Steven Pinker 4: The long reach of reason

Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein at TED2012
The long reach of reason  (transcript)
Summary
I wondered that the story can reach a conclusion and l always mistook the meaning of reason. In the TED talk, reason is not just a cause but the power of the mind to think, to understand, and form judgments logically.
Additionally, it will be better to think about the meaning of reach is not arriving but expanding.

The story is starting from the sentence: Reason appears to have fallen on hard times. It means that we've thought that reason is always right because it must not emotionally work, however, we sometimes feel that reason doesn't have a power that is rational and logical.

In fact, reason depends on passion and it can go toward conflict and strife. It’s changing easily. Even if there's sympathy, prejudice changes reason.

And then we restore it by using our reason so this is a spiral shape.

I think that if moral helps or the spiral is growing well, reason works well.

However, when we want to be opposed to something, reason works well also.

The speakers’ talk was really difficult. It must continue to the next story.

Words in this story
hilarious /adj/ extremely amusing.
quagmire /noun/ a soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot.
tribalism /noun/ the state or fact of being organized in a tribe or tribes.
sympathize /verb/ feel sorry for, show compassion for