Glenn Smith sets the record straight on Brooks: "Isn't it a bit transparent when those who hold or seek power tell us that their power is all that will save us from our natural degeneracy?"
He goes on: "As anthropologist Christopher Boehm and others have persuasively shown, both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes were right. We are the children of Rousseau and Hobbes. You quote Steven Pinker giving the advantage to Hobbes. Human nature is competitive, status seeking, and violent, but, contra-Pinker, human nature is also egalitarian and predisposed to conflict resolution. Bands of hunter-gatherers in antiquity were not pacifists, as you say, but they reserved a good bit of their belligerence for bully leaders who stepped over the line and threatened their well-being, their equality, and their freedom. Egalitarianism and the love of freedom were part of their genetic makeup. I guess I inherited mine from my American forebear, the good Mr. Wardwell.
Our neurons are wired for empathy with others, as neuroscience has shown. Among them are "mirror neurons" that mimic the behavior of others. These neurons fire when I raise my hand and when I see others raise their hands. This is one way humans learn; it's also part of the way we learn to see through the eyes of others.
Breakthroughs in cognitive linguistics, especially regarding the embodiment of our thinking, deep, and superficial conceptual frames, the forming of habits, and styles of thought known as reflexive (unconscious) and reflective (rational and available to consciousness) have redeemed the experiential pedagogy of American philosopher progressive education reformer John Dewey. These progressive reforms had nothing to do with "liberating children to follow their own instincts," as Brooks claims."