In any dispute, each side thinks it's in the right and the other side is demons.
Interpretation
Disputes often lead individuals to view themselves as just and others as evil.
This quote by Steven Pinker reflects on the nature of conflict and disagreement, suggesting that in any contentious situation, involved parties tend to see themselves as morally correct while perceiving their opponents as fundamentally misguided or malevolent. This illustrates the psychological divide that occurs in disputes, emphasizing the importance of empathy and understanding opposing viewpoints to foster resolution and dialogue.
In practice
During a debate on social issues, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of listening to opposing views.
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.
The serious people who took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shell china.
No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
History may be servitude. History may be freedom. See, now they vanish. The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, to become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
I feel more at home knowing I'm not really at home. It takes all the pressure off you trying to fit in!
A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is alright. This is common sense really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not well you are sleeping.
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