Interview with Steven Pinker: A Little (Common) Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist, public intellectual, and the author of many fine books including How the Mind Works (1997), The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002), The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011), Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018), Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (2021) and, most recently, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…: Common Knowledge and the Science of Harmony, Hypocrisy and Outrage (2025).
The latter book is the main subject of this interview. We discuss common knowledge, what it is, and how it can help to explain phenomena as varied as language, the laws of the road, cancel culture, economic crashes, and political revolutions. This interview was recorded on 4 March 2026.
Find out more about Pinker and his books here.
Originally published in the Freethinker on 16 March 2026.