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Originally Posted by peter12
He's an English philosopher of a particular type.
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A dickheadish type perhaps?
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What Gray is talking about here, and throughout the essay, is the failure of sociological imagination present in all statistical analysis that purports to tell the whole story without considering the particulars of history and culture.
I mean, if violent crime was decreased by the cultural effects of mass incarceration and abortion, then a different kind of violence is being perpetrated by the State with arguably more pernicious effects.
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He's talking about it at great length, yes. However his argumentation is IMO terrible. For example, he doesn't even try to really explain why he sees the new kind of violence as worse or more prevalent than the old one. That's why I don't think it ultimately amounts to much more than flowery academic name-calling.
Reading Greys text, I'm inclined to think that the actual failure of imagination here is John Greys failure to accept things that challenge his worldview.
Pinker simply argues his case much better.