72 Books and arts The EconomistFebruary 24th 2018
12 line searches for racial epithets correlate
with interest in “Social Security” and
“Frank Sinatra”, Mr Pinker notes. Even the
most conservative places are loosening up.
Polls find that young Muslims in the Mid-
dle Eastare about as liberal as young west-
ern Europeans were in the early 1960s.
Many readers will find this bubbly opti-
mism hard to swallow, like too much
champagne. We may be materially richer,
some will protest, but aren’t we less happy
because we know that others have even
more? We may have supercomputers in
our pockets, but aren’t they causing an epi-
demic of loneliness among the young?
And what about global warming or North
Korea’s nuclear missiles?
Mr Pinker has answers for all these
questions. In 45 out of 52 countries in the
World Values Survey, happiness increasedbetween 1981 and 2007. It rises roughly in
line with absolute income per head, not
relative income. Loneliness, at least among
American students, appears to be declin-
ing. Global warming is a big threat, but not
insurmountable. The number of nuclear
weapons in the world has fallen by 85%
since its peak.
The rise of populism challenges Mr
Pinker’s thesis. Supporters of Donald
Trump, Brexit and various authoritarian
parties in Europe tend to believe that the
old days were golden, that experts can’t be
trusted and the institutions of liberal de-
mocracy are a conspiracyto enrich the
elite. Some want to teardown these institu-
tions and start again—which would at the
very least interrupt the incremental pro-
gress that Mr Pinker champions.
Without downplaying the risks, he re-mains optimistic. The checks and balances
that populists decry are reasonably effec-
tive in most rich countries and will outlast
the current crop of demagogues. Suppor-
ters of populism will become disillu-
sioned, or will simply die off. Mr Pinker
draws especial comfort from the decline of
faith. Worldwide, although 59% of people
are religious, that share has fallen from
nearly 100% a centuryago. As people grow
richer, he argues, they abandon the crutch
of belief and rely more on reason.
Pessimism has its place—it fosters cau-
tion. And the human instinct to focus on
problems is sound—it means they often get
fixed. Nonetheless, Mr Pinker’s broad
point is surely right. Things are not falling
apart. And barring a cataclysmic asteroid
strike or nuclear war, it is likely that they
will continue to get better. 7Chinese fictionThe dragons of salvation
A
S HE built his e-commerce empire,
Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba,
proudly sported the nickname “Feng
Qingyang”. The moniker was borrowed
from a cunning swordsman in a novel by
Jin Yong. In spite of official sales estimat-
ed at 300m copies, plus multiple spin-off
films, television serials and games, the 14
martial-arts epics written by Jin Yong
between 1955 and 1972 have remained
unknown to most Western readers. Their
author, though, is hardly a hermit scribe.
His real name is Louis Cha. Now 93,
Mr Cha founded and edited one of Hong
Kong’s leading newspapers, Ming Pao. He
has been honoured by Queen Elizabeth
and awarded two doctorates (one honor-
ary, one for research) by Cambridge
University. The swashbuckling blend of
medieval history and heroic fantasy that
he honed as Jin Yong is now set to reach a
wide English-language readership.
“A Hero Born” is the first of the 12
volumes of “Legends of the Condor
Heroes”, written in the late 1950s. Set in
the years after 1205, it enjoyably wields
the weapons ofwuxia—traditional mar-
tial-arts fiction, with its spectacular com-
bat and pauses for philosophy—to show
Chinese identity under threat from for-
eign and domestic foes. “Three gener-
ations of useless emperors” have brought
the Song dynasty to itsknees. Quisling
allies of the Jurchen Jin invaders, who
rule the north, abet imperial decline.
Enter the dragons of salvation: an“eccentric” kung fuclan known as the
Seven Freaks of the South, and the mil-
itant Taoist monks of the Quanzhen sect.
They are first rivals, then collaborators.
Though strained, their joint mission
embodies a pact between “physical
force” and the “more enlightened path”
of wisdom that may rescue China.
Bereaved and exiled by traitors, the
hero Guo Jing grows up on the Mon-
golian steppes. He joins the entourage of
Temujin, a great warrior who will be-
come Genghis Khan. Although manifest-
ly a parable of Han Chinese resistance to
foreign humiliation, the story does not
demonise outsiders. The Mongols, fero-
cious but “refined people”, nurture the
“not naturally gifted” youngster as a
fighter and a patriot. In Anna Holm-
wood’s spirited translation, this action-
packed and ideas-laden saga is as reveal-
ing of modern as of ancient China.A Hero Born (Legends of the Condor
Heroes I).By Jin Yong. Translated by Anna
Holmwood. MacLehose Press; 416 pages; £14.99All-conquering heroesI
N 2001 Nassim Taleb published “Fooled
by Randomness”, an entertaining and
provocative book on the misunderstood
role of chance. He followed it with “The
Black Swan”, which brought that term into
widespread use to describe extreme, unex-
pected events. This was the first public in-
carnation of Mr Taleb—idiosyncratic and
spiky, but with plenty of original things to
say. As he became well-known, a second
Mr Taleb emerged, a figure who indulged
in bad-tempered spats with other thinkers.
Unfortunately, judging by his latest book,
this second Mr Taleb now predominates.
A list of the feuds and hobbyhorses he
pursues in “Skin in the Game” would fill
the rest of this review. (His targets include
Steven Pinker, subjectof the lead review.)
The reader’s experience is rather like being
trapped in a cab with a cantankerous and
over-opinionated driver. At one point, Mr
Taleb posits that people who use foul lan-
guage on Twitter are signalling that they
are “free” and “competent”. Another inter-
pretation is that they resort to bullying to
conceal the poverty of their arguments.
All this is a shame, because the first,
submerged Mr Taleb is still audible, and
still has interesting things to say. Broadly,
his concept of “skin in the game” holds that
the extent of people’s stakes in particular
outcomes is an underrated determinant of
events. It can be applied to a wide range of
subjects, from financial markets to busi-
nesses and religion, and the author illus-
trates it well. One neat concept is the “dom-
inance of the stubborn minority”—ie, thatRisk and rationalityBlack swan down
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in
Daily Life.By Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Random
House; 304 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £20