So much confusion would be avoided if we reminded ourselves now and again that economics began not as a search for order but as a search for the explanation of the order that was too obvious to miss.
Pinker on Peace and Enlightenment
"If, despite impressions, the long-term trend, though halting and incomplete, is that violence of all kinds is decreasing, I think that calls for a rehabilitation of the ideals of modernity and progress, and it's a cause for gratitude for the institutions of...