstitutional.
How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?
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