Are We Getting Nicer? - By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

[tabatha]

Published: November 23, 2011

It’s pretty easy to conclude that the world is spinning down the toilet.

So let me be contrary and offer a reason to be grateful this Thanksgiving. Despite the gloomy mood, the historical backdrop is stunning progress in human decency over recent centuries.

War is declining, and humanity is becoming less violent, less racist and less sexist — and this moral progress has accelerated in recent decades. To put it bluntly, we humans seem to be getting nicer.

That’s the central theme of an astonishingly good book just published by Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard. It’s called “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” and it’s my bet to win the next Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/opinion/kristof-are-we-getting-nicer.html?_r=1&src=tp

[Zorra]

1. Really? “the attitudes of conservatives have followed the trajectory of liberals

with the result that today’s conservatives are more liberal than yesterday’s liberals.”

No. Nice try, we no buy...

"Let them die"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy9TvrSGVHE

"When the power of Love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace"
Jimi Hendrix, (Xtreme liberal), 1967

Kristof is trying to connect conservatives with OWS, because OWS is growing in popularity.

Epic fail, due to lack of supporting evidence.

[EFerrari]

2. The other night he was on Twitter saying Bloomberg was a good mayor except

for the ham handed way he's treated #OWS. Kristof has some kind of short term memory problem which is problematic for someone who commits his thoughts to writing.

[Zorra]

3. Yeh. That's a really serious flaw for any writer...

...except for conservative writers that are trying to disingenuously rewrite history.
;)

[pacalo]

5. ITA.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. That quote is from Pinker, not Kristof, and the evidence is in the book

as well as in the article. The book was written before OWS started, and Kristof doesn't mention OWS at all. You seem to be concentrating on what is happening in the last few months, and just in the USA, rather than decades or centuries, and in the whole world - which, clearly, is what the article is about.

[Sherman A1]

4. I tend to disagree with Mr. Kristof's viewpoint on this one based upon this story.

St. Louis County man is fatally shot in apparent road rage incident in Texas

William Nardin and his wife were driving across the Texas panhandle Monday afternoon, headed for a Thanksgiving gathering in Las Vegas, when a pickup truck sideswiped their rental car, police say
The pickup didn't stop, so the Nardins called 911 and tailed the truck westbound on Interstate 40, which cuts across the panhandle from Oklahoma to New Mexico. When the other driver exited the highway 30 miles later near the town of Groom, Nardin followed, pulling into a gas station after the truck.
An argument erupted. The other driver pulled out a handgun, shooting Nardin at least one time in the chest, said Tam Terry, the sheriff of Carson County, Texas. Nardin, 65, of St. Louis County, died at the scene. His wife, was not injured.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-county-man-is-fatally-shot-in-apparent-road/article_3ddabe5c-140b-532b-9354-12c902a4f150.html#ixzz1ecQx9DU9

Now certainly an exercise in bad judgement by all involved, but I just don't see us getting nicer as Mr. Kristof seems to indicate.