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The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Book by Steven Pinker · 3 quotes · Violence, Reason, People

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The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined Quotes

“For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment that we can savor - and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.”

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Book:The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
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“Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to feel better about themselves, and in the late 1980s led the California legislature to form a Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Yet Baumeister has shown that the theory could not be more spectacularly, hilariously, achingly wrong. Violence is a problem not of too little self-esteem but of too much, particularly when it is unearned.”

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Book:The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
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