All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the idea that unreported peaceful interactions are overlooked in media narratives focused on violence.
Steven Pinker's quote suggests that the majority of human interactions are peaceful and non-violent, yet these events are rarely highlighted in news coverage. Instead, the media often focuses on sensational violence, skewing public perception and leading to a misunderstanding of the inherent nature of human behavior. By acknowledging the violence that does not occur, we can cultivate a more nuanced understanding of society and emphasize the importance of peace.
In practice
In a speech addressing community safety, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of recognizing non-violent solutions.
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.
Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot
How much more suffering is caused by the thought of death than by death itself.
The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God. ... I do not worship matter. I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take His abode in matter, who worked out my salvation through matter. Never will I cease honoring the matter which wrought my salvation! I honor it, but not as God. Because of this I salute all remaining matter with reverence, because God has filled it with his grace and power. Through it my salvation has come to me.
Saving the world was merely a hobby. My *vocation* has been that of_x000D_ inspector of desert water holes.
We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.
If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
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