h/t Instapundit
..."So here is a fact that is going to sound reasonably controversial but it is not and that is that capitalist societies are better than communist ones," Pinker states before an audience of Harvard students. He continues, "If you doubt it well then just ask yourself the question ’Would I rather live in South Korea or North Korea?’, ’Would I rather live in West Germany in the 1970s or East Germany...I submit that this is actually not a controversial statement but on university campuses, it is considered flamingly radical."
Pinker goes on to offer several more statements: That men and women differ in their tastes and interest. That different ethnic groups commit violent crime at different rates. Finally, that the majority of suicide-terror acts worldwide are committed by Muslim extremists. And this brings Pinker to his central point.
"Now if you’ve never heard these facts before and you stumble across them or someone mentions them, it is possible to come to some extreme conclusions," he says, adding, "That women are inferior, that African-Americans are naturally violent, that we all ought to be anarcho-capitalists and do away with all regulation and social safety nets."
...argument that efforts to make certain topics verboten wind up creating a kind of intellectual black market where the potential for reaching more extreme conclusions is heightened unnecessarily. Instead, Pinker suggests it would be better to be able to acknowledge these facts and then discuss them openly.
I still keep "The Language Instinct" 
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