The Precious Steven Pinker

I sometimes find it hard to believe that Steven Pinker really believes what he believes; surely, I think, some occult agency in his mind is forcing his conscious intellect to accept premises and conclusions that it ought to reject as utterly fantastic. I suppose, though, that that is one’s normal reaction to ardent expressions of a faith one does not share; at its worst, it is just a reflex of supercilious fastidiousness, like feeling only an annoyed consternation at having to step over someone in the throes of mystical ecstasy in order to retrieve an umbrella from the closet. A healthier sentiment would be generous and patient curiosity, a desire to learn whether the believer has in fact—guided by a rare purity of heart—glimpsed truths to which one’s own cynicism or coarseness has blinded one.